[Music]
Welcome to Ask Your Herb Doctor. My name is Andrew Murray. My name is Sarah
Johanneson Murray. We both trained in England and graduated there with a
degree in herbal medicine and clients consult with us regarding their health
issues and we recommend personalized advice in nutrition, supplements, herbs,
diet, lifestyle. We can be reached toll-free at 1-888-WBM-HERB or on the
web at www.westernbotanicalmedicine.com. So on tonight's show we're very welcome
again to have Dr. Raymond Peat joining us to give us the answers to his wisdom,
from his wisdom, explaining those things that perhaps not what we normally would
hear in the mainstream, almost certainly not what we would hear in the mainstream,
but nonetheless very well researched, plenty of information there that people
can also look at after the show either by visiting Dr. Peat's website at
www.raypeat.com. Plenty of articles fully referenced and like I said most of the
subjects there will have advice and research that you probably would not
have heard of elsewhere. So we're always very pleased to have Dr. Peat on the
show. Thanks for your time Dr. Peat. For people who perhaps have never heard you
or listened to the show, would you give people your background, your academic
and professional background before we get into the subject? After getting
a master's degree in humanities at University of Oregon, I came back in 1968
to 72 for a biology PhD concentrating on reproductive physiology. The
hormones involved in reproduction are involved in everything relating to life
and brain development was one of my second themes of research. So brain
development, aging and the hormones involved in that gradual decline
in good health. Okay so just for people that are listening to the show that we
will be taking calls from 7.30 till the end of the show either related to this
month's continuing topic of nitric
oxide. I wanted to get a little bit into the subject of iodine as an opener for
the show for people thinking about supplementing with iodine and also open
up a little bit about the Zika virus that's really catching media attention
here. I know there's certain, what do you want to say, authoritative reasons for it and
there are other supposedly conspiracy theories that we can call them
conspiracies but I think some of the merits of the conspiracies are worth
picking up and exploring. Anyway so if you live here in the area
the number is 1-800-KMUD-RAD or 923-3911. Again that 800 number, we do get
people from all over the States calling so that 800 number, let me just spell
that out for you, that's 1-800-568-3723. So Dr. Peat I was looking today and I
guess what's prompted it really is hearing the advice of people touting a
product called nascent iodine and I know that you specialize in thyroid hormone
and that iodine is definitely a key component of thyroid hormone and I think
we've always been led to believe that there has been an adequate supply of
iodine in the diet and then they produce iodized salt back in the 50s or 60s
perhaps earlier or not I'm not too sure but iodized salt has been around and
seafood also contains a lot of iodine in its own right so when I heard about this
product called nascent iodine they were saying that it was essentially not the
stable so stable ionic form and was more available was more readily taken up by
the thyroid gland and then I read some other articles about nascent iodine and
how reactive it was and I just wanted to feel you out what you what you know
about the thyroid's natural need for iodine whether or not we are deficient
and whether or not we need supplementation and if in fact this is
something actually that may not be necessary. In the 1980s I was looking
into the iodine nutrition question because I saw some women with breast
disease who recovered quickly when they took supplements of kelp or thyroid
hormone and the safest thing I think it is to correct the thyroid
problem directly rather than counting on big doses of iodine because the large
doses over many years for example there are about 70 or more publications
looking at iodine intake around the world over a period of decades and they
see that over half a milligram or even especially over one milligram of iodine
per day over a population is closely connected with increased risk of
thyroiditis and thyroid cancer. Wow, so it's aggravatory. One of the theories of
why that happens is that iodine spontaneously reacts or in the presence
of white blood cells their enzymes can cause iodine to react with fatty acids
that are unsaturated and if you've heard about the iodine number to describe the
degree of unsaturation of a fat for example the food oils that are highly
unsaturated have a high iodine number that means the number of molecules of
iodine that will be spontaneously absorbed by a certain quantity of the
oil because the iodine attacks the double bonds in the fat and where they
lack hydrogen saturation the iodine fills in analog saturated hydrogen
content so there is this tendency of unsaturated fats to react with iodine
and when that happens the body can interpret that as a signal to the
thyroid gland possibly imitating the thyroid stimulating hormone. Really? Wow.
So it doesn't cause an increase of thyroid hormone?
