Health
Forces of Nature
The world’s first USDA Certified Organic, FDA registered, homeopathic medicine. ” We source the purest ingredients from across the planet to bring you all-natural treatments that work.”
Swurfer
The classic swing redesigned into a wooden “swingboard” with a unique curved shape, on which you can sit or stand, “providing more moves, more range of motion, and more fun as you glide through the air.” Made of 100% hard rock maple, each board is one of a kind, and 100% proudly made in the USA. It’s a great way to get exercise outdoors.
Eco Sheep Bicycle Chain Lubricant
“The happiest and most environmentally certified bike lubes in the world…Every year bike owners apply nearly 6.3 million gallons of harmful petroleum to their bicycles to lubricate their chain and gears. This petroleum has nowhere to go, so it winds up in our soil and waterways, polluting our environment and making a green activity not so green anymore. Eco Sheep® solves this problem through our revolutionary, patent-pendingpetroleum-free bicycle chain lubricants. Our lubes beat petroleum and are non-toxic, biodegradable, and sustainable. You won’t find dangerous petroleum, PTFE particles, or paraffin in any of our products.”
Brazos Walking Sticks
Handmade hiking sticks, hiking poles and canes, beautifully crafted by local artisans in Central Texas. Designed to increase your balance and mobility. Made from native and exotic woods, including sassafras, hickory, sweet gum, iron bamboo, and many others. Can be personalized with laser engraving or the addition of accessories such as strap, whistle, compass and others.
Whistle Creek
“Whistle Creek is the nation’s largest manufacturer of rustic walking and hiking sticks. They’re warm, full of character and 100% US Made. You’ll be proud to own one – and we GUARANTEE you’ll get at least one compliment a month, or we’ll buy it back!” Accessories include compass, whistle, bear bell, leather straps, tree seeds, and more.
Wood Tree Swings
Wood-and-rope tree swings: bench swings, kid’s seat swings, disc swings, made of various types of woods and finishes.
Fluidstance
Designed by the Mayo Clinic, this tool gives your body constant motion while you are simply standing. It increases energy expenditure, raises heart rate, and increases range of motion. Perfect for standing desks, washing dishes, watching TV, anytime you are standing, or can stand instead of sit. We’ve gone the extra mile to use eco-conscious materials in our fabrication process. The Original’s top deck is made of bamboo, one of the world’s most abundant and renewable resources; our finish is GREEN GUARD certified to meet rigorous standards for low emissions; our sand-cast bases are produced by hand in zero-water process in a solar-powered facility. We’ve also chosen to finish our bases via powder-coating, as it has almost zero emissions compared to painting and anodizing. It’s all part of our bigger mission to be responsible borrowers from Mother Earth, for team members and customers alike.
Monkii Bars
These clever bars let you”take the gym anywhere.” Designed for people “who want awesome workouts without being stuck in a regular gym,” these bars are made for total-body workouts while traveling, at home, or even outside. Made from aerospace-grade aluminum and abrasion resistant nylon, with a 2-layer ultra durable weather-resistant powder coat. Handcrafted in the USA.
Eclectic Institute
Quality herbs and supplements created by a naturopathic physician. “We start and end with whole, raw herbs. We start by growing herbs on our 90 acre certified organic farm, and then use freeze-drying to remove only the water. The end product is the whole herb in its original form still raw, intact, viable, and retaining the benefits of the fresh herb just as Mother Nature intended. We don’t believe in harsher forms of processing such as air or spray drying, chemical extraction, or standardized extracts which alter whole herbs, potentially excluding or destroying active constituents. Nestled at the base of Mt. hood in the pristine Oregon countryside, our family owned 90 acre certified organic farm is a leader in organic farming practices, utilizing crop rotation, mulching, composting, beneficial animal and insect allies, as well the naturally occurring rich volcanic soil. Eclectic Institute is devoted to researching and saving endangered herbs, and dedicates resources to growing many varieties of rare plants.”
Khroma Herbal Products
All organic herbal health products in glass bottles. “Because we love our planet (and our customers), we only use organic ingredients…We do not package any of our products in plastic and we don’t use any artificial coloring, preservatives, or dyes. It’s pure natural goodness…Every product we sell is carefully crafted to meet the highest standards for purity and potency. ”
HealthLabs.com
Offers lab tests without requiring a doctor’s prescription. You order the tests online or by phone, then take your receipt to one of 2000+ local labs, where your blood is drawn. Get results within 3 business days. Tests include Allergy Testing, Anemia, Anti-Aging / Hormones, Arthritis, Blood Typing, Cancer, Cardiac / Cholesterol, Celiac Disease, Diabetes, Drugs, Fertility, Gastrointestinal, General Health / Wellness, Heavy Metals / Toxins, Hepatitis, Immunity Detection, Kidney (Renal) Function, Liver Function, Military Testing, Pregnancy / Prenatal, Prostate, Sports Testing, STD Testing, Thyroid, andVitamin & Nutritional Testing.
Berry Good Organics
Kits to make organic elderberry syrup, an all-natural traditional remedy proven to work. “Contrary to other elderberry kits, mine are infused with all natural, organic ingredients that enhance its function. With added bonuses such as Organic ginger root, Organic clove, Organic goji berries, Organic turmeric powder, Organic cinnamon, and Organic star anis, mixed with the infamous dried elderberries, you will enjoy a flu free season. My kits are easy to prepare, and are effective for children and adults of all ages. I am proud to offer an organic and powerful alternative medicine that should be a staple in every household.”
Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. Today we’ll be talking about vaccines. I asked Pamela tim address this subject after seeing a scary commercial on TV trying to get grandparents to get a vaccine so they don’t infect their grandchildren. We’ll discuss the dangers and find out when and if they should be used. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. Pamela is the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld
Date of Broadcast: December 02, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free. It’s Wednesday, December 2nd. Wow! The year is almost over. It’s Wednesday, December 2nd 2015. And today, we’re going to talk about vaccines, which is something that we haven’t talked about on the show before.
My guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s on every other Wednesday because she has so much knowledge about drugs and natural alternatives and how things work in the body that we just talk about something new every other week.
She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. However, she is a pharmacist. She’s a regular pharmacist. She works in a pharmacy in a hospital and she also works in her natural pharmacy which she owns here in Clearwater, Florida. She works with people all over the country. So if you want to talk to her, you can pick up the phone and call her. We’ll give her number later on the show. But she also is right in the midst of both traditional pharmaceuticals and alternative pharmaceuticals.
So today, we’re going to talk about vaccines with Pamela. Hi Pamela!
Pamela Seefeld: Hi! It’s great to be here.
DEBRA: Yeah, great to have you.
So I asked you to do vaccines as the subject on this show because I was watching television (I do watch television, there’s actually a lot of good stuff on television) and there was an ad for a whooping cough vaccine. It was a very scary ad. It was wanting grandparents, seniors, to get a whooping cough vaccines, so they wouldn’t infect their grandchildren and their grandchildren will die if they got infected.
And then, once that got my attention and we decided to do this show, I saw another one the other night for pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine. I don’t even know what pneumonococcal pneumonia is.
So what is going on now that in addition to these commercials for drugs that make it look either scary or desirable and with all these beautiful music in the background and they tell you all the side effects, that it’s going to kill you, what is going on with advertising vaccines like drugs?
Pamela Seefeld: Well, that’s a good question. What’s happening is vaccines (especially the pneumonococcal penumonia vaccine and the whooping vaccine), there’s a huge a market for these vaccines. So the way that they’re building awareness is by having these ads, these controversial ads that make people all scared. And especially when you’re talking about the whooping cough, it shows the grandparents turning into like wolves as if they’re going to eat their grandchildren. It’s very frightening. It’s basically insinuating that you’re harboring this really dangerous organism and you’re going to kill your grandkids if you don’t do something about it.
These advertising, let’s face it, is meant to motivate people. And if you’re motivated, you’re going to call your doctor and say, “I want this vaccine.”
There’s a lot of money in vaccines. And once the research has already been done and the production is inside the factory, there’s a lot of mark-up. You have to realize you have the pediatric population, they’re all forced to get all these vaccines.
So the adults are an untapped market, right? A certain percentage of the population is pediatric, those people have to get the vaccines.They have no choice. They can’t go to school. That market has already been tapped about. And if you think about it, a lot of people are refusing vaccines for tehir kids, so they have to start looking for somebody else to market to.
And who are they going to market to? The elderly people.That’s an untapped market – and a market that’s very lucrative.
A lot of them have Medicare. Medicare does cover a lot of the vaccines. And even if it doesn’t, there are a lot of retirees that would be willing to shell out the money if there was some sort of a payment that they have to co-pay in order to have these vaccines because they think they’re protecting their family.
DEBRA: Well, tell us what is a vaccine?
Pamela Seefeld: Vaccines, I want to explain something interesting. Vaccines are kind of like homeopathy. Now, homeopathic pharmacy is really what I do. And homeopathy was developed by Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1800s.He was a German doctor. And in the time that he developed homeopathic medicine, they were doing a lot of pretty barbaric stuff in medicine. They were doing leeches and things like that.
He came along and he discovered that like cures like. Basically, when you take a vaccine – this is really important. I use this example when I give a lecture to physicians or to people that are skeptical about homeopathic and the relevance and how well it works. What I’ll do is I’ll mention to them, “Look, people get vaccines all the time and they work. They provide immunity.The reason why a vaccine works is because it has a small amount of causative agent (whatever the vaccine is supposed to be against) that they put in this formula and they give it to you as an injection and basically, they’re inoculating you with a small amount of vaccine.”
What happens is your body makes an immune response to it and that can impart protection where you actually come in contact with the organism.
So that’s how the vaccines work. But I like to think of it as being a good intro into understanding homeopathy. If you don’t believe in homeopathy, you think it’s all bogus, then why are vaccines working? I use that case in point all the time. It makes the people think. They’re like, “Okay, I see what you’re saying.”
I’ll give you an example. In homeopathy, say someone has a lot of histamine and they have rashes and allergies and things, well we treat them with histamine. Low dose histamine is basically inoculating them against it so you don’t have what’s called mass cell degranulation and this massive histaminic release when you come in contact with the cat or the dog or oak trees or whatever they might be allergic to.
So this is a good intro when you think about it. People think, “Well, how would a vaccine work?” it’s exactly the same principles of homeopathic medicine. It’s exactly the same.
DEBRA: So is there any difference between homeopathic medicine and a vaccine?
Pamela Seefeld: Oh, by far…
DEBRA: So what would be the differences?
Pamela Seefeld: With the homeopathic medicine, it’s obviously encompassing a lot of different things. We use plants. We use toxins in some cases, things that work in the body to mimic a certain type of response. When you have a vaccine, all it is is some kind of a carrier fluid and specifically, the causative agent of whatever you’re going against. So say it’s pneumococcal pneumonia, say it’s a whooping cough, say it’s a papillomavirus virus, whatever virus it is, that’s all it contains. It contains nothing else.
And homeopathic remedies, it’s usually a combination of things. Most homeopathic things we use here, I can get injectables, but I don’t use those. They use more of that in Europe. Everything we use here is oral.
DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. So you just put a few drops under your tongue and it’s a very different experience. But what you’re saying is the basic idea of like curing like applies to both.
Pamela Seefeld: It does. And that’s why I like to bring that as an example to your listeners because the people that are listening to this show, they’re going to be possibly more inclined to use homeopathic medicine and use alternatives. I mean,
I’m very busy and I’ve been very successful at doing this and helping people with homeopathics in Europe. In Germany, I know for sure in Germany, they actually cover homeopathic medicines with your health insurance. You can get to the pharmacy, you can get regular medicines or you can get homeopathic and they’ll cover it either way.
So the rest of the world does embrace homeopathy quite a bit. In America, it’s coming around. I think it’s really great because a lot of my clients have done very, very well with taking homeopathic remedies.
But it’s important to know that a vaccine and a homeopathic remedy is kind of somewhat similar as far as their modalities of action. So if somebody doesn’t believe in homeopathic medicine, the best argument to use is that’s how vaccines work.
That’s what a vaccine is, a small amount of a causative agent to elicit a certain type of immune response. It’s important for people to realize that. If you have doubts about homeopathy, you really can’t after you bring that point up for the people.
DEBRA: We’re almost to the break, but tell us what happens in the body when you get a vaccine, the causative agent goes in your body? What happens?
Pamela Seefeld: Your body makes antibodies. Your body sees this foreign entity in the bloodstream and it says, “Oh, my gosh! We need to mount an immune response.” This immune response allows for these antibodies to be formed. So it imparts immunity in that sense. You body thought that it went through an actual infection, but you didn’t.
DEBRA: And so then if you’re exposed to it, say it was a chicken pox vaccine, then if you were exposed to chicken pox, you would not get the chicken pox because you now have an antibody to it?
Pamela Seefeld: Correct! You have antibodies in the bloodstream that are against chicken pox. It’s specific to that strain, you have to realize. But yes, you have impartial immunity.
DEBRA: Great! We need to go to break. But when we come back, well talk more about vaccines with my guest, Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicine plants and other natural substances. You can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com. You can also call her on the phone. We’ll give her number when we come back.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also dispenses medicinal plants and other natural substances at her natural pharmacy called Botanical Resource.
Pamela, why don’t you give your phone number so that people know where to call you?
Pamela Seefeld: Okay, very good. You can call me here at my pharmacy. All consultations are free. I would be glad to help you if you have any questions about the medications you might be taking.
The number here is 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I would be most honored to help you and your family with any question you might have.
DEBRA: Yeah, if you have a question about a drug that you’re taking, if you want to get off of a drug, if you want to take a natural remedy for something that’s going on in your body, those are all questions that Pamela can answer very well. She’s very highly respected by doctors here in Clearwater, Florida where I live.
How long have we known each other now? A couple of years I think.
Pamela Seefeld: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely! It’s great.
DEBRA: Yeah! Yeah, yeah. And she’s helped a lot of people. I, in fact, first met her because a friend of mine referred her to me.
Anyway, back to vaccines, it seems like that the idea of vaccine itself just sounds very logical. But why are some people against vaccines?
Pamela Seefeld: Oh, this is a good question. What happened is a lot of the controversy really started with Dr. Andrew Wakefield and he is a British physician. He did some studies and published information, the Study in the British Journal of Medicine. He concluded that he looked at these 12 patients and his statistical of analysis of the data showed that autism was the result of the vaccines that were used on these children.
So there’s been lots of controversy about that. He lost his medical license. There are lots of stories as far as what he did to create it. They tried to recreate his data and they weren’t able to do that. So there was a lot of controversy. But really, it started this movement of non-vaccinations for children because people were scared of autism.
We now know that autism in the past was affecting not as many children as it is today. And we look at this – I mean, I don’t have the statistics off the top of my head. But it was like 1 in 56 kids or something – it’s a lot that have some kind of spectrum disorder. They might not have full autism, but they might have some type of spectrum disorder that’s related to some kind of unknown cause and they don’t really know why there’s this high propensity.
We do know that autism is directly correlated with the age of the father and there’s also infections in utero and a lot of other things. It’s the same thing with schizophrenia. We know that now too.
And actually, with schizophrenia, we now know that schizophrenia is directly related to the bacteria you get from your mother. And if you’re missing some of the vaginal bacteria when you’re born (like in a C-section), you’re going to be at much higher risk for schizophrenia. So it might be bacteria as well.
I don’t think all the answers are there quite yet. This is the problem because it’s overshadowed, the vaccine “hysteria” so to speak.
DEBRA: But there are some things in vaccines that are pretty toxic like mercury and aluminum, some other ingredients that might not be a good idea. Whereas the idea of a vaccine might be okay, what about some of these other additives?
Pamela Seefeld: Excipients, yeah. That’s the right word, yeah.
DEBRA: The excipients in there are controversial. And also, too, the fact that so many vaccines are given in such a small period of time.
So when you have children, you’re launching this immune response with a lot of different infectious agents in a short period of time because a lot of times, we get several vaccines in one visits. I understand why they’re doing that. They have a sequence of vaccines that they need to instill to these kids. I understand all that.
I think really what it comes down to is that I don’t think vaccines are going to necessarily be the one that’s going to be labeled as the cause of a lot of these problems. But I think there’s a lot of things going on in children (and even in adults) today that they just don’t know exactly what’s happening. And their cell signalling bacteria, like I said, are going to the front and foremost that we know are being linked to a lot of different diseases, especially colitis.
If you think about colitis, I mentioned schizophrenia. They’re showing that the bacteria that you have can predict whether you’re going to come down with these diseases.
DEBRA: You know, when I was a child (and I haven’t looked up any data to confirm this, I’m just going on my memory), I don’t know when they started requiring vaccines for children to go to school. But when I was a child, I remember that the big health problem for children was polio. They had posters up of kids in braces and all these things. Every child had to get a polio vaccine. I don’t know if it was required by all, but I remembered going to get the polio vaccine. But I don’t remember getting a lot of other vaccines. So, I don’t know what I actually got. I’m sure I got a polio vaccine.
But just in general, are vaccines being overused?
Pamela Seefeld: Well, that’s a good question. Polio actually has been eradicated from the U.S. very much. But we now know that there are hot spots in Afghanistan and in India and in Pakistan. I’m actually in Rotary International and we do a lot of for raising money with Bill Gates Foundation to try and vaccinate these kids in these poor areas because over there, polio is very debilitating. They still had people there being crippled.
So I don’t want to come out against vaccination in itself. I think that the excipients in some people, I would venture to say (and I may be incorrect, but this is my theory and I think I read this from other people), my theory is that the time at which you receive a vaccine, where your immune system is standing at that particular time does effect the type of response it’s going to launch.
And if you have a vaccine and your immune system is having some problems and it’s not working correctly, I think you’re going to have more chances for adverse effects.
And not only that too, talking about adverse effects. I was looking at one study here that they were talking about just Australian immunizations in the course of the year and what the side effects were, they actually had four deaths and they couldn’t directly attribute it to the vaccine. But I’m telling you that we’re talking about the whole country of Australia. It’s a lot of people. So what percentage?
They couldn’t really directly put it to the vaccine, but these people, maybe they had an anaphylactic reaction or something, but they did report causes of death. And the most common side effects are injection site reactions, rashes, fevers, dizziness and light-headedness. And you would expect that these would happen. You expect rashes because they’re probably reacting in a poor manner. And if a person’s immune system is compromised at the time or they have some other issues (maybe like we were talking about the excipients, the other factors in there), they might have a reaction.
DEBRA: Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting. Well, we need to go to break. But when we come back, I have a question for you about the immune system and vaccine.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also dispenses natural remedies. She’s on every other Wednesday here on Toxic Free Talk Radio because she has so much information. We’ll be right back!
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also dispenses natural remedies as well.
So, my question is I first got interested in toxic chemicals because I had an immune system problem where toxic chemicals had made my immune system in effective. And so what you said about the condition of the immune system affecting how vaccine might respond in the body is very real to me. And I also know that a lot of toxic chemicals that we’re exposed to in our daily lives can affect our immune systems and damage our immune systems. And then I’m thinking about the excipients in the vaccines adding even more toxic stuff like mercury and formaldehyde and aluminum. It just seems like a whole lot of other factors going on rather than just a healthy body getting just a vaccine.
Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. And what we have to look at is the baseline properties of your own immune system and if it’s suppressed. And this is another theory, I guess, what I’m saying. People are under a lot of stress today. I’m not just saying that just in general. But we know that chronic stress depresses the immune system pretty much a lot.
