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And now we shall play a repeat song for, let me get the right thing up here, "Ask Your Herb Doctor."
[Music]
Good evening. Welcome to this month's "Ask Your Herb Doctor." My name is Andrew Murray.
My name is Sarah Johannison Murray.
For those of you who perhaps have never listened to our shows, which run every third Friday of the month from 7 till 8pm,
we're both licensed medical herbalists who trained in England and graduated there with a degree in herbal medicine.
We run a clinic in Garboville where we consult with clients about a wide range of conditions,
and we manufacture all our own certified organic herbal extracts which are either grown on our CCUF certified herb farm
or which we source from other USA certified organic suppliers.
So thanks for joining. You're listening to "Ask Your Herb Doctor" on KMUD Garboville 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, for this month's subject of dementia and progesterone.
So 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. That's 1-800-KMUD-RAD.
And we can also be reached toll-free on 1-888-WBM-HERB for further questions during normal business hours Monday through Friday.
Well, as luck would have it, today's a very special day, isn't it?
Two reasons. Number one, it's not the end of the world. At least, I don't think it's going to happen today anyway.
And secondly, but more importantly, it's actually the winter solstice.
So the shortest day of the year, the longest night, and things can only get lighter and brighter from here on in until the next solstice.
So that's one of the main things we look forward to.
Once again, we're very pleased to have Dr. Raymond Peat with us.
His latest research article is what we're going to be opening up in this month's show.
His article is entitled "Demystifying Dementia, Protective Progesterone."
I know he's a big fan of progesterone and the other anti-aging, anti-inflammatory-related compounds.
So, Dr. Peat, thanks so much for joining us.
Okay, so I think as usual, for those people who perhaps have never listened to the show before, or maybe don't know you,
would you please just give us a rundown of your academic professional background?
From 1968 to '72, I studied biology at the University of Oregon for a PhD
and worked on aging of the reproductive system and physiology more generally.
And one of the things I noticed during that working on my thesis relates to what we were talking about last month
and the relation of hormones to electromagnetic fields and dementia.
I had been interested in radiation for a long time before I went to the University of Oregon
and was aware of some of the biological interactions.
And working on my thesis, I noticed that the effects of estrogen on biochemistry are in many ways exactly the same
as those of ionizing radiation and also paralleled the effects of too much polyunsaturated fat in the diet
or deficiency of vitamin E.
That synergy between estrogen and radiation and fatty acids is behind this month's newsletter.
Yeah. I just wanted to talk a little bit more about what you've mentioned just there in terms of energy.
I think most people hearing tonight show there's something I think we want to get across.
There are several points and one of which is the need for metabolic energy in our bodies.
Every organism ultimately is using energy to convert chemicals into other chemicals.
Basically, all the cellular processes require a currency of some kind of energy.
Ultimately, ours is oxidatively burning glucose.
That's the best way of doing it, isn't it?
Yeah. Under stress, we can force our physiology over to burning fat instead of glucose.
That causes several changes.
It produces less carbon dioxide and is likely to produce a lot of breakdown products that can cause inflammation.
The carbon dioxide is useful again.
I think most people listening, if they haven't perhaps heard before,
carbon dioxide, you're very pro-carbon dioxide and actually kind of warning against getting too much oxygen.
I think that's something we think of as being life-giving.
Ultimately, the oxygen is not particularly good for you, is it?
No. Most people have heard about the glycated proteins that people get in diabetes or aging.
They call them the AGE.
Advanced glycation end products?
Yeah. Those stick to certain parts of protein molecules
and it happens that carbon dioxide also has a spontaneous ability to attach to those same groups.
If carbon dioxide is abundant, you can't get glycation because carbon dioxide is protecting that.
There you go.
It's also the higher carbon dioxide in the blood will help you utilize your oxygen better.
I mean, within normal levels. Obviously, if you have too high of a level, carbon dioxide will probably cause problems.
Yeah. It delivers oxygen to the cell.
So, still stressing the importance of oxygen.
It's just a higher carbon dioxide will allow the cells to absorb more oxygen.
Yeah. For example, in the brain, in proportion to how much glucose you're oxidizing
and how much carbon dioxide you're producing, it not only releases the oxygen from the hemoglobin
so it can get into the cell, but it relaxes the blood vessels so that more blood brings oxygen.
That's a general feature of carbon dioxide. It tends to relax things.
