WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 [Music] 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:14.000 [Music] 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:21.000 [Music] 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:28.000 [Music] 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:35.000 [Music] 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:42.000 [Music] 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:49.000 [Music] 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:56.000 [Music] 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:03.000 [Music] 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:10.000 [Music] 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:17.000 [Music] 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:24.000 [Music] 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:31.000 [Music] 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:38.000 [Music] 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:45.000 [Music] 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:52.000 [Music] 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:59.000 [Music] 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:02.000 Well, welcome to this month's Ask Your Herb Doctor. My name is Andrew Murray. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.000 My name is Sarah Johanneson Murray. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:10.000 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., 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:15.000 we're both licensed medical herbalists who trained in England and graduated there with a degree in herbal medicine. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:22.000 We run a clinic in Garboville where we consult with clients about a wide range of conditions and recommend herbal medicines and dietary advice. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:27.000 So you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor on KMUD Garboville, 91.1 FM, 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:36.000 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 subject, 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:42.000 which is a continuation of a previous topic on nitric oxide and its current trend, 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:47.000 or rather the current trends in nitric oxide that have come around the last year or two, 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:58.000 both in the sports industry, specifically for muscle building, for male performance enhancement, for want of a better phrase, 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.000 and also by the medical community. 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:13.000 But there's a lot of very recent research from 2013 to present 2015 research showing that nitric oxide is actually a very negative product, 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:17.000 even though we do produce it naturally, has some very wide-ranging damaging effects. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:26.000 And Dr. Peat's research on nitric oxide in his newsletter that I think he's going to be producing next month will detail in a lot of detail, 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:33.000 or show in a lot of detail rather, a lot of the research that's supporting what we're going to talk about tonight. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:46.000 So nitric oxide has many implications for many different conditions, from rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes, generalized inflammation, and old age. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:49.000 But there'll be some specifics that we'll bring out in the show. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:58.000 And so for those people that are listening tonight, if you have any of the conditions that are associated with nitric oxide's increase in the body, 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.000 then this will be an interesting show for you. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:04.000 And we'd love you to call in to share your experiences. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:06.000 So Dr. Peat, are you with us? 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:07.000 Yes. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:09.000 Okay. Well, thanks so much for your time again. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:15.000 For those people who perhaps have never heard the show or who perhaps may not have heard of you, 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:20.000 would you just describe your academic and professional background, and then we'll get going on the subject. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:32.000 I did my master's degree in humanities at University of Oregon, and then went back years later in biology for a Ph.D. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:42.000 and intended to study brain biology, but quickly shifted to reproductive aging physiology. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:52.000 So I concentrated on the biochemistry of the steroid hormones in relation to aging largely. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:05:02.000 Okay. So I guess I think I'll just open up the show by just demonstrating some of the things that if people were to search online 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:09.000 and be, for want of a better word, a victim of bad advertising, what they would find out about nitric oxide. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:16.000 Unfortunately, the Internet is rife with lots of untruths and misconceptions, 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:22.000 as well as very genuine and good research to counter some of the accusations. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:30.000 But nitric oxide, what I've seen, its main use, or it's touted for, is to help the immune system. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:35.000 They mention it to be used to regulate blood pressure, to improve sleep. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:41.000 And then there's the things that it's mainly advertised for, which is for endurance and strength, for bodybuilding, 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:49.000 and sexual performance enhancing, and also for helping gastric motility. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:58.000 So Dr. Peat, given that we produce nitric oxide naturally, it doesn't mean to say it's always a good thing. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:01.000 Like adrenaline, too much of that's a bad thing. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:06.000 But given that we produce it naturally, what useful effect does it have? 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:13.000 And why does it have so many negative effects when we get into what it is you know about nitric oxide and why we should avoid it? 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:19.000 And also, why do they tout nitric oxide to be used for all those conditions when it isn't true? 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:22.000 Where are they twisting the truth? 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:38.000 My dissertation in 1972 focused on estrogen, but I saw that the effects of estrogen were indistinguishable from the effects of x-rays, 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:42.000 and aging, and oxygen deprivation. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:52.000 How that works is that it changes the oxidative enzyme function, cytochrome oxidase. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:59.000 And it was known that smog produces nitric oxide. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:04.000 It wasn't known that it occurred naturally in the body until the late '80s. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:15.000 But the effects of nitric oxide in smog were known to inhibit or damage that same respiratory enzyme. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:29.000 And at the time I was studying estrogen, it was known that carbon monoxide and cyanide also blocked the effect of oxygen in the cell. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:41.000 And so no one really thought about what nitric oxide was doing to the cell, except when they were exposed to a lot of smog. 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:46.000 As soon as it was discovered that it was produced in the body, 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:54.000 a series of publications over the next six or seven years up until the late '90s 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:59.000 identified the harm that it did in the various tissues. 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:14.000 For example, several papers clearly showed how inflammation or stress increasing nitric oxide damages the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:24.000 And so it's a major cause of diabetes, regardless of the particular person's history leading to the diabetes. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:29.000 But not only damaging the cells in the pancreas, 00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:35.000 but they were seeing similar damage to every tissue they looked at, 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:45.000 which seemed logical since it was a free radical analogous to cyanide and carbon monoxide in its function in the cell. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:56.000 But then someone noticed that nitric oxide causes vasodilation during arousal and erection. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:03.000 And Viagra came on the scene with a tremendous amount of funding for research. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:05.000 So this is about 15 years ago now, is it? 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:08.000 Yeah, '97 I think it was. 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:09.000 Okay. 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:19.000 And suddenly all of the bad stuff was forgotten and everyone wanted to find out the wonder, 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:25.000 curative effects of the drug that could improve virility. 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:26.000 Right. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:41.000 And very soon after it came out, I started hearing from people who were suffering things such as diabetes from taking the virility pills. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:53.000 And that got me interested in it very, very early after the Viagra came on the market. 00:09:53.000 --> 00:10:00.000 But it was fitting right into the things that I was already interested in. 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:06.000 There's quite a positive association, isn't there, between cardiac arrest and Viagra's use. 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:10.000 I think it's killed quite a few people at this point in time. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:26.000 Well, it's probably killing more people than are being identified because nitric oxide is produced in any stressed cell or tissue. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:33.000 And it decreases the function of the tissue by blocking the energy production. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:47.000 So it creates a vicious circle in the same way too much estrogen can or stress of any sort can start a cycle of energy loss, 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:58.000 increased production of the stress mediators, including nitric oxide, exciting the tissue, 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:03.000 blocking the energy of the tissue and leading the cell to die. 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:12.000 So all these things that they're touting nitric oxide are good for, is there any thread of truth to this, to these statements? 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:21.000 Of the things you mentioned, it actually does one of those things, which is to make muscles grow. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:30.000 But that's one of the things that Szent-Györgyi and Otto Warburg understood 50 years ago. 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:33.000 Is that because of his inflammation? 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:41.000 In the absence of oxygen, life can't do anything but grow and divide. 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:50.000 And so anything that blocks the cytochrome C oxidase, blocking oxidative metabolism, 00:11:50.000 --> 00:12:02.000 tends to stimulate cell division because that's all life can do on the lactic acid producing cycle. 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:22.000 And experiments both with nitric oxide supplement or creating the conditions such as cutting off the blood supply to cause muscle tissue to produce its own excess nitric oxide. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:29.000 They found that it stimulated the multiplication of cells in the muscle. 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:44.000 The satellite cells surrounding the muscle fiber itself multiply under the influence of nitric oxide or simply hypoxia leading to lactic acid production. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:50.000 So it's a very inflammatory process, even though they're describing it as something that is wonderful. 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:56.000 You'll increase your muscles if you take supplements that are precursors for nitric oxide production. 00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:07.000 Yeah, they found that you could cause muscle enlargement and growth just by putting a tourniquet on or if you combined mild exercise with a tourniquet. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:10.000 Because of the oxygen deprivation. 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.000 Yeah, really big muscle growth from injuring it. 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:24.000 But that's the basic thing that cells divide like cancer when they don't have the energy to do what they should do. 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:31.000 So it's a kind of negative response to that stimulation. 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:41.000 Yeah. So anytime you injure a tissue, whether it's in the brain or heart or blood vessel, pancreas, whatever, 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:50.000 there are stem cells, the satellite cells and muscles are probably just the local stem cell, 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.000 which might be replenished from bone marrow, for example. 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.000 But anyway, they function as stem cells. 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:09.000 And so any time a tissue is injured, the lack of oxygen temporarily stimulates multiplication of stem like cells, 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:13.000 which have the potential of regenerating the tissue. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:17.000 So it's a natural process that that would happen to stimulate cell growth, 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:21.000 but they're twisting it and saying that it's something good that it increases muscle growth. 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:28.000 Well, it's always a local, more or less microscopic process when it's natural. 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:34.000 But if you flood the system, hoping to grow all of your muscles bigger, 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:47.000 and you're also providing it to your brain, immune system, gonads, everything is being in effect deprived of oxygen. 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:52.000 So drugs that increase nitric oxide would be classed as carcinogens then? 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.000 In fact, yeah, that's starting to be recognized. 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:04.000 A very basic factor in promoting cancer development, growth and spreading. 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:12.000 Okay, well, you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor on KMED Galbraith 91.1 FM from 7.30 until 8 o'clock this evening. 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:21.000 And you're invited to call in with any questions either related or unrelated to this month's topic of nitrous or nitric oxide and its damaging effects. 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:27.000 And the number here, if you live in the area, is 9233911 or there's an 800 number if you're outside the area, 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:34.000 1-800-KMUD-RAD, that's 1-800-568-3723. 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:42.000 So getting back to some of the things that they say nitric oxide supplements are beneficial for, 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:46.000 and actually it's never the nitric oxide that you get in a capsule or a tablet anyway, is it? 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:51.000 It's the precursor, it's the amino acid precursor that nitric oxide is manufactured from. 00:15:51.000 --> 00:16:01.000 Is there any truth to the vasodilatory, the artery dilating effects that would supposedly help people with blood pressure? 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:04.000 I mean, is that just completely erroneous science too? 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:16.000 Oh, no, it does that. Nitroglycerin was used for a long time to open up heart artery. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:26.000 You do increase the flow of blood by relaxing the arterioles. 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:38.000 The trouble is that if you increase it beyond a temporary dilation, 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:50.000 it's going to start the damaging process of increasing collagen formation and cell multiplication and so on. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:59.000 So you can get a momentary effect from sniffing nitroglycerin, for example. 00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:07.000 But as a chronic thing or a systemic thing, it's not at all good. 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:10.000 In fact, it ages. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:21.000 In a chronic situation, for example, where your intestine is being irritated, irritable bowel syndrome, for example, 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:32.000 or just mild digestive problems, you absorb both nitric oxide and endotoxin. 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:40.000 And these endotoxin increases the production of nitric oxide everywhere. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:53.000 And in the blood vessels, the increased and chronic effect of nitric oxide is to promote thickening and atherosclerosis and hardening of the arteries. 00:17:53.000 --> 00:18:01.000 So, in fact, it's actually going to be worsening the condition you're taking it for if you're taking it for blood pressure or... 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:09.000 Yeah, the momentary effect over minutes or hours can be helpful. 00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:21.000 Like if you have a constricted area, the relaxation locally in that particular artery opens up and lets the blood keep flowing. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:35.000 If when you do that systemically, all you're doing is adding to the chronic inflammation, stress and degeneration of the arteries, heart and all the other organs. 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:43.000 So the body should be producing a little bit of nitric oxide in that constricted artery is what you're saying. 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:52.000 Yes. When you take it, when you have a local like a pinch of an artery, the cells sense that they aren't getting enough oxygen. 00:18:52.000 --> 00:19:02.000 And in reaction to the stress, nitric oxide is produced locally, opens it up, lets the blood through the stress point. 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:13.000 So it's like a local regulatory process and shouldn't ever be a systemic generalized process for treating high blood pressure, for example. 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:16.000 It's like when someone takes nitroglycerin. 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:26.000 Yeah. All it's doing is relieving a momentary pinch in the heart, which could be good, I guess, for the heart. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:43.000 But systemically, for example, one of the things that it does is to increase aldosterone, the adrenal salt regulating steroid that produces inflammation and fibrosis as a side effect. 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:50.000 Okay. Now, aldosterone is also implicated for blood pressure regulation, isn't it? 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:56.000 Yeah. Too much aldosterone and you get high blood pressure. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:04.000 So the side effect of chronic nitric oxide can be exactly the opposite of what they're promoting. 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:11.000 Oh, my goodness. Let me just outline for people that are listening that, and I may be wrong here, 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:23.000 I usually find information and/or have some previous knowledge information that you uncover fairly often to be incomplete or actually not quite correct. 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:36.000 But in terms of nitric oxide production, am I right in thinking that there are three major sites that the endothelia inside the vessel walls is one, 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:48.000 and then a neuronal synthase from nerve cells, and then there's the inducible form. Is that correct or is there any other methods? 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:57.000 Yeah, it's generally the inducible form, which can occur apparently in any cell, including nerves. 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:00.000 In response to inflammation or damage or...? 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.000 Yeah, any stress seems to increase the inducible one. 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:13.000 Because it made me think of a person who I was speaking with earlier who had, amongst other things, 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:20.000 one of the main symptoms that they had was an inflammation of the kidneys, both of them. 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:26.000 They had urethral obstruction, retrograde urinary flow backing up into the kidneys, 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:32.000 producing a chronic or rather an acute kidney inflammation. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:43.000 And what I read in one of the articles, PubMed articles, was that the glomerulus, which is a functional unit of the kidney, 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:54.000 was unique in that the vascular networks have the potential themselves to express several, what they call isoforms of nitric oxide synthase 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:59.000 and can produce quite an amount of this in response to injury. 00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:09.000 And I was wondering, in terms of the realistic inhibition of nitric oxide, I only found two compounds. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:16.000 One of them I found advertised by Sigma Aldrich, which is a fairly big, well it's one of the biggest I think in America, 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:24.000 chemical firms that were charging a lot of money for a 5 mg sample. 00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:31.000 But the other one apparently is almost as effective, but I think it has a slightly different mechanism, 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:34.000 and that was aminoguanidine. 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:43.000 And if you look at that online, it's actually sold as a blocker of the glycation process 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:49.000 whereby sugars and proteins form these glycation end products that are damaging. 00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:58.000 That was its first recognized effect, but it turns out it's achieving that by blocking nitric oxide, 00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:05.000 which leads to the oxidation damage to all of the blood vessels. 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:11.000 So is aminoguanidine as good? Because the other compound, it was, let me see, I have a note of it. 00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:18.000 Yeah, there's another one that's just a variation on aminoguanidine called agmatine, 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:25.000 which is, it occurs in foods, meat, fish, mushrooms, for example. 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:27.000 Would you get enough of this product? 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:32.000 No, it's probably helpful somewhat. 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:40.000 The weightlifters who were using nitric oxide to puff up their muscles heard something about agmatine, 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:47.000 and they started using it, but then the word went around that it's inhibiting nitric oxide, 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:51.000 so I think there's some confusion currently. 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:57.000 Do you think that using aminoguanidine as a competitive inhibitor of nitric oxide 00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:02.000 would be a reasonable approach to a kind of systemic inflammation that you'd find, say, 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:05.000 in rheumatoid arthritis patients? 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:12.000 I think it probably is, but I think there are safer things that have been studied more. 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:19.000 Aminoguanidine has been known chemically for over 100 years, I think, 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:29.000 but it just hasn't been researched as a medical treatment enough that I would feel very confident of that. 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:42.000 The safest inhibitors happen to be niacinamide, which has two or three different routes for inhibiting it. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:52.000 Aspirin, which has two or three at least direct and indirect ways of inhibiting it. 00:24:52.000 --> 00:25:03.000 And progesterone, which is partly acting by blocking estrogen's increase of nitric oxide. 