I’m just trying to think back. When I was little, I think things were a little simpler time. Maybe I don’t want to play Pollyanna here. But I’m just trying to say that today, people have financial problems, a lot more homelessness, a lot more chronic illness. And also too, I might mention, that we have a lot of viruses they’re finding in the blood supply that we didn’t really know existed before. They don’t even have names for them yet.
So there are a lot of other things going on that are affecting our immune system. And chronic stress and chronic depravation of sleep, I think in the past, people slept a lot more, there are a lot of other things that are going on that I don’t know if we can peg it on one particular problem. But you’re exactly right, the chronic exposure to chemicals, toxic chemicals, contaminants in our food and environmental contaminants in the air and in the water are definitely affecting people’s health and they’re probably affecting their immune system.
Actually, what I do, because I have to get the flu shot where I work at the hospital. It’s required. I drink the Body Anew while they’re giving me the shot.
DEBRA: Oh, good for you.
Pamela Seefeld: Yeah! I tell all my clients to do that. You want to do the detox at the same time.
DEBRA: Yeah, I think that that’s a good idea. Somebody else was telling me the other day just in an email, she said, “When
I’m exposed to something, I take…” – and I’m not going to mention what it is because I haven’t researched it. But if she has an exposure, she knows to take something. And so I think that’s a great idea if you have to do something like if you’re forced to take a vaccine.
Now, weren’t you telling me that – what was it about people that are in hospitals, everybody gets vaccinated?
Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. Part of the mandate for the hospital— and I really think it possibly even in ObamaCare, which I could be wrong. What has happened is these vaccines are offered to the patients, everybody gets the vaccine. It’s basically an automatically launched order. The doctor doesn’t even have to order it. It’s an automatic launched order. It’s for influenza vaccine and pneumococcal pneumonia. People are getting these vaccines when they’re in the hospitals.
And a lot of it is all the hospitals in the country get money based on what percentage of the population they vaccinate because while they’re there, they’re kind of like a captive audience. They can get these people all vaccinated before they go out into the communities. This is in the guise of, “Okay, we don’t want them to spread illness. There’d be an influenza outbreak. We don’t want there to be a pneumococcal pneumonia outbreak.”
So it’s kind of like a herd vaccination. That’s what they call it. They’re trying to get as many people as they possibly can. So they try and keep their vaccination rates up I’m sure close to the nineties. I’m not even sure what the benchmark is. But each place will have their own benchmark as far as their goal.
And I know that once they reach a certain threshold of people being vaccinated, there’s a financial incentive involved that is directly paid to the hospital.
DEBRA: Okay! So aside from the polio vaccine when I mentioned earlier many, many years ago, I haven’t been vaccinated for anything. I don’t get flu shots, none of those things. I’m not perfectly healthy. But the things that are going wrong with my body are not things that you can get vaccines for. So, it’s not from lack of vaccines. I usually go through the winter and I don’t get the flu.
But I’m also living in a very non-toxic home and probably control my exposure to toxic chemical as much or more than anybody that I know myself personally.
And so I’m wondering if – what it looks like to me is that vaccines are being used as a way for people to not get an illness instead of all of us doing things that promote health. You see what I’m saying?
Pamela Seefeld: Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. And that would be the ideal situation. But I can tell you just from my personal experience being in pharmacy (as long as I’ve been in pharmacy and also having my alternative pharmacy here) that a lot of people, we know what’s good for us, but we don’t always do what’s right. And a lot of people, they’re not sleeping enough, they’re around sick people, they don’t take care of themselves. Maybe they’re prescribed vitamins or medications, but they don’t take vitamins.
And so really, in the hospital setting and in the community hospital setting, we see the same people coming back all the time. Every month, they’re back or every two weeks, they’re back. They’re the same people coming back because they didn’t take care of their infection or they didn’t care of whatever they’re supposed to do. So this readmission rate, and really, I think the flu –
And I’ll tell you about the flu. I had the flu shot two years ago and I got influenza A and I got the bird flu at the same time from working in the E.R. I was actually in the hospital for two days and I was very sick. So even if you have the vaccine, they’re guessing which strains are going to be popular. And some years, they’re totally off and they really have no idea whether they’re picking the right vaccine excipients to have immunity.
So it’s not that the vaccines are bad. I don’t know if I agree so much with the hospitals putting everybody being vaccinated and I don’t think the patients understands sometimes (but they do need to have consent and everything). But the idea that every person needst to be vaccinated while they’re there is important to the country, but it seems to be that they’re not really thinking about the consquences of the shot when they’re there. [Inaudible 00:34:02] that everybody gets it.
DEBRA: Well, I would just like to say before we go to break that I think that there’s so much attention on vaccines and not enough promotion of doing the things that strengthen your immune system. And then if we were to all learn what those things are and do those things, there would be much less need for a vaccine and we could then choose whether we wanted to have it or not.
But still, having a strong immune system is the thing that really protects you against these things, vaccine or not.
Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. Absolutely!
DEBRA: That’s what we need to be having, strong immune systems.
We need to go to break. But when we come back, we’re going to talk about flu shots. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist, but she also works with natural remedies, and in fact, prefers them.
One of the things that I found interesting about Pamela because I’ve been talking with her for a couple of years is that she will recommend a drug if she thinks that that’s the right thing to do. But she will also tell you what the dangers are of drugs and she will also find something natural that will heal your body instead of just alleviating symptoms.
So if you want to talk to her, her phone number is…
Pamela Seefeld: 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955.
DEBRA: Thank you. Okay! So, let’s talk about flu shots. We actually did a show I think it was last year or the year before. I have to see how long we’ve been doing these shows. Maybe we’ve only been doing it for a year. But anyway, I know we did one on colds and flu. We talked about flu shots and things that you can do to help your immune system. Remember that show?
Pamela Seefeld: Yeah!
DEBRA: And so I will actually put a link to that show next to the description of this show on ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com so that those two can go together. But in this last segment, let’s just talk about the flu shot as a vaccine.
Pamela Seefeld: Okay, good. The flu shot as a vaccine, like I said, we’re trying to have a large portion of the population be vaccinated. This is the government’s goal, which is try and prevent against the flu. I thought it was kind of interesting. We were talking before prior to the break about what can you do as a personal responsibilty to try and help your body be more acutely aware and be able to launch an immune response. The flu shot is not necessary for a great majority of people.
And really, we know certain things that depress the immune system, lack of sleep, chronic stress, adrenal fatigue. You know the gamut…
DEBRA: Toxic chemicals…
Pamela Seefeld: Exactly! No, toxic chemicals. And during the break, I went and looked on the Library of Medicine. There’s a brand new study that was published concerning the flu shot in the Journal of Epidemics (it’s just coming out this month actually) where they did a 10-year performance looking at influenza and looking at the populations and what puts you more at risk for having influenza.
It looks like the regression analysis shows that somebody, of course, that has a chronic disease (say someone who has COPD or just some kind of chronic disease), they’re going to be more at risk for it because their immune system is already depressed. Being with a child and living with children, being female, smoking and pets at home were predictors that influenza may be a possibility.
But get this. The things that can prevent and help your risk assessment go down and help your immune system (and these were associated with less chance of flu) were participating in sports, walking, bicycling or some kind of locomation, moving around a lot, a person that’s very, very busy.
It’s not even necessarily cardio exercise, but if someone is active and moving around a lot (and let’s just focus on exercise for one second), what happens when we work out? What happens in the body? Well, what happens is these white blood cells, normally, if you were just sitting down, watching TV or on the computer, sometimes, they hang out. And this is just the way I term it. They’re sticking to the sides of the blood vessels and they’re not really doing anything. They’re laying low because there’s nothing going on.
So if that happens, what’s going on is you have less circulating white blood cells to recognize and attack an invader (a virus, a bacteria or whatever it might be). That’s why sedentariness is associated with poor outcomes for disease.
And when you exercise, say you take a brisk walk or you’re doing housework, you’re running around and you’re really working up a sweat, when you are active, what happens is we get what’s called ‘demargination of the white blood cells’. And this demargination basically means that you get this transient increase in white blood cell activity because these cells that were loafing around and not doing anything and hanging out to the side of the blood vessels, they’re forced because of the blood flow to start being active.
That would explain why activity is associated with a better immune response and a better immune system and in turn, less chance of getting the flu or getting any kind of illness that you might come in contact with. So there are things that people can do that help the body other than just taking vaccines. if you’re in poor health, vaccines aren’t going to do anything.
DEBRA: Yeah. I was a looking at an article because it’s this time of year when it’s flu shots and vaccines and things and so I get a lot of this in my email inbox. One was talking about that vaccines have very low level of effectiveness. It was something like 18% effective. That’s very small. That’s very, very small. All these people are taking it and only 18% are actually getting any kind of help.
This is the way I think. I think that the best thing to do is to just be as healthy as possible to do those things because they’re the things that are always recommended for good health anyway – exercise, drink water, eat good food, staying away from toxic chemicals. Well, people aren’t always saying that yet, but they will. They will. I’m working on it.
So, to just recognize that there’s a basic handful of things that are going to give you good health. And if you do those things, then that’s your vaccine. That’s the thing that’s protecting you from anything. You don’t need to have a specific vaccine because you’re protected from everything.
Pamela Seefeld: That’s exactly right. And it’s important to say this. We were talking about it’s your own responsibility in managing your care. And like I said, these people, I feel bad for them. It’s very, very sad. But constantly, the same people are coming to the hospital every month, every month, same people. It’s not about brain.
Especially people that are smoking, there’s a high percentage of the population that ends up in the hospital repeatedly from smoking. And that is a preventable problem.
DEBRA: It is.
Pamela Seefeld: Smoking, not just all the lives that were lost. If you think about Europe, they even have more people that smoke over there. But the effects on your immune system, the effects on your respiratory system, even people with COPD and asthma, smoking is robbing a lot of people out of quality life.
And actually, there are new studies that came out not that long ago talking about – this is just maybe local to Florida. But certain areas of Florida have a higher morbidity/mortality than being in areas that are more affluent. And what they were saying is that like in Pinellas County where we live in, if you lived in Pinellas County, you have a very good chance of making it to 77 years old. But if you live in Hernando or Date County, you lose 14 years off your life.
DEBRA: What?! That’s a lot!
Pamela Seefeld: Fourteen years…
DEBRA: That’s a lot!
Pamela Seefeld: Fourteen years, yes. Fourteen years. They went to the epidemiologist that are in charge of the health department in Hernando and Date Counties, they said, “Well, why do you think there’s such a huge skew. Basically, that’s a big difference in your lifespan that’s being cut short up there” and what they found is those areas have high rates of smoking and high rates of readmission of people coming into the hospitals and just not taking care of themselves.
So, just smoking alone and also, just diet. The food that the people eat in these areas, it’s a poorer group of people, lower socioeconomic, they don’t eat as well. These are directly correlated to behaviors and the fact that if they just would eat a little bit better diet, have a little bit more activity – and the smoking was a big thing! Apparently, those areas have a lot of people smoking – much more than Pinnelas County.
You think about it, 14 years. If you told somebody you were going to die 14 years younger than you normally would just by where you’re living or what you’re eating and what are the bad effects of your smoking, I think this would change a lot of people’s behavior.
DEBRA: I think so too. I mean, 77 minus 14, that’s 63. I mean, there’s a lot of people who are approachign 63 and they could be living longer.
Pamela Seefeld: This is the thing. The statistics were in the paper, but I don’t even know if that’s even brought up to the general population so much. I think people need to realize that they can literally peg it down to the zip code you live in.
And what is the difference between the people that are living in a better zip code versus a zip code where there’s more impoverishment, they probably eat better. They probably do some exercise. They maybe have some better stress-reduction activities. It really comes down to the things you do every day.
I always say it’s not like a marathon.It’s all the little things you do every day that add up. You’re trying to eat right, you’re trying to sleep enough, detoxing the toxic chemicals out of your body. I can’t emphasize it enough.
I know you’re a big fan of Zeolite. I think it’s an excellent product. I’m a big fan of Body Anew. And there’s also a detox product that…
DEBRA: I take both of them.
Pamela Seefeld: Yes. Yeah, that’s good. That’s perfect. And there’s a detox product by Desbio that’s called Comprehensive Detox and that’s even stronger. I think of Body Anew as the kindergarten and then the Desbio Comprehensive Detox which has six different bottles, that’s almost like the college. That’s even a lot stronger.
DEBRA: Oh, I have to look at that. I have to look at that.
Pamela Seefeld: No, it’s excellent! But detoxing and getting the chemicals out of your body, those are things that you can do something about – and the fact that smoking really would prevent a lot of this. And the fact is they just found that just in our local area. If you think about Florida, if you think about Florida, that’s pretty statistically significant, the fact that if you lived in Date or Hernando County, you would have 14 years off your life just from doing that. I think it’s unbelievable!
DEBRA: Yeah. It’s amazing. It’s just amazing. And I think that people should take those statistics to heart.
I was talking to somebody on the phone this morning and I had to give my birth date. I kind of joked, “I’m so old.” She knew exactly how old I am because she was looking at my birthday and then she said, “Oh, you don’t sound old at all.”
Pamela Seefeld: You don’t look your age at all. You look great. But you know what? What you’re doing, it shows.
DEBRA: It does show.
Pamela Seefeld: If you tell people to take care of themselves, I know some people might feel overwhelmed. “Oh, I just don’t have the… I’m tired. I don’t have a lot of money. I’m working a lot.” It’s the little things you do every day.
Even like the detox, putting some drops in your water doesn’t take a whole lot of time.
DEBRA: No, it doesn’t. And it doesn’t even cost that much money.
Anyway, we’re coming to the end of our time here today. Thank you so much. Why don’t you give your phone number again really fast.
Pamela Seefeld: Yes, absolutely. If there are any questions I can help you with, please call me here at my pharmacy. It’s 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I’ll be very honored and happy to help your family.
DEBRA: Good. Thank you so much.
Pamela Seefeld: Thank you.
DEBRA: You’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. You can find out more at ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Be well!
Mountain Maus Remedies
Loose leaf teas, bulk herbs, essential oils and hydrosols, herbal tinctures, and various natural body care products made from organic ingredients. “Our herbs are all grown organically, cultivated without the use of pesticides, fertilized with organic manure from our own chickens, rabbits and little kinder goats, and the water used is from our private well which is sustained by the Nisqually River. Only 20 miles upriver is where the Nisqually begins, at the Nisqually Glacier which is located on the south side of Mount Rainier. Our method of using organic rich soil, choosing to use companion plants instead of pesticides and pure glacier water to grow our herbs, plants and flowers, may be more labor intensive, but it takes a far less toll on our environment. Through soil building, crop rotation, careful harvesting and proper composting, all of which are sustainable agricultural practices, the end result is well worth it, not to mention the product is much healthier for our bodies. All of our products are hand picked, dried, meticulously analyzed, tested for freshness, aroma and taste before we package and deliver to you. ”
Effective, Time-Tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life-Threatening Diseases
Today my guest is Julia Schopick, best-selling author of the book, HONEST MEDICINE: Effective, Time-Tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life-Threatening Diseases. Through her writings and her blog, Julia’s goal is to empower patients to make the best health choices for themselves and their loved ones by teaching them about little-known but promising treatments their doctors may not know about. Julia’s writings on health and medical topics have been featured in American Medical News (AMA), Alternative & Complementary Therapies, the British Medical Journaland the Chicago Sun-Times. She also coaches patients in how to convince their doctors to prescribe a treatment they (i.e., the doctors) don’t know about. www.HonestMedicine.com.
Julia reminded me that about ten years ago SHE had interviewed ME. Listen to our interview at The Keeper: Interview with author/advocate Debra Lynn Dadd
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Effective, Time-tested, Inexpensive Treatments for Life-threatening Diseases
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Julia Schopick
Date of Broadcast: October 22, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world, and live toxic free.
It’s Tuesday, October 22, 2015, and I’m here in beautiful, sunny Clearwater, Florida.
We’re having a little technology thing going on today. The power company, my local power company sent out a crew of guys to take the tree branches off the wires. In the process of working on trimming my trees, they also trimmed my cable line. So I have no internet and no phone, and no television until the cable guys come.
So I’m doing this by cell phone today. Cell phone and iPad. iPhone and iPad. And it’s a little different for me because usually I have all the things available in my computer.
The show must go on.
Anyway, my guest today is – [inaudible 00:01:58] to that and now, I have to turn on my iPad because it turned itself off.
My guest today is Julia Schopick. She’s a bestselling author of the book, “Honest Medicine: Effective Time-Honored, Inexpensive
Treatments for Life-Threatening Diseases.” Through her writings and her blog, Julia’s goal is to empower patients to make the best health choices for themselves and their loved ones by teaching them about little known, but promising treatments that doctors may not know about.
And I would just toss in and say that in my opinion, one of the little known treatments that doctors don’t know about is toxic chemicals that patients are being exposed to, and rarely do doctors recommend that their patients find those toxic chemicals and eliminate them as a first step to being well.
I’ll also tell you that Julia reminded me that some years ago, I think it was about 10 years ago, Julia actually interviewed me. I was the guest and she was the host. And we had a lovely interview. And now, Julia is here with me.
Hi, Julia.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Hi, Debra. It’s so good to be with you today. I’m so glad to be here.
DEBRA: Thank you. I’m glad that you’re here too because I do remember that we had a wonderful interview. And you’re just an intelligent person to talk to.
JULIA SCHOPICK: That’s great. I really appreciate that. And I hope I’m as good a guest as you were.
DEBRA: I’m sure you will be.
So the first question that I always as people is how they got interested in doing this. And I know that you’ve been in public relations for 25 years. So what made you decide to become a patient advocate?
JULIA SCHOPICK: Well, it was, kind of, thrust upon me, Debra. A teeny bit of background is that my dad was a doctor, a general practitioner. And he actually warned me to stay away from the medical profession.
He did not like his fellow doctors, Debra, I have to tell you.
But then in 1990, when my husband was 40 years old, he was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor.
DEBRA: That’s so young.
JULIA SCHOPICK: I know. He was very, very young. And speaking of toxic chemicals – you know what? I’ll tell it right now. I believed that his brain tumor was caused exactly the way you were talking about.
Are you ready for this?
He grew up in Flint, Michigan.
Now, tell me.
DEBRA: Oh, my god.
JULIA SCHOPICK: I know. I know. But it gets better. It gets worse. Sometimes you use the word better when you mean worse, right? It gets worse. His parents were beauticians, and he lived in Flint, Michigan, the home of the automobile, above a beauty shop.
I know.
I’m quite sure I’m right that he developed a huge brain tumor. You said, it’s such a young age. And he was very, very young.
We had just been married for five years, as a matter of fact.
I know.
And you would have thought with my background, with a father who told me stay away from the medical system – well, I wouldn’t run away. I mean, it’s tumor with the size of an orange. So I couldn’t just run away.
But you would have thought that I would have started advocating, and I would have started researching right away.
It didn’t happen because what happens, Debra, when you are confronted – and this is one of the reasons why I’m out there even after my husband has gone, trying to help other people. What happens when you are confronted, when one is confronted with something like a cancerous brain tumor? I just froze. And so did my husband.
And we did – I’m embarrassed to say, we did just – well, I’m glad we did the surgery, for goodness’ sakes. And I questioned whether the chemo was a good idea, but we did do the chemo and the radiation. But I didn’t do one thing more for a few years. I was literally in the last step, literally terrified.
And then at around the third year mark, I began to get it because my husband, who was actually given only 18 months to three years to live, and he was outliving that already, he started to develop every side effect, every complication from the treatments. Not from the – yes. From the treatments, especially the radiation.
I mean, he got – are you ready for this? At 41, he had a radiation-caused stroke because radiation to the brain will do that. He also developed hydrocephalus, which is water on the brain. And they had to operate again and put a shunt in.