So, when our metabolism is working healthily, then we will be burning sugar for fuel and not fat.
Under stressful situations, we burn fat.
If that fat is a polyunsaturated fatty acid from nut and seed oils, then it becomes quite a stress on the system.
Yeah. It happens that starvation or radiation or estrogen will all shift oxidation from sugar to fat.
Right. Which is why fasting, again, is not a good thing to do, is it?
You don't advocate fasting, even though I think a lot of people or new age groups or cultures
will say that fasting is a fairly important part of a yearly process.
Yeah. One of the special problems of fasting, if you've been eating polyunsaturated fats in the past,
is that it gives you a pure diet of polyunsaturated fat with a terrific amount of oxidation byproducts
that go into a starvation state.
Yeah. Okay. That's the whole point of it.
You're going to metabolize the fats that you have rather than the sugars during fasting.
And all those free fatty acids that are liberated are going to be very damaging.
Yeah. They specifically spoil the ability of the enzymes to produce energy from anything, especially from sugar.
And the failure to produce energy is almost exactly the definition of stress.
Anything that makes you lack energy is stress.
It turns on the whole system of responses to stress.
Okay. Doesn't the body go into stress after eight hours of not eating?
If you've got a tremendously efficient liver, some people can go much longer than that.
But as your liver gets less efficient, many people can only go an hour or even less without suffering the symptoms of starvation.
Some people wake up every one or two hours during the night with nightmares or a pounding heart,
which happens when the liver runs out of its sugar supply.
Okay. So getting back to not losing the thread of the metabolic energy point behind Alzheimer's,
would you open that up a little bit and explain why this energy failure leads or is in part responsible for Alzheimer's?
Well, the features that people consider to define Alzheimer's in the last 10 or 20 years have been the amyloid plaques
and the neurofibril tangles.
And it happens that the folding of these proteins that form amyloid fibrils,
the folding is intensified by free fatty acids if they're polyunsaturated.
And those are released into the bloodstream when your liver runs out of sugar, basically, or you're starving.
Yeah. And so chronic starvation and chronic exposure to polyunsaturated free fatty acids.
Or chronic exposure to stress.
Yeah. That's a major factor in creating the amyloid. And the amyloid has sort of a chain reaction effect,
creating the tangles and the phosphorylation of tau protein and the whole structural change that they identify as
typical of the Alzheimer's brain.
Any injury to any tissue anywhere in the body happens to activate the enzyme which creates estrogen.
It's like when you injure a tree, it causes sprouting by turning on hormones in response to the injury.
That's how estrogen works.
Many enzymes get turned on, but especially aromatase, which is the basic former of estrogen itself.
And so in stress or any injury, aromatase appears and begins making estrogen right inside the tissue.
And that happens in the Alzheimer's brain.
You mentioned also that for people that are listening that are not scientific perhaps,
the mitochondria, you've mentioned these in the past, and for people that aren't particularly scientific,
these are the kind of factories, if you like, of energy production within the cell.
And every cell has mitochondria. And these are also damaged by estrogen.
Yeah, and not only is estrogen damaging them in at least six or eight different ways,
it shifts from the ability to oxidize glucose.
It impairs the very enzyme that uses oxygen several different places in the mitochondria.
But besides poisoning the energy, it also blocks the ability to turn cholesterol into steroid hormones.
The brain is one of our biggest steroid-forming glands in the body.
And its concentration of steroids, progesterone, DHEA, and pregnenolone, especially DHEA and progesterone,
is about ten times higher than in the bloodstream.
It's probably the largest consumer of oxygen as well, right?
Yeah, and the production of these neurosteroids is one of the major uses of oxygen.
So testosterone is produced in the brain as well as absorbed from what's circulating in the blood.
And when the brain is injured, besides not making these hormones as effectively as it should
because of the damaged mitochondria, the aromatase enzyme begins turning testosterone into estrogen.
And last month we talked about how the electromagnetic field exposure lowers testosterone.
Any injury does that, ionizing radiation, concussion, starvation, whatever.
And these poofers you're saying are also another...
Yeah, and so as the testosterone goes down, the estrogen is going up.
And that causes other hormones.
The brain is a source of signals to the other glands in the body.
The gonadotropic hormones, FSH and LH, regulate the ovaries and testicles.
So basically we can look at estrogen as just a very big player in mediating inflammation
and causing a lot of inflammation.