It can fill the site where thyroid stimulating hormone should be
acting and it can interfere with that so it probably can go either way forcing
too much activity or more likely blocking the effect of TSH. The
polyunsaturated fats by themselves interfere with the enzyme which releases
thyroid hormone from the gland so too much of the unsaturated fats with or
without iodine will have an anti thyroid effect but potentially the iodine
reaction could cause overstimulation by thyroid stimulating hormone or in its
place could imitate the action. But you mentioned the the binding the iodine
binding to the double bonds producing this product and in its own right that
could stimulate a inflammatory thyroiditis and/or a cancer? Yeah I think
that's why the the high iodine intake around the world statistically is
associated with greater risk of thyroid cancer and if there really were a
product that contained a more reactive form of iodine that would just mean that
it would attack more molecules but I looked up the source of that product of
one of the products started about 10 years ago and in Texas filed a patent
that is just completely goofy if you look at the diagram okay it shows
things that just can't happen right so it was filed 10 years ago and I think
it still hasn't been and probably never will be actually approved as a patent so
it you can apply for a patent on any goofy idea and then publish the
application and impress a lot of people. But maybe not bear the bring the product
to the market. So iodine supplementation is is very risky and basically you
should get your trace minerals from seafood sources rather than from
isolated iodine supplements and especially not in combination with any
kind of vegetable polyunsaturated oils? Yeah I think that's true. So just to
quickly wrap up this nascent iodine I think the reason that it caught my
attention was that the media spin on it was that because it didn't have a and in
chemistry people hearing this will understand what I'm saying but it's
probably I can go and elaborate it more simply perhaps but it doesn't have a
stable octet so it's out of electron shell isn't filled and they were saying
that because of this it was much more much more suitable in some way to
occupying these sites in the thyroid to produce thyroid hormone but it's very
reactivity is counterproductive because surely as soon as you if you could keep
it as unreactive as that in a bottle waiting to be ingested wouldn't it
surely and react with one of the first things that came into contact with when
you ingested it just to fill its octet and become stable again? Oh yeah the whole
idea of newly born or a nascent molecule when I was in junior high and high
school the chemistry people talked about nascent oxygen which for a few seconds
after it's formed in a certain way is highly reactive but that's because the
electrons are simply in an excited state like it had been sitting in in the
sunlight too long that's an electronic excitation which quickly passes as it
gives off a little bit of energy but in in certain short-term situations of a
few seconds that kind of excited electron state can make a molecule
useful for certain reactions but isn't something you'd want to put in your body
yeah okay so not for in vivo use but maybe in in vitro experimentations it
might have a some kind of a use. So it's basically a more dangerous form of
iodine that can cause a free radical reaction? Yeah that's what they're
talking about but I don't think it even exists in the product. Got it okay well
you're listening to AskUrbDr and Kami DeGalbaville 91.1 FM from 730
to the end of the show. Callers are invited to call in with any questions
about this month's wide topic here of things like obviously thyroid hormone is
going to interplay in a lot of it but the nascent iodine that we've just
brought up here and then the inflammatory reactions that happen
between estrogen and nitric oxide and what we can do what females as well as
males can do to offset their burden. Number here if you live in the area is
923 3911 if you want an 800 number for toll-free for across the states here
it's 1-800-568-3723 that translates as 1-800-KMUD-RAD. So Dr. Peat I was
looking at some abstracts here that we're going to form the show and the
first couple caught my attention just because they were based on isoflavones
and I know from our studying herbal medicine soy and isoflavones were all
the rage and were touted as being very health beneficial reducing cholesterol
and all this other ridiculously unscientific information that was
purported. So from the basis of soy they mentioned that there was
an alcohol soluble fraction that had been shown essentially to basically
cause female cancers that these things were taken up by the thyroid or they
probably inhibited the uptake of iodide from in by the thyroid by the gland and
that this increased the estradiol in females and that this was I know that
we've heard about soy and now I know we're definitely aware of soy being very
pro-carcinogenic because it's a estrogen mimic. But what do you what do you think
about this whole industry push that was producing and probably still is
producing soy infant formula which is one of the main one of the main foods
that was generated from it. I think it has seriously harmed lots of kids by
partly the estrogenic effect. The oil itself has a pro-estrogen effect
anti-thyroid effect apart from the those little molecules the isoflavones. The
category of flavones or flavonoids it's very similar to the isoflavones. The
phenyl group or benzene group is just located slightly closer to the keto
oxygen in the isoflavones and that group seems to be the estrogenic group. The
other orientation of the benzene group makes it more likely to be anti
estrogenic and lots of fruits and vegetables contain the anti-estrogenic
forms of those but the estrogen industry as a background led to a lot of the
sales talk about the effects of soy chemicals. And of course is a hugely
cultivated GMO cultivated product with patents owned for its for its
propagation and its use. Again no doubt another spawned product from big
corporations who essentially want to own the product. But don't all legumes have