It’s just was a disaster. And of course, it was many, many [inaudible 00:06:59]. It was a disaster.
And at that point, I began to get it that I’d better start researching. He was the love of my life, and if I wanted to keep him around – he was already doing a pretty good job of staying around anyway without my help. But I really decided to step into gear.
And I did.
And I found a nutritionist whose area was cancer and brain tumors in particular. That’s an interesting story in itself.
We cleaned up his diet, gave him lots of supplements that she picked out definitely for him. She tailor-made it. And he started to thrive.
DEBRA: The thing is, that I’ve learned after all of these years is that medicine and surgery is not really designed to create health. That what they’re designed to do is kill the illness.
JULIA SCHOPICK: That’s right.
DEBRA: Unfortunately, a lot of patients get killed in the process of killing the illness.
But you don’t get any kind of support on anything from a doctor that supports your health.
And so even if you are going to have radiation and chemo and all of that it’s very, very clear to me that at the same time, you should be doing all kinds of other things that are supporting your immune system or supporting your body against that toxic thing, that toxic treatment.
And my personal view is that if we would all live the right way, if we would do the treatment, do the natural treatment before we get sick – does that make sense?
JULIA SCHOPICK: It does, but I have one caveat. Go on.
DEBRA: [inaudible 00:08:53] finish my sentence.
What I formed was as I started looking at all these different illnesses after I was so ill from toxic chemical exposure, I saw that what I should be doing is living in this non-toxic way. I should be eating whole foods instead of processed foods. I should be living without toxic chemicals.
I should be drinking clean water, et cetera, et cetera.
But then as I started looking at the natural treatment for all different illnesses, it was all pretty much – everybody was saying, “Do exactly that.” And I came to this conclusion that if we would all live in a healthful way, we’d have a lot less illness to begin with.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Unbelievably correct.
DEBRA: Thank you.
JULIA SCHOPICK: I 100% agree with you. The reason I was going to butt in before was my poor husband couldn’t have avoided Flint, Michigan.
DEBRA: I know. I know. I grew up in California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was born in Oakland. I lived in Oakland for a long time, and Oakland is a pretty polluted place. And when my health finally fell apart, I was living in a condominium on the ground floor where they was a stop sign out the window and [inaudible 00:10:13] all day long.
The cars would come and stop right in front of my air supply.
Then they’d start up again and [inaudible 00:10:21].
I mean that’s how much I didn’t know. And I had just remodeled my condo – we need to go to break. But off the side, we had just remodeled my condo, so we were painting, and I had plastic shelf paper, and we [inaudible 00:10:39] all that stuff. And then I fell apart.
But when we come back, we’ll talk more and hear what Julia has to say about what we should be doing.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julia Schopick, and I will tell you more about her except that my iPad has turned off. But I do know by heart that her website is HonestMedicine.com, so you can find out more about her there.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julia Schopick.
So Julia, tell us what happened to your husband? How long did he live?
JULIA SCHOPICK: It’s so interesting, Debra. He ended up living 15 years post-diagnosis. Now, remember I said that –
DEBRA: That’s great.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Yes, I know. We both believed that it had mostly to do – yes, the doctors did their part, but it had a lot to do with the supplements, with the clean food, the change. And he was feeling so great.
What got me, and I hate to sound negative, but the doctors were not at all interested in anything we were doing.
DEBRA: Of course.
JULIA SCHOPICK: This hurt me because brain tumor patients just don’t usually live that long especially if they have the kind of tumor that my Tim, my husband had. And wouldn’t you think that the doctors would be interested in things – they fully acknowledged that he was their star patient. I want to make that clear.
They weren’t denying that he was outliving his prognosis. They were like, “Great.”
But they were not all interested. As a matter of fact, one time, Tim tried to tell one of his doctors, his main doctor – the doctors said which meds are you on, and Tim told them. And Tim then said, “I’m on a lot of supplements and good food too.”
And you know what the doctor said?
“Next question.”
DEBRA: I just want to say this, in defense of doctors. First of all, not all doctors are the same. I know some wonderful doctors that have completely changed their minds about things, and their medical doctors.
When I first was diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivities and was starting to heal my body from that onslaught of toxic chemicals, I went to a lovely doctor who was an MD, and he had completely given up his practice, his previous general practice, to only treat people who had chemical problems.
He was doing what he knew to do to help us, but it was, again, very doctor-ish. There are products called antigens, which you can go to a doctor and get, and they can immunize you against reacting to a toxic chemical.
But that doesn’t get the toxic chemical out of your life.
And so then I was talking to patients, and they were talking about how they were starting to remove toxic chemicals from their life, and I started doing that. And I told my doctor. And you know what he said? He said, “I’m going to send you to everybody’s house, each and every one of my patients, and have you analyze where their toxic chemical exposures are, and I want you to come back and tell me, so that I can know what they’re being exposed to.”
JULIA SCHOPICK: That is a wonderful doctor.
DEBRA: And that’s how I actually started doing what I do, was because that doctor asked me to go to his patients’ houses. And then I had to make up a list of products that they could use.
I was like, “What? Where am I going to find these? How am I going to figure this out?”
And that’s actually how I started. It was because of the doctor.
But most doctors are very entrenched in their paradigm. And so they say, “Well, I know what I know, and I’m going to do what I do.”
And that’s what they do.
JULIA SCHOPICK: I’m so glad to hear that, your story about the doctor who did that because that is so wonderful, so unusual, and in my book, in Honest Medicine, I do include stories, as you know, about doctors who are creative, who do look outside the box.
And although they are unusual, they must be heralded.
Just like you tell your doctor’s story, I tell these doctors’ stories because they are open, they are wonderful, and there are too few of them, and I’m hoping there are more and more of that.
DEBRA: I hope so too.
So before we get to the break in about three minutes, why don’t you tell us what made you decide to write your book? And then when we come back, let’s talk about the contents of your book.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Excellent. I think it was the next little incident. Not little. I shouldn’t minimize what happened.
Remember, I told you about the doctors not being interested. Well, in 2001 my husband, Tim, had a recurrence of the tumor, and that was the time when – because the skin had had trouble healing from the last surgery, and all the other results, I said, “This surgery is going to be problem.”
And I was right. It was a problem. His suture line would not heal.
I want to stress that usually the tumors come back before 10, 11 years. His didn’t because of the good care that we were doing.
In any case, the suture line would not heal, and the only thing the doctors know how to do was to do more surgeries, to try to get two pieces of skin that would heal. With each additional surgery, he got sicker and sicker and sicker. At the end of the eighth surgery, he was bed bound, he was incontinent, he was severely brain injured and nearly paralyzed.
All from the treatment. From the repeated surgeries.
And at this point, to a PR client – you mention that I’ve been doing for many years, through a PR client, I found out about a product called Silverlon. And Silverlon is pieces of material with silver ions impregnated, FDA-approved for all non-healing wounds.
So with my PR skills, I was able to get the doctor to agree to put it on. We put it on Tim’s head and he started to heal overnight.
And this is when the doctors, they came to me and they say said – one of them came to me and he said, “We don’t think it was what you found that healed your husband’s skin.”
And I was puzzled. I said, “What do you mean?”
And he said, “Well, we’ve been thinking. We think it was the vancomycin.”
And vancomycin, Debra, as you probably know, is an IV antibiotic. And Tim had been on the vancomycin for at least six weeks. So that’s what I said. I said, “But Doctor, he’s been on it for six weeks.”
And the doctor said, “Vancomycin is like that. It kicks in.”
I was stunned.
DEBRA: I know. I totally, totally understand. The things that you and I think are the right things to do make so much sense to me. And if I hadn’t changed what I was eating and the chemicals in my life, in my home, I don’t know that I would even be alive now.
My mother died of cancer when she was 51. And that is so young. And we didn’t have any of this information then. That was just right before
I started doing my work. I didn’t even know about any of these things. I was just starting to learn about it.
I was only 24. And she was just [inaudible 00:21:01].
It’s just incomprehensible to me. And I have a friend, she had cancer. When her [inaudible 00:21:12] cancer started, she was only like 30-something. She survived her cancer.
But we didn’t have any of that and this information.
We need to go to break. So we’ll be right back, and we’ll talk more with Julia Schopick. She is the author of Honest Medicine. And I don’t have the subtitle right here in front of me. But you can go to her website, HonestMedicine.com, and find out a whole lot more. And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julia Schopick. She’s the author of Honest Medicine. And we’re talking about what she learned that she thought was so important that she wanted to write a book about it.
So Julia, in addition to the Silverlon that we’ve already talked about, there are three other things that you talked about in Honest Medicine. I wanted to pick out the one that is most important to me to talk about first, then we’ll talk about the other two.
This isn’t your order, I know.
JULIA SCHOPICK: No, this is great. I’m glad. Go on.
DEBRA: So the first one I want to talk about the ketogenic diet.
JULIA SCHOPICK: I knew it.
DEBRA: The reason that I want to talk about that first is because it’s something that anybody can do. All of our listeners can just go immediately on a ketogenic diet if they want to. And the other two are drugs, which is okay. I’ve nothing against drugs if they don’t have toxic side effects and they’re actually helping.
So tell us about the ketogenic diet and why you think it’s so important.
JULIA SCHOPICK: The ketogenic diet is one of my – I agree with you. It’s a very, very important treatment. The reason I think it’s so important is that children with epilepsy, the doctors put them on drugs, and not only one drug, several kids are on – many, many kids are on three, four or five drugs at one time.
This is just terrible.
The ketogenic diet, which is a very high fat, low carb, low protein diet, was the standard of care from the 1920s on at places like the Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins. And then with the advent of anti-seizure medications, I think it was 1938 that Dilantin was invented.
The pharmaceutical companies stepped in and started to do more and more anti-seizure medications.
And guess what fell out of favor? The diet.
And it was still being done.
DEBRA: I just want to say for a second that that was really care with everything. If you were to turn back the clock to 1900s, there were all these things that were natural, that people treated things at home. They made things at home.
And then it came along into the 40s and 50s, and World War II, and all this new technology. And all of those intelligent, natural things just went by the waste side in every area of life, and they were all replaced by drugs and plastics and all the things that are making us sick.
JULIA SCHOPICK: You got it. The ketogenic diet was no exception. I believe, and so many other people do too, that it would have died.
The diet would have died. It was still being done very sporadically at places like, as I said, Mayo and John Hopkins.
But if a little boy named Charlie Abrams had not started having intractable seizures, and if his father had not been Jim Abrams, and Jim Abrams was the Hollywood writer/director/producer of the movie, “Airplane” that is now considered a classic. Anyway, Jim, he did funny movies, as you can tell from Airplane.
And in 1994, something not so funny happened in the Abrams family. And that was that little Charlie, one year old, started to have what we call intractable seizures. That means when one seizure ends, the next one begins, the next ends, the next one begins, and on and on and on.
Little Charlie was having up to a hundred seizures a day. And Jim, he had money. He had prestige. He was able to go to the best of the best of the best. And they put him on more and more medications.
If you read in Honest Medicine, Jim’s introduction to his contribution, it quotes a doctor who says that this child, little Charlie, will be on more and more medications. That’s all we know that can help him, and perhaps, a brain surgery.
And Jim was frantic. He said, “We were crying all the time in our house because the seizure medications were not helping.”
That’s the first thing.
And so he went to the library. And he’s very cute, Debra. He says, “I didn’t go to the library the way people do today, when they go on the internet to find a solution.” He says, “My solution that I was trying to find is how is my family going to deal with a child who is not going to get better? And this is going to be our life.”
So that’s what he was really looking for. And what he found was something different. He found out about this diet, the ketogenic diet which had been around, as I said before, from the 20s, and he found studies, small studies from the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, all the way through the 90s.
He copied them. He took them to his doctor, to Charlie’s doctor, and he said, “Let’s try this.” The doctor said, “No, it won’t work. More drugs will.”
And Jim said – he said, “To my everlasting shame,” these are his words, “I listened.” He said, “And we let the doctors do a surgery on my baby’s brain.”
And right after the surgery, what do you think happened? He started having seizures again. And finally, Jim got it. He said, “That’s it. I’m taking little Charlie to John Hopkins.”
They took him to John Hopkins, he and his wife, put him on the diet. 48 hours later, he stopped having seizures. They never returned.
And Jim was so excited, and then he got pissed. He said, “Why did it take me so long to find the diet? And by the way, why did the doctors tried to discourage me? And by the way, why are people not being told about this diet?”
So remember I told you he was a Hollywood guy? One of his friends, Meryl Streep, did the promotional video to explain about the diet. Jim set up a website, CharlieFoundation.org. I’m not sure if he set up the website right away. But he did have this instructional video.
This is the wonderful thing, during the making of the instructional video, there was somebody on the staff of making the video who was also from Dateline MBC. His real job was Dateline MBC. He was freelancing to make Jim’s thing.
And he called his boss. He goes, “This is a great story about this child, this diet, this Hollywood producer.”
So it became two segments of Dateline MBC. And at that point, the diet took off because people started writing in, they started calling. And Jim had to take one of his rooms in his house to make it just for the letters he was getting.
And people are like, “I want to find out about this diet. My little baby has been seizing. My little child has been seizing.”
Long story short, he got Meryl Streep to do a movie – for TV, “First Do No Harm” and the diet really took off. And Jim, with his Charlie Foundation, hired a dietician whose job it is to go around the world, training hospitals about the diet.
Because you know what, Debra?
DEBRA: That’s so wonderful.
JULIA SCHOPICK: When there’s a child – yes, he’s one of my heroes, can you tell? Because one of the things – anyone who wants to use the ketogenic diet for exercise or for losing weight, they can do it on their own. But when you have such a serious condition as seizures, it does have to be started in the hospital.
DEBRA: I agree with that. Yes. I have a few things I want to say about this ketogenic diet, but I’ll say them after we go to break.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julia Schopick, author of Honest Medicine. She also has much more information on her website, HonestMedicine.com. And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Julia Schopick, author of Honest Medicine. And she’s at HonestMedicine.com.
So Julia, here’s what I would like to say about the ketogenic diet. First of all, I found out about it from a very good friend of mine who is surviving cancer on this ketogenic diet. She said it made a difference in the world for her.
Second of all, the thing that I think most people don’t know about this diet is that cancer feeds on sugar. And so if you’re eating a high carb diet, you’re just feeding cancer. That’s it. It’s that plain and simple.
Another thing is that when you eat high fat, your body operates in a different way, and so your body actually loses weight on a high fat diet.
In fact, that’s what you need.
And so this diet can help so many people that it can treat people who have illnesses like seizures and cancer. But people who don’t have those things yet, and they will if they continue to eat processed food, you can be making this kind of change in advance so that you’re not feeding your body in a way that cancer loves.
JULIA SCHOPICK: So are you reading my mind?
DEBRA: No.
JULIA SCHOPICK: The reason I’m saying that is – oh, my goodness.
DEBRA: This is one of those things – this is the whole point of your book, is that low carb – go ahead. I’ll let you say it.
JULIA SCHOPICK: I’m laughing because as I was hearing you say it, I had many windows open. I’m sorry that your computer is down, Debra. But I have many, many windows open. And one of them, which I’m working on writing something, perhaps, it’s an addendum to my – not addendum.
Long story short, the ketogenic diet is now being studied for many, many, many reasons. One of them is Dr. Thomas Seyfried. That’s what you’re talking about. He did the research on the ketogenic diet for cancer.
And of course, it makes sense. Cancer cells love sugar.
By the way, I believe that’s one of the reasons my Tim lived so long. I took sugar out of his diet, much to his chagrin, I must say. And when the doctors said he should drink Ensure. I said, “No way is he drinking Ensure.”
You know what I did in the hospital? I dumped it.
DEBRA: Good on you. They should just take sugar out of the hospital.
JULIA SCHOPICK: They’re never going to. They think of sugar as the main dietary – anyway that’s what they love.
Now, the ketogenic diet is being studied – are you ready for this? And I can send the link to anyone who wants it, if they write to me at Julia@HonestMedicine. It’s being studied for Parkinson’s, for cancer, with very good results, by the way, for brain injury, for diabetes, for all sorts of things.
It makes great sense because here is a diet that –
DEBRA: It does.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Yes, it does. There is something, by the way, the Deanna Protocol is using the ketogenic diet plus another nutritional program for ALS. And as you know, ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, is one of the ones that nobody has a treatment for, just nobody.
And Parkinson’s is pretty rough itself.
This ketogenic diet, I am in the process of figuring out how I’m going to use this information to get it out there. It can be used for lots of different things, and it’s being studied with great results.
So that’s why I said did you read my mind?
And by the way, I do know a –
DEBRA: We’re totally on the same page here.
JULIA SCHOPICK: And by the way, one of the people that Jim Abrams referred me to is a woman named Miriam Kalamian. Miriam is – are you ready for this, a consultant to people who want touse the ketogenic diet as part of their cancer protocol.
So this word is getting out there.
DEBRA: The word is getting out there, yes.
So our hour is almost up. [inaudible 00:43:20]
JULIA SCHOPICK: Where did it go?
DEBRA: I just want to make sure that we end with your basic message of your book, which is that there are these inexpensive, workable, much more effective things that you can do. Your doctor isn’t – I’ll give the subtitle again for Honest Medicine. It’s Effective, Time-Tested,
Inexpensive Treatment for the Life-Threatening Diseases.
And you talk about these different things that we don’t have time to talk about. But the ketogenic diet is just an example of one thing that people can do instead of getting medical care. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t go to the doctor.
But the thing is that we should also be looking at these other things as well, so that we can make an informed decision, and do things that support health. And by supporting health – I mean, this is what I’ve been doing for 30 years, supporting health.
And so I’m healthy.
I don’t know if you know, but I turned 60 this year, in June. And I’m healthier than I’ve ever been in my life.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Yes, because you’re living healthy.
DEBRA: That’s exactly right, and my body just gets stronger and stronger and stronger, and more healthy, and more energy, and sleeping better, and all of these things.
It takes time. It’s not like you’re just going to take a pill and get well immediately. The things that you do on an everyday basis, eating those good foods, the [inaudible 00:45:02] as well as the nutrition, and moving your body, so that your body can detox and build your muscle.
All these things that if you just do the simplest of things, then you might not even need a doctor.
JULIA SCHOPICK: That’s the aim.
DEBRA: That’s the aim.
So Julia, talk about your book more and the basic concept behind this.
JULIA SCHOPICK: The basic concept is that, as you sad, there are treatments out there. But there is a little bit of a negative thing. When you come to your doctor about these treatments, your doctor may very well [inaudible 00:45:45] them.
Your doctor may very well say, “No, the drug way is better.”
And you have to be very, very strong to know when you are interested in trying another treatment.
For instance, one that we don’t have time to discuss, it’s called low dose Naltrexone. Although it was developed from a drug and, indeed, is a low, low, low dose of a drug, it acts more like a supplement by raising endorphin levels. It makes the immune system act correctly.
It works for many, many autoimmune diseases. And your doctor will probably, unfortunately, only not have heard of it, but when you bring information, may not be open to it, which is why I’m doing consulting now, to try to teach people how to influence their doctors, how to talk with their doctors.
You obviously have –
DEBRA: That’s a really, really important thing. That’s really important to know because we’re indoctrinated in our society that what you do when you’re sick is you go to the doctor, and the doctor knows everything, and he’ll give you a pill, and you’ll go, “Wow.”
That’s what I was raised with. That’s what I was raised with until I started – and that’s what I did until I started finding out there’s a whole other world out here that isn’t the medical world, and it works a whole lot better than what I’ve seen.