And it basically would be lumped together with prostaglandins,
and estrogen would be the opposite of what testosterone and progesterone does in the healthy brain.
Yeah, in many ways, probably dozens of different ways.
I don't think people consider estrogen to be such an inflammatory mediator.
I think we consider estrogen to just be a normal hormone like progesterone and testosterone,
but actually they're contradicting each other constantly, male and female bodies.
Yeah, that's because the estrogen industry has done such a good advertising job for it.
And when you're exposed to radiation, whether it be from x-rays
or whether it be from satellites and cell phones,
it all increases your estrogen, which then blocks the testosterone in men and the progesterone in women
and causes a cascade of inflammation.
And it's now generally and widely accepted that the Alzheimer's brain is inflamed,
but they don't like to talk about the connection between the inflammation
and the high estrogen production in the brain and the loss of progesterone and testosterone.
Okay, you're listening to Ask Your Ob Doctor on KMU DeGalbraithville, 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 dementia and progesterone.
And again, we're very pleased to welcome Dr. Raymond Peat to the show,
who's basically giving us the byproduct of his research and his latest newsletter, Dementia and Progesterone.
Okay, so to carry on with Alzheimer's, given that that is the topic of this show,
the amyloid and the neurofibril tangles that you've mentioned are diagnostic in the brain.
The best things in terms of energy production and/or protection, what have you found is probably the most important?
It's hard to say what's most important because there are so many things working together,
and each person has their own angle on the problem metabolically.
But keeping your exposure to the polyunsaturated fats as low as possible,
keeping the endotoxin exposure low, and avoiding excess iron retention
because all of the inflammatory things following from estrogen and serotonin overexposure,
it causes the release of iron from the breakdown of the hemoglobin molecule.
And the iron is a catalyst to the lipid peroxidation that is exaggeratedly high in demented brains.
That brings me on to you talk about lipid peroxidation byproducts.
You mentioned a compound, which I did take some time to look up, and maybe we'll talk about that in a little bit.
Acrolein is being 10 to 100 times more potent than some of the other lipid byproducts that you've mentioned in the past from fish oil.
So talk a little bit about acrolein and how damaging that is.
It's a very tiny fragment that comes mainly from the omega-3 fatty acids.
Right, and they're in fish oil.
I think because it's so small and chemically active, it has greater effect by many times than the longer chain aldehydes and oxygens.
It's much more potent at catalyzing the reactions, though, and apparently it lasts a lot longer.
Yeah, and the fact that it comes from the oils that are being proposed as even cures and treatments for Alzheimer's disease,
fish oil supplements and other omega-3 fats are the main sources of acrolein.
Okay. All right, I think we're just trying to get rid of some buzzing here, and I think it's some part of the electrical equipment.
Anyway, that's fine. I think we're all okay with that.
So I know you said also that testosterone opposes the effects of estrogen and cortisol.
Yeah, one of the ways testosterone works is to lower the luteinizing hormone, and people are now thinking that this gonadotropin,
a pituitary hormone itself, has a big role in forming Alzheimer's disease. For example, they've created transgenic mice that can't produce any of the LH,
the pituitary hormone, and they are free of Alzheimer's disease, and they're crossed with a strain that is bred to produce dementia.
If they don't have the luteinizing hormone, LH, they don't get demented.
And other mice, similarly, alter genetically so that they have no aromatase enzyme and can't produce estrogen,
when they're crossed with the demented strain, they can age normally without dementia.
And they happen to have twice as much testosterone in their brain as the normal mice that can produce aromatase.
So the estrogen is being produced at the expense of the testosterone,
partly because of the presence of the LH, partly just from the intrinsic injury of radiation or starvation or whatever.
Because even X-ray exposure will increase estrogen and serotonin, and then in turn those will block the effects of testosterone and progesterone.
And any kind of radiation, electromagnetic fields from radio and television and telephones and so on,
or X-rays, dental X-rays, medical X-rays, or still the lingering fallout from the atomic bomb tests of the '50s and early '60s,
probably that's a factor still in the increasing incidence of Alzheimer's disease,
because radiation exposure usually takes at least 10 years and up to 40 years to produce cancer and Alzheimer's disease.
And you were telling us that even though they stopped the atomic bomb testing in 1962 or 1963,
and it only peaked around 1965, all the accumulation of the radioactive isotopes that were in our environment,
you said that there was a large increase in Alzheimer's disease in 1980.