these a certain percentage of these isoflavones? Yeah. But just soy is
particularly high? No I think the main problem with soy besides it being
basically inedible I think the main problem is that it's almost all grown in
the genetically modified form that takes large amounts of toxic pesticides. Which
are estrogenic too right? Yeah. And again just for the guys out there I think it's
very important to make you aware that you know guys have estrogen. It's not
just a female dominated situation and soy consumption in males has also been
positively associated with things like gynecomastia which is another side
effect if you like of estrogen activity within males. The very same thing Dr. B
also isn't it with alcohol drinking alcohol excess excessively can produce
a symptom of male breasts so that's a estrogen type reaction. When I was a kid
just before the Second World War we knew some of the very poor immigrants to
California and there was one couple in which the wife got a job but the father
could nurse the baby because his estrogen had become so high for
malnutrition and at the end of the Second World War when soldiers got out
of the prison camps lots of them had breasts from the effects of prolonged
starvation. Are we talking lactation too? Well in the case of this man in
California the wife said pause milk ain't got much strength. Yeah they can
lactate if they have a baby nursing. Wow so there's enough positive
feedback in the physiological mechanism there inherently to to produce that. So I
guess the high estrogen then stimulated raised their prolactin? Yeah. And then
with the suckling it produced milk? Yeah. That is just absolutely
incredible. Okay so again just for people that are listening it just begs the
question again where things like soy and soy products all we ever hear we don't
have a television really or listen we don't have a TV at all but we don't
listen to either you know broadcasts from mainstream media but what I was
going to say was most people have a TV or they're listening to a regular radio
station getting the same spin put on things and the same sales pitch and so
I'm just find it hard to believe that for a long time the whole soy thing
could exist and it could do what it did when actually it's more like a waste
product and people really shouldn't be eating soy because it's so dangerous in
terms of its estrogenic effect on females and males and those estrogenic
effects are very pro-inflammatory. Dr. Peat you've pointed out many many
occasions and I'm currently on board with that same feeling that the the
irritation and the inflammation that estrogen promotes is nothing but a
dangerous process in the body. And also Dr. Peat how would you compare
estrogen levels with menopausal women and men? With the aging a man's
estrogen pretty steadily increases but if he has a heart attack it goes up
sharply or if he has a traumatic injury it goes up during the recovery time but
generally there's a trend upward in men and in women when the ovaries stop
cycling there up until about the age of 38 to 40 there is a an actual steady
increase in estrogen and when the ovaries stop cycling they stop suddenly
producing progesterone but they continue producing a considerable
amount of estrogen until the body can adjust it downward. So there are a
few years in the 40s or early 50s usually when estrogen is extremely
excessive relative to the anti-estrogen effect of progesterone but then again
after the ovaries have pretty much stopped functioning with the rest of
the body as the progesterone fails all of the other tissues begin the same way
that happens in men. All of a woman's tissues tend to start increasing their
production of estrogen so that after menopause the fatter a woman is the more
estrogen she's producing because the fat tissue is a good source of it but on any
tissue after menopause to the degree that it's stressed will begin producing
estrogen. So is it about the same level between men and women? Yeah. After the
menopausal period? I think women tend to be fatter in old age and so they are
more likely to have a higher level of estrogen but just measuring the blood
estrogen gives a misleading impression because when progesterone is
deficient the estrogen receptor as well as the aromatase enzyme that makes
estrogen the receptors bind it in cells and there's no progesterone to destroy
the estrogen receptor so it just stays in the cell and some of the enzymes that
are no longer inactivated by progesterone other enzymes capture
circulating estrogen that should have been excreted cause it to be deposited
in cells. Still other enzymes shift any estrogen away from the estrone form to
the estriol form which is the most active intense estrogen. So everything
that happens when progesterone is deficient tends to load up various cells
all through the body with more and more estrogenic stimulation even though it
isn't being released to be measured in the blood. Right so the blood test could
appear that it's fine but if you have a large amount of fat cells that could be
stored in that and other tissues and what about weight loss for women who are
in the menopause if they lose that weight do they then poison themselves
with estrogen as it comes out of the cells? Just temporarily but it's better
to get rid of it and have it local because inside the cells it produces
things such as breast cancer lung cancer uterine cancer ovarian cancer all of the
tissues that no longer have enough progesterone are subject to cancer. So
what about the women that continue to menstruate like I heard from this lady
the other day that she had a friend who was 17 was still menstruating. I talked
to a gynecologist who was giving his wife progesterone and she was still
menstruating at 60 and if you happen to have a very good system for producing
progesterone there's no reason why it shouldn't stop at 55. There's no reason
to stop at 55 then right? No. I mean basically would do you think it would be
beneficial that women continue to menstruate until the day they die? I
think so. Like the flamingos? Yeah flamingos have no life limitation
according to ordinary mortality curves. They seemed only died by accident.
