Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Gundry (00:14):
Do you ever find yourself walking around in a daze wondering why the heck am I so tired all the time? If so, I’ve got life-changing solutions for you in my upcoming book, The Energy Paradox, What To Do When Your Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Gone. As listeners of this podcast, I’d like to extend a special sneak-peak invitation into The Energy Paradox before it hits the bookshelves. Partnering with Go Lively, I’ll be hosting my first virtual book signing event. My friend, Ariana Huffington, will kick off the event. Then I discuss a few key principles of the book, such as the real culprits of our low energy and simple tips to reclaim your energy. I’ll take your question and much more. Plus, you’ll receive an exclusive signed copy of The Energy Paradox, so join me Sunday, March 14, for Energy Paradox Event. Just head to golive.ly to reserve your spot. That’s golive.ly. Hope to see you there.
Dr. Gundry (01:22):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. The statistics are shocking. We are admitting more than 250 billion tons of chemical substances every year into our atmosphere and our planet. Yes, you heard it right, 250 billion tons. In fact, it’s estimated that 12 million people, that’s 1 in 4 of us in the United States, die every year from diseases caused by air, water, and soil pollution, chemical exposure, and climate change, all of which result from human activity. But my guest today says that through the power of detoxification and, yes, food, we can jump start our body’s natural ability to fend off illness and recover from troublesome symptoms, ailments, and disease.
Dr. Gundry (02:18):
Joining me today is my good friend Dr. Alejandro Junger. Years ago we met when he was a young cardiologist at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, where I had just moved to, and we developed a friendship and had many long conversations about restorative and alternative medicine, and even did relief work together in India, which we were just talking about off camera. He’s a cardiologist, founder of the Clean Program and three-time New York Times bestselling offer, Alejandro Junger. Today we’re going to discuss his book Clean 7, and explain how you can harness some of the most powerful healing tools in the world to shed your own chronic symptoms and illnesses for good.
Dr. Gundry (03:07):
Alex, it’s so good to have you on the show.
Dr. Junger (03:10):
It’s so good to see you Professor.
Dr. Gundry (03:13):
You had your own experience dealing with some health problems caused by toxins. Can you tell the listeners a bit about that?
Dr. Junger (03:23):
I didn’t know they were caused by toxins. I was born in Uruguay, where life, by default, was very natural. There were no supermarkets, there were no processed foods. My mom would cook all day, and when we finished lunch she started preparing dinner, all from scratch. Then I went to medical school there. I used to exercise, and life was beautiful. But when I moved to New York I entered a crazy lifestyle with no sleep, eating from the hospital cafeteria when I had time, and on the run in vending machines when I didn’t, and that over the years started taking a toll on me. I started gaining weight, I started having allergies, I started having irritable bowel syndrome, but the most worrisome of my problems was this sense of doom that I woke up with.
Dr. Junger (04:22):
I took a few days off right before I graduated as a cardiologist and I went to see my colleagues, a gastroenterologist, a psychiatrist, and an allergist. I was diagnosed with severe allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, and severe depression, and I was given seven prescription medications. When I got home I was looking at this and I had this double aha moment. On one hand, I realized I didn’t want to take seven prescription pills, sometimes two, three times a day, in order just to function. But then the other thing was, that’s exactly what I was doing for my patients. That threw me into a midlife crisis or worsened my midlife crisis. To make a long story short, I ended up in India in a monastery. I just went there to get rid of the noise in my head and learn how to meditate. But over there I was exposed to Ayurvedic medicine doctors, Chinese medicine doctors, chiropractors, naturopaths, you name it. That really opened my mind to understanding how, first of all, western science doesn’t have all the answers, and then how you can combine things to get incredible results.
Dr. Junger (05:42):
When I came back to the United States I moved to Palm Springs and I started working as a cardiologist, where I met you, and I was thinking, oh, I’m going to connect with Ayurvedic doctors and functional medicine doctors… Well, I actually didn’t even know about functional medicine, but I wanted to do what I was doing in India, but it was a harsh check of reality when I realized that in order for me to justify my salary in this cardiology group that I was hired from, I had to produce. I had to generate enough income to justify me being there. That translated to seven minutes a patient. At one point, after you and I came back from India, I quit my job and I moved to LA to pursue other things. In the process, I stumbled upon the concepts and practices of cleansing and detoxification, which completely resolved my problems, and I believe your wife’s problems, too. Right?