So it seemed to take 15 years to --
Probably other things were happening at the same time that the increasing consumption of polyunsaturated fats has continued through this same period.
Which are the nut and seed oils, just for our listeners, corn oil and cotton seed oil, and a lot of others.
The consumption of milk decreased during this time, and there have been several studies that showed that milk drinkers have less Alzheimer's disease.
And so the declining milk happens to coincide with increasing polyunsaturated fats
and the previous exposure to large amounts of radioactive isotopes that were absorbed into the tissues,
doing their damage when the person was younger.
Now, to bring this around again to the beginning, it's a basic energy deficit in the body,
whether it's poisoning from PUFA or radiation or a byproduct of an increased estrogen in the body.
Or excess iron or bacterial imbalance in the intestines causing an endotoxin.
These things have a fairly common denominator in terms of the thing that you can do.
I know you've been a great proponent of thyroid hormone as well as progesterone.
And the thyroid hormone, the bottom line of that is it's enabling metabolism to be corrected by producing energy more effectively,
allowing the cells to produce energy the way they should.
It increases the cytochrome oxidase enzyme, which is the one that is very sensitive to stress, estrogen, carbon monoxide,
and basically all of the toxins and stresses.
So it has a direct effect on improving and/or increasing that?
Yeah, thyroid is the main thing responsible for increasing it.
It causes the genes to be expressed.
It causes the copper to be absorbed that the enzyme uses as a cofactor.
Light is another major factor because with the stress of metabolism, the copper can get detached from the enzyme.
And the exposure to ordinary visible light, the red long waves of light that will pass right into your brain,
these happen to lift the copper atom just enough to restore its position in the cytochrome enzyme.
So it energizes the copper ion?
The copper is reactivated by the red light that's absorbed in the tissue.
And that research was done about 40 years ago, but just in the last year, a group in the U.S. did memory studies,
and they showed that just shining some red light on the head improves memory.
And right now we're experiencing the lowest light of the entire year, and we'll continue to experience dark days.
Yeah, I think everyone's a little demented in the winter.
Metabolically as well as psychologically.
Well, let's hold that thought for a minute.
I think there's a couple of callers on the line, so we're just coming up to the 730 point.
So let's see if we've got the first caller.
You're on the air?
Hello, you're on the air.
Oh, hi.
Is that me?
It is.
It's your turn.
Go ahead.
Hello, folks.
I'm very much enjoying your talk.
Dr. Peat, I have three very tightly related questions regarding light.
You've written about the importance to health of receiving balanced light, and now I heard you speaking about red light.
I guess I was interested in how many hours a day you consider it healthy to expose oneself to natural daylight,
and during what hours of the day is healthiest.
And I guess the third question would be do you have any exceptions to that or cautionary words for those of us who still have
high polyunsaturated fatty acids stored in our tissues?
I'm going to thank you in advance.
I'll hang up and I'll listen off the air.
Okay, thank you.
The ultraviolet damages cells primarily by interacting with polyunsaturated fats.
A couple of the Weizmann's also interact with ultraviolet light,
but the worst damage is done by the oxidation of unsaturated fats.
And so aspirin is very protective against sunburn.
Progesterone and other things that stop the breakdown of polyunsaturated fats will protect to a great extent against ultraviolet
and sunburn or against ionizing radiation.
You don't want to count on taking aspirin and progesterone.
It's better to avoid the radiation itself.
Don't have your dental x-ray.
Dentists can work on your teeth without x-rays.
They can do root canals without x-rays.
Don't just say it's okay.
You'll have progesterone and aspirin afterwards.
The exposure to red light, if it comes within an hour of the ionizing or ultraviolet exposure,
does something very similar to what it's doing in repairing the energy of the mitochondria and improving the memory and so on.
It stops the electronic excitation that continues causing chain reactions of oxidation of the polyunsaturated fats.
They've given experimental animals killing doses of gamma rays, for example,
but if they shine very bright red light on them in the first hour, they aren't killed.
That's quite incredible.
So what would you recommend as a healthy level at this dark time of the year, especially if you're on the Pacific Northwest?
I don't think we've seen the sun in days.
I think it's best to keep as much incandescent long-wave light on your skin,
as much of your skin as possible for as many hours of the day as possible,
just turning it off for eight or nine hours while you're asleep.