Starvation right? Okay you're listening to Ask Your Doctor KMUD Galbraithville 91.1 FM
from 7.30 till the end of the show. Please call in with any questions you
have either related or unrelated to this month's subject. Number if you're in the
area area code 707 923 3911 or for those folks in different states across the US
has an 800 number which is 1-800-568-3723. Dr. Peat I wanted to pick up on a
point that you mentioned during your last discourse then I did I've not had
that before. Progesterone destroys the estrogen receptor. Does anything
similarly happen with estrogen doing the same thing to progesterone receptors or
is it just that way around? Well estrogen activates its own receptor in most
tissues and it will activate inflammatory things which tend to turn
off the progesterone receptor if you have an excess.
Generally the normal function would be for progesterone to rise as soon as the
estrogen has had its surge and then knock it out. The estrogen is fine if
it's active only for 12 to 24 hours every month. Right, right. It does its job and
then it's finished. But like you said the tissues will carry on producing estrogen
especially in obese individuals and menopause or even postmenopausal
women. Yeah Alexander Lipschutz showed that if you remove the ovaries and then
implant just a tiny estrogen releasing pellet just a very small but continuous
dose it's very carcinogenic. But if you interrupt that or even a large dose with
estrogen with progesterone periodically you don't get cancer. And in his
experiments the estrogen uninterrupted was carcinogenic to uterus, breast, lungs,
kidneys, brain and intestine. Yeah. Basically everything. Okay so just
another another call for all the ladies out there. There really is nothing I
know it's a personal thing but there's nothing wrong with continuing your
menstrual cycle as long as you possibly can. Progesterone is your friend,
estrogen is your enemy and the only thing really that estrogen is any good
for is the implantation. So I may have a first caller so let's get this first
caller on the air. Caller where are you from? I'm from Kansas City. Did you say Kansas City?
Yeah Kansas City. Oh hey welcome to the show. Thanks. Hi Dr. Peat. What do you think is
happening if someone experiences digested cramps and bloating within 30 minutes
when using vitamin E orally and which still occurs even when switching to a
few different products as well as even when using several drops of progeste
which also contains vitamin E? I think it's the viscous oily quality that is
irritating. Some people have that reaction for example if they try to
use it in their armpit where the skin is very sensitive the highly viscous oil
can be very irritating so I think it should be taken with food so that it
doesn't hit any of the membranes in the concentrated form. Do you think it's
possible to develop a soy allergy somewhere along the way? Yeah many people
do have soy allergies but the oil doesn't contain any of the proteins that
people are allergic to so I haven't heard of any documented allergy to oily
soy products such as soy oil. Okay do you think it's possible that for that person
that's something like 400 units international units of the
alpha-tocopherol with 300 milligrams of gamma, delta and beta-tocopherol is
excessive and possibly being excreted mostly in bile which is alkaline and
possibly irritating to an already irritated intestine which would maybe
cause the cramps and bloating? I doubt it because the effect of vitamin E on many
cell processes is anti-inflammatory for example it inhibits prostaglandin
formation similar to aspirin in its range of anti-inflammatory effects.
Okay that's great thank you. All right thank you for your call. We do have another call
on the air so let's take this next caller. Caller where are you from?