Dr. Gundry (06:59):
Yeah.
Dr. Junger (06:59):
Right? Then, I really delved into that and that changed my practice and my life for the better.
Dr. Gundry (07:12):
After you left Des Regional, you became the Medical Director at We Care, which is a very famous detoxification center in Desert Hot Springs near where we live.
Dr. Junger (07:27):
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (07:27):
Was that a transformative moment for you, seeing how detoxification worked first hand and directing it?
Dr. Junger (07:38):
Well, the thing is, first I saw a friend of mine that came to me, and I had seen him 10 days before in his usual bloated, reddish, inflamed state, and then 10 days later he came back to my house and he was transformed, and I said, “Well, what happened to you?” And he said, “Come with me,” and he took me 10 minutes from where I was living in Palm Springs to this place called the We Care Center, the We Care Spa, and there I started seeing all these people that had gone through the detoxification program there and were telling me that they got better from all kinds of things.
Dr. Junger (08:11):
So I did the program myself, and that was what resolved my allergies, my irritable bowel syndrome, my depression, and beyond, because I started looking and feeling 10 years younger to the point that everybody in the hospital was asking me, “What were you doing? What have you done?” That’s how I found out about cleansing and detoxification, and I had a double life. I was during most of the day running around between the hospital and the practice, and then when I finished I took off my lab coat and went to We Care to lecture about what I was learning. Eventually, I quit my $400,000 job in Desert Regional and went to give lectures at We Care for $25,000 a year. Everybody thought I was crazy, but that was really what my heart was telling me to do, and what the results that I was seeing were resonating with me.
Dr. Gundry (09:11):
All right, so we’ve mentioned detox. For the listeners, what does it mean to detox? That word is thrown around a lot, but you’re really one of the original practitioners of what I consider detoxification, so tell me about that.
Dr. Junger (09:35):
Our bodies have a detoxification system in which many organs participate whose function is to transform or biotransform toxic molecules which in large part are only lipophilic, and then through some enzymatic changes adding and taking certain molecules from here and there are shifted or transformed, biotransformed, into nontoxic and water soluble so that they can be eliminated. That is mostly done in the liver, but not only. Actually, 40% of that work is done by the intestinal flora in the gut. That process of detoxification in which the intestinal system and the digestive participates, the immune system participates, the liver, there’s many different systems, even the lungs participate in detoxification, that process is already happening, and if it stops happening you die. For example, if you stop excreting or exhaling CO2, you will die faster from the accumulation of CO2 than from the lack of oxygen, right?
Dr. Gundry (10:55):
True.
Dr. Junger (10:56):
Detoxification is something that our body is doing all the time. Now, a detoxification program is just learning to create the conditions for these systems to work at top speed and effectiveness. You have to learn how to support them energetically and nutritionally.
Dr. Gundry (11:19):
You say in your book, and I certainly agree with you, that Hippocrates said, “All disease begins in the gut.” You say it, I say it, and I take it a step further and say all disease ends in the gut as well. What effect does detoxing have on the gut specifically?
Dr. Junger (11:41):
Well, when the liver and the rest of the organs in charge of detoxification cannot do their work, and the reason that they cannot do their work is twofold, there’s an increase in the exposure of toxins, as you were explaining at the beginning of this podcast, and then there is also the lack of the nutrients, the lack of the molecules that the liver needs in order to do its work, in order to produce its enzymes, cytochrome P450 enzymes and all the [conjugases 00:12:12] and we can go into that later, but when the excess of toxins and the lack of the ability of the body find themselves, then there is an excess of circulating toxins, mostly of which are lipophilic. These toxins then the body will defend itself by surrounding them with fat, or another way of saying it is these will try to dissolve themselves into fat, right?
Dr. Gundry (12:42):
Right.
Dr. Junger (12:43):
Because they are only lipophilic. So the body will generate and retain fat in order to defend itself, and this affects everything. You have been talking about how fat itself leads to insulin resistance and inflammation and all these cascade of physiological dysfunctions, and that ends up affecting the gut, but the thing is, more important to think about, is not how detoxification affects the gut, but how the gut affects detoxification. Because, as we said, 40% of the detoxification work is done by the bacteria in the gut. If there is not enough of the good bacteria in the gut that does this, then our load of toxins in circulation is going to be bigger. To have a healthy gut to begin with already puts you in an advantage detoxification wise.