Avoiding the too intense light during the middle of the day in summer is important because of the circulating oxidative products of the polyunsaturated fats
that poison your whole body.
It's the same effect if you x-ray your hand, your brain and ovaries and such will experience an estrogenic effect.
It's not localized.
It doesn't stay just where the x-ray was.
No, they circulate.
Same with sunburn.
You absorb the poisons all through your body if it's too intense and not counteracted by progesterone or aspirin or such.
So depending on the time of year, before 10 or 11 a.m. and after 2 or 3 p.m.?
Yeah, and just enough to get your vitamin D requirement, which is quite a bit, but you don't want to get sunburned.
So if you're burning, it's too much.
Up until the burn point, it's good for you.
You've recommended in the past 250 watt heat lamps as a good source of red light.
Yeah, and even 2 or 3 of those at this time of year, right up until almost bedtime, it's good to have 300 or 500 watts shining pretty much at you.
Yeah, well that free radical quenching effect of the mice is pretty incredible.
Okay, I think we've got two more callers, so let's work our way through these.
Next caller, you're on the air?
Is that me?
Yes, you're on the air.
Hello?
Hello.
Oh, hi, it's Sandy in New Jersey. How are you?
We're doing good. Thanks for joining us.
Hi, Dr. Peat. It's Sandy Soto. I haven't communicated with you in a long time.
I wanted to ask you about -- I've been looking into accelerated learning, and I've been reading also about smart drugs, only because I just happened to come upon that.
And I'm trying to learn some new skills and figure out some ways of increasing my learning ability as well as my intelligence.
And I saw that you had mentioned something about having taken vitamin B1 before a test when you were in university.
So I just wanted to ask you about different ways of increasing intelligence and maximizing learning.
And I can take my answer offline.
Intense effect you can get from the right combination of thyroid, T3, and a big dose of vitamin B1 if the rest of your nutrition is good.
I've told several people to try that over the years, and no one has scored under 800 on the graduate record exam or the other standardized exams where that's considered just about a perfect score.
But when they did it, taking about 100 milligrams at the start, it lets you have access to just about everything you've ever known or thought.
100 milligrams of B1.
Yeah.
There you go.
That's incredible.
And liver is a great source of all your B vitamins.
Yeah, you have to back up your physiology.
Thyroid and B1 can't do it all by itself.
All right, cool.
Okay, so I guess that answers the last person's questions.
I wanted to bring out another interesting point that you brought up, Dr. Peat, and that was it's kind of going back to the non-RNAs and radiation that we were talking about last month, you know, the cell phones,
but also the electromagnetic fields, and you said that there was a study done on sewing machine workers and how they had a three times risk of dementia or Alzheimer's because they were exposed to an electromagnetic field from the motor of the sewing machine.
Yeah, I think that was people who were working eight or ten hours a day for a long time, like in a sweatshop situation.
So even something that people think is harmless like a motor can cause an imbalance in the estrogen and the progesterone levels.
Yeah, and very small fields have been used therapeutically, like an electric clock near the head has been tested on people with Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis.
Very, very small fields can have a beneficial effect in certain circumstances.
Michael Persinger has done some very good neurological studies, and he has a video on YouTube explaining some of the energy levels involved in nerve interactions with electromagnetic fields.
So that was Michael Persinger.
Persinger.
Persinger, okay.
We've got actually two more callers, Dr. Peat, so let's take the next one.
Actually, I'm asking a question for the first one.
He heard you mention that the liquid oils are bad, nut and seed oils.
Could you expound a tiny bit on that?
I guess he's the first time listening.
Okay, so polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are also known as omega-3 and omega-6 oils, are found in all nuts and seeds.
Coconut oil is a very saturated fat, so it does not contain any of these polyunsaturated fats.
So we're talking about hemp seed oil, cotton seed oil, corn oil, safflower, canola, sunflower, sesame, peanut, olive oil is not considered a PUFA, as we like to call them.
It has about 10% PUFA.
It only has 10% PUFA, and the other 90% is monounsaturated.
So if you have just a normal amount in your salad dressing, it's not going to cause too much trouble.
But all these fats, butter and meat fat, all has a tiny bit of PUFA in it.
What percent does that have in it, Dr. Peat?
Two or three percent.
Right, so we will all accumulate PUFAs, even if we eat a completely saturated fat diet.
And what about the high oleic safflower and sunflower, and what is bad about those?
