Speaker 2 – Dr. Gundry (00:24):
Today we’re busting some of the biggest health myths you’ve been told for years. Starting with that daily calcium supplement, think it’s protecting your bones. Think again, I’ll reveal the truth about why it might actually be doing more harm than good and what nutrient your bones really need. Instead, we’re also talking natural, no nonsense ways to build stronger bones without relying on dairy. And I’ll share why milk may not be the bone booster you’ve been led to believe. Plus, we’ll dive into your liver and uncover easy everyday habits that support liver health and gut repair without expensive supplements. And speaking of supplements, I’ll explain why some trendy liver detoxes can do more harm than good, and if seasonal allergies have you sneezing and sniffling, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered with simple natural remedies to help you breathe easier without popping antihistamines. It’s a jam packed episode, so stay tuned. You don’t want to miss a minute.
DR GUNDRY (01:28):
You’ve likely heard it from your doctor. You’ve seen it all over the milk ads. You need calcium for strong bones. Yes, calcium is part of the makeup of bone structure, but there is no evidence that a calcium supplement will actually have any benefit in making the calcium go to your bones. In fact, there’s some evidence that calcium supplements will deposit calcium in your blood vessels where you definitely do not want it. In fact, a 2020 analysis of 42 studies found that calcium from dietary sources did not raise cardiovascular disease risk, but supplemental calcium did. So don’t believe everything that you hear. Consider this study. A meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials showed that calcium supplementation was not a associated with a low risk of fractures among community dwelling older adults. Let me say that again. Calcium supplement did not lower your risk of fractures and don’t get me started on those milk ads.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
The dairy and bone health link is also a huge myth. One large scale. Harvard study followed 72,000 women for two decades and found no evidence that drinking milk can prevent bone fractures or osteoporosis. Another study of more than 96,000 people found that the more milk men consume as teenagers, the more bone fractures they experience as adults. Exactly the opposite of what you would’ve thought. Similarly, another study found that adolescent girls who consumed the most calcium, mostly in the form of dairy products, were at greater risk for stress fractures than them, than those consuming less calcium. Plus most dairy products here in the United States are loaded with Cain a one lectin like molecule that causes leaky gut. You’re doing far more harm than good by taking these products. Let me remind you, most of us do not break down lactose the sugar molecule in milk following infancy.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So the idea that we were designed to need calcium and milk throughout our childhood or in adulthood doesn’t make sense from an evolution standpoint because most of us lose the ability to make lactase that breaks down the lactose in milk. So once you weaned off of breast milk, there’s clearly no evidence that we were ever designed to need calcium from milk after that time. Now, what about the idea that children who don’t get enough calcium will be growth stunted? Well, that’s the point. Children do great without milk because we were designed to not need the calcium from milk following weaning from breast milk. So the idea that we have to have it goes against our design, goes against our evolution. We don’t need milk, so how much calcium do you actually need? Now, it’s difficult to actually assess calcium status in humans. As I’ve talked about before, electrolytes like potassium, like magnesium, like sodium, like chloride, like calcium, are maintained at a very tight level in our bloodstream, and we will keep those electrolyte levels within a very narrow range by taking those electrolytes out of the cell when we need them.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
So looking at a serum calcium level, which I do in all my patients, doesn’t really tell you how much calcium you have in your body. What’s important is that if you have a high calcium level, that’s indicative of a problem. Now, interestingly enough, most of the patients I see with a high calcium level are patients who have a benign tumor in a parathyroid gland in their neck that produces a hormone called parathyroid hormone, which literally regulates calcium in our blood and parathyroid hormone will pull calcium out of bones to support blood levels of calcium. If your parathyroid hormone is high, you’ll often have a high calcium level, and it’s often a tip off for me and other doctors to look for a parathyroid adenoma. I used to take out a lot of parathyroid adenomas when I was a chest and heart surgeon. That’s one of the biggest causes of high calcium.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
The second biggest cause that I see in my patients is supplementing with a calcium supplement. And remarkably, when I see patients with a high calcium level with a normal parathyroid level, the first thing I do is ask them to stop taking their calcium supplement. And lo and behold, the vast majority of them come back to normal when we check them again. Lastly, interestingly enough, if you have a low vitamin D level, you often will have an elevated parathyroid hormone and an elevated calcium by increasing vitamin D levels by supplementing vitamin D. Remarkably, I see many of my patients, once their vitamin D is high, their calcium levels come down because their parathyroid hormone level comes down and I see this literally every week. So vitamin D doesn’t raise calcium levels. It actually helps lower calcium levels by suppressing parathyroid hormone. Now, unless your doctor tells you otherwise, you don’t need to go crazy about getting your calcium.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