00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:06.000 Interesting, because you mentioned niacinamide, 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:14.000 and this is the compound I remember you talking about most for lowering blood sugar in diabetics 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:19.000 or type 2 diabetic patients. 00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:22.000 It does just about everything protective. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:28.000 It protects nerve cells against nitric oxide's damaging effects. 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:34.000 And one other pretty safe inhibitor is methylene blue. 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:36.000 Okay, yeah. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:42.000 I'm starting to see more of that compound come up on PubMed articles 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:48.000 for quite a few different approaches to disease, but I don't know. 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:56.000 At this point in time, I remember seeing that also as a chemical that was advertised on Sigma Aldrich's website. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:58.000 I don't think it was too expensive either. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:05.000 So methylene blue would certainly be a reasonable approach. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:07.000 If somebody had chronic inflammation, 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:12.000 that would most likely be due to excessive nitric oxide production in that tissue. 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:20.000 Yeah, at first I would try aspirin, niacinamide, and progesterone as the most physiological. 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:25.000 What kind of doses do you think would be a reasonable suggestion 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:30.000 for somebody who wanted to try either niacinamide or aspirin? 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:36.000 Aspirin, if you take vitamin K, is safe up to several grams a day, 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:48.000 but usually with two doses of 500 milligrams, you get pretty good systemic protection. 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:57.000 Vitamin K, incidentally, is in several ways helping to hold down nitric oxide production. 00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:00.000 And then how about niacinamide? 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:03.000 It's probably safe up to 1,000 milligrams a day, 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:13.000 but I've only had experience seeing people take about three or four doses of 125 milligrams each dose. 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:23.000 So a total of 200 to 500 milligrams a day can do really dramatic things for curing nerve degeneration and such. 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:26.000 Okay. All right, we've got our first caller here, 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:29.000 so let's take this first caller and see where we're going with this one. 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:32.000 Caller, you're on the air. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:33.000 Hi, I had a question. 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:35.000 Yeah, go ahead. And where are you from? 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:40.000 Yeah, I just wanted to know if Dr. Peat could briefly discuss what is cystic fibrosis 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:46.000 and some practical strategies for overcoming that condition. 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:53.000 Yeah, I've never worked with anyone that had it, 00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:58.000 except some people suspected they might have it, 00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:02.000 and it turned out they were just very hypothyroid. 00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:13.000 And the function of the adrenals can cause you to leak chloride 00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:19.000 so that you have extreme saltiness of your skin, high chloride content, 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:25.000 and that is often used to diagnose cystic fibrosis. 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:31.000 But just correcting the thyroid and adrenal function, 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:36.000 the people that I've seen turned out not to have cystic fibrosis, 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:41.000 just a bad reaction to low thyroid function. 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:42.000 Okay, thank you. 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.000 Okay, thanks for your call. 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:48.000 Okay, so the number here, if you live in the area, is 923-3911. 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:54.000 If you're outside the area, there's an 800 number, 1-800-568-3723. 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:57.000 Okay, I think we have another caller on the air, so let's take the next caller. 00:28:57.000 --> 00:28:58.000 And where are you from, caller? 00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:00.000 Hi, this is Amy from New York. 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:01.000 Amy from New York. 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:02.000 Welcome to the show. 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:03.000 Thanks. 00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:05.000 Thanks for this excellent show. 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:08.000 I had a couple of questions for Dr. Peat. 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:14.000 I'm studying a breathing method that's supposed to increase carbon dioxide levels, 00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:19.000 and they talk about always breathing through the nose. 00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:24.000 And I was worried a little about whether that would, you know, 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:32.000 increase my nitric oxide levels because you're always breathing through the nose. 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:45.000 No, anything that irritates your membranes will cause -- if you get a runny nose from something you ate, 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:50.000 for example, that increases the nitric oxide in your nose. 00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:58.000 And so you want to avoid inflammatory things in your food or atmosphere 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:06.000 because you do get local and systemic nitric oxide from any inflammatory thing. 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:15.000 But breathing through your nose itself doesn't contribute anything to that local production. 00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:17.000 Okay. 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:22.000 The idea -- the best way when you breathe through your nose, 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:30.000 especially if you have a good long nose, you have better retention of carbon dioxide. 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:37.000 The dead space between the air sac in your lung and the outside world, 00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:46.000 some of the Buteco people breathe through about an eight-inch tube to extend the pathway. 00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:53.000 But the idea of having a good long nose is that that extends the dead space 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:59.000 so that you keep a higher concentration of CO2. 00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:00.000 Okay. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.000 I find snorkeling does this same thing. 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:05.000 It does? 00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:06.000 Snorkeling. 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:07.000 Snorkeling? 00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:11.000 Because you're extending your nose. 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:14.000 Swimming underwater, just holding the breath. 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:20.000 I had one more question for you, but it's off topic. 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:22.000 Go ahead. 00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:27.000 I think that you mentioned that it often takes about four years or even longer 00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:32.000 to get rid of the unsaturated fat stores in the body. 00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:33.000 And also -- 00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:35.000 Well, that's for a complete exchange, 00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.000 but you can see it decrease as soon as you change your diet, 00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:43.000 but it's gradual over a period of years. 