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I think it's bigger than my bedroom.
However, I have to say that I'm not wild about the car's color, which the catalog calls "Grigio Caldo."
Huh? I learned from an Italian dictionary that this means "warm drab," which doesn't exactly like my fire.
But maybe the dull color is why these Ferraris are priced at only $395,000 each.
And what the hey, you can always take the car to an Earl Scheib paint shop and have the color juiced up.
What makes the FF worth the price, though, is its exclusiveness.
Neiman's made only ten of them available, and get this, each one comes with a numbered plaque,
thus certifying that you're one of the ten most special humans on Earth.
This is Jim Hightower saying, "But alas, I called too late to get mine."
Neiman said that it sold out within 50 minutes of the sales date.
It just shows how tough it is out there for us luxury shoppers.
And you thought you had it.
[music]
If you sold what you had to sell or found what you're looking for, be sure to call KMUD so we can take your ad off the air.
Also, you can find our class ads on our website at kmud.org.
Well, it is 7 o'clock in the Humble O'Nation, and time for the Herb Doctor.
I just want to remind you, lest we forget, what rocking is all about.
You are tuned to KMUD Garberville, the voice of the free.
KMUE, Eureka, Arcata, People Powered Radio, KLAI, Laytonville,
Freedom Radio for the North Coast of California and beyond.
That means we are on the World Wide Web at kmud.org.
And rock me on the water at 99 1/2 on your FM dial out in Shelter Cove.
I think that's it.
We've got a theme song.
It's great to be here tonight with the Herb Doctor and his wife.
And we'll be joining them in Studio B in just a moment.
[Music]
Welcome to this month's Ask Your Herb Doctor.
My name's Andrew Murray.
My name's Sarah Jo Hennepin Murray.
For those of you who perhaps have never listened to our shows,
which run every third Friday of the month from 7 to 8 p.m.,
we're both licensed medical herbalists who trained in England
and graduated there with a Master's Degree in herbal medicine.
We run a clinic in Garberville where we consult with clients
about a wide range of conditions,
and we offer alternative medicine and nutritional counseling.
Now, this month we want to explore the misconceptions surrounding
water retention and the medical advice to avoid salt,
as well as the overprescription of diuretics,
with special reference to toxemia of late pregnancy
and the role of inflammation and poor energy reserves as a cause for concern.
We're going to be joined here by Dr. Raymond Peat here in a couple of minutes.
But you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor on KMUD Garberville 91.1 FM.
And from 7.30 until the end of the show at 8 o'clock,
you're invited to call in with any questions,
either related or unrelated to this month's topic of salt, inflammation and diuretics.
The number here, if you live in the area, is 923 3911,
or if you live outside the area, the toll-free number is 1-800-568-3723.
So that's 1-800-KMUD-RAD.
And this is the last show for this year, for 2011,
and we'll be with you back again in 2012.
OK, so hopefully Dr. Peat will be with us.
I think actually it looks like they're still trying to get him on the line here.
So this month's show, again, as I said,
is going to be mainly looking at the topics of salt avoidance with respect to water retention
and opening up that misconception with facts and science supporting the use of salt
rather than the avoidance of salt for decreasing water retention.
And also look at Dr. Tom Brewer's pioneering research work on toxemia of late pregnancy.
So for those women that are listening,
probably a very noteworthy part of the show will be based on that toxemia.
And the things that Dr. Brewer has proved to reduce swelling
and actually reduce the actual occurrence of toxemia completely.
His diet was very instrumental in making that a new way of looking at toxemia
because pretty much the medical advice for women with toxemia was actually counterintuitive in many cases.
So hopefully Dr. Peat is with us on the show.
I do have Dr. Peat, but I just wanted Sarah to reintroduce herself
because I kind of mangled that introduction.
So if she could do that and then we could get on with the program.
Thank you. I was wondering if I could hear my own voice in my ears there.
My name is Sarah Johanneson and I'm joining Andrew Murray.
Sarah Johanneson Murray and I'm joining Andrew Murray and we have Dr. Raymond Peat on the line.
Thank you. And we do have Dr. Peat and here he is.
Thank you.
Hi, Dr. Peat.
Hi.
So once again Dr. Peat is joining us to illuminate the way as it were
then through the misconceptions that we so often repeat as truth.
So thank you for joining us Dr. Peat.
Again, would you please describe your academic and professional background
for listeners maybe new to the show who perhaps have never heard your name?
I studied biology, physiology at the University of Oregon and have taught various hormone and nutrition related courses
as well as in other fields, psychology and philosophy included.
Okay. So your main interests I know have been around looking into hormones
and much of your research has given you new insights into the treatment of many situations and conditions
with hormones like progesterone, pregnenolone and others.