Hi I'm calling from Mexico. Mexico, the first caller from Mexico. Welcome to the
show what's your question? Thanks hi if I understood correctly earlier you were
talking about how taking extra iodine can interact with PUFA to cause problems
and I know someone who took a few milligrams of extra iodine and she went
into a some kind of thyroid hyperthyroid like crisis state where she couldn't
tolerate any physical exertion. Her muscles were really weak and her pulse
was very high and years later she still gets that reaction from thyroid and I
was wondering if that's related to iodine? Back in the years when many people
were in certain regions for example in southern Mexico, western China and Ohio
Eastern Europe those areas were very deficient in iodine and they would
develop an enlargement of the thyroid gland and then when they ate iodine even
a fairly normal amount suddenly their gland would start forming thyroid hormone
and if the goiter was very big they could have serious hyperthyroidism that
could last for years but if the gland was just slightly swollen it would pass
in about two months. So that's a that's a very real sequelae of using iodine in
that particular individual that they would have that increased thyroid
production that would be you know resulting in what the callers just
mentioned? Yeah if they took their iodine in the form of thyroid hormone they could
normalize their body functions and be replacing iodine in a limited
graded fashion so that they wouldn't go into those hyperthyroid states and
getting the required amount of hormone would cause their pituitary to settle
down and let the gland gradually shrink. Because that is treatment for goiter is
that you supplement with thyroid hormone? Yes to treat hyperthyroidism
the safest thing is to supplement usually with thyroid hormone. So again
just to just to expand on the very first question to Dr. Peat about the nascent
iodine it's not a good idea and also many other forms of iodine
supplementation is not necessary and if you need iodine and you have any kind of
low thyroid actually thyroid hormone is the best way to get bound iodine. Okay
did you have anything else you wanted to bring out caller? Well thanks a lot I was
just wondering if it you know if it would be a good idea to do anything
specific to try to rectify this this problem or if there's any tips on
tolerating thyroid does avoiding iodine help in a situation like that? The people
who have trouble with the actual thyroid hormone they can be either deficient in
magnesium because hypothyroidism makes all of your tissues fail to retain a
normal amount of magnesium and then when you supplement it suddenly you
experience an extreme magnesium deficiency in your heart for example and
your brain and so taking some magnesium at the same time as the thyroid it will
help those people. Others if they're deficient in adrenal or ovarian or
gonadal steroids will suffer stress symptoms when they take thyroid and and
so using a supplement such as pregnenolone will make them tolerate
adapting to the thyroid more easily. And what about Dr. Peat how some people if
they supplement with t4 thyroxine they will have those symptoms like our caller
mentioned where their muscles are weak and they their hearts pounding they're
pulses high and isn't that because if they're already low thyroid and they
take the t4 then they're actually stimulating the adrenaline because
they're not converting it? Yeah when when people have suffered for a long time
with low thyroid they're likely to have extremely high adrenaline and cortisol
levels and that causes them to turn t4 into reverse t3 blocking the actual
active t3 hormone and then if they accumulate more and more t4 that will
interfere competitively with a little bit of t3 that they do have so they can
exaggerate the state of their hypothyroidism if they're in that really
extreme stress state. Could you say that t4 perhaps is mainly only 10% as
active as the active t3 hormone? It really varies in the 1940s when they
first synthesized it they tested it on male medical students and it was exactly
as effective as armor natural thyroid but that's because young men 20 22 years
old have very good livers that can perfectly convert it but even at the
same age women are more likely to have problems with plain thyroxine. But when
they talk about t4 being weakly active how do you how do you interpret that or
how do you see t3 versus t4 in terms of orchestrating metabolic events?
The standard textbook idea is that t3 is four times more powerful than t4
but really if your liver is good you can get a hundred percent of the benefit out
of t4 and if you're a woman under stress with high estrogen your liver isn't
going to convert any of it to the right active hormone and the more you take I've
known of one woman was hospitalized and got more and more hypothyroid the higher
they raised her thyroxine dose and as soon as they gave her t3 became right
out of the myxedema coma but I've seen people in less extreme states who got
more and more depressed or psychotic or whatever when they increased their
thyroxine dose. Okay I have one more question for the caller do you know if
this lady you're speaking about was taking a t3 t4 combination supplement or
were they taking just t4 or just t3 are you aware of that? Well yeah originally
she was taking an armor supplement and when she took the supplemental iodine
that caused the problem and since then she has tried different t4 t3 combo
products as well as a couple different pure t3 supplements so I think it's
something to do with this adrenaline or sensitivity to adrenaline that Dr.