There’s plenty of bioavailable calcium and food alone. It’s readily available from dark leafy greens, collard greens, spinach, turnip greens, bok choy, kale, broccoli. It’s also really available in aged cheeses like Parmesan cheese for instance, like aged pecorino cheese, so plenty of calcium. It’s available in fish. Now interestingly, one of the people with the longest life expectancy in the world, the A chiles in southern Italy are small fish eaters. They daily eat anchovy and sardines. They’re actually eating the calcium in the little bones of these fish. So if you’re really worried about calcium, get yourself some canned sardines or anchovies, but make sure they’re the ones that are not boneless. Now, if you really wanna support bone health, there’s a lot of other things you can do and they have nothing to do with calcium. First of all, weight training, weight bearing or high impact exercise helps promote new bone formation.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
That’s because your muscles are anchored to bones and literally as they pull on your bones, that’s one of the biggest stimuluses for you to strengthen your bones. Now, studies in children found that it increases the amount of bone created during the years of peak bone growth. And studies in older adults show that weight training, strength training literally helps prevent bone loss In older adults. You can also do increase strength training to increase your muscle mass, which in turn will protect against bone loss by pulling on your bones. Now, if you’ve read gut check, you may have been shocked to learn that most bone loss, most osteopenia and osteoporosis is actually caused by leaky gut and by endotoxemia, not low dietary calcium. Secondly, get yourself on a vitamin C supplement, preferably a timed release vitamin C, vitamin C is essential for bone formation and collagen formation.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
In fact, some researchers believe that osteopenia and osteoporosis is scurvy of the bones, and scurvy of course is the hallmark of low vitamin C. Finally, vitamin D and K two people with low vitamin D levels have low bone density and are more at risk for bone loss than people who get enough. Now interestingly, vitamin K two supports bone health by vitamin D’S action of taking calcium and putting it into the bone matrix. In fact, there’s a fascinating study in humans showing that vitamin K two supplementation in patients with coronary artery calcification, the coronary artery calcification went down by supplementing with vitamin K two. So that’s why with my patients who are on a very good dose of vitamin D three, I always supplement with a low dose of vitamin K two as well. Please, please, please ditch the calcium supplements if you really want to improve your bone health, do strength training.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Get the wall of your gut intact. No more leaky gut. Just follow the rules of the plant paradox or gut check and watch what happens to your bones. I’ll finally give you a story of my own wife Penny. Penny, as many of you know, was a great marathon runner. She competed and finished in the hundredth running of the Boston Marathon, qualified for it. She suffered from osteopenia a marathon runner. Now she ate a typical marathon runner’s diet of pasta and chips and popcorn, and she even wore weighted vests to stop her osteopenia. Imagine her shock when we changed her diet that her osteopenia completely resolved and has stayed resolved for over 30 years just by changing her diet. Her bone loss was from leaky gut and once we fixed her leaky gut, lo and behold, miraculously without calcium supplements, without wearing weighted vests, her osteopenia and stayed resolved.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
First of all, let’s talk about your liver. You hear all over the internet that the liver is the main detoxification center of your body. And while it is true that the liver does have detoxification enzymes, there’s level one and level two enzymes. The liver is far more important as a detoxification center than you think. Here’s the real deal with liver. The liver actually is the gateway to your body for all the foods that you absorb from your intestines. That’s right, all the proteins that you absorb as amino acids, all the sugars that you absorb is either glucose or fructose, have to go through the liver first. In the liver, there are literally checkpoints, security guards that scan everything that’s coming from the intestines, make sure that there aren’t any troublemakers mixed in with the crowd, and if there are troublemakers, literally stop them, frisk them or arrest them.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
And this is all done without you even feeling it or knowing it. Once that checkpoint is passed, then they’re released into the main vein going to your heart and then pumped around the body. But everything that comes from the gut has to pass through the liver for this checkpoint. Now you see a lot of news that detox diets help your liver. Quite frankly, nothing could be more wrong with that concept. When you do a fruit cleanse, for instance, fruit contains fructose, as I’ve written about in the energy paradox and in gut check fructose is a toxin. Fructose is taken directly to the liver that does not go into your bloodstream where it is toxified by your liver into both triglycerides of fat and uric acid. Some of you know uric acid from gout, that painful swelling of a big toe or from kidney stones, uric acid stones.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