In terms of the, I think perhaps we should start with something like modern diuretics.
We come into contact with people that for one reason or another are using diuretics to decrease water retention
whether it's ankles, fingers or cardiac water retention.
Is there any safe diuretics that you know of that are prescription medications in terms of the way that they act?
Yeah, there are some that are relatively safe but it's the whole theory behind why they exist that is the problem.
Mercury compounds used to be used.
Basically they just kill the kidney cells and let stuff leak out
and they were the common diuretics for a very long time until the 1950s.
New compounds came on the market that had a variety of effects on the kidneys
and it was really the promotion of those that created an ideology that diuretics are really key to treating heart disease
and several other problems such as toxemia of pregnancy.
But really I think it's mostly a marketing strategy to orient physiology around making the kidneys leak out more water.
The real problem is what causes the water retention and almost anything that seriously injures the organism causes water retention.
Like a problem following surgery very often is that the person stops forming urine and shock.
Any very serious sickness is going to in many ways cause the reduced ability to form urine properly
and it's sort of a plumber's approach to physiology to think of just opening up the kidneys and letting the liquid out faster.
So from a herbal perspective dandelion leaf is a little bit less effective than the dandelion leaf
but it works as a diuretic and that's what I thought they had created furosemide from.
Although then with furosemide I know you have to have a prescription of potassium along with it
and dandelion leaf or most green leaves have a lot of potassium so it just kind of works out that you don't need to take potassium
if you use dandelion leaf as a diuretic.
But would you consider furosemide as a safe diuretic?
It's got a long history of use and it probably does have an actual beneficial effect on survival
but with almost any leaf extract the potassium and magnesium are going to have a diuretic effect
so it's probably safer than the actual function on the kidneys.
Oh that's interesting.
Okay so the inflammation in the first place is the main cause in many cases for the cessation of diuresis
and the increase in water retention in the cells through damage.
So you're saying that it's much more important to look at what's causing that inflammation
and trying to get to the root of the problem rather than just prescribe a diuretic.
Yeah even before the inflammation there's the energy problem
and something as simple as drinking too much water in relation to the energy your body is producing
for example a low thyroid person who can't produce much metabolic energy
is very susceptible to drinking too much water and getting a very general disruption of their physiology.
A pint or so of water passing suddenly through your stomach to your intestine
is a surge of serotonin release and that's simply a model of stress or shock in general.
Anything that shocks you or stresses you tends to start the same process
but just a surge of water hitting the intestine is enough to increase serotonin
which then stimulates the production of prolactin and prolactin is associated with water retention.
Serotonin itself is in a direct way and serotonin increases the production of aldosterone
which produces water retention and inflammation and sets off a chain of reactions
that lead to such things as heart failure.
And the unfortunate thing is when someone is low thyroid they're usually very thirsty all the time anyway
so they crave that water and they think they have to have that water in order
because they say their body is really craving it.
Yeah, it causes the tissues to retain water even though it's passing through them
through the kidneys mostly and they aren't producing much evaporation through their lungs or skin
but it tends to leak out of their blood stream into the tissues and produce edema
and edema is harmful to all of the tissues in a direct way.
It turns on a whole anabolic system shifting away from oxidative metabolism
activating lipolysis, the release of fatty acids,
shifting cell metabolism towards burning fat rather than sugar, imitating diabetes and aging.
So it's a generalized shock physiology that's involved when cells get waterlogged.
It can start with low thyroid but it feeds back and makes the low thyroid problem worse.
So that's why you said that even any kind of leaf extract or tea made from a leaf of a plant
is going to have minerals in it that help prevent this from happening.
Yeah.
And if you made a cup of tea you'd sip on it slowly.
You wouldn't just drink it down like a pint of water.
Yeah, and the minerals, it isn't essential that it be magnesium and potassium,
calcium and sodium have many of the same functions
even though each thing has its place in the mechanisms.
If you're in shock you can relieve the symptoms pretty much by taking more of any one of the alkaline minerals,
potassium, sodium, magnesium, or calcium.
In heart failure and lung inflammation,
many of the things that happen with shock or aging or any serious disease,
the lungs and the heart tend to get waterlogged and lose function.
So just giving a very concentrated salt solution intravenously will relieve the symptoms very often.
They've doubled the survival or cut the mortality rate in half by just giving extra sodium intravenously.
Now, it's a very interesting point that you've just opened up there
because that begs the question, why is it so often that doctors tell people to avoid salt?
And why is salt so maligned heavily as a problem element?
Especially when they are swelling and then here they're using it in surgery.
It really, I think, got its big boost around 1950 when the diuretics came on the market.
They found the diuretics took sodium out at the same time they took water out.
And so they said you should get the same effect by restricting the sodium intake.
And they applied that to pregnant women.