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:50.000 Yeah, and we do have a preference to burn saturated fats, I understand, 00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.000 because it's a better -- a cleaner burning fat. 00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:01.000 But you mentioned a study that found that the pigs that wore sweaters, 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:10.000 they ended up with larger stores of saturated fats than the pigs that weren't wearing sweaters. 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.000 Yeah, a biochemist actually did that, 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:24.000 and it's just a demonstration that the production of unsaturated fats is a defense against cold 00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:28.000 because saturated fats harden at low temperature. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:37.000 And so if you grow corn or soybeans in the tropics where it's always 85 to 95 degrees, 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:40.000 they'll produce fairly saturated fats. 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:49.000 And fish in the Amazon River have close to the saturation of butter in their fat. 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:56.000 But do you think that that's a viable strategy for people, for example, in cold climates, 00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:04.000 that they want to lose as much of their stored unsaturated fats as quickly as they can? 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:07.000 Would that be a safe way to -- 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:14.000 Keeping your arms and legs warm is very important for your systemic metabolism, 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:26.000 but the pig fat was basically deriving from a starting corn or soy fat, 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:29.000 and the pigs, if they're cold, 00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:40.000 extend it to make the highly unsaturated long chain with five or six unsaturated bonds rather than two or three. 00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:50.000 And so when you synthesize unsaturated fats from sugar or starch, 00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:58.000 they're going to be pretty safe omega minus nine fats based on the mead acid, 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:05.000 which are much less unstable than the fish oil type. 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:06.000 I see. 00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:12.000 So it changed what was stored, the new stored fat, 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:20.000 but it didn't change the fat burning preference on the existing fat stores? 00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:29.000 Keeping your body temperature up does help you oxidize fat safely. 00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:35.000 And when you said that about the cold pigs having much worse fat stored, 00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:43.000 it reminds me of -- have you heard of this brown fat and these guys that they go into freezers 00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:50.000 and take cold showers and things and they try to increase their stores of brown fat? 00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:57.000 And the reason they do that is it burns off all of their white fat. 00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:07.000 Yeah, I think keeping your thyroid function up is better because the cold activates a variety of stress hormones 00:35:07.000 --> 00:35:15.000 that cause some side effects besides just getting rid of the fat. 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:25.000 So to oxidize your fats while at rest by having a good resting metabolic rate 00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:30.000 and high body temperature is the safest way to handle them 00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:36.000 rather than increase the stress to increase the fat burning. 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:40.000 Okay. Well, thank you very much. 00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:41.000 You're welcome. 00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:43.000 I think we have another caller on the line. 00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:47.000 Let's take this next caller and find out where you're from, caller. 00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:49.000 Hi, I'm from Madison, Wisconsin. 00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:53.000 Okay, welcome to the show. What's your question? 00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:57.000 My first question was that I've been taking T4. 00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:03.000 It's working really well for me, but I get some eye pain sometimes in the process of titrating it. 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:06.000 Say that again. I didn't hear that part. 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:12.000 Oh, I get some eye pain in the process of titrating T4. 00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:14.000 Some eye-- I didn't hear that. 00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:15.000 Eye pain. 00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:18.000 Oh, you're saying you got some eye pain. 00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:20.000 Yeah, I'm sorry about that. 00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:27.000 Okay. So what was your question, whether or not that was normal or whether that was-- 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:31.000 Yeah, if it's just a normal part of the titration process. 00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:35.000 Now, when you say titration, do you mean you've just taken small doses, 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:38.000 gradually increasing the dose or-- 00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:43.000 Yeah, I started on probably like 7 micrograms. 00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:44.000 Okay. 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:47.000 And I'll go from 7 and then up to 12, and I responded really well to it, 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:49.000 but it seems like I get a little bit of eye pain. 00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:53.000 Now, this is-- we're talking about T3 now. 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:54.000 Oh, I'm sorry, T4. 00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:56.000 T4, I beg your pardon. Okay. 00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:01.000 So, Dr. Peat, as a very small amount of T4, 00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:08.000 the caller is asking whether or not you've ever heard of any relationship to eye pain. 00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:11.000 No, I haven't. 00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:17.000 But I would back off on the T4. 00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:22.000 If your liver isn't effectively converting it to T3, 00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:29.000 it can have an antithyroid effect by accumulating, turning off your pituitary, 00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:36.000 and your liver normally is where you get most of your active thyroid hormone. 00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:43.000 So if your liver isn't doing that, you can accumulate so much T4, 00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:48.000 it has stress-activating actions. 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:53.000 Do you think it would be better for this person if they wanted to try the active hormone? 00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:00.000 Yeah, I think it's always better to use the combination in the traditional way, 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:06.000 or if you're for some reason in a hurry or think you have a very bad liver, 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:14.000 then small amounts of the active T3 can be done safely. 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:18.000 So you have a lot of problems with doctors prescribing that T4, 00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:22.000 is that when someone is low thyroid and they take T4, 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:26.000 their livers usually aren't active enough to convert the T4 into the active, 00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:30.000 because T4 on its own doesn't have any action at all, doesn't do anything. 00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:32.000 It has to be converted to T3. 