Dr. Gundry (13:42):
That’s a good segue into your current book, Clean 7. It’s a seven-day detox program based on principles from three major pillars. What are those three major pillars, and how do they guide the program?
Dr. Junger (13:58):
Right about the time we met and I had been exposed to cleansing and detoxification at We Care, I was seeing these incredible results, but it was a little bit like hokey pokey. I didn’t really understand what was going on. These people talk about hugging trees, which is all great, but I just couldn’t put it together in my scientific mind. I said, “What is going on?” It took me a few years until I found the Institute For Functional Medicine, which really explains so beautifully, because in medical school I was taught about the liver, about the kidneys, about all the things that are the different parts of detoxification, but I was never a taught how to put this all together and look at it as its own function, at detoxification.
Dr. Junger (14:48):
As I learned all this, I created a program based on principles from functional medicine that is a 21-day program, the Clean Program, and gives really incredible results. But then I realized that 21 days was a lot for most people. Most people around in the world are not going to jump to a 21-day drastic change in the way they eat, so I really wanted to find a way to get more people hooked. That is how I ended up including principles from Ayurvedic medicine and from intermittent fasting to just accelerate and intensify that first week of the detox program, and the results are incredible.
Dr. Gundry (15:41):
Let’s dive into the second pillar. You talk about the doshas in the book. What are doshas? Most of our listeners are not going to know that word, and why are they so important?
Dr. Junger (15:59):
Dosha is the Sanskrit word that refers to constitution. People are born with different constitutions, and in Ayurveda, the constitutions are based on influences of the different elements. I’m not talking elements as in the periodic table of elements. I’m talking elements in the energetic aspect, earth, wind, fire, ether, and water. Depending on the different influences of these energies in your body, you will have a tendency or a dominance of one or two of these elements, and that dominance also means that those elements will be the ones more likely to throw you out of balance. That’s really the dosha. There are three types of doshas, mainly pitta, vata, and kapha, depending on the different elements that are dominant in that person. Considering the doshas is a really effective way of bringing changes that the body will benefit from.
Dr. Gundry (17:13):
How does one determine whether their doshas are balanced versus unbalanced? Are there certain signs or changes or feelings that would indicate one or the other?
Dr. Junger (17:23):
Absolutely. The Ayurvedic medicine doctors what they do is they look at you, they listen to you, they ask a few questions, and they also take your pulse, look at your tongue. They do a very thorough examination to determine what your predominant dosha is. But it is good enough to answer a questionnaire that is readily available online. There is one in my book, there is one on the website cleanprogram.com, and by answering that, you will answer the questions and you add up your answers and you see which of the elements is affecting you at this time, which one is out of balance at this time. You have your dosha, which is your [inaudible 00:18:20] in Sanskrit, and then you have your current dosha imbalance, which is your [inaudible 00:18:27], and you can determine that simply by a questionnaire.
Dr. Gundry (18:33):
Okay. Let’s say you determine that. What does this now have to do with detoxing? How do you use that in the Clean 7 program?
Dr. Junger (18:43):
Depending on which of the elements is out of balance, there are things that you can do to bring them into balance, and bringing them into balance will just give your body an extra edge in terms of doing everything else that it has to do, because if your body, which by the way our bodies the only thing they know how to do is to adapt and survive. There is no software in our hardware, in our DNA, that instructs the body how to get sick. What we see as diseases are just longstanding survival and adaptation mechanisms that have been there for too long. I always talk about, and you and I can relate on this one because we’re both heart doctors, the plaque in the coronary arteries is not just something that the body is doing by mistake. The body is doing that just like when you have a cut and it creates a crust in order to repair what’s underneath. In the same way, the body deposits cholesterol in the arteries that it creates the conditions for a repair of the intima behind it, and when the repair is done, if the insult is gone, then the plaque will be reabsorbed just like a crust will fall and the skin underneath will be fine. But if the insult continues, the body will continue to deposit more plaque, and then that mechanism, which is a survival mechanism, will end up killing you.
Dr. Junger (20:35):
When the body is busy energetically and using its resources, its vitamins, its minerals, whatever it is, in order to mount these adaptation and survival mechanisms, there’s energy and resources that are taken away from other process, from healing processes, from balance processes, from just regular processes that need to exist in order for us to function, like the normal production of hormones and things like that.