And Tom Brewer and some other people wrote about the horrible effects of sodium restriction in pregnancy
plus using diuretics.
If you combine the two, you get more serious effects.
After I had been reading Tom Brewer's work for a long time,
I was seeing similarities between premenstrual syndrome and the toxemia of pregnancy that he had worked on.
And I finally decided to suggest to young women who were having premenstrual water retention
and not having any good results just by stopping their salt intake,
I suggested that they follow Brewer's prescription to increase their salt intake
when they were having edema water retention problems
and to go according to their craving for salt rather than avoiding the craving.
The first person that tried it just had a total avoidance of premenstrual water retention.
The very first month she tried it.
And how much salt did she?
Quite a lot.
What, like a teaspoon a couple of times a day or a quarter teaspoon?
She just shook it on even if the food was already salted.
She would just add more, lots more onto it.
And it just absolutely stopped right from then on.
Never had a water retention problem again.
I wonder, do you know why or where the mechanism for which doctors will tell you that salt is,
you know, it causes, it can increase the risk of stroke, heart attack,
and just generally very bad for your cardiovascular system
and so people should avoid salt at all costs.
Where do you think that mistaken ideology has come from?
Yeah, David McCarron 30 or 40 years ago was studying the issue
and he looked at the figures that the government published that that recommendation was based on
and he thought that if you look at the figures carefully,
the people who eat the least salt had the highest blood pressure
and the people who ate the most salt had the lowest blood pressure.
And he saw what the figures really showed that led to this interpretation
was that low calcium intake was associated with hypertension
and the sodium was really there sort of as an innocent bystander
associated with the calcium deficiency.
So you're saying that that calcium deficiency is more responsible for hypertension?
Yeah, David McCarron I think has probably written maybe 150 articles on the subject.
I think he was at Stanford or some California university when he started saying it's not high sodium,
it's low calcium that causes hypertension and I think that university invited him to leave.
Oh, now isn't this, I'm sorry to interrupt you,
but am I thinking right when you've mentioned in the past that low calcium intakes
cause calcium to leak out of the bones and into the blood
and that causes the calcification of the arteries eventually which gives you the hypertension?
Is that part of the mechanism?
Yeah, that's the essential idea.
The low calcium intake among other things
increases your parathyroid hormone which pulls calcium out of your bones
and favors its movement into cells of all kinds
and when calcium is taken up by cells it stimulates them and tends to make them contract
and that's one of the places that thyroid and the energy production comes into the question
because carbon dioxide produced by the action of thyroid,
carbon dioxide keeps calcium out of cells
even if you breathe in a bag and increase your carbon dioxide
or take baking soda or whatever,
the carbon dioxide will relax your blood vessels
by helping the calcium to move out of the blood vessels and back into the bones.
Okay, so are you thinking along the lines of even relatively short term exposure
to higher blood levels of calcium and/or tissues,
endothelia picking up the calcium can contribute to that lack of elasticity
that will be more characteristic of high blood pressure and hypertension?
Yeah, each of these things sets in motion a whole sequence of events.
The low carbon dioxide which lets calcium get into cells and excite them
and tighten up the blood vessels for example,
low carbon dioxide also lets the platelets release their serotonin
and the serotonin besides adding to the tension of the blood vessels
makes them permeable and leaky so that the water isn't retained in the blood stream
but leaks through into the cells
and the cells that are taking up calcium are also taking up water.
So basically 2,000 milligrams of calcium is a really important thing
for somebody with hypertension to start implementing into their regime.
Yeah, and supporting it with the other minerals.
The fact that David McCarran looked at showed that this inverse connection
between salt and blood pressure, the high salt eaters actually had lower blood pressure.
And one of the things that is involved there is that sodium helps the cell,
stimulates the cell to expel calcium.
Sodium activates the thyroid function
and the thyroid function pushes calcium out of the cell and lets the cell relax.
Right, because you mentioned the relaxation effect from thyroid so that's also indirect.
I know it's a little bit confusing probably for our listeners
with this talking about calcium inside and outside of cells
but basically the salt helps to put the calcium where it should be
and not being deposited in your arteries, in the cells in your arteries.
So I'm just trying to make that a little bit more understood there.
Okay, well you're listening to Ask Your Ob-Doctor on KMUD, Garberville, 91.1 FM.
And from 7.30 until the end of the show at 8 o'clock you're invited to call in
with any questions either related or unrelated to this month's topic of salt, inflammation and diuretics.
The number here if you live in the area is 923 3911
or if you live outside the area the toll free number is 1800 KMUD RAD.
And we're pleased once again to have Dr. Raymond Peat to join us
and to bring out some of the misconceptions that we all have passed.