Because they still contain quite a large percentage of the polyunsaturated, even though they say they're higher in the mono, or the oleic acid is also the monounsaturated.
When I was working in the hamster lab at the university, and got interested in the unsaturated fats, I bought a bottle of, I think it was corn oil, and put a rubber tube in the top of it with a rubber stopper, and put the other end in a bottle of water.
And I was doing respiration experiments at the time on tissue with a Barberg apparatus that, as the tissue respired, would suck water up the tube.
And this bottle of corn oil was respiring about as fast as my tissues, sucking water up as it oxidized.
That quickly, yeah.
They're very prone to oxidation and going rancid. Even if they are not rancid before you eat them, they will go rancid inside your body.
And it also includes fish oil.
Okay, fish oil is much more unstable oxidatively than even the ordinary corn oil.
And it's the byproducts of that breakdown that we've mentioned, that you've mentioned, that the acrolein is another very powerful...
Acrolein and all the lipid proxidation, it's very harmful. Free radicals, basically it's causing a massive free radical reaction in your body that can last up to four years, because it takes four years for your body to break down a fat cell.
I know we have another caller on the line, but the other thing I wanted to say is that the high oleic safflower oils, coconut and the hydrogenated, naturally hydrogenated palm oil make great substitutes for the frying oils.
Okay, so let's take this next caller. You're on the air?
Hello.
Hi, you're on the air.
Is that me?
It is.
Yeah, a couple of three questions actually. What about macadamia nut oil?
Okay, let's take it one at a time. Dr. Peat?
I can hardly hear you guys.
I think it's not so bad. It's more like olive oil. I can really hardly hear you.
Okay, it's higher in the monounsaturated, higher in oleic acid than the other nut and seed oils. So that is the one nut I will eat occasionally, because it doesn't seem to have near as much polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Okay, now I have a question getting back to the beginning of the show, which was the radiation stuff. What happens with computer screens with people?
Well, if they're like the old cathode ray.
Pardon me? I can really hardly hear you.
It depends. The monitors that most people use these days are flat screen monitors. They're not the cathode ray tubes. And the CRT screens were very, very strong emitters.
We're talking about laptops here, which is kind of like, you know, they're like test screens, like they're like liquid crystals or something.
Sure, yeah. They're not as bad as the CRT screens that people used to stand in front of.
Oh, the old kind of like monitor screens?
Yeah, like the old TVs. They were very bad. The CRTs are flat screens, plasma screens. They don't have the same kind of properties.
After a couple of years of my parents working on those old computer screens, they had to get glasses.
Okay, well, I know. But what do they do to, like, say, what cell phones do and what, you know, I guess, you know, put in your head, I mean, put in your brain or what?
You know, how do computers relate to that?
Like, you know, like laptops.
I don't think you should keep a laptop on your lap.
I can't hear this guy.
He said he doesn't think you should keep a laptop on your lap.
No.
That's one of the responses.
I'm computer illiterate, but I'm also a computer widow because my wife has one and it's like weird because she's on the thing like eight hours a day.
And it gets a little dizzy and it gets a little weird and like forgetful and whatnot.
Like, you can't think, you know, you don't really have your own brain unless it's on the computer.
Okay.
I find that rather frustrating.
And I'm wondering if there's actually any way, like, is there like a detox for computer users?
Don't keep it on your lap and maybe get a detachable keyboard so you're not putting a motor or a battery that's emitting electromagnetic fields on your lap or your body.
Then you can type away because the actual liquid screens, you know, the flat screens, they're not radioactive.
They're not emitting things like a television.
Not like a television.
No.
Okay.
But is there any kind of like, you know, a deprogramming for people that use these things like too much all the time?
A walk in nature.
Yes.
I know that.
I live in a redwood forest.
But I just, you know, I'm frustrated.
A walk on the beach so you're next to the breaking waves.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I forgot my third question, but I love your show and bless your hearts.
Thank you for joining.
Hey, happy New Year.
Yeah, happy Christmas and happy New Year to you too.
Thank you for your call.
Okay.
I think we have another caller on the air, so let's get this next caller.
You're on the air?
Hello, you're on the air?
Hello, yes.
This is David.
Is this the right one?
Yep, you're on the air.
Yes, you know, I was curious if Dr. Peat or either one of you have heard of earthing technology?
Mm-hmm.
Just read an article the other day.