Dr. Gundry (21:11):
So-
Dr. Junger (21:12):
To finish the question-
Dr. Gundry (21:13):
Yeah.
Dr. Junger (21:15):
When you rebalance your doshas, you stop using energy and resources for things that are trying to correct that imbalance instead of repairing and everything else.
Dr. Gundry (21:38):
Let’s suppose you answer the questionnaire in the book and then you figure out what imbalance is going on, does a Clean 7 detox work no matter which imbalance you have, or do you have to know which imbalance you have?
Dr. Junger (21:57):
When you do the Clean 7 detox, you determine your current dosha imbalance, and depending on what that is, you are going to have different plans. That mostly boils down to what you will be allowed and not allowed to eat. For example, if you have a pitta imbalance, if you have an excessive fire influence, then you are going to avoid or decrease the consumption of foods that stroke the fire. Just like we are made of the five elements, foods are made of the five elements. If you eat fiery food and you have a fire imbalance, your fire will go out of whack. Then you have to decrease your fire intake so that your fire can balance itself, and the same thing for the different doshas. Depending on your current dosha imbalance, you will be eating certain things and not eating certain things, which will tend to create a better balance, so that the detoxification process can go on at higher speed and more effectiveness.
Dr. Gundry (23:14):
I think this is a good point. What you’re saying is that just the idea I’m going on a detox diet or I’m going to do a detox doesn’t necessarily mean much because your detoxification if you’re a pitta may be a totally different detoxification program than if you have a different dosha. Is that-
Dr. Junger (23:42):
Yeah. It’s not completely different, because you’re still… The reason why the body is not detoxing enough, as we said, is two fold. On one hand, there’s an increase in the consumption and exposure to toxins in the air we breathe, the water we drink and shower with, the medications we use, of which only 10% are the active ingredients, 90% are excipients and coloring agents and all kinds of things, and then the cosmetics we use that end up absorbed into our skin, but mostly the foods that we eat or the food-like products that we consume that are loaded with chemicals that alone and in combination end up causing all kinds of disruptions. On one hand we have the increase in toxic load, on the other hand you have the decrease in effectiveness of the detoxification processes. When you balance that, that is what we are trying to do.
Dr. Junger (24:42):
The way to do that is by allowing the body to relocate energy into the detoxification process. For example, one of the most energetically consuming processes that we have is digestion, right?
Dr. Gundry (25:01):
Very now.
Dr. Junger (25:03):
When we have a big meal, we all know you can fall asleep because digestion is consuming so much energy that it starts stealing it from other processes, from the thinking process, from the awake and alert process, and many others. When you decrease the workload of the digestive system, you already are saving up a lot of energy that can be relocated to other processes, including the detoxification process. The other thing is you have to support the liver and the gut nutritionally and feed the good bacteria and create the conditions for them also to do their work. That’s really what we’re doing. We are decreasing the workload of the digestive system, and we do that in two different ways. One of them is avoiding the foods that will generate more work for the digestive system, and those are the five big ones, sugar, alcohol, coffee, dairy, and gluten. Now that I’m talking to you, I should add lectins, right?
Dr. Gundry (26:12):
Oh, thank you. Gluten is a lectin, so it’s okay.
Dr. Junger (26:19):
That’s only one of them, right?
Dr. Gundry (26:19):
Yeah.
Dr. Junger (26:22):
By decreasing those foods, you are already avoiding that the body starts all the adaptation and reactive mechanisms that it needs to, because all these foods are either allergenic or mucous forming or acid forming, so you take away all those foods, and then you also replace two meals a day with a liquid meal instead of a solid meal to further decrease the workload of the digestive system. That is one of the things that you do. Then you do feed yourself with high nutrient content foods, especially the ones that will support the liver detoxification processes, Phase 1 and Phase 2.
Dr. Gundry (27:18):
Are you going to get those… Give us some examples, because people want to know, okay, what kind of foods are going to help the Phase 1 and Phase 2 liver detoxification system?
Dr. Gundry (27:30):
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Dr. Gundry (28:24):
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Dr. Gundry (28:59):
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Dr. Gundry (30:41):
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Dr. Junger (32:13):
Well, the liver needs protein, because without protein the cytochrome P450 enzymes will not be generated and will not be able to do their work. Then they also need the nutrients that support cell sulfation, conjugation, glucuronidation, and all these other conjugation processes. For example, you need foods with sulfur to promote sulfation, right?