No doctor would have ever made me well from toxic chemical exposure.
JULIA SCHOPICK: I think it’s amazing what you’ve done.
DEBRA: Thank you.
JULIA SCHOPICK: You are absolutely right. I’m trying to get patients – and actually, I’m having pretty good results. It’s not only me. It’s people out there like us, like you and like me, who are making patients realize that they have the power.
It may not feel that way when you’re confronted with your doctor. But you do have the power to suggest other treatments, if the doctor says, “No, no, no” to try to convince the doctor, and if not, to find a doctor who will do it.
DEBRA: And keep looking. I’ve been to doctors who dismissed me as a patient. I had a doctor yell at me once and tell me I was never going to get well because I would not follow his instructions.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Isn’t that awful?
DEBRA: Yes, he completely invalidated me.
JULIA SCHOPICK: You know how many people just listen to the doctor. You were a strong people.
DEBRA: I know. My father lying in bed in the hospital dying would not drink the fresh juice that I brought him. He said, “I’m going to do what my doctor tells me.”
JULIA SCHOPICK: That must have broken your heart.
DEBRA: It did. It did. He died very soon after. And it maybe that my juice would not have saved him, but it was that he wasn’t even open to even listening or trying. That the doctor knows this.
I’m not here to say that nobody should listen to their doctor, but it really is that patients need to really take their health in their own hands, and if the doctor is not helping you – I just have been to a doctor that I totally adore him as a person, but it got to a point where he wasn’t helping me.
And I said to myself, “I need to go to somebody who is going to help me.”
And it’s not that he didn’t want to help me, but what he has to offer me wasn’t helping.
JULIA SCHOPICK: So you have the presence of mind to know.
DEBRA: I did. I did have the presence of mind to know. I considered that I’m the one in charge of my health, and that any health care practitioner I go to, medical doctor or otherwise, they’re my team, but I’m running them. I’m not there to do what they tell me to do. I’m there to evaluate their advice and decide if that’s right for me.
And we need to go.
Thank you so much, Julia.
This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. You’ve been listening to my interview with Julia Schopick. Her website is Honest Medicine. Go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and listen to the other shows as well.
Be well.
JULIA SCHOPICK: Thank you.
DEBRA: Thank you.
Seven Deadly Drugs
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about seven popular drugs that are toxic enough to kill, and which natural remedies you can take instead. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Seven Deadly Drugs
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld
Date of Broadcast: October 07, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free.
It is Wednesday, October 7th 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. It’s a beautiful autumn day. The temperature is 80° right now. But in the morning and at night, it’s 70° instead of like in the summer time, really, it’s 85° and 90° all day long and all night long. So this is just like a breath of fresh air. Literally, I can open the windows now. Yehey!
Anyway, I just wanted to say that while I was listening to the music, the opening music, I was sitting here exercising my arms. That’s not something I usually do. I’ve been doing more exercise. I was listening to the music and I was just moving my arms up and down and out to the sides and just kind of moving around. It’s actually important. This is a toxics issue. I want to say this before I bring on my guest today.
In order for your body to process the toxic chemicals that you’re exposed to, it needs to go through your body’s detox system and your lymph system. You may have heard the term ‘lymph nodes’. But your lymph is this whole system that carries things around your body. It’s the waste products carrier. It’s like the garbage system. It takes out the garbage. And that’s how the toxic chemicals move into your detox system.
But your lymph system does not have a pump like your heart. Your heart has a pump that pumps the blood throughout your body, but the lymph system does not. And the only way that you can get your lymph to move is by moving your body.
And so the more you can move even if you’re just sitting here listening to the opening music of the show, move around. Move your arms, move your legs, jump around, whatever. And that’s a good way to just get in a minute of exercise there that will help your body get those toxic chemicals to and through the detox system and out of your body. That’s my tip for today.
So today, we’re going to talk about seven deadly drugs. I don’t even know what they are. It’s every other Wednesday today, so my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. She’s going to tell us about those seven deadly drugs, what they are and what we can take instead to do what those drugs do. Hi
Pamela!
PAMELA SEEFELD: Hi! It’s great to be here.
DEBRA: Thank you. It’s great to have you. So where are we starting today with seven deadly drugs.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay! So, I looked at the common drugs that people are using and I decided that I’m going to start with Tylenol.
DEBRA: Tylenol?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Tylenol, yes.
DEBRA: I would never have thought that was a deadly drug, so it’s good we’re talking about it.
PAMELA SEEFELD: This is why the drugs I picked are going to be of interest to everybody because these are commonly used things that we see and they’re very ubiquitous. They’re everywhere.
So acetaminophen, the reason why it’s bad is it causes liver necrosis. It can be even small amounts. In the hospital, we check to see. There are a lot of pain relievers that people use that have narcotics along with acetaminophen because the narcotic will work through it essentially acting as a pain reliever. It dulls the perception of your pain (let’s say you’ve had an accident or you’ve had surgery).
The acetaminophen blocks the peripheral or the outside of the central nervous system like all the nerving endings in your hands, your feet and your body. So when you give the combination of the two, you get dual type of pain relief.
And so those drugs are commonly used. You should think of like Percocet and Vicodin and things like that.
So the Tylenol component, if you start reaching over 4 grams a day of that, it definitely will lead to liver necrosis. But there are a lot of people that even will pop a Tylenol here or there, an acetaminophen, I should say, here or there like if they have a headache. And then if they’re drinking at the same time (say they had a few cocktails at dinner), these things can be accumulative.
What I found when I did the research on this (I knew this because a lot of people take acetaminophen for pain) acetaminophen poisoning accounts for approximately one half of all cases of acute liver failure in the United States and Great Britain today. That’s all the liver failure.
If you look at acute liver failure and people that are in liver failure, it’s half of the cases. It’s not the drinkers. It’s the people who are taking acetaminophen. Sometimes, they don’t realize that they’re reaching toxic levels. They might have pain problems, maybe they’ve had a back injury, something to that effect. They’ve been taking this. It doesn’t take very long for it to have accumulative effects.
And I actually know, a friend of mine, his son was only 38 and he died from acetaminophen poisoning. And it wasn’t an overdose. He actually ended up in liver failure and they didn’t find a transplant for him. But it was from the acetaminophen. He was popping only one or two pills a week. He was popping when he had a headache. Then they found that he was on liver failure subsequently. He passed away now.
I call this deadly and the reason why is because yeah, you have the Tylenol overdoses and you have these situations where people are taking excessive amounts. But you need to realize that the accumulative effect of acetaminophen in the liver is pretty severe.
DEBRA: So, you mentioned one or two, but then you also said – what was it, four grams?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct, four grams. If someone is in the hospital, we look to calculate – sometimes, maybe the doctors won’t maybe pick up on that. Maybe someone is post-operative, they’ve had some surgery. They don’t want IV narcotics because maybe there’s been a history of abuse or maybe the person doesn’t want shots or maybe they’re going to be leaving that day, they’re ambulatory, they’ll give them maybe Vicodin or Percocet or one of these combinations that has either hydrocodon or oxycodone with acetaminophen. We have to make sure that they go under four grams a day because if they go over four grams a day, you’re definitely looking at a liver problem.
And actually, from the studies, what you see, four grams a day is very lenient. I mean, really, people really shouldn’t be even getting more than three because the toxicity is pretty bad.
DEBRA: So how many pills if you were just taking acetaminophen not mixed with anything else for a headache?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, it depends.
DEBRA: How many pills is that?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Three twenty-five would be a regular acetaminophen and 500 is an extra strength. So there are some combination products that have the 500 and some that have the 325. Actually, at the hospital where I work, we have removed all the products with the 500 because there were just too many chances that the person was going to end up in an acetaminophen situation. In those cases, those products are gone. We don’t even have them anymore.
What happens if somebody puts an order in the computer and it has too much Tylenol, we can’t automatically change it. We’ve got to call.
There’s a lot of phonecalls and sometimes people don’t call back. You know what I’m saying? So what happened is we just took them off.
They’re not even there anymore. That’s it!
DEBRA: But how many pills? What did you say, 325? That’s 325 mg?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Exactly! So if you’re looking at 325, that would be 12 pills in a day. But you’d be surprised because a lot of times, their order say, “One to two tablets every four hours as needed for pain.” Well then, it’s pretty easy to get up to that.
DEBRA: It is pretty easy to get up to that. But as you’ve said, you don’t need to be taking that much before you have liver failure. And so if you’re taking two tablets four times a day, how many? That’s 12, isn’t it?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Exactly! And even in an acute situation, say you have a back injury. You were fine before, you hurt your back, you lifted something or you were in a car accident, this happens quite frequently. And then they’ve given you this combination and you’re taking it every single day for like a week or so, well, you’ve already gotten to that point where you’ve got some accumulative toxicity. You have to always look too because the liver processes all the drugs, but it also processes alcohol.
So say a person gets a headache and they’ve had a few cocktails at dinner. And then they take Tylenol (acetaminophen) and then they go to bed. Those two are accumulatively toxic to the liver. Then say they took a Pepsid or a Zantac because they had an upset stomach, those work on the liver and those can cause toxicity too.
Say they’re on a cholesterol lowering medicine like Sendostatin. This is actually what happens with a lot of people. They tell me they drink wine at night. That’s fine. Then I see that they’re on a cholesterol lowering medicine. Then they take a medication for pain. I’m telling them, “You’re going to end up in liver failure. You’ve got to do something and cut some of these things out and take some herbs to protect the liver.” And that’s where milk thistle and Schisandra chinensis come in because those two can protect the hepatocyte from toxic injury from these substances.
So somebody that takes acetaminophen on a regular basis or drinks wine or beer on a regularbasis especially if they’re on a cholesterol lowering medicine, they need to be on something to protect themselves.
DEBRA: Yeah, that’s good. We need to go to break in just a few seconds. But I can tell there’s so much new information here. We’re going to have to get through each drug a little faster.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, that’s fine. That’s fine, absolutely.
DEBRA: We’ve only gotten through one in the first 15 minutes.
PAMELA SEEFELD: This is a pretty dangerous one, so I wanted to spend a lot of time on it.
DEBRA: Yeah, okay. So in the segment, we’ll do two. And then, we’ll do two. And then, we’ll do two. And then we’ll get through seven.
How’s that?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Perfect!
DEBRA: Okay, good. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. She has her own lovely shop called Botanical Resource here in Clearwater, Florida. You can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist.
You can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com.
Okay, Pamela, what’s deadly drug number two?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay! Deadly drug number two is Ibuprofen, Naproxen. All these drugs are called collectively NSAIDS or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents. And what NSAIDs do (and that’s just some of the examples), those are commonly used as pain relievers.
And what’s bad about these is they are a risk for acute kidney injury – and pretty severely.
You’ve seen this a lot with athletes where they’ll be using Ibuprofen and Naproxen quite a bit and then all of a sudden, they’ll end up with kidney failure and they don’t realize why. This takes very small amounts as well to be damaging. And it looks like it’s not necessarily just one NSAID. This whole drug class is associated with acute kidney injury and kidney failure in some instances. So it’s really important to realize that if you’re taking these things on a regular basis.
And they also include Celebrex, Meloxicam is really popular, Voltaren. These are drugs that are prescribed quite a bit for injury, but also just for arthritis. So you want to definitely not be using these on a continual basis because of the kidney issues. It causes kidney injury.
And let me explain to your listeners too. If anybody has had any acute kidney injury from any of these products, using the Detox 1 is highly effective in reversing this particular types of injury.
DEBRA: And that Detox 1 is a homeopathic remedy that people can get from you.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, the Detox 1 is what I would recommend and it’s from DesBio. That really would work especially to clean up the kidneys and repair the nephrones.
I would say, if someone’s creatinine has been elevated at all from Ibuprofen or Naproxen, they need to do something to repair. Let me tell you, kidney and liver failure, we don’t have anything in regular science and regular pharmacy for that.
DEBRA: Right! But what I’m saying is if people can call you and get the Detox 1?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, yeah. I apologize, I apologize.
DEBRA: That’s what I meant?
PAMELA SEEFELD: I’m sorry, I apologize.
DEBRA: As long as we’re talking about that, why don’t you give your phone number?
PAMELA SEEFELD: The number here in my pharmacy, it’s Botanical Resource, is 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I would be very honored to help you and your family in any of these situations have happened and also, like I explained, about the hepatic and the liver failure as well. I will be glad to help with that as well.
DEBRA: Yes. And she does free consultation. So please feel free to call her and she’s happy to talk to you about whatever is going on with drugs or your body. Whatever your symptoms are, she can help you with some natural and homeopathic remedies. And so, it really is okay to call Pamela and she will talk to you very happily for free. So give her a call. The number again is…
PAMELA SEEFELD: 727-442-4955. I’d be greatly honored to help you or your family. And also, if you’re on these medicine and you want to get off of them, especially the acetaminophen and narcotic combinations, I can help you transition off of those as well. I know those are very hard especially we’re talking about narcotic combinations.
The addiction potential really starts kicking in less than eight to ten days. It doesn’t take very long. People don’t realize they’ve become dependent in such a short period of time. It’s just very horrible.
DEBRA: And we watch commercials for these drugs on TV all day long. We get in this mindset that they must be safe, they’re on TV and they’re deadly.
So what’s number three?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Number three is Paxil. The reason why I picked Paxil is Paxil is an anti-depressant, but it has a lot of dangers associated with it. I want to explain.
Paxil, it induces its own metaboolism. So what this means when something is inducing its own metabolism, its autometabolism, we know that a person can come to a toxic level at a very short period of time.
And the new data was just released (a study in the British Journal of Medicine this month) that the original studies of Paxil in adolescents were skewed and the data was collected inappropriately and incorrectly and maybe was falsely misleading because Paxil is associated with increased suicide risk especially because of the fact that it inhibits its own metabolism. People, a lot of time, were becoming psychotic and suicidal on Paxil – and this still can happen. And the reason why is because the drug level would be 200 times what they’re expecting to be in the brain and so the person becomes psychotic.
So maybe that even should be number one. If anybody is on Paxil or if they’re contemplating on giving it to adolescents, the new studies show that all of the benefits that were previously shown had been retracted. And this was just Wall Street Journal like two days ago. They had a big article about it. It’s very, very deadly.
So if you’re taking Paxil, especially if you have any young people taking Paxil, the chance of the person becoming suicidal and pyschotic is pretty high. If it inhibits cell metabolism, what’s happening is each drug dose is making more of the drug dose in the brain and it’s a very dangerous combination. I would tell people that of all the SSRIs, that’s probably the worst, especially for young person.
And I want to just briefly talk about SSRIs for a brief second.
DEBRA: And what does SSRI stand for?
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It’s a very common drug. Paxil is one of them and Prozac and Zoloft. They’re very, very common drugs.
In the last 20 years when they really started becoming popular, we saw that in the past – I’m just going to divert for a second about gun violence and all these shootings that are happening in society, mass shootings and terrible things like that. What happens is when people take serotonin reuptake inhibitors, they lose their inhibitions and their consciousness and their impulse control. This is the problem.
If you look at what’s correlated in society over the last 20 years when we’re starting to see all these mass shootings, all these terrible things, just these random acts of violence that they can’t explain why people are doing this, when you start using these drugs and have millions and millions of people taking this, their perception of impulse when it comes to violence, many times, it’s altered.
This can explain why all of a sudden this is happening. It’s not necessarily, “Are we controlling guns? Or aren’t we controlling guns?” It’s about the fact that you have mass amounts of the population, maybe up to 20% or more on these medicines, and their impulse control for some of these deadly things is gone.
DEBRA: Wow!
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s what’s really happening. And it correlates with this time period, right? Before these drugs were here, this wasn’t a problem. And now it is. You have to realize too, this stuff, even if you’re not taking this, this serotonin reuptake inhibitors, remnants of this are in the water. We have them in the water supply.
DEBRA: Yeah, yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: This is kind of sideline, but I think people really need to ponder this and think. This is a direct correlation. This isn’t like some crazy science.
DEBRA: No, I understand what you’re saying. Exposure to these things affects the world in so many ways. And that definitely is a deadly association. Wow!
We need to go to break. When we come back, we’ll continue with our list of seven deadly drugs with my guest, Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist. Her natural pharmacy is at BotanicalResource.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is the Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers dispense medicine plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs.
So Pamela, let’s go on with now deadly drug number four.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, deadly drug number four is Metformin. I’ll explain what Metformin is. Metformin is an old drug. It’s been around a long time. it’s the first line therapy for people that have diabetes, type II diabetes particularly. It’s used a lot. Metformin can cause a condition called lactic acidosis. I’m going to explain what that is.
It changes the way lactic acid is produced in the body and handled. And it can happen in a very short period of time. What I want to point out is that a lot of people that are diabetics, they are on this medication (maybe 500 mg. twice a day) and what happens when sugar has been elevated over a period of time, your kidney function gets affected by the sugar damaging the glomerulus and the cells in the kidney.
So, a lot of times, people that have had type II diabetes and even the new ones that have had it for a while and are on Metformin, their serum creatinine (which is a number that is indicative of the kidney function) starts increasing. And I see this a lot of time when people come to the hospital. That’s when we catch it. The doctors are really bad about adjusting for kidney problems the medications.
And actually, as a man, if your serum creatinine is greater than 1.5 or a female, serum creatinine is greater than 1.4, it’s contraindicated.
They can’t take it at all. And I can’t tell you how many times I’m working as a pharmacist and I see people on this medicine and they do not meet the criteria. In fact, it’s very dangerous. Their creatining is elevated to those numbers and the doctors still has them on the Metformin.
This is something for all of the listeners. If anybody is on this drug and they have any questions about how to interpret their numbers, I will be most glad to help you figure out if this drug is damaging your kidneys.
DEBRA: Yeah, that’s a big concern. This is another one where people are just given this and no information about how it might damage your kidneys. My doctor gave me Metformin, “Oh, it’s okay.”
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, yeah, this is what I’m saying. This is the problem. Say you go to a regular retail pharmacy, they don’t have your blood work, they don’t have your numbers. So, if the doctor doesn’t catch it and when you get it filled at the CVS or the Walgreens or whatever, they don’t see these numbers. So basically, there’s a lot of blind dispensing going on. That’s the way I look at it. They don’t have any of the information. They’re just sending it out. You’re going to be very surprised, what I see as a practitioner that even people coming in here that are on Metformin that have type II diabetes, their kidney function is not compatible with this medication. It’s contraindicated and they should never have been given it in the first place.
And you have to think. I don’t know the exact number of people, how many Americans are on Metformin, but it’s millions, I’m sure. I mean, it’s a lot of people.
DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. Wow! So number five.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Number five is iron, ferrous sulfate, ferrous gluconate. I’ll explain about iron.
Iron, the reason why it’s dangerous – and I thought this is kind of interesting because I was even bringing this up to some of my customers the other day. People don’t realize how dangerous iron is. It’s one of the highest toxic things that you can have in your medicine cabinet and especially for children and adolescents, young kids especially.
That’s why when you see any products that contain over 30 mg. of iron or more per dosage, they have to be packaged in a blister pack. They can’t be in a full bottle. The most dangerous overdose for infants and children is iron. It only takes probably about four pills of 30 mg. to kill a small child.
So if you have iron salt, any iron salts, hanging around your house, if your dog eats it, if your children get into it, if the grandchildren get into it, it’s very, very deadly. It’s neurotoxic and causes seizures and death. This is one of these things that you might have in your medicine cabinet and not even think twice about it.