And one of those misconceptions is that salt is bad for you
and that salt will increase your heart attack or give you stroke
and that salt is not what you need if you've got swelling and edema
but actually as we're finding out salt is very important to decrease edema.
Now we're going to ask the doctor if he can call back at 923 3911.
Area code 707.
Area code 707 and I will just put him directly on while I'm reading our underwriters at the bottom of the hour.
Doctor if you could call us back at that number I think we can lose the hiss that we've got behind you.
Would that be okay?
What was the number?
Area code 707 923 3911.
Okay.
Okay give us a call and I'm just going to put you directly on
and just wait until I'm done reading and then the herb doctors will be back on.
Okay.
All right thank you.
All right everybody.
I just want to read our underwriters for partial underwriters for our last hour.
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And I do believe we should have Dr. Ray back on the line here.
Dr. Ray, are you with us?
Yes, I'm here.
All right, so it is 728.
You are tuned to KMED Garberville, the only place where you can hear the herb doctor,
on one Friday a month here.
And let's get back with the program.
Hi, Dr. Peat. Thanks for doing that.
I think there was a pretty bad hiss on the line, so hopefully it's going to be clearer now.
Yeah, no, that sounds much better. Thank you.
Yeah, okay, good.
Okay, so getting back to the diet that Tom Brewer brought about for the treatment of toxemia of late pregnancy
and a diet which actually resulted in none of his hundreds, if not thousands, of clients or patients who were pregnant ever getting toxemia.
He was very big on drinking quite a bit of milk.
It was part of his diet.
Well, there's the calcium.
And there's the calcium, yeah.
Also salt and lots of protein, right?
Those are the main things that he was suggesting?
Yeah, he was talking about the protein and adding salt to your food.
But the milk has other things besides the protein.
The calcium has its direct effect on blood pressure.
And the sugar of milk has its diuretic-like action.
So the calcium and sugar add to the quality of the protein.
Now, we've talked a little bit about the--we've mentioned furosemide as a diuretic.
Are there any safer, effective diuretics that we wouldn't perhaps think of diuretics,
perhaps?
If you think of the sequence of stress effects that I mentioned, too much water leading to too much serotonin and aldosterone and prolactin--
Which are all inflammatory.
Sorry to interrupt, but those are all inflammatory compounds.
Yeah, and cause water retention.
And if you choose your substances with reference to inhibiting any or all of those, that's going to be an anti-edema,
anti-inflammatory diet or treatment.
Thyroid and progesterone, for example, lower all of these things.
Progesterone is a very powerful antagonist to aldosterone.
And drugs are being developed to be very similar to progesterone but to be patentable so they can seldom treat heart failure
and water retention and inflammation and so on.
Do they not have the same effect as the progesterone?
Enough that they all cure heart failure and such, but they have their own side effects.
They're just trying to make them as similar to progesterone as they can to minimize the side effects.
But using any of the natural steroids derived from pregnenolone, either progesterone or DHEA,
will help with water retention and edema and heart failure and so on.
And that's because they're antagonizing the effects of aldosterone.
Yeah.
And aldosterone is causing the inflammation and the water retention.
Yeah, and aldosterone increases.
Besides inflammation, it leads to fibrosis and prolonged heart failure and vascular and kidney disease and so on
that lead to fibrosis, lung disease.
Everywhere that water retention and inflammation start, they tend to end up with fibrosis.
So 60 or 70 years ago, a researcher, Lipschutz, called pregnenolone and progesterone
the anti-fibromatogenic steroids, they start out inhibiting fibrous overproduction
and end up protecting against tumors.
Wow.
We do actually have two callers on the line, Dr. Peat, for you.
So let's take the callers and I think we'll take the first caller now.
The engineer's put his hands in the air as if he's lost them.
I lost Dr. Peat.
If he can call back, let the caller ask their question, but he won't hear it.
Oh, darn it.
I'm going to have to call him.
All right, but the caller is on.
Okay, we'll try calling Dr. Peat back.
Hello.
Hi, Cole.
You're on the air.
Yeah, this is Topical.
You're discussing on calcium.
I don't know if you want to go to specifics, but I'll give you a short story.
About nine months ago, I was in ICU for a week and a half because my calcium went crazy.
I was later diagnosed with sarcoidosis, and my doctor wants me to get down on my calcium level.
So you're saying that your calcium level was high when you--
Yes, very high.
And you're low.
And it shut down my kidneys, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.
That was nine, ten months ago.
Okay.
Once a month, I do a calcium level check, blood test.
Do you know what your calcium is?
Huh?
Do you know what your calcium value is?
Doggone, I wish I knew the number.
But the problem is he's got me on 15 milligrams of prednisone.
Oh, dear.
To keep my calcium level down, and I love milk.
Yeah, well, the prednisone, I'm sure, is because the--
I know I hate prednisone.