Dr. Gundry (32:53):
True.
Dr. Junger (32:53):
Garlic, onion, and that family of foods. Then you need tons of antioxidants because there’s a lot of oxidative stress that happens. Sometimes between Phase 1 and Phase 2, there is the conversion of toxic molecules into an intermediate compound or intermediate metabolite that is even more toxic than the toxic molecule that it originated from. Then until it goes to Phase 2, you are increasing, in a way, oxidative stress, so you need a lot of antioxidants as well.
Dr. Gundry (33:37):
In your program Intermittent Fasting, and we can talk about what that means, is part of this process. Is that to give the digestive process a rest, or does it go beyond that?
Dr. Junger (33:52):
Oh, it goes beyond that. Yes. The first and most obvious result of fasting is the further decreasing of the workload of the digestive system, but then after a while we enter into the fasting state. What I say is this, when you eat, you are in the digestive state. When you’re fasting, you’re in the fasting state. These are to our physiology like day and night are to the physiology of the work. If you only live in the day, it’s not sustainable. That’s what most of humanity is doing now. Most of humanity is constantly digesting. It takes about eight hours after your last meal, depending on how big it is and how complicated it is, but in general eight hours to finish digestion and absorption and assimilation, and then you start entering into the fasting state. Existing or being in the fasting state is really important, because you’re not only resting the digestive system, but you are allowing other processes that are kind of magic, and one of them I know that you are very familiar with because I heard you speaking about it, is autophagia, right?
Dr. Gundry (35:24):
Right.
Dr. Junger (35:24):
It’s the ability the body has to eat itself, and starting with the diseased self. You don’t allow autophagia to even happen if you are constantly digesting, and most people on the planet are… I shouldn’t say that, because I’m talking about the people that we deal with, right?
Dr. Gundry (35:48):
That’s right.
Dr. Junger (35:49):
There’s people in Africa and in India, and even in America that are not digesting all the time, but the people that are listening to this mostly are always constantly digesting, and that is like living in the daylight permanently. It’s not sustainable. You need to allow the body to enter the fasting state for many other metabolic benefits to happen.
Dr. Gundry (36:16):
Yeah. I go into a lot of that in my upcoming book, The Energy Paradox, but you’re absolutely right. Surveys have shown that the average American is eating 16 hours a day. Eating. Then that leaves only eight hours, but you’re right, for most of us, we’re eating right up until the time we go to bed.
Dr. Junger (36:41):
And then you spend the night digesting it.
Dr. Gundry (36:43):
That’s exactly right. In a way, we never go into this rest phase and restorative phase. You’re right, it’s-
Dr. Junger (36:54):
The body has its attention. All the electrical impulses that the body sends to the different cells, like for example the heart contracts by electrical impulses, the gut moves by electrical impulses, peristalsis is just electricity coordinating that. All this electricity is the body’s attention. The body is paying attention to all these things. When you go to sleep, attention should be withdrawn and allowed to go into somewhere that we don’t really understand but where there is a recharge of a certain battery. If you are digesting and the body is putting its attention on the bodily aspect of itself, then it won’t be able to go into that space where you only go in deep sleep. When you are digesting all night, you are not sleeping as good as you should.
Dr. Gundry (37:57):
No. You’re absolutely right. It’s actually scary. In the Longevity Paradox, I made the point that Dale Bredesen makes that deep sleep is when our brain cleans itself, goes through a wash cycle.
Dr. Junger (38:12):
Exactly.
Dr. Gundry (38:13):
If you have diverted your blood flow down to your gut to do digestion, you don’t have the ability to do a cleaning of your brain, to get into deep sleep.
Dr. Junger (38:24):
Yep.
Dr. Gundry (38:25):
It’s actually… If people could understand just how important this is-
Dr. Junger (38:34):
This whole issue of being digesting all the time, it goes beyond the things that we’re speaking of. For example, it influences your drive, your… How do you say in English when you really want something? Sorry. I forgot my English this day.
Dr. Gundry (39:00):
That’s all right.
Dr. Junger (39:02):
Your ambition.
Dr. Gundry (39:02):
Ambition. Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Junger (39:04):
Your ambition-
Dr. Gundry (39:04):
Your enthusiasm, yeah.