DEBRA: Well, it’s a vitamin.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. Say someone has some low-grade ongoing anemia, a lot of the ones that the doctors are going to give you are 150 mg. It may only take one. It’s that deadly.
And especially, I have to bring up pets too, because if someone drops an iron pill on the floor and the dog eats it, it’s probably going to die.
So you have to realize that this is something important. So if you actually have a high iron formula or if you’re taking a lot of iron, this is something that little kids, pets, these should be locked up far away from any of these kids or the animals to get a hold of this. You know dogs, if you drop something on the floor, they eat it right away. If you’re counting out your vitamins, you have iron and you have dogs or cats, you need to be very, very cognizant of this.
I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening today that have never heard this before, but that’s very, very important. That’s why I call it deadly because it’s just a small dosage, a seemingly innocuous product can lead to lethal consequences.
DEBRA: Well, what can people take instead of an iron pill? If they have iron-poor blood, do you remember those commercials on TV where they talk about ‘iron-poor blood’?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, yes. Actually, you know what I use? I don’t use as many iron tablets because iron causes severe constipation for a lot of people. It causes these hard stools and cramping. It’s not tolerated very well. I actually use a homeopathic iron and I have reverse a lot of anemia with that. It works great. It’s liquid. You put it in your detox bottle, you just sip it through the day and it works. The regular hemoglobin and hematocrits, those numbers look better, but it looks on your deep iron stores, your ferritin levels as well. The regular iron, a lot of times, won’t reach those deep muscle stores.
The iron mix, I use that a lot of time. I sell quite a bit of that. It’s inexpensive. It works really well and it’s a liquid. It doesn’t constipate. You just put in the water. One or two months on it, you go get your blood work rechecked and it comes back in a nice level. That’s really, really a great product. I would say it’s much better tolerated and much safer than having iron pills around the house. I would not.
If you have kids visiting or living there, you really don’t want to have those. It’s not just worth taking the chance. If a babysitter or somebody else is watching the kids, they might not realize the deadly consequences of just a few pills that the kids get into.
DEBRA: Yeah. One of the things that is impressing me today about what you’re talking about – actually, the way I got the idea for this show was because you got email advertisements all the time for all these things. An email came in and it said something about the “seven deadly drugs.” I don’t even remember what they were selling. I looked to see what they thought the seven deadly drugs were and they were drugs that I recognized.
But what you’re telling us today is from your viewpoint, these are drugs that everybody thinks are safe. And that’s what makes them even more deadly, the fact that people could overdose on them and not know. As you said, drop an iron pill on the floor and the dog or baby just reaches over and picks it up and that’s it!
We’re just not aware of these things, that a lot of the things that are toxic that we talk about in this show are cumulative and so you’re exposed to them over and over and then you get sick. There’s also what are called ‘acute poisons’. These definitely fall into that category. It’s not necessarily that you take one and you’re going to die. But it’s easy to take enough that you could end up having these problems over time.
And they’re so common. They’re so common and people think they’re safe. That’s the thing that’s so amazing to me.
So when we come back, we’re going to heal the last two of the seven deadly drugs. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. Her website is BotanicalResource.com.
And Pamela, before we go on, since this is the last segment, why don’t you give your phone number again in case anybody who’s listening wants to call you for a free consultation.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, absolutely. I’m very glad. It’s Botanical Resource. You can reach me here at 727-442-4955. That’s 727442-4955. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have about your supplements, your prescriptions, if you’re intested in getting off of some of your prescription, if there are some side effects you’re suspecting that you’re having from your prescriptions and also some homeopathic supplements in place of what you’re taking. I will be glad to adjust these for you.
All follow-ups are free as well. We keep [inaudible 00:39:46]. It’s very professional. So I’ll be very glad to help you or your family.
DEBRA: Yes, she is very professional. I take remedies that she suggested to me. She’s very well-respected here in Clearwater, Florida by patients and doctors. My medical doctor said, “If Pamela tells you to take it, take it.” She gives lectures to doctors and things like that.
Anyway, so we have two more deadly drugs. Number six?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Number six is Lamisil. This is a prescription. It’s called terbinafine. It’s one of these things if you have toenail fungus, you know the fungus beneath your toes that you go to the doctor, they give you Lamicil, they give you the treatment. You have to take one pill a day usually for several weeks. This can cause severe liver failure. It’s highly hepatotoxic. So if you’re going to the doctor and you’re asking for this particular prescription because you want to take the oral drug to eliminate the fungus that grows underneath the nail, this drug is very, very dangerous. I would tell people to really avoid it. You should be using topical things.
And actually, what works really well for that particular stuff is standardized oil of oregano. It’s an anti-fungal in itself. And the whole idea behind taking something orally is because you need to come up to the nail bed. They have a lot of these tea tree things and stuff you paint on.
That stuff doesn’t really work because it’s under the nail. It needs to come from the bloodstream and bring the medicine up. So oil of oregano capsules work very good for that.
And I also use medical-grade Andrographis to treat that instead. The fungus under the nail is a common problem, but taking the oral medications is highly suspect in causing liver failure. That’s one of those that you’ll go to the doctor’s, he’ll give you the pill and then he won’t really warn you about the liver failure. The thing with liver problems is that once they show up, they don’t have anything to fix it. It’s one of these all-or-nothing sort of problems. That’s really dangerous.
But these are the common problems. I mean, what precentage of the population has a fungus under their nail and they want to get their nail beds looking better. Maybe they want to have a French manicure and they don’t want to have the discoloration so they go to the doctor and they get the prescription. You need to be wary of using that.
DEBRA: I’ve been listening to everything you’ve been saying today obviously. But what I’m thinking is that most of the things that you’ve talked about, I thought, “Oh, damage the liver and/or the kidneys” and the liver and the kidneys are the primary detox organs in our bodies.
So here’s the question. Even if people are not having a deadly effect from these drugs, wouldn’t the liver and kidneys be weakened and it would be more difficult for them to detox other toxic substances that we might be being exposed to.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, by far. And the big thing is it’s cumulative. Maybe you have a glass of wine and you’ve had a Tylenol because you had a really bad headache and you had a really hard day at work. And then you’ve been treating your toenail fungus with this Lamisil. And maybe at the same time, you took some Ibuprofen the day before, maybe you’re on Metformin. Let’s start simple, but all these things together are a big problem.
DEBRA: Well, not only the drugs altogether, but you take these and then you go pump gas in your car or get this nail polish or hair spray or lie in bed and get a formaldehyde exposure from your permanent press bedsheets. All these drugs are contributing to the overall toxic load of your body.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. I’m a big advocate. If I tell people to do everything, you really need to be doing the Body Anew to clean the chemicals out of your day. I do it every single day to just take this stuff out.
And you really need to be on medical-grade fish oil, maybe a mood-elevating one. And you need to be on folic acid. Those two things protect the heart and the brain. A lot of people will be taking piles and piles of supplements, but if you’re not taking some of those basic things, you’re really missing the boat because you’re going to end up either with heart disease or cancer. That’s what most people are at risk for really == and the carcinogenic exposure.
But also, the fact that if your liver gets damaged, you’re really not metabolizing and conjugating all these chemicals. So if your liver has problems, whatever exposure you have to fat-soluble chemicals and pesticides, it’s going to be double-fold because your body is not going to process it.
DEBRA: That’s exactly right!
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s the problem. It’s going to store it and cause cancer and other things. It’s one of these things that you want to stay on top of. Especially the people that are listening are probably health-oriented to begin with, they’re interested in trying to improve their health, you need to look at this from a logical standpoint.
DEBRA: Yeah. Okay, good. So number seven.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Number seven is proton pump inhibitors. I would say Protonics, Prilosec, Nexium, Dilatant. These are the drugs that you see a lot. A lot of people are on Omeprazole, Prilosec or Pantoprazole which is Protonics. They’re on these drugs. They block stomach acids. They block all the stomach acids.
In the past, we used to use Tagamet and Pepsid and Zantac and these drugs. Those were called H2 blockers. They block some of the acid, but some of the acids are still there. Now, we use something that blocks all the acid and the problem with that is that you’re not absorbing calcium, you’re not absorbing iron and you’re not absorbing magnesium. Acid needs to be present. So if you want to give somebody brittle bones and anemia, this is a good way to do it.
DEBRA: Wow! Wow!
PAMELA SEEFELD: And a lot of people will go into the hospital for a routine situation. They put everybody on this automatically just to protect against the stress ulcer because you’re stressed when you’re in the hospital. And then they get discharged on it and then they’re on it forever.
Unless you have Barrett’s esophagus or something very dangerous (and there are homeopathic things that work better than this ta twe use), a lot of people are on these things to control stomach acid and they don’t realize that they’re going to end up with brittle bones. I can’t tell you how many times I see elderly ladies that are customers of mine that they’re on one of these medicines and at the same time, they’re taking calcium (well, they’re not absorbing it) and they’re on a medication because of brittle bones, a prescription medication like a biphosphanate.
I’m thinking, “Well, the reason you have brittle bones are because you’re on these drugs. You need to tell the doctor if he’s prescribing this that the anemia you have and the brittle bones and the osteoporosis/osteopenia, those problems are directly as a result because you’re not absorbing any of these nutrients.”
DEBRA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There’s just so many things. I know it can seem really overwhelming at times. But I know for me that I’ve spent a lot of time studying this stuff and it’s easier for all of you listening and reading my things because it takes a lot of research to get to knowing these things. And then, we’re giving you this information, so it’s easier for you to apply than if we weren’t here having already done this research for you.
But I can tell you that over time, it just looks simpler and simpler to me. For example, I just don’t take prescription drugs, I don’t take over-the-counter drugs, that’s it. I mean, I haven’t done that in 25 years. And all the things, you just move over to a different way of looking at things and what your options are, Everything that I do is using natural remedies if I even need to take the remedy because you can do a lot to improve your health with diet and exercise. I know that that sounds like everybody says that, but it’s really true.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, most definitely. So, what I tell people, the diet and exercise makes a big difference. And also, you’re taking the chemicals out on a daily basis and protecting your kidney and liver function. So if you use these things, you need to be cognizant of that.
And there are herbs that can damage this as well. Not only herbs are safe either. There are things that can damage the kidney and the liver.
But if there’s any question about what you’re taking, just give me a call and I will go over it. It’s a short-time conversation that can maybe make a big difference as far as your long-term health.
These things are preventable to some degree. There are some viruses and things can attack the kidney and the liver and the heart. Things happens, I understand that. But a lot of times, these things could’ve been avoided if someone had the knowledge beforehand to try and do something about it.
DEBRA: Right! And we really need to be looking at this. One of the things that I’ve observed is that when you don’t know about toxics, then people are doing things like taking vitamins, maybe eating natural food, but not organic food, they’re not eating out of cans anymore, but they’re eating fresh lettuce from the grocery store, for example, they’re going and getting their check-ups and they’re going to exercise class and all these things, which in kind of the mainstream way are the positive things that people are told to do for their health, taking vitamins, et cetera.
But on the other hand, you’ve got this big onslaught of toxic stuff that is working against your health in consumer products and drugs just all over the place. And what I found in my own life and people that I work with is that if you just start by removing the toxics, remove the toxic drugs, remove the toxic chemicals and then do the things that support your body, it’s kind of like if you’re trying to empty the bath tub and you keep dumping water into it, you’re not going to empty the bath tub.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. And the thing that I was talking about, the cumulative toxicity, is very real and very present and very dangerous. I don’t think people can realize enough they could do all these things for their health, they’re doing all these food choices, sleeping right, exercising, whatever it may be, drinking filtered water, and then when it comes down to it, they’re taking maybe even supplements that can cause damage to either the kidneys or the liver…
DEBRA: Pamela, I have to interrupt you because the music is going to start in just a second. So thank you so much.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Absolutely! Thank you.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. You can go to BotanicalResource.com. You can call up Pamela and she will help you figure this out. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well.
Chemicals That Don’t Cause Cancer Themselves Can Cause Cancer When Combined
Today my guests are Ken Cook, President of Environmental Working Group and Curt DellaValle, Senior Scientist at EWG. In August, EWG released a new guide called Rethinking Carcinogens which summarizes new research about cancer from the Halifax Project. This collaboration of more than 300 scientists are investigating ways in which toxic chemicals we are exposed to every day may cause cancer. This includes 85 common chemicals not known to be carcinogenic on their own, 50 of which were found to disrupt cancer-related pathways at low doses typically encountered in the environment. We’ll learn more about this in today’s show. www.ewg.org
Ken Cook, president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, is widely recognized as one of the environmental community’s most prominent and influential critics of the nation’s broken approach to protecting families and children from toxic substances. Under Cook’s leadership over the past 20 years, EWG has empowered American families with easy-to-use, data-driven tools to help reduce their exposure to potentially harmful ingredients in foods, drinking water, cosmetics and other household products. These unique digital resources are searched hundreds of millions times by consumers, journalists and policy makers.
Curt DellaValle, Senior Scientist at EWG, brings his background in epidemiology and cancer research experience to work on the development of EWG’s Cancer Prevention Initiative. He holds a BS in biology from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in environmental health from Yale University. Prior to joining EWG, Curt was a fellow at the National Cancer Institute where he conducted research evaluating exposure to environmental contaminants and risk of cancer, with a particular emphasis on the improvement of exposure assessment methods in epidemiologic studies.
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Chemicals That Don’t Cause Cancer Themselves Can Cause Cancer When Combined
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Ken Cook
Date of Broadcast: September 29, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It’s Tuesday, September 29, 2015, and I’m here in Clearwater, Florida, where the sun is showing, and there are no thunderstorms, so we should be fine and have no interruptions or background noise.
Today, we’re going to be talking about a very, very, very – this might be one of the most important shows that I’ve ever done or may ever do.
I’ve been studying toxic chemicals and their effects for more than 30 years, and what I’ve learned is in the field of toxicology, they divide up chemicals and they say this one causes cancer. This one causes birth defects. This one causes headaches, et cetera.
They even name – have a category like neurotoxic, which means that it’s toxic to your nervous system.
Now, there’s a new study that’s going on, I don’t know how long it’s been going on, but it’s what their finding is that chemicals that were thought to not cause cancer by themselves, when they combine together in your body, do cause cancer.
They’re still doing this investigation. They’re still doing the scientific work. But this is extremely, extremely important because we tend to think that – we’d look up a chemical like formaldehyde, and we’ll see here are all these studies, and these tests have been done, and they say, “Okay, formaldehyde has these health effects. They’re safe or dangerous in these amounts.”
But that’s only looking at it in isolation. What this study is showing is actual scientific proof that when you combine chemicals together, they have totally different effects.
So this means that you can’t just let that chemical in isolation and say, “This chemical causes this effect” because you don’t know – we’re exposed to so many chemicals in the world that you don’t know what the combined effect is going to be.
This is why I’ve been saying for years and years and years that what we need to do is reduce our exposure to all toxic chemicals because we don’t know what the combinations are, and now here’s the science about it.
This study is being done by an organization called “The Halifax Project”. It’s called “The Halifax Project.” They published some papers this summer, and I went and looked them all up. They’re very lengthy and have a lot of big words in them and very difficult to read.
But fortunately, the Environmental Working Group read them all and translated them into language that we can understand. And so I have today with us Ken Cook, who is the president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, and Curt DellaValle, who is a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group.
They’re going to talk with us about what’s going on with this study.
Hi, Ken and Curt.
KEN COOK: Hi, Debra.
CURT DELLAVALLE: Hello.
KEN COOK: Glad to be here.
DEBRA: Thank you.
CURT DELLAVALLE: – [cross-talking 00:04:30] on the show.
DEBRA: Thank you. I’m very pleased to have you here because I just think that this is probably the most important thing you’ve ever done.
It’s that important.
So Ken, as the co-founder, why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about Environmental Working Group, what you do, and how you came to be.
KEN COOK: Well, Environmental Working Group started 22 years ago. It was a small group of us working on environmental issues, initially working on the connections between agriculture and the environment.
Once we’ve started doing that work, we started branching out to adjacent issues that obviously presented us with some serious problems that we thought are particular capabilities of scientific research, database analysis and communications lent themselves too.
So that took us from agricultural subsidies and how to reform them, to pesticide issues, and what should be done to reduce exposure, particularly to children. This was in the early 1990s, to pesticides and food and from other sources.
From there we branched out to the problems posed by other categories of toxic chemicals.
And so recently, we became aware of the Halifax Project which is one of the projects that was initiated by an organization, a very small, non-profit, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, based there, called “Getting to Know Cancer.”
We had gotten in contact with this organization because they had this very intriguing hypothesis, and I just want to emphasize, it is still a hypothesis from them. But they devoted considerable amount of scientific research looking at the published literature to verify that this hypothesis is very well worth now testing in future laboratory studies.
The hypothesis is pretty much as you suggested at the top of the interview, which is we have always thought of carcinogens in the context of individual chemicals that by themselves would cause cancer.
And so what we’ve now done with the Halifax Project, we’ve seen them do, and these are dozens and dozens of scientists from around the world, is suggest that if you take closer look at the processes that we now know contribute to the formation of cancer that turn normal cells into cancer cells. Each of those various processes can be affected by chemicals even if they are not carcinogens in the regulatory sense.
So this opens up a whole series of important questions about how chemical exposures of all kinds might be affecting our bodies in ways that aren’t, strictly speaking, one chemical equals a carcinogen, but more one chemical might be contributing in ensemble fashion, in combination with other chemicals. It might be contributing to the risk of cancer.
DEBRA: I’m just so happy this is being done. I write so much about the subject. I’m always trying to understand the chemicals better. I’m particularly from a consumer viewpoint. I have no scientific background. I just have been studying it for many years as a consumer.
And so I want to think that if – what I need to do is I need to establish, as a consumer advocate, which are the chemicals that we should not be using, and that we should be finding safer alternatives for.
And so over the years, I’ve collected my own list of what I think that is. And so when I write, I write about how can we stay away from formaldehyde, for example.
I have a list of carcinogens which I’ve gathered from all different places that list carcinogens and have determined that. That is a category.
I also did an organization of symptoms and illnesses and things. Several years ago, I just looked at all the different body systems and I said, “What are the chemicals that affect the nervous system? What are the chemicals that affect the digestive system? The endocrine system, et cetera?”
And some of those chemicals are affecting more than one system. They just don’t go into the body. Some of them go in and target certain things, certain parts of the body, or they cause certain illnesses. But that’s not always the case.
So this is so important.
We only have just a few seconds left before we need to go to break. When we come back, what I’d like us to do is have you start telling us about the study itself, and you have this on your website. I have a link to it, if you just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and find this show. The link is there.
But there’s a section called “Rethinking Carcinogens.” And I think if you just type in “rethinking carcinogens” in any search engine, it’ll take you to this page.
So the things that we’re going to be talking about today, you can then find them on the website and go over them as carefully as you’d like to.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests today are Ken Cook and Curt DellaValle. They’re from Environmental Working Group and the Environmental Working Group website is EWG.org.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests today are Ken Cook, who is the president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, and Curt DellaValle. He is a senior scientist at EWG. And he’s working on the Cancer Prevention Initiative.
Curt, since you’re working on the Initiative, why don’t you tell us about the difference between a complete and a partial carcinogen.
CURT DELLAVALLE: I think Ken touched on it before that complete carcinogens are what are identified now. These are chemicals that on their own, can cause cancer or cause progression of cancer.
You mentioned formaldehyde is an example of what we know as a complete carcinogen. Exposure to formaldehyde can potentially cause cancer.
Partial carcinogens are a term that is now being phrased just because of – largely, in part of this Halifax Project’s findings. But these are chemicals that we think, on their own, are not capable of causing cancer. But they can disrupt certain cancer-related pathways.