Where you have different maps and different devices that are plugged into the source on the plug-in.
Yeah, I just read an article the other day about earthing and I was fairly, gosh, it pricked my interest for sure.
What was your question?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Well, supposedly, you know, like your last caller was asking about the electromagnetic waves from the computer,
you know, and Dr. Peat has talked about those being harmful.
Supposedly, this earthing technology, I actually have a map that I use when I'm using the computer.
Okay.
And supposedly--
And your feet are bare, aren't they?
--the ground frequency of the earth basically overwhelms any of the electromagnetic waves coming from these devices.
Does that make sense at all?
Yeah, Dr. Peat, have you heard of this grounding technology?
Yeah, the particular thought that they have is that it removes an excess of electrons from the body,
but actually the earth is also a source of electrons.
And I'm fairly sure that there is benefit from having some kind of a more or less direct contact with the earth.
I'm not sure the argument in that book is exactly right, but I think the point is good.
So what do you think about these--
Well, I've used a meter, you know, like been next to a computer, put my hand on a laptop,
and then actually put my hand on the grounding mat,
and it did seem to change the frequency immediately, you know,
back down to a normal frequency more similar to the earth.
So I don't know if it's working or not, but it seems like it could possibly be beneficial.
One thing it does is to prevent the buildup of fields,
and grounding everything in the house is probably a good idea,
but still staying away from the machine as far as possible is the best thing.
And, you know, using like Apple TV, which is obviously, you know, a wireless frequency going through the house,
those things are, I'm assuming, are really bad for us.
Well, it's just adding to our load of non-ionizing radiation.
Okay.
You know, it's just more that you might not need if you can be connected to a wire.
Yes.
I'm not sure it isn't as convenient, though, but I guess our health is more important.
Anyway.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for your call.
You're very welcome.
Okay.
Bye.
Thank you.
So was that the end of the callers?
No.
Okay.
I think we still have another caller.
Let's take this next one.
Hello.
Hi.
You're on the air.
Hi.
I have a question about oils again.
I attended the Weston A. Price Foundation Conference recently.
I don't know if you're familiar with that program.
And kind of the basis of it is fermented cod liver oil plus butter oil together.
And there was also -- so I'd like your thoughts on the fermented cod liver oil.
And there was a speaker who gave evidence about how coconut oil,
being a medium chain fatty acid, prevents and reverses Alzheimer's.
And the dosage was one tablespoon three times a day.
And there was evidence given about how it reversed Alzheimer's.
So I'd like your comments on Weston A. Price, if you're familiar with that work,
and the cod liver oil and the coconut oil for Alzheimer's.
Yeah, the butter is good.
And I think it's better to eat the whole liver rather than just the oil,
because there is a lot of polyunsaturated fat in the oil.
And you'll get the same vitamins in the actual liver rather than in the oil of the liver.
And many more vitamins besides.
You don't get the K, vitamin K, in the liver but not in the oil.
And the B vitamins are not in the oil either that you would get in the liver.
So what do you think about the Weston A. Price protocol?
Well, it's better than most things going around.
Okay. All right. We do have another caller, so let's perhaps rather get into that.
You're on the air?
Hello.
Hi, you're on the air.
I don't know if you're covered or not, but I've recovered dementia with vegetating,
doing juice of cannabis vegetative leaves.
The juice of the leaves?
Yes, I'm doing it up here.
Juicing cannabis leaves in the vegetative stage helps dementia victims.
Have you covered that yet?
No.
Do you know anything about that?
I really can't even hear you, unfortunately.
So I guess I'll just put my question out there if you heard me.
Yeah, we heard your question.
We'll go ahead and answer your question.
Dr. Peat?
Earlier we were talking about avoiding the unsaturated fats,
and the saturated fats help to protect you against even the stored unsaturated fats in your tissues.
So that's one of the things that the coconut oil is doing.
But since the unsaturated fats are poisoning your energy-producing system and blocking the thyroid action,
usually you can notice your metabolic rate speed up when you take a tablespoon of coconut oil.
And that only lasts for an hour or so after a tablespoonful.
So if you do it with each meal, you're getting, in effect, thyroid activation,
which restores your energy production for a while.
So coconut oil and sugar and thyroid are things that help to offset the polyunsaturated fats.
Have you heard anything about what that last caller was mentioning about the juicing vegetative leaves?
I've heard of using the various forms of the cannabis chemicals, but not the leaves.