Dr. Junger (39:05):
Your enthusiasm, your drive. For example, just watch the animals in the wild. The lions when they’re hungry, they are ambitious. They are awake and alert and oriented, and they listen and they see everything. Until they hunt and they eat and they have a feast, and then what do they do?
Dr. Gundry (39:25):
Sleep.
Dr. Junger (39:26):
They fall asleep. And the more they eat, the longer they sleep for. Then two, three days later they start looking for… They start walking. But the more hungry they get, the more alert they get. Since we are digesting all the time, it’s like a sleeping lion. We are losing even our ambition and our drive to work, to do, to relate. We are a species of half-asleep people just because of the fact that we are digesting 24/7.
Dr. Gundry (40:01):
Well said, well said. Okay, as many of my listeners know, and I’m sure your listeners know, taking steps to transform our health for the better doesn’t always come easy. You mention the 21-day Clean Program, that’s hard to do. What obstacles do people face even on the Clean 7 program? What should they expect?
Dr. Junger (40:30):
Humans we are animals of habit, and habits are the hardest things to break. That’s the biggest obstacle we have, not only for a detox program, for anything. Changing habits is hard. On top of that, changing dietary habits it’s the hardest part of changing habits, because we are so attached, and not only mentally, but also emotionally and even at a cellular level, because the habits that your cells have of responding to insulin surges and adrenaline and all these things, these turn into habits, and then your body will ask you for the foods that will trigger these processes, so then you are depending on them for your cellular habitual physiology. Breaking that is the hardest thing, no matter if it’s a seven day or a 21 day or a lifetime. This is what I find is really hard.
Dr. Junger (41:32):
The good news is that when you start doing it, only the first two or three days are hard. Afterwards, your body really starts falling into this realization of how much better you feel, how much more drive you have, how much better you sleep, how much better sex is, or anything of the things that people are attached to and looking for in life, relationships. I realize that when I am eating that way and allowing my detox system to work effectively, I have more patience to deal with my kids. I am a better father.
Dr. Gundry (42:14):
How about… You have kids, and everybody now has had this experience of being around their children a whole lot more than they ever anticipated because of Covid 19. I’ve talked to actually a lot of parents that have noticed that when they can get their kids to eat properly that they are so much easier to manage, but when they get exposed to the typical American diet, they’re off the wall crazy half the time or collapsing asleep.
Dr. Junger (42:54):
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (42:56):
How’s it going with your kid?
Dr. Junger (42:58):
It’s a difficult, difficult thing, because if I had my kids locked in my house since they were born without the ability to compare with anybody, then it would be easy, right?
Dr. Gundry (43:11):
Right.
Dr. Junger (43:12):
They go to a birthday party, they go to this house, they go to a restaurant, and they start tasting these things that then they want, so it’s a really hard thing. I don’t freak out too much, because the truth is that kids are just incredibly resilient and somehow I would say even magically resistant to many of the dysfunctions that happen later in life, but the most important thing that I put my attention on is giving them an example. When they see me, that is what eventually they will fall into. It doesn’t matter as much what they’re doing now. Of course, I try to stick as much green vegetables and fruit and whole organic natural food as opposed to food-like products, but I’m not always successful. But when they look at me, I want them to see what I would like them to do eventually.
Dr. Gundry (44:22):
Good point. All right, now, all of this is hard, and you’ve mentioned that you can further enhance detoxification by boosters. What are some of these boosters and how can they help our listeners?
Dr. Junger (44:41):
For example, one of the ways, as we said, 90% of the toxic molecules we’re exposed to are lipophilic, the body converts them into water soluble so that it can be eliminated through urine, feces, and sweat. Sweating is a really boosting detox process. Sweating is a function that human beings are born with, but because of the way we live guided by comfort, we have put this organ or this function to sleep almost, right?
Dr. Gundry (45:21):
Yeah.
Dr. Junger (45:22):
When it’s hot we turn the air conditioning. Except the people that do sports, a lot of people don’t even sweat. They attenuate the differences in temperature that the earth gives us with technology in the name of comfort. Putting your sweating organ to work it’s a great booster for detoxification. Then there’s other things like lymphatic massage, movement, different types of movement, jumping up and down, as simple as it sounds, will activate circulation through your lymphatic system, which is part of the detoxification process. Meditation is a really important one, because in Ayurvedic medicine there is no distinction in language between toxicity of thought and emotion and toxicity of the body. It’s all called “um”. The more toxic thoughts you have, the more toxic emotions you have, the more likely you’ll end up consuming toxic foods, and vice-versa, because they are of similar energetic frequencies and they attract each other. So meditation is a really helpful booster for detoxification.