So these are products of the detoxification of fructose. Why would you want to detoxify fructose? Because fructose is a mitochondrial poison. It’s also a kidney poison, so your liver has to work double hard to detoxify your detoxification diet when you’re having your fruit smoothies. So if you want your liver to not work very hard, please don’t give it the thing. It work has to work hardest to detoxify, and that’s fructose. That’s your fruit smoothie. Now, the second thing you may have seen on the internet is the Centers for Disease Control just came out with some warnings that very popular supplements like green tea extract, turmeric and borage oil can be harmful to the liver in excess. While that is possible, quite frankly, since I look at liver enzymes, specific liver enzymes in my patients every three to six months and have a number of patients who take green tea extract, drink a lot of green tea like I do, take borage oil for hot flashes, remarkably I have never and 25 years seeing a problem with liver enzymes from these compounds.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
On the other hand, not a week goes by that I don’t see liver damage from a high fructose diet from a high smoothie diet. So I’d much rather you drink green tea or take a turmeric supplement than have a fruit smoothie. Third most common mischief maker that I see in my practice in terms of liver health is binge drinking. Now, I often tell my patients, you could bathe your liver in alcohol all day and you won’t develop cirrhosis. However, however, you can easily damage your liver by the drinking the effects of alcohol rapidly. Why is that? Well, alcohol is also a toxin and the toxicity of alcohol actually comes from the fact that it damages the lining of your gut and in damaging the lining of your gut, it makes intestinal permeability AKA leaky gut. What happens when you have leaky gut is that bacterial particles are actually living.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Bacteria can then escape through the wall of the gut, and guess where they go? If you’ve been following your right, they have to go to the liver first. They have to get back past those checkpoints in the liver. And as the bacteria come up to the liver, there is actually a battle between your white blood cells in the liver and these bacteria and that battle actually causes scar tissue to form and it actually kills liver cells hepatocytes. And we can measure the effect of that battle going on with these liver enzymes. So as strange as it seems, it’s not the effect of alcohol on the liver, that’s the problem. It’s the effect of concentrated binge alcohol on the lining of the gut that releases the bacteria that then the warfare and damage in the liver occurs. So that’s why study after study, particularly of Europeans and Japanese who consume wine or saki on a daily basis, multiple times per day with meals don’t show that effect of alcohol.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Whereas we see now, particularly in our college students, the profound damaging effect of a weekend of binge drinking where a lot of concentrated alcohol is consumed over a short period of time, a glass of red wine a day, okay, a vodka pitcher, a weekend, not so bueno. That’s the difference between the two. And oh, by the way, studies have been done comparing drinking red wine, drinking the equivalent amount of grape juice that doesn’t have any alcohol in it, and the equivalent calories of gin on the gut microbiome of humans. And lo and behold, the red wine actually had the best effect on improving the diversity of the gut microbiome. The grape juice was second and sorry to report the gin was detrimental to the biodiversity of your gut microbiome. When we think about alcohol, we actually have to think about the type of alcohol that’s being delivered.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Here’s one that may surprise you, but I used to see it all the time when I was an emergency room physician. Excessive Tylenol use acetaminophen. Acetaminophen in high doses is very damaging to the liver. It was really good at killing liver cells. And we see well-meaning people thinking that, oh, Tylenol is the pain reliever that we give in hospitals, which is true. Tylenol is the fever reducer that we give in hospitals, which is true. So if Tylenol is used in hospitals, it must be safe because otherwise why would we use it in hospitals? The problem with Tylenol is if used to excess, if trying to reduce pain, if trying to reduce a fever, it can be very damaging to liver. So what do we do when we see Tylenol toxicity in the emergency room? We actually give you n acetyl cyte NAC. Now you may have heard of NAC because is a popular supplement.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
A couple years ago, believe it or not, the FDA banned NAC from sale on Amazon and other sites because they had declared 70 years ago that n acetylcysteine was a drug and not a supplement because we used it as a drug for acetaminophen poisoning. After a couple of years, the FDA realized that that was silly, that it is actually a supplement. And you may have noticed that NAC came back on the market. So the proviso here is if you are a Tylenol user, you really should consider taking one or two doses of NAC about 500 milligrams each time as a way of preventing the toxicity of acetaminophen on your liver. A similar compound exists in Europe called paracetamol. They’re cousins. So if you’re listening in Europe, paracetamol is the same problem as acetaminophen or Tylenol. Now let me tell you some sad stories about colloidal silver.