Peat was was talking about where if I understand it correctly the thyroid
sensitizes the tissues to the already high the already existing adrenaline. But
that should only last a couple days and then it should balance out. Well
sometimes it lasts for a couple of weeks if you're really extreme you have to use
little bits of supplements and be very careful about your intake of protein
sugar calcium everything that is counter to the stress. So when you're in a
situation like that she was using very small specks of t3 you know under one
microgram sometimes is this thing to do to hold that very low dose for a couple
weeks and then increase it in very very small increments as the adrenaline
hopefully comes down? Yeah I've known people who for a week or two would stay
with one microgram doses of t3 but you have to make sure your whole diet
is very good. Having hormone tests and a vitamin D blood test is helpful because
magnesium and calcium work together and vitamin D regulates them. Yeah and making
sure that she's getting plenty of carbohydrates like in the form of fruit
juices because that's like Dr. Peat saying make sure nutritionally she's
getting at least 75 grams of protein. I don't know the weight and nutritional
needs but at least 150 grams or more of sugars and good fats. Okay thanks very
much. All right thanks for sure. I think we have another caller there. Yeah okay we
have the next caller. Caller where are you from? Hi I'm calling from New York. Yeah
welcome to the show. What's your question? Hi I have a question for Dr. Peat about
Buteyko breathing and heart rate. Dr. Buteyko noted that as you progress with
retaining more and more co2 with the Buteyko breathing then the heart rate
will decrease and I wondered what you thought about that. I've noticed that in
my own practice that it does go down but the temperature is still good and I
wondered if the metabolism is still good when that happens or what you think
about it? Yeah there have been experiments with animals increasing
their co2 and watching what happens to the heart and blood vessels and co2
relaxes the blood vessels so it decreases peripheral resistance and that
makes the heart able to pump more blood more easily with less work. So it usually
means a bigger stroke volume. Okay so the decreased heart rate. Even though it's a
lower heart rate you think that that you can still get the same benefits as you
would if you weren't restricting your breathing but I mean I mean I know you
recommend a high heart rate typically for people that aren't practicing that
kind of breath control. Yeah but that's most people are running on
adrenaline. I've known people who one woman had had a hundred and eighty pulse
steadily for years another person had been around 130 resting pulse for a long
time. Both of these people within two weeks got down to a normal under a
hundred pulse rate when they supplemented thyroid and one of the
things the thyroid is doing is increasing your co2 decreasing the
lactic acid and the inflammation so that your capillaries open up you have less
peripheral resistance so your heart doesn't have to work so frantically. Okay
well thank you very much. Thanks dear call caller. Okay so for anybody else
listening here it's always good to get people from all over the state so we've
had Mexico so far we've had New York Midwest so let's keep it up there's an
800 number here it's 800 568 3723 we've got Dr. Ray Peat with us on the show and
he's sharing his wisdom so I guess until the phones ring again for the next time
I wanted to ask you we haven't actually got very far through with all the
questions I wanted to ask you at this point which is good news because people
have been calling but I may have to carry on this topic next month perhaps if
you're available. I saw the article there which again just highlights the
estrogenic problem that the benign and malignant thyroid nodules are far more
common in females than males no doubt a consequence of estradiol so given that
the mainstream lie is that estrogen is good for you and healthy and what can be
done do you think simply to offset the estrogen I know you've mentioned
progesterone which is probably the first thing that springs into my mind but in
terms of reducing a female's estrogenic burden. There were some studies of slices
of thyroid gland in vitro and they found that added estrogen caused the cells to
keep synthesizing hormone but and to keep growing but to fail to secrete any
of the hormone when they added progesterone it began secreting the
hormone and up until the last few decades women rather than just having
nodules in their thyroid they were the ones most susceptible to growing a
very large goiter that sometimes was as big as a cantaloupe and the nodules are
basically the same process of estrogen activating the cell division and
synthesis of colloid the material that the hormone later will be made from and
desensitizing the cells to the the hormone secreting effect of thyroid
stimulating hormone and progesterone by antagonizing estrogen will reverse those
processes but when you get the cells multiplying and making the protein you
will get at least a nodule maybe if it continues steadily the whole gland will
get bigger and bigger. Okay we do actually have another caller so let's
just hold that for right there and take this next caller so caller you're on the
air and where you from? How you doing I'm from right here in town. Okay a local
caller you're welcome what's your question? I was curious to know if this I
heard you talking about the vitamin D in the thyroid and the magnesium I'm just
wondering if that would have anything to do with what's called restless legs
syndrome. Yeah Dr. Peat that magnesium deficiency or how would you explain
restless legs syndrome? There has been quite a lot of research for example they
noticed that people taking SSRI antidepressants tended to have episodes
of restless legs and so they saw that nitric oxide and serotonin were
involved in producing it and those are produced largely from the intestine the
most intense problem of both serotonin and nitric oxide production is from an
irritated intestine and hypothyroid people over produce both nitric oxide
and serotonin typically and have sluggish digestive systems and often
have a tendency to generalized inflammation and the serotonin seems to
be specifically what pushes those motor nerves the cause of the leg jumpiness.