Dr. Gundry (46:49):
Now, as you know, we have a very bad detoxification system for heavy metals, and the heavy metals, as you know, are excreted into bile, and one of the problems with our design is we would assume that those heavy metals would actually pass right out of us, but, in fact, we reabsorb them, and that’s why I designed a product to help deal with that. How do you deal with heavy metals during a detoxification process? Any trick?
Dr. Junger (47:26):
Well, there are natural ways of boosting heavy metal detoxification through certain foods like garlic, spirulina, chlorella, cilantro, wild blueberries. There’s many different foods that will enhance the heavy metal detoxification, but there is a point in which it’s not enough. It is important these days, maybe even routinely, to get tested for heavy metal toxicity. For example, mercury. Mercury is very ubiquitous in our life from dentistry to cosmetics to fish. Mercury is everywhere, and mercury is highly lipophilic. Then you do need to chelate it, to break the bond between the mercury and the fat cells so that then it can be eliminated. When I suspect, and sometimes I just do it without even suspicion, just routinely, I send for heavy metal testing and when necessary when I believe that the body’s ability to detoxify it by itself and help by foods would not be enough, I add chelation agents to the program.
Dr. Gundry (48:56):
Okay. All right. Last question before I let you go. Okay, you’ve done the seven-day cleanse, you’ve done the Clean 7. Are you all clean? Can you just go back and eat crap the rest of your life, or where do we go from there?
Dr. Junger (49:10):
I compare this to taking a shower. Let’s say you’re dirty and smelly and you go and you take a nice shower, and then you get out of the bathroom and you go jump in the mud, you need to go take another shower immediately. How often you shower will depend on what you do between showers. How often you cleanse and detox, and cleansing and detox is always happening on its own, but how often you need a detoxification program to enhance your body’s own ability to detox will depend on what you do between detox programs. If you go and do whatever you were doing before, less than a week you will be in exactly the same place, and maybe even worse. I have kids and my kids they make a lot of mess in the house, and when the house is messy and the walls are kind of dirty, I don’t notice too much the dirt, but after a good cleanup, the minimum speck I will notice, and the body, in a way, is the same. When it’s all dirty and there’s all this adaptation, you kind of keep yourself in an imbalance, but stable kind of. But then you clean up.
Dr. Gundry (50:26):
You get used to it, yep.
Dr. Junger (50:28):
You clean it up, and you dirty it too fast again, it’s better you don’t clean it up at all, because it’s ends up being like a bulimia kind of situation. You clean up, and then you eat and then you vomit. You go and you do your pizza, and then you get a colonic. It doesn’t work that that.
Dr. Gundry (50:49):
I’m glad you said that, because you’re right. It does not work like that.
Dr. Junger (50:56):
If you’re going to do a detox program and then jump back into what you were doing before, forget about the detox program. It’s better you continue doing whatever you’re doing. The detox program really I prescribe it for people that want to start something more long term, and this is a great way to start. It’s also a great way to maintain, because even if you make drastic changes for the better, you’re still living on planet Earth, you’re still exposed to all this garbage that inevitably will end up in your bloodstream.
Dr. Gundry (51:30):
Yeah. Well, Alex, it’s been great having you on the podcast and great seeing you again. Where do people find out about you and your work, and another question I get, do you still see patients?
Dr. Junger (51:41):
I do see patients online, DrJunger.com. I have my Instagram DrAlejandroJunger. I have my business, cleanprogram.com, in which we sell… In my book I explain how to do the clean program and the Clean 7 program just by going to the supermarket, and I give you the recipes and everything, but not everybody has the time or the commitment or the knowledge to do that, so I created a kit that makes it very user friendly with the liquid meals and all the supplements you need in order to really get into this full on.
Dr. Gundry (52:23):
Great. Now, before we go, as you know I have an audience question, and would you mind answering our weekly audience question?
Dr. Junger (52:31):
Sure.
Dr. Gundry (52:32):
All right. So, this is our audience question. This one is from Lauren on the Dr. Gundry Blog. She’s a vegan looking for a recommendation. She wants to know if she should use creatine, choline, or both? What say you?