And given that we know cancer develops through a multistep process, in combination with other chemicals that might also affect other cancer-related pathways, whether it’s cell division or impacting the way our normal bodies get rid of old and dying cells, those chemicals in combination might present a carcinogenic mixture.
And so each individual component would consider a partial carcinogen.
DEBRA: So as the development of cancer is going through its process, then I think what you’re saying is that the different chemicals that may not cause cancer in and of themselves might affect some part of that process, and then together, they result – can you just outline what is the process of cancer developing?
CURT DELLAVALLE: Cancer, just in general terms, is just when a normal cell begins to act abnormally, and it begins to divide uncontrollably. This uncontrolled cell division ends up creating, in most case, a mass of cells, which we know is a tumor.
And that would be what we would consider cancer.
So that’s the general process. Along the way, there may be chemicals that can interact on certain parts of this process. There may be a chemical that comes in and interact with our cells in a way that super speed their cell division. So now they’re rapidly dividing.
If that now abnormal behavior is not detected by our body’s defense system, or [inaudible 00:16:48] our bodies are unable to handle that, then that uncontrolled division can lead to other problems where another chemical might come in and disrupt how blood supply is supplied to those cells, all this leading toward the mass of cells as we would know as a tumor.
DEBRA: This is just amazing to me. It’s amazing but it’s also – it makes sense to me that all of these chemicals in our bodies – do you have a number of how many chemicals might be in our bodies at any given time?
CURT DELLAVALLE: [inaudible 00:17:27] we’re actually working on a report just chronicling carcinogens that have been measured in our body. So it’s [inaudible 00:17:38] to say. For any individual, how many chemicals you would have in your body. But you would think it would be hundreds of chemicals.
Some of them may be harmful, some of them not. And of course, just because a chemical is present in your body, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be present at levels that will be harmful for you.
DEBRA: So if somebody is exposed to a carcinogen, what are some of the factors that might be going on, such as the dose, as to whether or not it would affect them? Because I know – one of the things I have on my website is a Q&A. And so people are asking me questions all the time.
One of the most frequently heard thoughts is, how can I – it’s said in various different ways. But basically the idea is how can I not be exposed to this chemical or whatever it is completely?
My dishes might have a certain amount of lead on them. Is it okay to eat off of them? Because I should have zero amount of lead.
What are some of the factors that people should be considering when they’re thinking about [inaudible 00:18:46] may be exposed to these chemicals or not, and how much?
CURT DELLAVALLE: It depends on, I guess, what the chemical is. In general, if you’re trying to say, “I’m going to eliminate all bad exposures from my life.” That’s not going to be possible, unless you live in a bubble.
So that’s not possible. And obviously, people are living – our life expectancy is increasing. So it’s not a necessarily harmful thing that we’re being exposed to through all these chemicals, but certain chemicals and certain chemicals in too much of a quantity that are really the problem.
There are a lot of factors that are going to influence whether an individual is highly susceptible.
Just the other day, I saw a news article about – there have been certain genes identified for smokers that increase or decrease their risk or susceptibility.
Smoking, we know, is highly carcinogenic. It causes a lot of cancers, lung in particular. But some people can smoke all their lives and never develop cancer. And some people smoke just a little bit and they’re the unlucky ones that do get cancer.
DEBRA: My great uncle lived to be 99 and he was a chain smoker.
CURT DELLAVALLE: Exactly. So they’re not identifying certain genes that are protective against the effects of smoking.
We don’t know if we have those genes or not at this point in time, but certainly genetics is going to play a factor.
There’s even just random chance. Our cells, we have trillion of cells, they’re all dividing. Each time they divide, there’s a chance of an error, even though it’s minutely small. There’s a chance that that error won’t be caught, and if those errors propagate, then that’s when we have a problem.
So there is that factor too.
And then of course, the amount of exposure you have, the dose you are receiving.
DEBRA: So is your conclusion that if we know something causes cancer that it would probably be a good idea to be prudent and avoid it to the best of our ability, just because we [inaudible 00:21:07]?
CURT DELLAVALLE: [inaudible 00:21:07] for sure, yes.
DEBRA: We need to go to break. When we come back, we’ll talk more about the study that is showing how chemicals [inaudible 00:21:20] cause cancer by themselves, can cause cancer when they are combined together.
I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guests are Ken Cook, president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, and Curt DellaValle, who is a senior scientist at Environmental Working Group. He’s working on the Cancer Prevention Initiative.
The Environmental Working Group website is EWG.org, and we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests today are Ken Cook, president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, and Curt DellaValle, senior scientist at EWG. And their website is EWG.org.
So one of the pages that I thought that was the most interesting in your report, “Rethinking Carcinogens,” and by the way, during the break, I went to a search engine and typed “Rethinking Carcinogens” and EWG’s report came out right at the top. So that’s something that you can do to get to these pages that we’re talking about.
But there’s a page called “Hallmarks of Cancer.” And it talks about how the body has many layers of safeguards to control cell division and preventing [inaudible 00:27:21] damage. And that a chemical that interferes with this single cancer-related hallmark process is unlikely to cancer. But combine the chemical that interferes with cell division cycle with one that interferes with the cellular dead cycle, and you begin to see how exposures to chemical mixtures have the potential to overwhelm the body’s defenses.
I’d like for us to talk about this page and this idea during the segment. Who would like to go first?
KEN COOK: I’d let Curt take the first swing at this because the Hallmarks of Cancer framework was really the inspiration for the Halifax Project because that is a couple of essays actually by that name that sought to organize what was understood around the year 2000. And then they issued this follow-up review in 2011.
How do you make sense of what we’ve learned from cancer biology over the past 25 years or so? That’s what the Hallmarks of Cancer framework was designed to do, is give some structure to that and yield an important insight that resulted in what we now know and discussing is the Halifax Project.
But I’ll let Curt speak to these hallmarks.
DEBRA: Before you start, I just want to also mention to our listeners, encouraging you to go to this page that – what’s on this page is a list of the different hallmarks which we’ll hopefully talk about a little. But then there’s a table at the bottom that says “chemicals with evidence affecting cancer hallmark processes” where you have this list of 10 different steps or hallmarks that contribute to the formation of cancer.
This page also lists individually the chemicals that contribute to each one of them. So it’s so interesting to me.
Most people have heard of Bisphenol A, and here, BPA contributes to – here’s the first one and the second one. It’s all over this list.
And so BPA isn’t just – it does a lot of damage.
So Curt, tell us about the Hallmarks of Cancer.
CURT DELLAVALLE: So Ken had mentioned that these were the ideas to – the structure to what we know about the biology of cancer.
So the Hallmarks of Cancer were just the characteristics that distinguish cancer cell from a normally operating cell. These things include self-sufficient cell division, which is normally our bodies control the division of cell. They tell when to divide, when to stop dividing. Cancer cells stop listening to our body signals, and they just divide on their own.
Resisting cell [inaudible 00:30:36]. As I said, when our body detects that a cell is either old or damaged or during the division process, DNA has been corrupted to some degree, it will act to self-destruct that cell. But cancer cells can avoid that process and continue to proliferate even though they’re damaged.
So these are just the three of those eight characteristics that distinguish the normal cells. And they also define – the reason there is 10 because there are two of them that they consider initially hallmarks of the cancer cells themselves, but things that enable those eight characteristics to arise like inflammation.
Inflammation creates an environment in which these cancer hallmarks are likely to arise.
DEBRA: A lot of people have inflammation.
We’ve talked about inflammation on other shows and here it is again.
Can you tell us about – I’ll just look at this page here. The first one is self-sufficient cell division. And so it has a low dose effect, threshold effect and low dose effect unknown.
When people come to this page and read these, what do those terms mean?
CURT DELLAVALLE: Those are just classifying what dose you would need to have to – of this chemical for it to have that effect on whatever particular process you’re talking about, that specific hallmark.
If it has a low dose effect, then that means there’s no known safe level. Even a very small exposure can have an effect on this cancer-related process.
A threshold effect means that you need to reach some sort of threshold of exposure. So you need to be exposed to at least a certain amount before that effect happens.
And then the effect unknown just means there hasn’t been enough research on this particular chemical to know what dose it’s acting at. We just know that there are some doses which it does behave in this way.
DEBRA: Some of the – like Bisphenol A is on the low dose effect [inaudible 00:32:55] for self-sufficient cell division. So even doing something like handling cash register receipts on a daily basis would give you a low dose.
CURT DELLAVALLE: It’s funny too. That is one of the things that I have – in my head, I stopped doing it, even though I know it’s a very small exposure. I usually turn down a cash receipt now.
DEBRA: I do too. And I’ve actually just started doing that in the last couple of months. And I’ve also started – because I actually realize that the reason that receipts are given goes way back pre-digital age, where you have to have a piece of paper to show that you paid for the item that you purchased.
But now you can walk into any big box store and say, “I bought it here. I’m bringing back my whatever.” And they can just look it up on the computer, and you don’t even need a receipt.
So our digital age has changed all that. And so I’ve been doing two things. One is I’ve been refusing the receipts, or if I think I need it, I have them put it in a bag and I don’t touch it. Or the third is I ask them, “Are these BPA free receipt?”
And I am just [inaudible 00:34:15] at how many people don’t even know what I’m talking about. They look at me strangely and then I go and I ask the manager. I’m making this big deal as I go around from store to store about these BPA-free receipts.
People don’t even know what it is.
We need to go to break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests today are Ken Cook, president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, and Curt DellaValle, senior scientist at Environmental Working Group, who is working on the development of the Cancer Prevention Initiative.
We’ll be right back.
= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guests today are Ken Cook, president and co-founder of Environmental Working Group, and Curt DellaValle, senior scientist at Environmental Working Group, who is working on the Cancer Prevention Initiative. Their website is EWG.org.
For both of you, I know one of the things that Environmental Working Group has been doing is focusing on – well, you have a lot of consumer recommendations who also are focusing on the legislative side of it, which is something that I don’t do. I’ve just been working on the consumer side of it for the last 30 years.
So I really appreciate all of the legislative [inaudible 00:39:35] that you do, and I’d like to know what are your recommendations, given this new information about cancer. But also just the fact that – when I started, I used to think that I could say, okay, here’s a toxic chemical, formaldehyde. We’ve been using that throughout the show. So let’s just continue.
So here’s a toxic chemical, formaldehyde, and you can avoid being exposed to formaldehyde by using solid wood instead of particle board, for example.
And so that was a very clear cut choice. But the problem that I see that we’re running into now, and I don’t know really when this started, but it seems to be getting worse and worse, is that there are some things that you can’t avoid because they are now ubiquitous.
So where do you think we need to go from here? Ken, why don’t you answer first?
KEN COOK: Well, to start with, I think the notion of giving people practical advice that doesn’t require them to abandon life as we know it in the modern world, but gives them options to avoid exposures to toxic chemicals. That kind of advice is very, very important.
There’s a lot of it out there. We advise people to take a careful look at their sources before they make decisions. But I don’t think there’s any question that we really do benefit when we are open to information that informs us about where toxic exposures might be happening because it’s often very straightforward and easy to avoid them.
DEBRA: Yes, it is. I would agree with that.
KEN COOK: So that’s the first step because when I’m sitting – I’m up giving a talk to an audience, and I look out and I see – it seems like every woman in the audience is pregnant. And I’m about to give them some really worrisome information about toxic chemicals including that babies are exposed even while they’re in the womb.
In my mind, I’m thinking I can’t give the answer to all of the questions that I know are coming as wait for the government to solve this problem for you because we know that the government not only not going to do it soon, but there are economic vested interests out there pushing very hard to make sure the government doesn’t take action.
So the personal steps and those can be done with, I think, in a very ordinary way to dramatically reduce a lot of these exposures. But at the policy level, a couple of things are important. One, it’s really important to pay attention to what may be happening in your state, to make sure that if there’s legislation moving through in the state capital that might help reduce chemical exposures, take some worrisome chemicals off the market or issue warnings, give you information about them, on product labels and so forth.
That kind of right to know transparency and state regulatory action, it’s important to be aware of that happening in your state.
California, for example, where I live, there’s a lot of action in that realm. And when California takes action, for example, restrict Bisphenol A in sippy cups and baby bottles, it can have an impact across the whole economy because of the size of the California economy.
First, pay attention to the state level action.
Secondly, if I were to give one recommendation, it would be, stay tuned to Environmental Working Group. Go to EWG.org. If you’re inclined, get on our e-mail list. We will keep you up to date on some of the most important debates unfolding in Congress that have to do with efforts to protect us by regulation and better, stronger laws on toxic chemicals.
It’s a very tough fight. We’re up against an enormous well-funded chemical industry that has spent tens of millions of dollar in recent years pushing at the legislature to establish weak rules and regulations around toxic chemicals.
We’re in a constant battle both at the regulatory agencies like FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. We’re fighting in the halls there.
We’re also fighting back against these interest in Congress to make sure that if Congress passes a new law, to regulate toxic chemicals, it’s going to be a strong one.
But we’re really up against a lot of money, a lot of suits, as we say, a lot of lobbyists for industry walking the halls, and button holing legislators, and giving them campaign contributions. But we’re on the front lines at EWG.org to do that. And we would really appreciate your help.
DEBRA: Yes, well, we do need to be addressing these issues on all levels. Absolutely. I used to think in the past that if consumers would just make the right choices that it would all turn out fine. But I do see that we need to be – in my best of all possible worlds, the way it would go would be that everybody would think like we think.
Everybody would look at the toxic evidence and that they would say, “We shouldn’t be using formaldehyde. It shouldn’t be on every permanent pressed bedsheet.” Just embalming people every night.
And that it just makes common sense to give consumers products that will enable their health and happiness, and that everybody who produces toxic chemicals and products made from them would just stop because it is common sense, and we have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And toxic chemicals doesn’t contribute to that.
KEN COOK: I agree with that. I think – not everyone is going to obviously go at this with a kind of training and background that Curt has, for example. He really understands the science here. So there’s an important need to translate. I think from our standpoint, there are a couple of principles that we apply.
First of all, we don’t have all the answers. We can’t tell you that a chemical that’s in a sippy cup or a baby bottle or that is even in your bloodstream because you’ve been exposed from some source. We can’t tell you that that exposure is definitely going to cause a health problem. We know there’s a great deal of uncertainty.
What we can say is if you can avoid those exposures, and can do it in a way – sometimes, it might take a while to change your routines or your buying behaviors or what have you, give it a try because we know you can knock down thousands of exposure [inaudible 00:46:50] eliminate them from your routine and from your life just with paying a little bit of attention.
So that makes all the sense in the world. The bigger issue though is we need to re-tool and re-invent some major industries here that are [inaudible 00:47:06] consumer products and particle boards for homes and so forth.
When we’ve caught some of these companies doing things that are demonstrably bad for our health, they made change happen. We know that has happened with respect to lots of different areas, lots of different consumer product categories. But we need to do more.
Consumer pressure adds to that. It sends signals to companies that they need to re-invent how they make things, the types of products that they sell, and as that pressure builds, a lot of these things we’re seeking, I think, will come about into market pressure.
But one of the key components of creating these positive markets is a regulatory system that rewards invention for safer products, instead of slowing it down.
DEBRA: I totally agree. You and I have been doing this for a lot of years. And I think that both of us can see that there has been progress made.
When I first started, I remember the only clothes – let’s see. I didn’t start writing until 1984, but in 1978, I started looking at toxic chemicals and trying to find non-toxic products. The only thing I could wear was a tee shirt and jeans.
Now, we have organic everything. And there organic nothing in 1978. I couldn’t even find organic food in the stores. And there are all of these non-toxic cleaning products, great water filters, and people are talking about detox.
All these things weren’t happening before. I see a change in the right direction.
KEN COOK: I think that’s right. There are a lot of positive signs. It’s no time to be complacent not personally, and certainly, we don’t want to – even people who are turned off by government, and I know a lot of people are. They feel like nothing ever happens that’s good in Washington.
I am sympathetic with a lot of those views. But look at it this way. If you step back from these, what I think of is, civil obligations to engage with your government, the people who represent you, someone else is going to step in. That someone else is very likely to be a lobbyist for the chemical industry, a lobbyist for the coal or petroleum or oil industry. Fill in the blank.
They are very active in Washington. They will have their way if they can. And it’s very important for those of us who feel that we’re speaking on behalf of the public health to be there to contest these important policy issues.
DEBRA: I’m going to stop you right there because we’re at the end of the show, and the music is going to start playing. So thank you so much Ken and Curt for being here. Again, their website is EWG.org. And you can type in “Rethinking Carcinogens” into the search engine and come up with [inaudible 00:50:12] we’re talking about today.
I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. Be well.
The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking your heart and some not-so-widely-known dangers that can cause problems. Plus, as always, Pamela will tell us how you can help your heart be healthy and strong, naturally. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld, RPh
Date of Broadcast: September 09, 2015
DEBRA: Hi! I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It’s Wednesday, September 9th, 2015. The sun is shining here in Clearwater, Florida. It’s a beautiful early autumn day.
You know what? I’ll just say this. It’s going to come up on September 21st. It will be the first day of autumn. But actually, that’s the middle of autumn. Autumn actually starts somewhere in the middle of August. As the sun changes angle and the days start getting shorter and cooler, you get this midpoint. It’s just the difference between looking at nature and looking at our civil calendar, which doesn’t have anything to do with nature at all.
But I like to be connected with nature, so I look at time by the solstices and the equinoxes. So we’re moving towards that autumn equinox where the days are equal and the nights will start being longer than the days. I just think it’s a lovely way to look at time.
So I’m very aware of the angle being different of the sun now and that it gets dark here in Florida around 6:00 now instead of 9:00. It makes a big difference.
Anyway, that’s not the subject of the show, but I just like to talk about that. Today, we’re going to be actually talking about your heart and some hidden dangers that can be affecting your heart that you might not be aware of.
My guest is Pamela Seefeld. She is a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. Hi, Pamela.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I am happy to be here.
DEBRA: Thank you. I’m happy that you’re here too. I think we just need to keep saying over and over again that drugs are really designed to alleviate symptoms and not to cure the underlying thing that’s happening. So I think what we’re going to be talking about today are some of those things that your doctor probably will never tell you and may not even know. But these are things that we can be paying attention to on a daily basis as we have awareness of what’s going on in our own bodies and things that we can be doing day to day.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, absolutely.
DEBRA: Yeah, good. So where would you like to start?
PAMELA SEEFELD: I did a MedLine search since we were talking about hidden dangers and what are some things that we should be doing or shouldn’t be doing that affect our heart. And so, this is really current published information. Actually, I only went back six months. With everything currently published, this is what we’re seeing as far as the data.
What I found that was very interesting is that inflammation, chronic inflammation is definitely associated with cardiovascular disease. We know this. The reason why it’s associated with cardiovascular disease is it’s not just the myocardium or the heart itself as far as infarction, but it can lead to unstable angina. It can lead to sudden cardiac death stroke and peripheral thrombosis. And what that peripheral thrombosis is are clots that lodge and causes what’s called the deep vein thrombosis. So, these are all directly related to the inflammatory processes in the body.
So treating inflammation…
DEBRA: Wait, let’s talk about inflammation. Could you explain because we hear this word a lot? Could you explain exactly what inflammation is? And let’s talk about what to do for inflammation because I think that regardless of what the illness that somebody might have, or the condition, I think a lot of people in the world today have inflammation.
PAMELA SEEFELD: By far. And the best way to look for inflammation is if you’re going to the doctor, have them do a CRP in the blood stream and check to see if that is related to inflammatory processes that are going on in your body.