Does that help you out or explain things to you caller? Yeah yeah somewhat it does
it's not an adrenaline thing that makes the legs jump it's serotonin yeah
having to do with what sorry all of the inflammatory stress things tend to go
together. So would you recommend like aspirin for restless leg syndrome? Um
yeah pregnenolone aspirin and avoiding irritating foods especially legumes and
raw green salads those are very irritating. Those are things that increase
the bowel production of serotonin? Yeah. Beans and raw vegetables? That's
interesting because we just switched to trying to eat better and we had gone to
eating a lot more both of those. Have you noticed your restless leg syndrome?
It's a female it's my partner. Okay. And it's becoming very extreme and that
may very well be just from the diet. She was has a vitamin D
deficiency. She's told to take vitamin D and magnesium. Yeah. Do you know what
her vitamin D level was and how much she's taking? I don't know exactly
in measurement but it was very low. Right. Well the most most drop forms of
vitamin D now that 2,000 IU a drop and if she has low vitamin D it's probably
below 20 maybe right around 20 which is very low and they've raised the
reference limit for vitamin D now up to about 45 so you supplementing with a
2,000 IU per day drop product she should be really loading up with six to
eight drops a day for about four or five days and then getting 4,000 to 6,000 IU
and then re-measuring her vitamin D. After about two months. Yeah. Okay so
Dr. Peat said that bowel irritation, inflammation will increase serotonin
production and that serotonin production with nitric oxide which we're going to
got a question for Dr. Peat about nitric oxide both those two compounds there can
be predisposed predisposing someone to restless leg syndrome. Anyway
thanks for your call. So Dr. Peat I saw today just in fact I was thinking about
it myself. I started looking at a couple of websites that do blood
testing etc and I couldn't see any nitric oxide blood testing tests done
but I did see salivary tests for those salivary nitrite strips to assess the
potential nitric oxide production in the body. I know it will be formed from
nitrite or nitrate and this site actually was this the funny thing is
this site was actually letting you know how you could increase your nitric oxide
more now you've been eating various foods which I wanted to question about
also because I know some of the Greens here that were promoting the nitric
oxide production with things that we actually are promoting as being
beneficial but there's obviously a reason for that now. So how do you feel
about testing your salivary nitrate nitrite level and how predictive or
preemptive that would be of nitric oxide production systemically? A recent
article just a couple of weeks ago came out suggesting measuring the nitric
oxide or its products in the body as a way of diagnosing hypothyroidism because
they're so closely connected but I would guess that the urine might be better
than the saliva because for other hormone testing for example just
thinking of food or being anxious or whatever can really change the
composition of your saliva. Right okay so you think that because that changes so
quickly then you're saying it's a not probably more relative to test something
that's there and it's stored and probably more representative of a
couple of hours of physiology? Yeah I think that the urine will give you a
good picture of your level of stress. You wouldn't want to test that after eating
spinach either with your saliva. Here's the other thing that was my other
question is even this website was touting nitric oxide as being beneficial
and actually spinach was a very good producer of nitrite and how that
was spinach would increase your nitric oxide and and they were touting
that. I know and I just want to ask you just to be realistic here and be real
for folks I know we mentioned greens purporting greens and boiled greens and
drinking the juice is very beneficial I know that you do say that kale can have
a thyroid suppressive effect so not to use much kale but spinach I think has
been one of those greens that has been portrayed as being relatively healthy so
what do you what do you think about spinach? If they're organically grown
without intense nitrate fertilization and if it's well cooked I think
spinach is good food. Okay we do have two more callers I don't know if we're
going to get them in they just appeared on the dial so let's say this next
caller. Caller where are you from? Hello? Yeah you're on the air where are you from?