Yeah, it's an anti-inflammatory steroid, so because of sarcoids and inflammatory--
So I know that caused the issue, but I think he's using a prednisone to keep the calcium levels down.
But the way you talk, it sounds like calcium levels are a pretty good idea.
Well, calcium, not in the blood, but in the bones, which is where the calcium should be.
Consuming adequate dietary calcium in the form of powdered eggshells or consuming dairy in the form of milk,
getting about 2,000 milligrams of calcium a day will actually let you store the calcium in your bones--
That's what I do.
--and prevent it from being in your bloodstream, which is what happens when you don't take up enough dietary calcium.
So when you said your blood levels were high, that's because your bones were allowing the calcium that was in the bones to leak out into your blood supply.
And that's caused more of the problem.
But the best way to lower your blood calcium would be to intake in enough dietary calcium.
Okay.
And that does help-- blood pressure is affected that way as well?
Yeah, but that would also cause-- what Dr. Peat was talking about with calcium is that calcium in the endothelia,
which is the tissue within the lining of the arterioles, the vascular supply that's under high pressure,
that is actually made more stretchy and elastic by not having calcium taken up into it,
which happens when there's too much calcium in the blood and not enough in the bones.
Your body, through parathyroid, starts to pull out calcium from the bone and bring it into the blood.
Yeah, we want to do the reverse.
Exactly.
So making sure you have a high enough dietary intake of calcium will be the best--
Which would be a lot of dairy products.
Well, it doesn't have to be dairy products.
Dairy products are very good, and we do recommend milk intake.
Protein?
No, four to six-- dealing with dairy, four to six glasses of whole milk if you're not overweight,
or 2% if you don't want the fat so much.
Right, I do.
But then one of the other best ways of achieving high calcium in your dietary intake will be capsules of powdered eggshell.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I mean, what Dr. Peat's always talked about in the past is taking your eggshells and just washing them out,
washing that membrane out from the inside, storing them until you have ten or a dozen or so,
and then putting them in the oven at about 350 on a baking sheet, a cookie sheet.
And then they just--
And then put them into a coffee grinder, an electric coffee grinder.
Got it. Okay.
And then that resulting powder, you can take about half a teaspoon a day will give you--
Yeah, about a quarter teaspoon three times a day is just over 2,000 milligrams.
So that 2,000 milligrams of calcium there will be very beneficial in terms of decreasing your blood calcium
but increasing your uptake of calcium into your bones.
And we've seen this with our clients.
We've seen that they have a high calcium level in their blood.
Hold on one second.
Yeah, maybe I won't.
Okay, so just one last thing I'll tell you and then we'll move on to the next caller.
What we've seen is when people have high calcium in their blood,
it's because they're not getting enough in their diet.
And when they start supplementing their diet with a higher calcium level, like closer to 2,000 milligrams,
2,000 milligrams is about two quarts of milk,
or we told you about the eggshell, a quarter teaspoon three times a day is about 2,000 milligrams,
or you can do some of both.
But then you'll see the blood calcium--
Okay, you're on hold? Okay.
--the blood calcium level come down to a normal range, which is around nine.
All right.
I'll definitely try the eggshells.
I'm 75 years old.
I'm a sarcoidosis, whatever it is.
Definitely puts me on the fritz.
The other thing that you should do in conjunction with that is actually supplement with a vitamin D supplement.
All right, I've got that.
Yeah, the calcium and vitamin D work fairly synergistically.
Yeah, I had kind of a reverse opinion.
I thought less was best.
No, because you want to bring your blood levels down by making sure you're dietary intake--
Right, give it back to the bone.
--give it back to the bone.
Right, exactly, yeah.
All right, so thank you very much.
I'll let the next caller go.
Thank you for your call.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Hi, you're on the air?
Hello.
Hi, you're on the air.
Hi, it's your normal engineer.
Hi.
How are you doing?
So I got chicken pox, which is going around.
Oh, dear.
And I was wondering if, you know, some anti--or, you know,
I was wondering what your recommendation would be,
and also I had learned from you guys that coconut fat is antiviral.
Yes.
So I'm actually using that as a solve on my sores,
and I was wondering if you thought that was a good idea.
Yeah, and internal would be good, too.
Oh, yeah, I'm drinking a ton of coconut milk, too.
Yeah, internally.
So you've never had chicken pox before, then?
No.
Okay, so now's your first time.
How bad is it?
I think I've been told it's going to get worse.
I've only had it for a day.
Right, because in adults it's generally more severe, they say, than in children.
Yeah, from a point of view of anti-infectives at this point,
being a viral situation, I don't know how much can be done that quickly.
I think your own body will certainly get on top of it.
I don't think there's anything per se that's going to really knock it back
now that you're coming out with it.