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Many of you heard that silver, colloidal silver is a really cool antibacterial compound and I have a lot of experience with silver as an antibacterial compound. When I was researching at Loma Linda University, we got the smart idea that if we put in vowels in patients, they have the potential because they have a sewing ring that’s made out of fabric. That sewing ring has the potential to get infected with bacteria. And quite frankly, getting infection on an artificial heart valve is a disaster. We usually have to emergently operate on someone and take that valve out. We can’t sterilize it with antibiotics. Knowing that silver was an incredibly useful compound for killing bacteria, a valve company asked us to try a silver impregnated sewing ring in animals, and it actually worked very well so well that other studies at other institutions also showed the same thing.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
And so the FDA approved a silver impregnated sewing ring for valve implantation. Lo and behold, it didn’t get infected. But normally when we put a valve in somebody that sewing ring, it’s covered up by your own tissue growing into it healing it. What we learned very shortly is the silver in that sewing ring prevented normal tissue from growing, not just bacteria. And so people actually develop blood clots on these sewing rings, which was unheard of prior to using this. And thankfully, those sewing rings are no longer on the market. But that taught me a very valuable lesson that silver is really good against bacterial growth. But here’s the bad news, silver is really bad for normal cell growth as well. So if you’re one of those persons who think silver is the anecdote to everything that ails you, let me assure you that’s not the way to go.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
You don’t drink the stuff, please. Now, putting some colloidal silver on a cut is just fine, but you’re probably far better off by using a topical antibiotic like Neosporin or poly mix and B, which have been shown in clinical trials to speed healing of cuts and abrasions. Stay away from drinking silver. I do have one patient who became a blue man. You I’m sure you’ve heard of them. He literally turned blue from drinking his colloidal silver and he still blew sadly. Now the good news is those valves that were put in were exchanged successfully and the vast majority of the valves didn’t have to be changed, but it was discovered in the valves that needed changing. That was the silver that was preventing the normal ingrowth. So there’s something to think about when you’re thinking about silver. Now, are there a few supplements that can actually help the liver?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Well, the main objective in helping the liver believe it or not, is increasing type one and type two detoxification enzymes. And there’s another number of supplements that have shown that that works. One of the granddaddies of liver support is milk thistle. And now milk thistle is a polyphenol. Milk thistles are cousins of artichokes, and believe it or not, artichoke extract and artichokes are also very good at increasing type one and type two detoxification enzymes in the liver. But one of the interesting ways that they work, which we’ve only recently discovered, is they don’t work actively in the liver. What they do is they work by changing the gut microbiome and it’s the change of the gut microbiome that is actually impacting how the liver heals itself. So over and over, over again over 25 years, I’ve noticed the really important effects of these polyphenol compounds.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Another very interesting compound is DLI modine. Now, despite the fact that you hear the word lemon in lemoine, it’s actually in the peels of oranges and dli modine and milk thistle and artichoke extract are part of my Gundry MD liver support formula. It also really improves gut bacterial function and liver detoxification in enzymes. But despite all of this, the real way to protect your liver and detoxify your liver is to prevent these bacterial particles called lipopolysaccharides or LPSs. And as you know, I don’t swear, but I can’t resist calling them little pieces of shit because that’s what they are. Prevent these guys from getting through the wall of the gut. Fish oil is incredibly useful to prevent LPSs from getting through the gut. As I’ve written about in gut check Perilla oil or flaxseed oil is extremely useful in preventing LPSs from getting through the gut.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Finally, another great trick is dandelion greens. Luckily we’re seeing dandelion greens in a lot of regular mainstream grocery stores. Now they don’t taste or look like the dandelion you pull out of your grass, but that’s another trick for improving your liver function. The third and most of ’em actually probably sixth trick, the more you rest your gut by intermittent fasting, by time restricted eating, limiting your eating window to about six to eight hours a day, the more downtime your gut has to repair the damage to the wall of the gut. Just like your brain has to have sleep to repair the damage to your brain to wash out the toxins and crud in your brain, your gut has to have downtime to repair. And sadly, the average American is usually eating something or digesting something anywhere from 16 to 18 hours a day. Imagine that there’s not a lot of downtime. Compare that to eating six to eight hours a day. Most of the 24 hours can be done in repair work and that’s why intermittent fasting is one of the most potent ways to repair your liver.