A lot of times, you have two different scenarios. You have the camp where the people are actually sore. They have arthritis and they’re sore. They feel sore every day. So that inflammation, they are aware of.
The more dangerous inflammation perhaps is silent inflammation, inflammation you are not aware of, you don’t feel, but because it’s an ongoing and it’s a chronic process, what it’s doing eventually is it’s taking the endothelium, which is the inside of the blood vessels and it is allowing plaque and other things, sticky substances, to affect – especially cholesterol. That’s why cholesterol has always gotten such a bad name. But really, it’s not all about cholesterol. Half of the people with heart attacks, their cholesterol is in the normal range.
So cholesterol is not the demon here. It’s untreated inflammation. If you don’t have the inflammation present, the cholesterol can be high, but it won’t really affect the endothelium or the inside lining.
DEBRA: Mm-hmmm… So then, what can we do? Since this is related to the heart, what can we do to treat inflammation, easy things we can do every day?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, some easy things, believe it or not, is avoiding certain foods that contain a lot of arachidonic acid. It doesn’t mean this is for everybody, but this is pretty true in the general consensus.
Arachidonic acid is an inflammatory component that’s in foods, egg yolks, red meat and peanuts. They tend to have the most arachidonic acid than any foods. Now, I am not saying you have to cut those out forever, but those particular foods definitely raise inflammation in a lot of individuals.
DEBRA: That’s good to know, yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. So excluding those is extremely important.
I would tell you that there are data that show that dairy is very inflammatory to a lot of people as well. I’m not saying you go on crazy elimination diets, but try two or three days without any dairy. If you have actual physical inflammation that you feel, see if it goes down.
I’ve seen this in some of my clients quite extensively that people have dairy allergies. And dairy allergies will show up as low grade arthritis. That’s the first symptom people normally have. People will feel like they’re just a little bit sore and achy. They just think that maybe they’re getting a little bit older, maybe they over worked out.
Just doing a food elimination of just the dairy for several days (and like I said, the red meat, the egg yolks and the peanuts, eliminating those foods for just a few days) and seeing if you’re feeling better, that makes a huge difference as far as your diagnostics.
DEBRA: Go ahead.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I would also say that I’m a big fan of something called Traumeel. They call it T-Relief now.
It’s got arnica and it’s got a bunch of other different plants that are anti-inflammatory. It’s very inexpensive.
When you use this, it not only lowers inflammation in the body, but it actually repairs little tears in the tendons and in the tissue where you actually maybe have been injured, maybe you did too much yard work, maybe you did too much at the gym, lifted things that are too heavy. That has a really high anti-inflammatory component that’s very, very effective.
And don’t forget fish oil. I mean, I can just talk for an hour about fish oils, omega-3 fish oils.
DEBRA: And you have.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.
DEBRA: Actually, I should just remind everybody that you can listen to all of the past shows including all of the shows that Pamela has done including her show on fish oils by going to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. They are all there.
Pamela, the other day, I looked and we’ve done more than 20 shows.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, my gosh! That’s wonderful.
DEBRA: Yeah. So there’s a lot of information there. If you just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, there is a link in the menu that says, “Listen to the archived shows.” And if you pulled down there, there’s a submenu and Pamela’s name is right there. You can just click on that and it will take you to all of Pamela’s shows.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I really appreciate that. So, the omega-3 fatty acid, the newest data that came out shows that consumption of omega-3 fatty acids reduced cardiovascular disease. And we knew this, especially the risks. But what it does is it provides a reduction in arterial stiffness.
So the actual endothelium of the arteries, it changes their physical constituent properties. And what happens is when the stiffness is reduced, it allows for the flexibility of the blood vessel and the general health of the endothelium is greatly enhanced. This improves the vascular function.
This actually works on a molecular, cellular and physiological pathway. It affects all three different functions in the cell itself, which is pretty interesting. We know that omega-3 has not just anti-inflammatory properties, but they turn on 300 different genes in the body.
So, when we talk about the arterial wall, they actually can see. This is brand new data that the beneficial effects impacts arterial wall remodeling. So the arterial wall and the endothelium of these vessels, blood vessels around your heart and in your whole body, they actually physically look different after a person has been taking omega-3s.
They incorporate into the cells of the vasculature and they actually find arterial wall remodeling. It looks different.
And this is after less than three weeks. So it’s a huge, huge impact. So now we know what is actually happening.
And don’t forget too (I don’t know if your listeners remember some of the omega-3 facts), but it has anti-inflammatory activity and it also has anti-arrhythmic activity. So somebody that has cardiac arrhythmias and they’re not well controlled on their medications, this can also have a great effect.
DEBRA: That’s great. I love it that a lot of these substances have multiple benefits, not just one. We need to go to break, but we’ll be right back.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also practices pharmacognosy, which is a wonderful field of using plants and other natural substances. Pharmacognosy means drugs with information, substances with information.
We’ll be back after the break and talk more with Pamela about how you can protect your heart from hidden dangers.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist and also a practitioner of pharmacognosy, which is the use of plants as medicine.
Pamela, before we go on, why don’t you tell us about what you do and give your phone number?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, great. My background is clinical pharmacy, but I also studied pharmacognosy at the University of Florida. Pharmacognosy, of course, we were describing, is plant medicine. It’s a little bit more than herbalism, talking about the medicinal properties of different plants and how they work in the body.
I have my pharmacy here in Clearwater, Florida. I would be very honored to help your family. It’s a free consultation.
If you have any questions about medications you’re on and if you want to get off of them or if you’re also interested in using some homeopathic medicine to treat chronic illness, maybe you have MS or heart disease or some of the other things we were talking about, diabetes and you don’t want to be on your medication, I can gladly help you with that.
You can call me here at my pharmacy. It’s (727) 442-4955. That’s (727) 442-4955. We use homeopathic medication instead of drugs.
DEBRA: Okay, good. Now before we go on, I just have one more question about inflammation. Inflammation has to do with blood vessels and what’s happening with them. If one has inflammation in their body, then wouldn’t that affect the functioning of every organ?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct! And also too (it’s really important), we’ve done shows on weight and weight loss and trying to lose weight. It’s really hard for men and women. When you start reaching 40s and 50s and 60s and so forth, it’s really hard to lose weight and you gain weight very easily with not much caloric of change.
We know for a fact that if there is inflammation in the body that’s untreated and it’s circulating, so to speak – we have something called circulating cytokines, which are these interleukin, these chemical messengers that the fat actually produces.
That’s one of the reasons you see more cardiovascular disease in people that are overweight. The reason why is because their own fat is producing interleukins that are even more pro-inflammatory and cause more weight gain and cause more inflammation to the blood vessels.
So the subcutaneous fat, especially the visceral fat in the abdomen is highly problematic because it’s actually producing more of these inflammatory messengers that are making the person’s health decline even faster.
And this is the problem. Your body is actually working against itself.
DEBRA: I understand what you just said. I think what I’m trying to put two and two together here around is that we have inflammation and then we have organs of the detox system like the liver and kidneys and lungs. And if one has inflammation in the body, then that would inhibit the functioning of their detox organs.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct! Because the inflammation, what it’s doing, is it’s actually working against itself.
You’re having the body producing more inflammatory components.
And the blood vessel inflammation (we’re talking about the heart today), this inflammation and the change in the endothelium, when there are interleukins and components that are pro-inflammatory, the changes in the endothelium are robust and very negative and they are affecting the blood vessels, especially going even into the kidney.
This is actually interesting. In one of the studies I was pulling, Deb, there’s a system in the kidney. And as pharmacists, we know about this quite well. There’s something called the renin-angiotensin system.
The rennin-angiotensin system is associated with the kidney and it controls blood pressure. This is why when people have pre-dialysis or dialysis or they have kidney disease, why they have to be on what’s called converting enzyme inhibitors or ACE inhibitors. They have to be on these medicines that affect the renin-angiotensin system because when people’s kidneys are not functioning properly, this system goes awry and what happens is blood pressure goes up.
So that’s why you see a lot of people on dialysis or people that have kidney problems on blood pressure medicine.
That’s why the blood pressure goes high. It’s not because they’re heavy, it’s not because they did anything. It’s because the kidney is messed up.
The studies show that inflammation and oxidative stress with the renin-angiotensin system not working correctly because the person maybe having some pre-kidney issues or actually are on dialysis is leading to excess atherosclerosis.
So we know when someone has metabolic syndrome or kidney problems at the same time and the renin-angiotensin system is not working correctly, they end up being put on a bunch of blood pressure medications, they feel very sick and inflammation and oxidative stress actually increase.
DEBRA: Okay, good. I understood that.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s what’s really happening. So when you see people that are diabetic and maybe they have kidney problems too, it’s really, really terrible that the body is producing all these extra inflammatory components that are damaging the kidney. And when they damage the kidney, we’re starting the blood pressure problem.
That’s why you see typically when a person has kidney issues or metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes, that’s why they need blood pressure medicine, that’s why they need cholesterol medicine. All these medicines come for a reason and this is all because of the inflammation. If the inflammation wasn’t present, none of this would be here.
DEBRA: So, it looks like it is really important to treat inflammation regardless of what your condition may be in your body. And especially with our subject of detox, it can interfere with your body’s detoxifying as it should, which would lead to a greater build-up of toxic chemicals in your body.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, most definitely. All those things, it’s a logical progression. But it’s important that your listeners know that instead of feeling overwhelmed, they should realize that these things are working against you.
The best thing to do is maybe use some homeopathic stuff in the beginning to try and clear it out or make sure that you are on top of things because unfortunately, your practitioner, your physician is just going to keep adding medicine. If you’re trying to avoid that, you need to make sure you’re addressing this in the top form and not just putting it to the side.
And like I said, inflammation can be silent. So, you need to make sure that you’re checking these numbers.
DEBRA: And what were the numbers again? You gave some numbers earlier.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I would tell you, the most important thing they can check is your CRP. But if you actually have inflammation and you’re sore, that’s a dead giveaway that you’ve got a real problem there especially if it’s an ongoing basis or even if, say, someone’s diagnosed with arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis.
It’s not the arthritis that’s going to get them, it’s the cardiovascular disease. So, it’s important to realize that these things go hand in hand with a lot of other diseases. It’s not like one thing is not connected to the other.
Our bodies are contiguous. All the blood vessels are connected to the other blood vessels. So it’s not just one area of your body.
Anything that’s not being treated (maybe just some simple homeopathy to prevent some of the problems associated with it) makes a huge difference in the long haul as far as the person’s general health. That’s very important to realize.
DEBRA: Good. When we come back from break, we’ll talk more about the heart. We’ll stop talking about inflammation and go back to the heart. I just am really interested in inflammation and how it contributes to detox.
So, when we come back, we’ll talk with Pamela more about some other hidden dangers affecting your heart. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. We’re talking about hidden dangers that can affect your heart. Pamela, are there some toxic chemicals that can affect your heart as well?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. Actually, there are endocrine and neuroendocrine disruptors and these chemicals and electricity too. I’ll pull the studies for that here. It’s interesting. Let me pull these studies here.
Studies show as far as these chemicals and things we’re exposed to environmentally (and we’ll talk a little bit more about different vitamins again after that), what they’ve found is (and like I said, these are recent studies) that neuroendocrine disrupting chemicals act like estrogens and androgens and glucocorticoids in the body, but they’re not really the actual chemical.
These are found in industry, agriculture and food preservatives. And these all have problems. They affect the endocrine system. They have activity on the same receptors as estrogens and testosterone and so forth. These things look like the hormone and they’re mimicking it. They can cause sex hormone dependent cancers, but especially obesity and cardiovascular disease (that’s what are implicated as far as if the people have high exposure to these particular things).
This is really important because what’s happening is this is stuff that you don’t realize you’re being exposed to. And the fact that they’re docking in on the receptors and doing the same thing as the chemicals, but actually in a more dangerous way (because your body is not expecting these to be present on the receptor and then all of a sudden, they show up), it has cardiovascular implications that are pretty severe.
And definitely, this is why we think that we’re seeing a rise in cardiovascular disease here in the United States. It’s not because people are eating more poorly. They always want to blame it on diet. It is not so much diet, but the neuroendocrine disruptors are really creating problems.
What they’re finding in these people is they’re having huge amounts. They’re exposed to maybe plasticizers and so forth or they work in industry. What they are finding is that they have much higher rates of cardiovascular diseases as a result of it. So this is statistically significant and I thought this is interesting.
Now, you would know about this quite more than myself because I’m more of a chemistry person. But it looks like they looked at electrical staff, people that are working around electricity, they found that electromagnetic fields had a higher incidence of cardiovascular diseases, these people that were actually exposed to EMF fields of 50 hertz. It actually has almost the same effect as being exposed to chemicals.
DEBRA: Wow! That’s something that I need to look up and find out what would be a 50 hertz exposure. That’s something to keep in mind.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s affecting the nervous system. That’s what they think.
DEBRA: Yeah. And of course, this is what they’re studying, just to find out what are the effects. This is all new.
People weren’t talking about these kinds of things even 10 years ago. So I’m really happy to see all this coming out.
And then, what about carbon monoxide?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Carbon monoxide, most definitely. They found that exposure to carbon monoxide – most people here in the United States actually were pretty fortunate. We don’t have indoor kitchens where we’re cooking food with twigs and stuff. But you have to realize that a third of the world does not have a toilet, does not have electricity and they cook in an enclosed area in their house with wood that they gather.
We have carbon monoxide exposure in varying degrees maybe depending on what we have burning in the house and also the fact that we have carbon monoxide sensors in a lot of homes. I actually have them in my house. We know it can be a dangerous thing, but it’s not as troubling as perhaps other areas that are much poorer than we are, but it’s still very important. And the study did show people that especially are working in kitchens and so forth, if it’s enclosed and there’s no proper ventilation.
And this could even be in the house. People sometimes go crazy where they’re cooking a lot of food on the stove, maybe they’re not having the windows open. Maybe it’s a small home, maybe it’s a small kitchen. What they found is that carbon monoxide, when they started to be elevated to some degree, what they did is they did the cardiac enzymes of these people and they found that they were elevated. They’re not elevated enough to cause a heart attack, but there were mild elevations, which signaled that the heart was being damaged.
This makes sense because we know carbon monoxide. And of course, we know with suicide attempts and so forth, you can kill yourself with this.
DEBRA: Right.
PAMELA SEEFELD: But you’re exposed to small, small amounts of it when you are cooking in your house. And it depends on the ventilation and it depends on the size of the kitchen. Sometimes people have really small kitchens and there’s no proper ventilation.
You may see this more in big cities. Here in Florida, we have pretty much bigger homes. But when you think about New York and Boston and these tiny little apartments, you’ve got to be really careful with what you’re doing.
DEBRA: Especially if you are cooking with gas.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.
DEBRA: A gas burner will give off what’s called combustion byproducts and carbon monoxide is only one of them.
So if you are cooking with gas, it’s really important to make sure that the burners are adjusted properly, so that they are burning cleanly and also that you have overhead hood ventilation and you make sure that you turn it on when you’re doing the cooking. Those two things will greatly reduce the amount of carbon monoxide. But you should also have a carbon monoxide detector and this is the way to more safely use gas.
But I know in some apartments, I have seen where there’s a gas stove and then there’s a closet with a gas water heater and all these flames are just open flames and all that carbon monoxide and other combustion byproducts are just going throughout your home.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You’re absolutely right. People don’t even look at that. You need to emphasize that. That is very common.
DEBRA: It’s very common. And I know that also, these things can go wrong. My grandmother had gas heat. This was a long time ago. She had gas heat and something went wrong with it and it started putting carbon monoxide in her house and she almost died.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, my gosh.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. So this can happen even today. And I know for myself, I have gas in two of my homes.
We have the water heaters in the [inaudible 00:33:01] places and the open flames are still there in the previous ones.
The new ones are up to code. But unless you actually go there and change it out, you don’t see that.
DEBRA: That’s right.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I mean, I had no idea.
DEBRA: That’s right. I have a gas water heater, but it’s one of those instant water heaters.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh yeah, those are excellent!
DEBRA: So there’s no tank. It’s a tankless water heater. It’s mounted on the side of my house and so there are gas exhaust fumes, but they go outside.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s very smart.
DEBRA: They’re not in my house at all. They’re not in the garage, not anywhere near the inside of my house or an open window.
PAMELA SEEFELD: The interesting part about this little study here (and this was actually from April this year), the very, very small amounts of exposure to this, we are making small changes in the cardiac enzymes in the blood stream. They have very, very fine equipment to detect this.
Let me explain this. When you have enzymes and you can measure them in the blood stream, it means that the cells died. In the medical sense, it’s called cardiomyopathy when the heart gets weakened because some of the cells die.
If you have enough cells dying, that’s a heart attack. Once your cells die, they release these cardiac enzymes and that’s how they diagnose heart attacks. A heart attack is basically a certain area of the heart basically dying, the muscle, especially because it’s trying to over-compensate because that area is not pumping correctly anymore.
So this is important to realize in the ventilation. These are really important things to look at in your immediate environment and say, “Is this something that’s affecting me?”
DEBRA: Yeah. There are also other health effects of combustion byproducts and some of them cause cancer. Formaldehyde is one of them. So this gas thing is a really important thing and probably we should talk a lot more about that.
Anyway, you are listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. When we come back, we’ll talk more about what you can do to protect your heart from these hidden dangers. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist, but she also is a practitioner of pharmacognosy, which is the use of plants for medicinal purposes.
Pamela, why don’t you give your phone number again?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, you can call me here at my homeopathic pharmacy. I would be very glad to help you and your family, also your pets if you have any questions about them as well. The number here at Botanical Resource is (727) 442-4955. That’s (727) 442-4955.
DEBRA: Great! And that’s a free consultation. You can just call her up and Pamela herself will talk to you. She’s very well regarded here. I’ve taken some of her recommendations and they all turned out perfectly.
So Pamela, we are in our last segment here. Why don’t you tell us some of the remedies for these things? We’ve talked about so many problems.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is good. No, this is really good. Most people know that D is very important. It looks like low vitamin D levels, we’re definitely putting people at risk for cardiovascular disease and also risk for developing metabolic syndromes.
So it’s important to realize that in the past, the doctors wanted your vitamin D level maybe 30 or something like that, 20 to 30, something in that range. Well now, the alternative physicians (and actually a lot of medical establishments) are really embracing that they want you closer to 100. If your D levels are low, you definitely need to be taking more D and to try and get that up. It’s very important.
This is brand new study that just came out actually in August of this year. It found that when people had poor vitamin D status, they were more at risk for developing metabolic syndrome and more at risk for having heart disease.
D is not just for the bones (and we’ve known that for a while). D is a hormone and it acts in the brain. It works especially for depression. It protects against depression and lot of other things, but it looks like it has really strong implications in preventing against cardiovascular disease.
So knowing where your concentration is really important. If you’re going to do any blood work at all, you really need to have your D level made. And then you also need to have your CRP done. That’s very important, those two things, the inflammation marker and the D level. They tell a lot about what’s going on in your body.
DEBRA: I know that I’ve had difficulties sometimes getting a medical doctor to do some blood tests that I want because they say, “We can only request what the insurance company will allow us to request for your diagnosis.” But there are places online. It’s very easy to get all these tests and you can just go to one of those online places and get a vitamin D test.
There’s a whole organization that all they do is vitamin D test. So you don’t have to be dependent on a medical doctor to get a blood test and find out what’s going on in your body.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s a very good point because I’m sure some people that don’t have a regular doctor feel pretty helpless when they listen to these things. They don’t want to go to the doctor and they don’t want to have a blood test with a regular doctor. The fact that they have other alternatives and they are not forced to have an office visit, that’s very relieving for a lot of people.