In terms of your skin and the lesions there,
there will be things that you can do to kind of minimize the itching,
which is probably one of the main symptoms.
Not yet, but that's what I've heard.
Yeah, well, when the vesicles burst, they're kind of fluid-filled,
and when they burst, they'll then become quite itchy because that's a condition.
It's just like shingles and herpes, the same kind of --
varicella zoster is the same kind of family,
so they all have this kind of weeping characteristic
where the fluid-filled vesicles burst, and then they get very itchy.
So in England, I know that calamine lotion is not exactly herbal,
but calamine lotion was a fairly good, soothing, calming, topical application.
What is calamine lotion?
I'm not sure what calamine is.
You could probably look it up.
You could Google it, I'm sure.
But it's basically a liquid that you will put on with cotton, cotton wool,
damp cotton wool, and dab it on the skin in those areas that are particularly itchy.
I'm trying to think if there would be anything else that would be more systemic
that you could use as an antipyretic to stop the itch.
Maybe if we get Dr. Peat back on, he'll have some suggestions.
But I'm afraid the engineer is wrestling with the phone,
and Dr. Peat is still out of action at this point in time,
so I don't quite know what's happened.
Well, I'll keep listening.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, I feel bad for you.
I hope you have a happy Christmas, anyway, despite this,
because it's probably going to be another 7 to 10 days, I think,
before it's kind of getting resolved.
Yeah, that's what I hear.
I'll ask Dr. Peat, as and when we get him back on the air,
to see what his advice would be.
But I'm sure calamine lotion could be something that you could look up,
and I think that as a topical application that would be pretty good.
I know that he'll probably mention other things that would probably be better,
so let's just see if we can get him back with us.
Thank you.
Yeah, you're very welcome.
And happy New Year and happy Christmas.
Thanks.
Okay, Dr. Peat, have we managed to--
have we got Dr. Peat back on the line yet?
We don't have Dr. Peat back on the line.
Okay, I'm not sure what's going on.
Do we have any more callers on the line?
Yes, I had a question.
You were talking about the CO2 levels,
and I have been studying a little bit the Guteko method,
which is an exercise which will actually increase the CO2 levels.
Okay, good.
And, you know, as you mentioned, it can increase the relaxation,
and for me it helps with things like insomnia.
And I'm curious in relation to what you're talking about,
I didn't quite get the full picture of what the CO2 levels,
like raising those CO2 levels, what impact that might have.
Right.
Okay, well, Dr. Peat's talked fairly extensively about the benefits of CO2.
I think most of us always associate CO2 as a poisonous gas
that we need to get rid of by exhaling.
When actually I think the truth in the science is that oxygen itself
is probably more poisonous than CO2.
And CO2 in its own right is actually very anti-inflammatory
and actually associated with greater longevity.
Peoples and cultures that live at high altitudes, like the Tibetans
and the people in the Peruvian Andes,
have actually much, much greater health records.
They actually have much less inflammatory disease.
They have way less cancer incidences.
And generally the inflammation is much less amongst the communities
at high elevation because of the beneficial effects of CO2.
Dr. Peat has mentioned several times the method by which you can just bag breathe.
You get a brown paper bag and sit down in a chair and relax
and just breathe in and out, re-breathing your own CO2.
Now this is also a very good way of increasing CO2 levels.
So I think the main effects were the anti-inflammatory,
anti-stress effects of breathing in CO2
and also the longevity effects that do come with it are well documented.
Okay. Thank you very much.
You're very welcome.
Okay. Are there any more calls on the line?
Hi.
Hi, Yonia.
Hello. I just had a recommendation for the--
Hello.
There was a caller there but they suddenly disappeared.
Dr. Peat, are you on the line?
Okay. I'm not sure what's going on until someone tells me what's going on.
I'm not sure. The call has been cut off and we've lost Dr. Peat.
That's not a very good evening.
But anyway, the engineer is going to do what he can.
He's doing his best frantically to get Dr. Peat back on the air.
Well, we should start anything new or see what comes of his frantic attempts.
Okay. I think there's another caller on the air.
Hi, Yonia.
Hello.
No, I don't think the caller is there.
Okay. Well, Sarah, how about you?
I think this is Dr. Peat.
Hello.
Oh, no. This is our caller.
Hi, caller. I think you were cut off a moment ago.
Where did Dr. Peat go?
Hi, my caller.
So I was suggesting for if you thought--
Dr. Peat, are you there?
Okay. One minute. Our engineer is also on the line.
So, engineer, you're on the line, too, so we can hear you talking.
Okay. Hang with us, caller, until we get his microphone off the air.
Baking soda and vinegar at--
Okay. You've taken the caller off the air again.
Hello.
Do you want to tell the engineer that he's taken the caller off the air?