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Are you worried about pollen, mold, et cetera? I want you to try this. If you are feeling itchy, sneezy or dripping, you’re not alone. According to the CDC D’S National Health Interview Survey, over one quarter of US adults actually 25.7% and nearly one in five US children, actually 19% suffer from seasonal allergies. So today I want to talk about the root cause, debunk some remedy myths and share some tips for feeling a bit better in between the seasons. Now, seasonal allergies mean what they mean, they happen in season. But new research shows that pollen seasons start 20 days earlier, are 10 days longer and feature 20% more pollen than in 1990. I’ll give you one guess why. It’s called climate change now. Pollen has been around since the beginning of time. Why are allergies seeming increasing all the time? I have spent the last few books trying to show that the reason that these things happen is that our immune system, because of poor gut health, because of leaky gut, because of a bad dysbiotic microbiome, is always on hyper alert.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
And that it’s this hyper alertness that makes our immune system basically overreact to these pollens and molds, which have been with us basically since the beginning of time. I’ll give you one personal example, and we know that when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, every kid took a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to school. Every kid had peanuts at the ballpark. Every airline passed out peanuts and nobody was having a peanut reaction, even though 95% of us are born with an antibody to the peanut lectin. Now of course, if some well-meaning kid brings a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to school, three kids break out their EpiPens and if they dare pass out a peanut on an airplane, they don’t, then the EpiPens would come out. What happened? Well, again, our immune system is hyper activated and will go after just about anything.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Personally, when I was young, I had to take allergy shots, I had allergies to everything, grass polling, you name it. If I was allergic to it, I was allergic to it and I had to have to take allergy shots. I used to have terrible hay fever. I haven’t had hay fever in over 25 years. Why? Because I retrained my immune system. And all you gotta do is follow the yes and no lists in any of my books or online@drgundry.com and watch what happens. Now let’s take a look at this article by Healthline titled 15 Home Remedies for Allergies. ’cause After all, you’re not gonna turn your allergies around today. So let’s go down the list. How about saline nasal irrigation? Well, a 2012 review of 10 studies showed that saline nasal irrigation had beneficial effects in both children and adults for allergic rhinitis, which is often referred to as hay fever now.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
So that’s basically a netty pot. And remember, it’s actually salt water, not water that you want to use in saline irrigation air filters. I’m a huge fan of high efficiency particular air filters, the HEPA filter or the ultra HEPA filter. By trapping airborne irritants such as pollen, dust and pet dander, HEPA filters reduce allergens in your home. I’m a big fan of Air doctor. In fact, I’m such a big fan that I had Peter Spiegel, the creator of Air Doctor on my podcast. Air conditioners and dehumidifiers help by removing moisture from the air. Air conditioners and dehumidifiers can limit the growth of mildew and mold that can negatively impact allergies. Now a fun trick to try is butter bur in a 2003 review butter, bur was found to be equally effective for itchy eyes as a commonly used oral antihistamine. Another good one is Brom.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Brom is an enzyme found in papaya and pineapple. Now, natural healers consider Brom Lane to be effective at improving breathing by reducing swelling and it’s well worth a try. Acupuncture. A 2015 review of 13 studies concluded that acupuncture demonstrated positive results for both seasonal and perennial allergic rhinitis probiotics. A 2015 review of 23 studies indicated that probiotics may help improve symptoms of allergic rhinitis. You can probably guess why, because probiotics taken properly and with the right amount will help change your gut microbiome to make more gut buddies and less of the bad guys. And that explains why it would help allergic rhinitis. Now honey, while there’s actually no scientific evidence to prove it, a popular theory suggests eating locally produced honey is a good idea according to the theory which I kinda like. You will lower your allergic reaction over time to the pollen that the bees collect in your area to make your honey.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
And that may be a really good reason. If you’re going to eat honey to use honey from bees in your area, it’s not gonna hurt you. But go easy on the honey. Honey is still sugar. It’s mostly pure fructose, but there’s probably better ways to treat your allergies. Now spirulina, you’ve heard me talk about spirulina. Spirulina is a blue green algae. In fact, a 2015 study indicated that dietary spirulina demonstrated anti allergenic protective effects towards allergic rhinitis. In fact, I have multiple episodes with Catherine Arnon, the CEO of Energy bits right here on this channel, stinging nettle. Now, natural healing practitioner suggests stinging nettle is a natural antihistamine to help with allergy treatments. And in fact, there are numerous natural antihistamines. One of my favorites is cetin, sometimes pronounced cetin. It’s a natural compound that’s present in apples, cauliflower green tea and in the white pith of citrus.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