Dr. Junger (52:50):
It is difficult to say just generically what one should do. It takes a little bit more of finding out where this person is getting their protein and their amino acids. Depending on her dietary habits, I would be able to give you a recommendation, but when in doubt, take both, because neither are going to harm you, and if you have the money to pay for them, that’s the only downside.
Dr. Gundry (53:24):
I think that’s good advice. There are people who are wondering about this. There are some evidence from human studies that vegans have lower levels of creatine and choline in their brains, which may be important if you believe that, and I certainly do. But it’s something for everybody to decline, but there are published human studies that vegans may be or actually are deficient in both of these substances. Again, it’s not going to hurt you, and if you can afford it, I agree.
Dr. Junger (54:03):
Yeah. It may just end up in your toilet.
Dr. Gundry (54:07):
All right. Thanks again, and hopefully we’ll have you on again. What’s your new project that you’re working on? I always want to hear.
Dr. Junger (54:17):
I’m working on a TV show.
Dr. Gundry (54:18):
Oh, wow.
Dr. Junger (54:20):
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry (54:21):
Do we know what kind or too early to tell us?
Dr. Junger (54:26):
As you know, because we’ve been around the world together-
Dr. Gundry (54:30):
Yeah.
Dr. Junger (54:30):
I am very interested and curious about healing, and, yes, we have our own innate healing ability and you can unlock it and improve it by getting rid of the obstacles and adding whatever is lacking, but there’s something beyond supplements and diet and anything else that we are used to handling. I’m exploring all of that.
Dr. Gundry (55:03):
Great.
Dr. Junger (55:05):
That’s what I’m working on. It’s a little too soon to talk about it, but I hope soon to be announcing it.
Dr. Gundry (55:13):
All right. Good idea. All right, good luck with that.
Dr. Junger (55:15):
Thank you.
Dr. Gundry (55:16):
Thanks again for being on the Dr. Gundry podcast.
Dr. Junger (55:19):
It was a pleasure, and I would love to see you and catch up sometime.
Dr. Gundry (55:24):
All right. Ciao.
Dr. Junger (55:26):
Ciao.
Dr. Gundry (55:27):
Okay. It’s time for the review of the week.
Dr. Gundry (55:32):
Do you think bananas are healthy? Think again. I’m Dr. Steven Gundry, bestselling author of the Plant Paradox series, and on the Dr. Gundry podcast you’re going to learn the foods to eat and the ones to avoid to lose weight, boost your energy, and feel your most vibrant, active self this year. You’ll also learn simple tips from the world’s top experts on health and nutrition. Plus, you’ll discover the truth about calories, how running could actually be hurting your health, and why fat won’t make you fat. Subscribe now to the Dr. Gundry podcast on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.
Kimberly Snyder (56:19):
Welcome to the Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder. My goal is to help you develop a holistic lifestyle based on our four cornerstone philosophy, food, body, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual growth. This holistic approach will help you feel good, which I define as being connected to your most authentic, highest self, and this is the place from which your energy, confidence, creativity, true power, and true beauty will start to explode. Every week we provide you with interviews from top experts in their field or a solo cast from yours truly to support you in living your most beautiful, healthy, and joyful life. I’m your host Kimberly Snyder, found of Solluna, New York Times bestselling author, and holistic wellness, nutrition, and meditation teacher. Let’s get started.
Dr. Gundry (57:18):
Marconi 314 on YouTube commented on my fruit lecture and said, “Excellent presentation. Out of all the healthy eating books I’ve read, your Plant Paradox has had the biggest impact and has changed my diet forever. Not only do I avoid fruit except in-season berries, but my eight-year-old son hasn’t had a fruit or soda drink for years. He’s learned to be happy with H2O. Keep preaching this Dr. Gundry. Many more people need to hear the message give fruit the boot.” Well, I’m so glad you enjoyed that program. I had a good time doing that one, and you’re going to see in the upcoming book The Energy Paradox that there is more danger in fructose than you could possibly imagine. Thanks very much for that comment, and we’ll keep them coming. All right. That’s it for today from the Dr. Gundry podcast, and I’ll see you next week.
Dr. Gundry (58:23):
Disclaimer: On the Dr. Gundry podcast we provide a venue for discussing and the views expressed by my guests do not necessarily reflect my own.
Dr. Gundry (58:35):
Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast, and if you want to watch each episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast, you can always find me on YouTube at YouTube.come/drgundry, because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.