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:36.000 And if you take enough T4, you're going to turn off your brain's production 00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:43.000 of stimulating the thyroid gland, which naturally produces about one part T3 to four parts T4. 00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:49.000 So that's why taking a natural glandular ratio of one to four of T3 to T4 00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:51.000 is what Dr. Peat's recommending. 00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:57.000 In the 1940s when drug companies synthesized thyroxine, 00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:03.000 they tested it on male medical students and said it worked just like real thyroid. 00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:05.000 That's T4, thyroxine. 00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:06.000 Yeah, T4. 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:15.000 But the thing is that women with high estrogen compared to men always have more sluggish liver, 00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:26.000 and women are the ones who, especially the 25-year-old medical students, seldom have liver problems. 00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:33.000 But a 40-year-old female very often has a more sluggish liver, 00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:41.000 so that thyroxine or T4 is very often causing problems in women. 00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:47.000 Right, because the estrogen they are subject to at that age has that competitive inhibition. 00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:53.000 And actually, the T4 can make people's problems, low thyroid people's problems even worse 00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:55.000 if they don't convert it into T3. 00:39:55.000 --> 00:39:59.000 It actually increases adrenaline and makes a person feel worse than they did before they took it. 00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:05.000 And one of the effects of good thyroid function is to lower nitric oxide. 00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:15.000 Nitric oxide, contrary to the advertising, can increase pressure inside your eye. 00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:27.000 And so hypothyroidism can create enough nitric oxide to cause symptoms such as hardening of the eye, increasing pressure. 00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:38.000 That's interesting. So I was wondering, like, maybe I was switching over from cortisol to thyroid, 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:45.000 and maybe my eye was running low on energy or something. 00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:47.000 I couldn't understand it. 00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:53.000 The caller said that he was switching, he was coming off of cortisol and trying to go on to thyroid, 00:40:53.000 --> 00:40:56.000 and he was wondering if his eye was running out of energy. 00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:01.000 Well, cortisol increases the pressure in the eye. 00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:17.000 So it's possible that you were still producing too much cortisol relative to the protective pregnenolone, progesterone and such. 00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:22.000 Okay, interesting. I had another question. Is that okay? 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:25.000 Yeah, go ahead. 00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:32.000 I was wondering what percentage of popular lab tests are fraudulent or useless. 00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:40.000 I had a TSH test done, and I was taking thyroid, and I stopped for like a week before the test. 00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.000 And my doctor said that my TSH was normal, but when I went off the thyroid, 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:49.000 I started getting, like, oils on my scalp and other problems. 00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:55.000 And I was curious how many of the tests out there kind of don't have very much value. 00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:08.000 Well, I think the main problem is that doctors are taught that the TSH normal range is something like 0.4 to 5.0, 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:19.000 but that number has been decreasing. The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists has lowered it to 0.3 to 3.0. 00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:28.000 And a population of healthy people without thyroid cancer or other thyroid problems, 00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:37.000 they averaged 0.4 TSH or less without taking a thyroid supplement. 00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:42.000 Meaning that if you're anything over 1 or 1.5 or getting anywhere closer to 2, 00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:47.000 you definitely seem like you would benefit from using the hormone. 00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:52.000 Yeah, I think I was like at 3.7 or something. 00:42:52.000 --> 00:43:02.000 Yeah. That would be outside of the range according to the lowered revised figures that have been issued. 00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:07.000 And isn't it correct, Dr. Peat, that while someone might be taking T4 and not really converting it much to T3, 00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:10.000 their TSH would still lower? 00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:13.000 Yeah, and the stress hormones will lower it, too. 00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:21.000 So you can't really diagnose anything by TSH alone, even though that's how most doctors do it. 00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:26.000 Especially when someone who's low thyroid, they're usually running on excess adrenaline, 00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:33.000 and if excess adrenaline will lower the TSH and give you a false positive or false negative. 00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:42.000 And high cortisol lowers it and also at the same time causes the liver to turn thyroxine into reverse T3, 00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:49.000 which interferes even more than thyroxine with the active T3 function. 00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:55.000 It blocks the real T3 from actually doing anything. 00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:56.000 Okay. 00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:58.000 That's interesting. 00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:00.000 All right. Well, thank you. 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:03.000 Do you have anything else to say? I'm sorry. I'm going to cut you off. 00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:07.000 Oh, well, are his books still available? 00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:09.000 Dr. Peat? 00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:19.000 They have been converted to electronic form, and we're going to figure out how to make them available fairly soon electronically. 00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:21.000 Okay, great. 00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:26.000 Well, I just wanted to say thank you very much, Dr. Peat, and also thank you, our doctors, very much. 00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:27.000 I appreciate it a lot. 00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:28.000 You're very welcome. 00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:30.000 You're welcome. Thank you for your call. 00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:34.000 Okay. So I asked the engineer, do we have anyone else on hold at the moment? 00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:35.000 No? Okay. 00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:41.000 So the number here, if you live in the area, is 923-3911, or if you're outside the area and want to use a toll-free number, 00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:45.000 that's 1-800-568-3723. 00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:54.000 We're talking with Dr. Raymond Peat today about nitric oxide and its popular use for bodybuilding and for male enhancement, 00:44:54.000 --> 00:45:01.000 amongst other things, and how damaging nitric oxide is and how much information and research there is to show that, 00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:05.000 actually, it's probably more carcinogenic than anything else. 00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:14.000 Talking along the lines of a carcinogen, I saw articles that were demonstrating that nitric oxide was responsible for damaging DNA, 00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:18.000 and that's how they could directly implicate it in being a carcinogen. 00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:35.000 Yeah. Just several years ago, radiation biologists were seeing that cells which were hit by X-rays or gamma rays emitted something 00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:40.000 which would cause apparent radiation damage in the neighborhood. 