And I use it in my patients, my allergic patients, and it works better than commercial antihistamine compounds. I mentioned on a previous podcast that rose marnic acid is present in mint. It’s present in basil, it’s present in rosemary and rosemary acid has very potent antihistamine properties so well worth adding to your regimen. Vitamin C. Vitamin C make sure is time to release. Unfortunately, vitamin C is water soluble and we lose excrete most of our vitamin C in two to four hours after we ingest it. So yes, vitamin C is useful, but get the timed release variety. Now peppermint essential oil peppermint is part of the basal and mint family, which is loaded with rosemary acid. A 1998 study that was a while ago showed that peppermint oil treatment had enough anti-inflammatory effects that reduced the symptoms of bronchial asthma and allergic rhinitis to warrant clinical trials.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Now, essential oils can be diffused into the air, but they should be diluted in a carrier oil if you apply them topically. Same with eucalyptus essential oil. Eucalyptus can be an antimicrobial agent and one fun thing to do is adding a little bit of it to each load of wash during allergy season. Frankincense essential oil. Now based on a results of a 2016 study, frankincense oil may help against perennial allergic rhinitis. You can dilute it in a carrier oil or use it behind your ears or use inhalation by diffusing it into the air. Now I have some other recommendations. I use perilla oil in my patients to reduce the amount of bacterial cell walls called LPSs going across the wall of the gut. Perilla oil has been shown to change the gut microbiome to a more healthy gut buddy microbiome and to suppress the bad guys.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Prill oil is the most widely used oil in Korea and it’s easy to obtain organic perilla oil. Online okra. Okra is a natural lectin blocker. It absorbs lectins. And as anyone who’s listened to me, lectins are one of the ways of producing leaky gut. And anything you can do to block lectins before they get to you is helpful. So okra is right up there on great things to use, eat, swallow during allergy season. Also C buckhorn. You may see that C buckhorn comes up on several lists. C buckhorn is a very interesting omega seven that may have really great anti-inflammatory properties. It has some real utility in cardiovascular disease prevention. And see buckthorn is well worth trying as an additional adjunct benefit. Also, Yaro has been shown to have antiallergic properties and yaro is readily available as a supplement. It’s getting worse for two reasons. Number one, our seasons are longer, but number two, our immune system is hyper activated and things that wouldn’t have even mattered to our great-great grandparents now are taking a toll on almost every one of us because of leaky gut and gut dysbiosis.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Now it’s time for the question of the week from at WIC Wars 1 0 1 via YouTube on my video about calcium supplements I’m following. But when you say calcium supplement, are you referring to the cheap ones as there are top-notch calcium supplements made from marine plants, et cetera? Or is it a general no go waste in general due to a mono influx of calcium all at once and not nearly as bioavailable as that found in cruciferous vegetables? Well, that’s actually sums up exactly my thoughts. You really don’t want to blast your body with a load of calcium ’cause you’re really not gonna distribute it properly. Plus sadly, many calcium supplements will actually be taken into the blood vessel wall rather than the bone where it’s supposed to go. So in general, don’t waste your money on calcium. You get plenty on your diet. And while we’re on the topic, let’s take one more from at Laura Robertson 7 2 5 9 on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
What are your thoughts on bone drugs if you have osteoporosis and the T score number is high over minus 4.4? Well, I don’t in general give medical advice but I will not prescribe any of these drugs to my patients and never will. I’ve seen firsthand fractures of the femur and the jaw from these supplements. Plus, as you probably learned in gut check, and if you haven’t, grab yourself a copy. Osteopenia and osteoporosis is caused by leaky gut by LPSs. And you know what? Those guys are causing osteoporosis and osteopenia. And it’s exciting when my patients seal their leaky gut to see their osteopenia and osteoporosis resolve without any of these drugs. Great question. Now it’s time for the review of the week on the same calcium video at Adam PLA writes a review with a question. My wife has been following her diet for the last two years and it has done wonders for her.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
She has autoimmune issues. I started following it a little more loosely than her for the last six months and I feel great and I have lost 10 pounds without even trying. I just had my annual blood work and physical and my phosphate levels are elevated, 4.6 milligrams per deciliter. Everything else looks good and normal. My primary doctor suggested taking some calcium supplement. But knowing what you mentioned in the video, I’m a little hesitant. Thoughts. Well, unless you have chronic severe kidney failure, renal failure, an elevated phosphorus really doesn’t mean much of anything what you’re telling me. You probably don’t have a severe kidney failure. You do not need calcium to support lowering your phosphate level, and I just follow it along many times. One laboratory value that is off the money is usually a lab error or a drawing problem. So just stay the course. Thanks for writing in and great to hear that you are and you are doing great.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.