I have both callers on, so she can talk. I haven't cut her off.
But we were also hearing you.
Well, I guess we can't hear her. I think maybe you turned her volume down to us.
It's a meltdown in the studio.
You're doing a good job there, engineer.
There's a bit of a problem here.
We had a fuzzy connection to start with with Dr. Peat on the line, and then--
Then we cut him off.
Okay.
Well, bag breathing is another way that you can help to lower--
Since we've been talking about high blood pressure,
bag breathing is also very good to help lower someone's blood pressure
because it helps with that CO2 and putting calcium in the right place.
So that's another use for that.
And we talked about the anti-stress effects and the anti-edema effects of increased CO2 as well.
And that's the high elevation civilizations also have way less stress
and way less inflammatory diseases.
So I wonder if they have less heart disease.
That would be an interesting epidemiological study.
Okay. Well, the engineer is still shaking his head.
Okay.
I'd rather just kind of wait and see if we can get Dr. Peat back to us because it's--
Well, you're listening to Ask Your Ab Doctor on KMED Galbaville 91.1 FM.
And from now until the end of the show at 8 o'clock,
people are invited to call in with any questions either related or unrelated to this month's topic of salt,
inflammation and diuretics.
The number here if you live in the area is 923-3911.
Or if you live outside the area, the number is 1-800-KMUD-RAD.
So if there are any people that have been listening to the show,
we'd like to call in with any questions.
Please feel free to do so now.
Otherwise, we're going to still see if we can get Dr. Peat back on the air.
[Pause for response]
Hello?
Hi, you're on the air.
Yeah.
So I've been listening to the show today.
And it all sounded very interesting to me.
But I'm curious how it could pertain to athletes.
It seems like diuretics, salt, calcium, all very critical in sports.
I don't know if you've been able to get the doctor back on.
I think they're still working on it.
But what was your main question in relation to the topic in sport?
Well, yeah, I always have to calculate things like sweat loss
to then calculate how much I need to intake during sport.
I particularly practice a lot of running and cycling sports.
And I was curious how to calculate salt, how much salt intake I should be taking.
Okay.
How much do you take in general?
Well, all my supplements, usually they're sports supplements,
have a certain amount of sodium in them.
And I take the recommended dosages of those,
whether they're two scoops of the product to 20 ounces of water per hour.
But, again, I don't know if that's the adequate amount
or if the doctor is saying that maybe we should be taking higher levels of sodium.
Well, I do know that there's been a study that's been done with baking soda
showing that athletes performed better when they took up to a tablespoon of baking soda in one day,
spread out, obviously, because you don't want to be diluting your stomach acid
when you're trying to digest some proteins with a meal.
But that's because it increases their CO2,
and as an athlete you're blowing off a lot of CO2 when you're exercising,
especially with all that heavy aerobic exercise.
And it would be very good for you to have constant,
almost like you want an IV of glucose while you're exercising,
an IV of glucose and all these minerals so that you don't put your body into a stressed state
and you'll actually cope better with the endurance exercise.
Okay.
So in reference to CO2, am I actually looking to put my body in a slightly more hypoxic state?
Yeah, because--well, no, you are putting--yeah, you're over-oxygenating yourself
when you're doing aerobic exercise because you're blowing off so much CO2.
Right.
Which is actually a very negative thing to do.
In effect, the carbon dioxide is pulling more oxygen through your cell system.
Did the caller hear that?
Have we got the caller on you on the line?
I'm still on the line.
Good.
Could you hear Dr. Peat?
I didn't hear what he said, no.
You didn't?
Okay, sorry, Dr. Peat, can you repeat that?
Yeah, the carbon dioxide acts as if it's pulling more oxygen into the cell system.
It activates the electron transport chain to use oxygen more quickly and effectively.
So that is what would happen when this athlete would take baking soda?
Yeah, they've done it with endurance races,
giving them a tablespoon of baking soda at the start of the race.
And you would think that it would make them more alkaline.
Alkaline is not necessarily a good state.
The carbon dioxide actually enters the cell and becomes an acidic form from the baking soda bicarbonate,
which momentarily makes your blood more alkaline.
But the absorbed carbon dioxide becomes acidic inside the cell,
and the intracellular state should be slightly on the acid side when the oxygen is really working.
They call it oxygen because it means acid former.
And the acid that it makes is carbon dioxide.
And in that slightly acidic state, oxygen is having its full action for producing energy.
And it's that same energy production which takes the calcium out of the cell
and lets the cell relax and recuperate properly.
If you aren't producing or retaining enough carbon dioxide, the cell will begin making lactic acid,
and the lactic acid leaves the cell in an alkaline stressed condition.
Even though it's acidifying the blood, it's leaving the cell in a stressed alkaline condition that causes inflammation.