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:49.000 So you could take the irradiated cells out of the culture dish, put new cells in, and they acted as if they had been irradiated. 00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:56.000 And nitric oxide has turned out to be a major transmitter of that effect. 00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:59.000 So it's like you're being irradiated. 00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:06.000 You do produce a lot of nitric oxide, and it spreads to adjoining cells. 00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:13.000 So anything that starts the inflammation tends to spread the nitric oxide, 00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:21.000 which not only breaks the strands of DNA, but it also changes the methylation. 00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:33.000 So the whole control system for expressing DNA in your chromosomes is altered under chronic excessive nitric oxide. 00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:36.000 Okay. Hold it there a moment, Dr. Peat, because the light's flashing away. 00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:39.000 I think we've got one person on hold and another caller coming in. 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:43.000 So let's start by taking this next caller. And, caller, where are you from? 00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:44.000 Say that again now? 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:46.000 Where are you from, caller? 00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:47.000 The what? 00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:49.000 Where are you calling from? 00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:50.000 Eureka. 00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:52.000 Eureka. Go ahead. What's your question? 00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:02.000 I've just probably covered this before, but I wanted to know what alternative to blood pressure medicines. 00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:04.000 Okay. 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:14.000 If you look at the symptoms of chronic hypothyroidism, hypertension is one of the prominent things. 00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:23.000 A very large proportion of the people who think they have a high blood pressure problem are simply hypothyroid. 00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:38.000 TSH itself, which rises when you're hypothyroid, even within the normal range, it's increasing your various stress hormones and increasing your blood pressure. 00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:45.000 So TSH is a pro-inflammatory factor and one of the factors causing hypertension. 00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:50.000 So you want to keep that low just for general health. 00:47:50.000 --> 00:48:02.000 So, caller, you could ask your doctor for a test of TSH, and if it's above 0.4, then perhaps you can think about taking a thyroid supplement. 00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:06.000 Okay. I think we have another caller on the line, so let's take this next caller. 00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:07.000 Caller, where are you from? 00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:08.000 Is that I? 00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:10.000 Hi. You're on the air. Where are you from? 00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:11.000 Garberville. 00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:13.000 Garberville. Go ahead. What's your question? 00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:17.000 I wanted to know the name of your practice and the telephone number. 00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:20.000 Oh, okay. Well, let's give that out at the end of the show. 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:23.000 Oh, you won't be giving it out until the end of the show? 00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:26.000 Yeah, let's not spend the time on that now. We'll wait until the end of the show. 00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:27.000 All right. I'll hang on. Thank you. 00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:31.000 Okay. Thank you. So I don't know if there's anybody else on the line. 00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:41.000 Oh, we did have one person call in and ask just not to be on the air, but about COPD. He was diagnosed and had just any information. 00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:49.000 All right. Dr. Peat, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. There was a caller who left a message with the engineer. 00:48:49.000 --> 00:49:01.000 As an inflammatory or a fibrotic or fibrous type inflammation, how do you see that, the etiology of it or the treatment? 00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:15.000 I've known several people who have it. One of my friends who was in his 80s, when I visited him in Toluca, 8,500 feet altitude, 00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:27.000 he was blue in the face and just panting, sitting down, and didn't recognize me. His brain wasn't getting enough oxygen. 00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:37.000 I gave his daughter some pregnenolone, progesterone, and thyroid to give to him a little bit every day. 00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:54.000 When I came back two weeks later, he was back at work in his upper floor office without an elevator and took me around the city making me pant. 00:49:54.000 --> 00:50:01.000 Just a dramatic improvement in oxygen absorption in his lungs. 00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:11.000 Is that how you would see that plausibly being a mechanism by which someone could regain their breath again? 00:50:11.000 --> 00:50:29.000 Yes. High estrogen and nitric oxide are two things that can cause a leakage of fluid into the air sacs and a thickening of the pathway between the air and the capillary 00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:40.000 so that the oxygen has to pass through such a thick layer. It just isn't getting to the blood at a high enough concentration. 00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:50.000 Pregnenolone alone seems to sometimes very quickly improve oxygenation. 00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:59.000 What would be a good recommended starting dose for pregnenolone and progesterone and thyroid for someone with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease? 00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:08.000 With thyroid, you want to start very slowly because it increases your need for oxygen as well as improving the lung function. 00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:14.000 So it's good to start with pregnenolone, I think, which doesn't have any hormonal effect. 00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:20.000 It does help to prevent edema and swelling of the membranes. 00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:25.000 The dose of pregnenolone doesn't really matter. 00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:31.000 You just don't want to take such a big dose that you're getting additives and contaminants. 00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:45.000 So 15, 20, 30 milligrams is often a therapeutic dose, but it's okay to take 100 or 300 milligrams if you know the stuff is clean. 00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:52.000 With progesterone, same thing, 10 to 30 milligrams can make a big difference. 00:51:52.000 --> 00:52:06.000 I wanted to ask you the question about the relationship between antibiotics and not the latest and greatest antibiotics, but specifically minocycline. 00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:18.000 I saw some articles on PubMed again demonstrating that it lowered the inducible form of nitric oxide and cytokines that are pro-inflammatory. 00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:20.000 What do you think about minocycline? 00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:29.000 For several years, it's been recognized as a helpful factor for Alzheimer's disease and other brain problems. 00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:32.000 Is that just because it's blocking the endotoxin production? 00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:35.000 It blocks the nitric oxide production. 00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:38.000 Directly blocking the nitric oxide production? 00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:43.000 Yeah, directly blocks the enzyme the way niacinamide does. 00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:45.000 Wow. 00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:53.000 Okay, and then I saw another article again for another old-fashioned antibiotic, tetracycline. 