Okay, all right. Well, we have another caller, so let's get this next caller.
Hello.
Hi, you're on the air.
I just had a quick question for Dr. Peat, and it's a great show.
It's about a heating pad.
You were talking about electromagnetic fields, and my good friend lays on a heating pad.
I wonder if you could answer that, Dr. Peat.
Yeah, definitely that's putting out 60-cycle fields very strong and close to your body.
So it's better to use your heating pad on the bed before you get in, or your electric blanket,
the same, turn it off when you get in bed.
Fields that are closer to our own bodies are more dangerous,
and 60 cycles like we were talking last month is what normal electricity is,
and our body is like 7 to 10, so it's getting pretty close compared to a lot of these higher frequency things.
Okay, I think you have a question.
A caller wanted to know about green tea oil.
Dr. Peat, green tea oil?
I don't know anything about it.
I don't know anything about the oil, but I know that green tea has a lot of antioxidant
and anti-aging compounds like a lot of other caffeinated plants and substances do.
I've actually seen a seed oil from green tea when I was in Korea, but I don't know anything about it.
I didn't know that tea had enough to make an oil, enough fat in it to make an oil.
It's very expensive.
Okay, so maybe it's like rose oil.
I did want to bring up one more point before the end of the show tonight, if we don't have any more callers,
and that is, Dr. Peat, you talked about endotoxin and how that can increase dementia and Alzheimer's,
and I just wanted to bring out that Dr. Andrew Wakefield, when he was studying autistic children,
he noticed that when their diets were cleaned up or they took antibiotics or aspirin,
that they had a reduction in autistic symptoms.
Dr. Peat, are you familiar with his work?
No, but that's consistent with everything else that endotoxin does.
It increases your serotonin exposure.
Serotonin works to increase estrogen, free fatty acids, and so on,
poisoning the mitochondria, and high serotonin is characteristic of autism,
and so cleaning up the intestine, several approaches have done a similar thing for autism,
and anything that lowers the serotonin seems to help autistic.
There are also steroid or drugs such as cyproheptadine and various antiserotonin drugs.
Along with the toxic effects on the intestine of endotoxin,
I should mention that particles that are being increasingly used in our food supplements,
such as titanium dioxide and silica, silicon dioxide,
these particles have been put into animals' noses,
and they find that they go directly to the brain and cause inflammation in the brain.
Similarly, in the intestine, any particle that is ingested can get into the bloodstream
and reach the brain where it can cause inflammation.
And I know you're a big proponent of not eating grains and starchy root vegetables
and instead eating fruit.
Yeah, part of that is because the particles of starch themselves
can get into every compartment of the body, including the brain.
And there's another doctor that uses this for autistic children and diet,
just fruit and honey for all their carbohydrates,
and the children are in much better shape.
Another diet feature that helps with all of the brain problems is in fruit juice.
Orange juice and guava, for example,
are very high in substances that knock out the estrogen-producing enzyme.
They're aromatase inhibitors.
These are apigenin, naringenin, and aspiratin.
And soybeans happen to have a substance that does exactly the opposite called genistein.
So for Christmas, avoid soy and eat oranges instead.
Well, listen, Dr. Peat., I want to stop you there just so I can make sure
that people that are listening can get more information about you.
Thank you so much for joining us and sharing.
I think it's fairly clear, not just from tonight's callers,
but we just want to let you know on the air too that we get so many people writing
from all over the country that have listened to this show being broadcasted on the Internet
that your voice is out there for sure, and we really do appreciate you giving your time for nothing
and coming on the show, being part of it, and opening people's eyes
and hopefully their ears and their minds to different concepts
and things they need to really stand up and take notice of.
So thank you so much for giving your time, Dr. Peat.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, so for listeners who have joined the show, www.rayPeat.com, please go visit his website.
Everything he's got is fully referenced, scientific journal, quality articles.
So please do yourself a favor.
And you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor.
And my name is Sarah Murray.
My name's Andrew Murray.
And we can be reached on 1-800-568-3723.
Okay, thank you so much.
So have a good Christmas and New Year's.
It's going to be 2013, and Comet ISON is on its way.
Sorry, let me correct that number.
Our number is 1-888-WBM-HERB.
I just gave out the Cayman number.
1-888-WBM-HERB for Western Botanical Medicine Herb.
Thank you.
Have a happy Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
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