So too much aerobic exercise becomes catabolic and inflammatory.
Right. Caller, are you there? Caller, did you hear what Dr. Peat had said?
Yes, yes I did.
Perfect.
Very good information. Thank you.
Yeah, you're very welcome.
Do you have anything else you wanted to say?
No, no. Thank you very much for answering my question.
Okay, you're very welcome.
All right, so I think we have two more callers here,
so let's take them one at a time and see if we can get through them before we get close to the top of the hour.
You're on the air, caller.
Hello, am I on?
Yes, you're on.
Okay, I have a suggestion and also a question for Dr. Peat.
I live in Leightonville, and last year I discovered a product down in Willits at Mariposa
that is incredible for itching, and I got it for poison oak.
And it's called Manzanita Magic, and it comes in a three-ounce bottle.
It is wild-crafted manzanita, grape root, plantain, chickweed, organic sage, thyme, and cayenne.
And it's a dark liquid, and I'm just wondering if that would work for chicken pox.
Yeah, I wonder.
And that's just my suggestion.
My question is --
Well, let me just say one thing quickly about that.
That's a wonderful product, and I know the lady who makes it, and that's a really good idea.
So thanks for calling in and letting us know that.
And, Michael, if you're still listening, get yourself some Manzanita Magic.
Terry makes it.
Did you mention aspirin for chicken pox?
No, we didn't.
So I would like you to talk about that, if you would.
Let's let the caller finish.
Can I ask my question, and then I'll get off the line?
It's about calcium and getting it back into your bones.
I've been dealing with breast cancer since 2005
and had to really pay attention to trying to keep calcium in my bones.
And I would like to know -- my understanding is that it's specifically vitamin D3
that assists with calcium going into the bones.
And I'd like Dr. Peat to comment on that
and also on the ratio of calcium and magnesium that he might recommend.
And I'll take my answer off the air.
Thank you.
Thank you for your call.
Dr. Peat, did you hear that question?
Yeah.
The ratio isn't as big an issue as a lot of books say.
If you're getting a little excess sodium and calcium, it spares the magnesium.
The sodium and calcium activate cell respiration,
and cell respiration is needed for cells to retain magnesium.
So if you're low in sodium and calcium,
you depend on a good thyroid function to retain magnesium.
So any stress that increases albosterone, for example, is going to make you lose magnesium.
So keeping your albosterone and inflammation down,
your thyroid calcium and sodium up is going to make you retain magnesium much more efficiently.
All right.
We've got three callers and five minutes.
We won't get that done in five minutes, but first let's go back.
Dr. Peat, would you first give some more suggestions for Michael,
our engineer who's got a chicken box at the moment?
Okay.
Aspirin has been found to have a mild antiviral effect against several types of virus.
Someone with AIDS sent me an old publication
that they had begun a trial of aspirin for HIV-infected people,
and they were getting good results when they discontinued the study.
But it has been proven somewhat effective for several different kinds of virus,
including the herpes or chickenpox type.
And, Michael, call us.
We'll give our number out at the end of the show in case you don't have it,
and we'll help direct you with the amount of vitamin K you need to take in order to use aspirin safely.
And also another thing, Dr. Peat, can you please comment about vitamin D?
For that lady with the calcium, she wanted to know why vitamin D was so important.
If you're having blood tests, it's good to have your vitamin D3 in the upper part of the normal range,
and it would also be good to have the parathyroid hormone checked.
When you're getting enough vitamin D and calcium, you will inhibit the parathyroid hormone,
and the parathyroid hormone, although it has its place, you don't want it to be chronically elevated.
Because it's a cancer promoter.
Yeah.
And we have another three callers on the line.
Let's at least take one.
We've got two minutes left here.
Hi. So my suggestion for the itch from chickenpox is a vinegar baking soda mix.
I've got enough money to get through Christmas.
Oh, actually, I'm working, too.
Okay. I'm sorry.
Listen, we're getting lots of stress here in the studio, and it's one minute to itch.
No, it's hilarious.
So I'm sorry, caller, to have cut you short with that recommendation.
For everybody's sanity, we need to make sure that we close the show at 8 o'clock, pronto.
And thank you so much for all those people that have called in,
and thank you, Engineer, for dealing with the stress associated with losing callers.
And our beloved Dr. Peat, thank you so much for joining us again.
Okay.
And we're just going to give out some contact details.
Yeah, contact details for Dr. Raymond Peat.
Visit his website, please, www.raypeat.com.
That's raypeat.com.
Lots of scholarly articles, fully referenced scientific literature.
Open your eyes, folks, and go and take a look at what he's got on the website.
That will refute a lot of the misconceptions.
Thank you to all those people that have phoned in.
And we can be reached.
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