00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:56.000 What do you know about tetracycline? 00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:02.000 It's in the same family, doxycycline, tetracycline, and minocycline. 00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:11.000 Tetracycline, the only problem with it is that it's too cheap, so doctors are not educated to... 00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:18.000 So I wonder if cascara would have a similar effect because it has anthraconones that are very similar to the tetracycline. 00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:24.000 Yeah, I think that structure is what's happening. 00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:29.000 We have another caller on the air here, so let's take this next caller call away from. 00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:31.000 Uh, Ukiah? 00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:33.000 Ukiah, hi. What's your question? 00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:38.000 I was wondering if you guys could talk about the human growth hormone at all. 00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:41.000 Okay, in relation to anything particular? 00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:47.000 Well, some of my friends were talking about it because they do weightlifting. 00:53:47.000 --> 00:53:51.000 They were talking about it's a good thing to build your muscles. 00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:54.000 Yeah, same problem with nitric oxide, I think. 00:53:54.000 --> 00:54:00.000 So, Dr. Peat, what do you have to say to somebody who's using growth hormone? 00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:09.000 Well, you have the same problems that you get from nitric oxide or estrogen. 00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:19.000 Women, surprisingly, chronically during the reproductive years have a high growth hormone chronically, 00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:27.000 and the growth hormone causes a breakdown of fat into free fatty acids. 00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:35.000 So women, under the influence of estrogen, typically have a chronic exposure to free fatty acids, 00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:42.000 which is if they're unsaturated, increases oxidative damage. 00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:50.000 And that's just a standard function of growth hormone is to raise your free fatty acids. 00:54:50.000 --> 00:55:01.000 And that's probably why they see an increase thickness in the wall of blood vessels in the kidneys, 00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:11.000 causing a progressive loss of kidney function from over exposure or chronic high exposure to growth hormone, 00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:20.000 and suspicion that it increases the risk of diabetes, which free fatty acids are known to cause. 00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:22.000 So it's very inflammatory. 00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:27.000 Yeah, I think most of the, it's unfortunate, but it's like another cult. 00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:33.000 And unfortunately, males are a little bit seduced by the potential of growing bigger muscles 00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:36.000 using anabolic steroids and other compounds. 00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:41.000 And so obviously growth hormone, again, is advertised very widely in bodybuilding magazines. 00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:43.000 What does anabolic mean? 00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:45.000 Muscle building. 00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:48.000 So it's the opposite of catabolism, which is muscle breakdown. 00:55:48.000 --> 00:55:57.000 But it's unfortunate that most muscle bodybuilding magazines are reasonably rife with products 00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:02.000 that I know would not be founded on science to be beneficial for you. 00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:04.000 That's unfortunate. 00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:09.000 And also the supplements that are touted to increase nitric oxide, people want to avoid those, 00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:11.000 like arginine and... 00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:12.000 Citrulline. 00:56:12.000 --> 00:56:13.000 Citrulline. 00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:17.000 Okay, we probably need to wrap up the show this evening anyway. 00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:19.000 Thanks for all the callers that have called in. 00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:23.000 Dr. Peat, as always, thanks so much for your time and your dedication. 00:56:23.000 --> 00:56:26.000 I really appreciate you joining us on the show. 00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:27.000 Okay, thank you. 00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:32.000 Okay, so I'll just spend the next couple of moments letting people know how they can get information 00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:39.000 from the website, either Dr. Peat's research articles or I think that one person there was talking about a book. 00:56:39.000 --> 00:56:47.000 And I know that he said that recently here they've turned to an electronic form of the couple of books that he has written for sure. 00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:57.000 So his website is www.raypeat.com, R-A-Y-P-E-A-T, and he has lots of articles there that are fully referenced. 00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:00.000 And then the caller did call in about us. 00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:07.000 So, yeah, our business name is Western Botanical Medicine, and we have an 800 number. 00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:08.000 Sarah? 00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:11.000 1-888-WBM-ERB. 00:57:11.000 --> 00:57:13.000 Okay, I didn't know if you wanted to say that or not. 00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:19.000 Anyway, so we can be reached, you know, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday after the show. 00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:24.000 So until the next month, next -- third Friday of next month, I wish you a good night. 00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:30.000 It will be more like fall next month. It will be dark when we arrive at the studio at 7 o'clock. 00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:38.000 And so as we wind our way into a gentle winter without any rain at this point, I wish you the very best, 00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:41.000 and happy Halloween for that coming up here about in a week or so. 00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:43.000 Thank you for listening. 00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:44.000 Good night. 00:57:44.000 --> 00:58:03.000 [Music] 00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:06.000 All right, it's 7:58. 00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:08.000 You just heard the ERB Doctor. 00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:16.000 That's on KMUD, Garboville 91.1, KMUE, Eureka 88.1, KLAI, Laytonville 90.3, Schilt, DeKoe, you're at 99.5, 00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:18.000 and everyone else at kmud.org. 00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:24.000 Support for KMUD comes from SolarWinds, Northern Lights, Inc., a licensed, insured, bonded contractor 00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:29.000 specializing in the design, installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of battery-based and grid-tied 00:58:29.000 --> 00:58:34.000 solar electric systems and complete electrical services for homes, homesteads, and agriculture. 00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:43.000 More information is available from Chris, 498-2804, or online at solarwindsnorthernlights.com. 00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:48.000 And also, support for KMUD comes from the Inn of the Lost Coast and Shelter Cove, with fireplace, spa, 00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:53.000 and sauna suites overlooking the ocean and views of migrating California gray whales. 00:58:53.000 --> 00:58:56.000 Fish Tank, Espresso, and Delgada Pizza and Bakery are open daily. 00:58:56.000 --> 00:59:03.000 More information available at 986-7521 or online at innofthelostcoast.com. 00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:06.000 Alright, 759. 00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:12.000 Be going into winging a prayer, maybe like a minute early. Here we go. 00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:20.000 [Music] 00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:30.000 [Music] 00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:56.000 [Music]