Yeah I'm from Shelter Cove. Shelter Cove hi what's your question? My question
is for my daughter actually she wants to take testosterone and I'm wondering what
his take on it is if he has any experience with that how she can keep
herself healthy. How old is she and what's the what's the indication for
taking the testosterone? Well she's transgender she wants to be more male
and she is 16. 16 okay and I did you catch what the symptom was? She's
transgender. Okay transgender I didn't really hear that properly. Dr. Peat?
Wanting to masculinize? Yes. I think that's safe but it should be backed up
with pregnenolone and some progesterone to keep things in balance because the
tendency is if you're under stress of any sort for the testosterone to turn to
estrogen and the pregnenolone and progesterone will limit that conversion.
Okay. If you have access to either those both of those can be can be
obtained so progesterone and pregnenolone typically for a female
anyway they would normally be producing them and I don't know exactly the
details of the case and how the transgender nature of this subject is
either affected adversely or positively so in terms of their exposure to their
own natural progesterone being female and and or supplementing with
pregnenolone then that will offset the potentially negative effects that may
occur with using testosterone in a female. Because it could convert to
estrogen and become dangerously out of balance. And watching thyroid function.
Uh-huh okay. All right well thanks for your call we better take this next question. Thank you for your help.
You're welcome. Okay so caller we've got about three minutes if you can get your
question out to the doctor here and do it in three minutes and get a response
we'll wrap the show up. Where are you from? Are they there? Hey caller you on the air?
All right we had the second call Dr. Peat but never mind because we've only got
five minutes left so okay. All right I don't even know if we've got time to
perhaps ask another ask another question without running out of time but I'll
try here and I think we'll definitely open this up again next month if
you are available because I've hardly got any questions asked here because
we've had so many callers and that's a good thing. I wanted to ask you again and
with them I guess again we get the female issue in estrogen and inflammation
and cancers etc are pretty obvious as definite definite realities here. In
terms of the effect of iodide uptake by thyroid cells and the inhibitory effects
that estrogen has on that in a female again would you be typically just
wanting to lower estrogenic burden by offsetting that with progesterone and
pregnenolone and/or thyroid? Yeah thyroid and good adequate nutrition all the
vitamins and minerals are involved in controlling keeping estrogen under the
safe safe limit and the when you inhibit the formation of thyroid hormone either
with an iodine deficiency or an estrogen excess the thyroid stimulating hormone
fails to make the thyroxine and T3 and so it keeps stimulating not only the
thyroid gland making it grow and get bigger or nod nodules to form but it has
a related effect on every tissue to some extent especially the ovaries
polycystic ovarian syndrome is associated with low thyroid and
especially high TSH. TSH drives inflammation so that the so-called
autoimmune conditions associated with high estrogen women are far more
susceptible to all types of autoimmune diseases than males and that's largely
because of the high TSH exposure driving things like tumor necrosis factor and
the various cytokines and interleukins and prostaglandins that are activated.
Excellent I don't want to cut you short Dr. Peat and I really appreciate your
your knowledge as do I know all the people that have tuned in and taken the
time to listen and call from all over so a really really good show from all over
the country I appreciate people calling. Dr. Peat's website let me just sign off
giving out your information Dr. Peat so people can find out more. Unless there
was any last words you wanted to say Dr. Peat. Okay thank you. Thanks so much.
Okay so Dr. Peat has a pretty extensive referenced library in some ways
of symptoms and diseases and the mainstream science is argued against
with real science so the objective science of non-profiteering
organizations is bought out so much of the details that you'll find there and
listed in the fully referenced sections that come with each article on thyroid
hormones, saturated fats, regular hormones, pregnenolone, estradiol, whether it's salt
or sugar or cholesterol any of the other articles that he's done is a whole range
of them fully referenced his website www.raypeat.com it's one minute to the
hour my name is Andrew. My name is Sarah Johanneson Murray. And we can be reached
at westernbotanicalmedicine.com or you can call an 800 number 1-888-WBM-ERB
925. Thanks for your time and again next month we'll bring out more questions for
the doctor and they'll be contrary to public and regular opinion which is
always a good thing to give you the alternative then you can make your mind
up. The facts are out there if you want to look for them. Okay good night. Thank
you for listening.
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