DEBRA: Yes. And if you think this is going to cost a lot of money, just go look and see what it costs because I went to those websites to see, it costs much less than I thought it was going to.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely.
DEBRA: So it is an option for you. You don’t need to go to a doctor to get a blood test. Okay, go on.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay. So another really interesting thing (and I don’t know if people really thought about this), but it looks like women, just being a woman puts you more at risk for vascular problems, blood vessel problems, inflammation and cardiovascular disease, all of these. And we see that the prevalence is really related to women.
And what’s happening is a lot of times, it’s being linked to arterial stiffness. We were talking about the artery stiffness and lipid disorders (which is the elevated blood lipids) and in correlation with this, any kind of sleep apnea that’s untreated. So the sleep seems to have a big effect on this.
And we were talking previously about the fish oil. There was a new study that showed in July this year that fish oil plus vitamin E lowered LDL cholesterol and it lowered oxidative stress and it also helped for prevention of cardiovascular disease. So get some low dose of vitamin E, the fish oil.
This is really important that we’re talking to the implications for women because it seems like the woman gender has more chance of this being a problem than men. That’s important to realize, especially peri and post-menopausal more so because that’s when the hormones are changing. That’s when the adipose tissue in the abdomen tends to start really being active with the inflammatory components.
When you think about women, they go through menopause. And then all of a sudden, they have all those fats in the middle, little rolls in the middle.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s a new onset for them. Maybe they were thin all their lives and all of a sudden, they have fat in the middle. And it’s not because their diet changed. A lot of it is decrease of estrogen, but also the fact that if that happens, those cells, remember, start making more inflammatory components and actually make you gain more weight.
I think that’s a lot of what’s going on in menopause. It’s not just estrogen decrease. There are increased inflammatory markers in a lot of middle aged women that are causing a lot of these problems.
DEBRA: Now that you brought that up, I just want to mention one thing about that. Weight has been an issue for me my whole entire life. I don’t think that I’ve ever been in what one would call “normal weight.” I was born overweight. So it’s always been a struggle. I’ve always had this weight around the middle no matter what I did.
But now, I’m older. I’ve said several times on the show that I had my 60th birthday this year and I’m doing different things. And two things that I’m doing that are very different are that I’m eating a tremendous amount of more fiber than I ever have in my life and I really actually calculated how much fiber I was eating and found some high fiber foods. I’m eating those high fiber foods with every meal. I really, really [inaudible 00:45:24].
PAMELA SEEFELD: Good for you.
DEBRA: Yeah. And the other thing that I’m doing is I’m walking in a pool at a gym three or five days a week. I’m only walking about 40 minutes, but I am really walking and I’m doing things to have more resistance like keeping my fingers together in my hands so that they’re more like paddles. And my fat around the middle is reducing.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Good for you! Well, most definitely, all those things will work.
DEBRA: Yes. And so I think one of the things that’s really been impressing upon me this week is that there really are things, actions that produce effects, that when we take some actions, they do something for better or worse. [Inaudible 00:46:15]
So if we want to do something in a particular direction, if we know what those actions are and do them, we’ll move in that direction. It’s just like if you walk down the street and get to the next block, you just put one foot in front of the other and you’re going to get there. It’s just very predictable.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You’re absolutely right. The small changes do help.
DEBRA: Yeah. If you walk backwards, you’re not going to get to where you want to go.
So just being aware (I know we’ve talked about a lot of things today that might sound scary), but just be aware of the things that are the negative things and saying, “What can I do about those?” and knowing what are the positive things (like taking supplements or some homeopathic remedies or things like that) and actually doing those things will move you forward, that’s where you have control over what your health is going to be.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely. And these are some simple things. We’re talking about vitamin D, we’re talking about E, we were talking about looking at the carbon monoxide release in your house and the amount that’s there.
Also too, I found some studies here (we’ve kind of talked about this in the past), folic acidstatus is very, very important. So, folic acid really has always been implicated in preventing against cardiovascular disease. And the big things that it’s doing, it’s playing a role on preventing any kind of damage in the blood vessels themselves and in the heart.
But also what’s interesting (we’ve known this for a long time) is that folic acid and B vitamins are associated with lowering homocysteine. And homocysteine is a marker in the bloodstream. That’s another blood test that you can also order, the homocysteine level.
Homocysteine is really a marker of inflammation more so though for cardiovascular outcomes. It’s not necessarily an inflammatory marker per se, but when we see homocysteine elevated, the physician, in turn, will be concerned about what’s going on specifically with the body.
And homocysteine, especially if somebody has cardiovascular disease in their family, if it is elevated even mildly, that’s normally a red flag that they are going to be at risk for heart attack.
Homocysteine comes down very, very nicely and reproducibly with folic acid, maybe some pyridoxine and a little bit of B12. I use a formula that I love a lot. It’s really good. It’s called Cardio B. That’s got five milligrams of folic acid, it’s got 100 of pyridoxine, 1000 of B12. It’s great for energy. It’s great for mental health because folic acid binds to serotonin in the brain. It has really reproducible effects of lowering homocysteine really, really thoroughly in the body.
That’s an easy, inexpensive way to get homocysteine down and in turn, lower your risk.
DEBRA: Good! These are all really good suggestions. We’ve only got about a minute left. So are there any final words on this?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely! The last of the studies that I found was in July 22nd, 2015 of this year, melatonin in the endoplasmic reticulum. What are the effects? Melatonin, our levels of melatonin, melatonin is an antioxidant. It’s anti-inflammatory. It has anti-tumor effects. It’s not just for sleep. So it’s really important.
And melatonin is a very safe supplement to take if you’re having any sleep disturbances. Really, they looked at sleep disturbances and instability in sleeping and night time instabilities. They’re very much associated with cardiovascular outcomes in a poor way.
DEBRA: Wow!
PAMELA SEEFELD: So melatonin, we see the people, if their melatonin levels are coming at the right time and there are high peaks in the blood stream (and it can be faint)…
DEBRA: And I have to interrupt you because we just ran out of time.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, yes. Sorry. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you.
DEBRA: Thank you. You’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest was Pamela Seefeld. And you can find out more about our guests, past, present and future at ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Be well!
The Healing Power of Organic Herbs
My guest today is Jane Hawley Stevens, Founder of Four Elements Organic Herbals. From the time Jane chose her professional path, it was clear it was with the plant world. For over 30 years she has specialized in herbs. Four Elements Herbals began in 1987 as the pursuit of Jane’s dream to establish a family farm and continue her horticultural career while raising a family. Jane started producing herbal products made from herbs she grew on her farm. Certified organic since 1990, she still grows and produces herbal products from the 130-acre farm in the pristine Baraboo Bluffs of Wisconsin, designated as one of the Last Great Places by the Nature Conservancy. Her products are inspired by the healing qualities of herbs and align with the power of Nature. They are available online and at health food stores and supermarkets throughout the Midwest. www.fourelementsherbals.com
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
The Healing Power of Organic Herbs
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Jane Hawley Stevens
Date of Broadcast: September 08, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It’s Tuesday, September 8, 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. And we’re having a pretty big thunderstorm right now. So if you hear any rumbling in the background, I have a pretty sensitive mic. If you hear any rumbling in the background, it’s thunder and lightning.
Actually, I live in place that is one of the extreme weather capitals, actually, on the whole planet. We get a lot of thunderstorms. It’s been raining every day for the past month. So there’s a lot going on here.
It’s also the day after labor day. And so that’s the end of summer. We’re all back from vacation. Everybody is starting school, going back to our jobs. So there’s a lot of activity going on.
One of the things that’s happening that I just had to tell you about is that the state of California has filed an intent to declare that glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in RoundUp, which is sprayed on GMO foods, they filed this declaration to declare it as a cause of cancer.
Now, what the means in the state of California is that if a product contains an ingredient that causes cancer, according to proposition 65, it has to contain a warning label. There has to be a warning label on the product that says, “This product contains an ingredient known to the state of California to cause cancer.”
So this is going to be very interesting to me to see what happens about food products now that contain GMO ingredients. Are they going to get the proposition 65 cancer warning label? This is very, very interesting.
So today, here I’m back after – last week, I didn’t do any live shows. But this week, we’ve got live shows. I’ve actually got my schedule for guests for the whole entire month of September already booked. People are really excited about being on the show. I’m really excited about having them on. It’s a whole new year. It’s a whole new year.
So my guest today, we’re going to talk about something we’ve never talked about before on the show and that is herbs and their power to heal and using herbs in personal care, healing products.
My guest today is Jane Hawley Stevens. She’s the founder of Four Elements Organic Herbals. It’s a beautiful website and we’re going to learn all about herbal products today.
Hi, Jane.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Hi, Debra.
DEBRA: I’m so happy to have you on. I love your website.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Thank you so much. I am so happy to be the first one to be talking about herbs on Toxic Free Talk Radio. It’s such an appropriate subject to be talking about.
DEBRA: I think so too because one of the things that I’m very aware of is that there’s a whole spectrum, and on one end is very, very toxic, and on the other end is totally pure and wonderful. But there’s a whole gradation of things that you could just move in the direction away from very toxic and slightly toxic or not toxic, I think. But non-toxic would be the middle of the scale, zero, where there’s no positive effect to no negative effect.
But then you can cross that point and start having things that have no harm and have tremendously, wonderful, beneficial effects.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, like they have then for thousands of years.
DEBRA: Yes. So tell us how you got interested in herbs. Tell us about yourself. You’ve got this large farm, 138 acres, I think it was. So tell us how you got interested in this.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: So when I was a child, my grandmother used to take me out in the woods in Northern Wisconsin. I’m here in Wisconsin. We’re known for the natural beauty in this state.
So when I had to pick a career, I realized I just was happy as outside, remembering those days when my grandmother would take me out in the woods to pick blueberries. So I just realized my career should be outside.
So I chose horticulture as a career. I went to school at University of Wisconsin Madison. I got my horticulture degree. And my first job out of school, they asked me to put in an herb garden.
So I was first introduced to herbs for garden design. I learned about how they grew and handled them well that way. And then I learned about using them for crafts and cooking. But then when my son was born in ’87, I started making remedies for the family.
I just approached it even like folklore. I didn’t really know how they worked or anything. But when I saw that they were healing my family, my son, quicker than my friends who were taking their kids to the doctor, quicker and more effectively, with less side effects and less recurrences, I just had to learn more and more about this.
So it has become my passion and my path since really 1981 to study herbs and how they heal us.
DEBRA: I really think that if we want to heal our bodies (and our bodies certainly need healing in today’s world), if we want to heal our bodies, the best thing to do is to look to nature for that because I do think that there’s a synergy between herbs and plants and animals and humans, just the whole natural world functions as this one whole.
And to step outside of that and say, “Okay, we’re going to use something synthesized in a laboratory like a drug,” and expect that to do what a living thing does like an herb, they are just two different things.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, they are two different things. And what herbs have (which drugs don’t) is hundreds or thousands of years of use and proving that it works well and it works on how many different people and cultures that these plants have worked.
In fact, for some plants that we use for healing, they have been used in different cultures in different times and have been recorded for the exact same use. So that’s a proof that those plants worked.
Personally, I’m in the camp that I don’t even need scientific proof anymore because I have seen so much. Although it’s beautiful we have science available to us for those who really want science to prove things, but I just see plants do so many wonderful things and healing. It’s just phenomenal. In a way more balanced way than drugs do.
DEBRA: Well, I do think that our own personal observation is just as valid as the observation of a scientist, especially if we’re – I mean, scientists are mostly looking at modern technology and chemicals and things like that. It’s not to say that scientists don’t look at plants because some do, but I think that each one of us can certainly observe with our own senses if our body is getting better by doing something or if our body is getting worse.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Right! And another thing that we’re lacking in this culture is even to trust our own senses and our intuition. That’s a message I’d like to be putting out there too. We’re all born with intuition. There’s nothing in our culture that really supports that.
So it’s using herbs, it is really great to listen to your own business. Two, you need to know what herb you’re – well, that’s the one of the really fun things about herbs. It makes you look closely at your body and look up in a good herb book what can help heal you and make that connection and really help in self-healing, which I think is just so important these days.
DEBRA: If somebody is wanting to heal themselves with herbs, should they be going to a professional who knows what they’re doing in order to get those herbal remedies? Or can people look it up in a book on how there are herbs that people should watch out for that might not have positive effects?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: I think both. If you’re dealing with a really chronic, big situation and you want to go to nature for healing, thankfully, there are so many trained professionals out there. Naturopaths and acupuncturists are both trained in herbalism. And so, those are two places to go.
But for every day, common problems that pop up, I think to have a good herb book like anything by David Hoffman or Rosemary Gladstar, I would recommend. Having an herb book is just key. And even if you could grow even five plants or so, you could do amazing things for your family’s health and your health.
DEBRA: That’s great. We need to go to break. But when we come back, let’s talk more about how you can grow your own herbs.
I would like to hear more about that and which herbs actually we should be using. What are those five basic herbs that we could grow in our own backyards?
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Jane Hawley Stevens. She’s the founder of Four Elements Organic Herbals. When we come back, we’ll hear more about how we can grow our own herbs and also, how she’s growing herbs and her herbal products.
We’ll be right back.
But I just want to say the sun is coming out. No more thunder, so I think we’re fine. We’re not going to get disconnected or anything.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: That’s good. Nice to have rain too, but it sounds like you’ve had plenty.
DEBRA: We’ve had plenty. So what I did last week instead of doing radio shows live was I was working very intensively in my garden. And when I lived in California, I had a beautiful, organic garden, and then I moved to Florida and everything is different. I didn’t garden at all last year. But I want to garden this winter.
And here, we garden over the winter because if in the summer time, it’s too hot. And you probably did the opposite in Wisconsin where it’s very cold in the winter time.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Correct!
DEBRA: So I’m about to start planting for my growing season. So tell me what are the herbs that I should plant and what they’ll do for me.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: So I have a list that I work with in Wisconsin, but I think they would work well in Florida. I did live in Texas for six years where I first started my business and grew herbs.
So my number one favorite herb is lemon balm. Lemon balm, the Latin name is Melissa officinalis. And whenever you see ‘officinalis’ as the species of a plant, it means that it was a traditional healing plant when the plants were named in the 1700s.
But lemon balm not only is easy to grow, it’s a perennial. It smells really good. You get a lot of volume per one plant even. And it’s so easy to harvest and it tastes delicious.
Not only that, it has such wonderful healing qualities. It has been proven to shorten the duration and lessen the symptoms of cold sores, so it has antiviral quality.
My favorite use is that it’s very calming on the nerves. It’s called a nervine and it really helps to calm you down for anxiety, stress. And it’s said to even impart joy. And when you smell it, you would – it’s very believable because it’s just so sweet and delightful.
So it’s good for all those reasons and good for digestion, and probably a whole lot more. This plant just does about everything. I like to travel with it to keep me calm and healthy. So that’s just a great one.
DEBRA: So how would you incorporate that in taking it? Would you make a tea out of it, or what would you do with it?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, you can make – the most traditional way to use herbs is either in tea or just eating them. But lemon balm is such a delightful tea. What you do is just – you can pick it fresh or dry it for when it’s not growing, and put it in a teapot or a cord canning jar.
Just loosely fill the jar with lemon balm that you had picked fresh, pour boiling water over that, seal it so the volatile oils don’t escape, which contain a lot of the flavors. So then you keep that nice lemon-y flavor in the jar. And then just let it steep for 10 minutes or so, and then you can start enjoying your tea.
And the same is true for other herbs that we’re going to talk about that are either the leaves or the flower portion of the plant.
If we get in to talking about roots, barks or seeds, that’s when you have to simmer the plant a little bit in order to get the qualities to come out of the tissues. They’re a little more firmly bound in leaves, barks and seeds.
So another great one would be chamomile, and chamomile is similar to lemon balm in the way that it’s calming. It’s actually even more calming. I even think of it as more sleep-inducing. I wouldn’t drink a chamomile tea unless I’m having a really, really stressful day, or if it’s later in the day and I wanted to help me go to sleep.
I used to make chamomile tea for my kids when they were sick because it’s calming and it’s antiseptic, slightly antiseptic, so it helps to kick out infection. It helps with digestion. It has some bitter qualities in it. So it’s good to have for anyone just to help aid their digestion.
We don’t think of bitter so much in this country for digestion, but it really helps to aid digestion by eating a little or having a tea that has a little bit of bitter quality in it because it just gets your whole digestion going. Maybe we can talk about that more later because now we’re talking about the best herbs to grow.
And again, with chamomile, you would collect some flowers, and the more you pick them, the more they’re going to produce.
So I Wisconsin, we pick them twice a week, or maybe three times a week, and they don’t like the real, strong heat. So they like, for us, they come up with lettuces in Wisconsin that would be in May when it’s still cool out. And then when it starts getting hot in August, they’re done. They go away. So we just chill them under and put a cover grub in this past weekend on that.
So in Florida, they’d be the first thing that you’d plant. Just think of them as when you plant lettuce, whenever you plant lettuce in whatever region you’re in.
So then I think sage is a really great plant because of how strongly antiseptic it is. That one you should – it likes good drainage. It’s a Mediterranean plant. It doesn’t mean it likes to be bone dry, but where it’s planted, it needs to be well-drained, which I think Florida would provide a good kind of soil type, if you added some organic matter to your – I know it’s kind of shelly in your – isn’t it?
DEBRA: Yes, it is. But I just want to mention that we have about 45 seconds, so we need to go to break.
So tell us what the other –
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Okay, sage and then because it’s antiseptic and it’s really good for cooking and for tea. And Echinacea is such a great beautiful plant. It adds a lot of beauty to your garden, and it’s great for boosting the immune system, and you can use the flowers, the leaves, and the root on the Echinacea.
DEBRA: Let’s say that’s one, two, three, four. You have a fifth one?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: I love elderberry or nettles. Let me see. I guess I’ll just pick holy basil.
DEBRA: I love holy basil.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: It’s really gaining popularity in America, and it’s traditional in India, also known as tulsi or tulsi, as they say in India. And it’s delicious in a tea. And it’s what I’m drinking right now. It’s great for clarity, for keeping you healthy, it tastes delicious, and it’s an –
DEBRA: And it lowers your blood sugar.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: It helps you cope with stress.
DEBRA: Blood sugar too. It lowers blood sugar, if people have elevated blood sugar.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, just so many wonderful things.
DEBRA: We’re going to go to break, and when we come back, we’re going to talk more with Jane Hawley Stevens. She’s the founder of Four Elements Organic Herbs. Her website is FourElementsHerbals.com. And when we come back, we’re going to find out all about her farm and her plants.
We’ll be right back.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: I’m happy to be with you today, Debra.
DEBRA: Things happened during the break, and I have all the information just right here on a window on my computer screen. And if I’m looking at something else, and I come back during the break, it’s like, “What’s her name?”
Jane Hawley Stevens. And her website is FourElementsHerbals.com.
So you have this very large, certified organic farm. Tell us about your farm and about what it’s like to get certified organic. Why is that an important thing?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Well, my farm is situated in a beautiful area called the Baraboo Bluffs, which the Nature Conservancy considers one of the last great places because there are so many woodlands here that are undeveloped, mainly, because it’s very rocky.
So I have, I think, the good fortune of seeing wildlife up here like last Christmas, I got to see a cougar running on my way to my Christmas party, and we have really great wildlife.
So it’s really in the wild. It’s very beautiful and pristine that way. And I was fortunate enough to find this farm, one of the last good deals in the Bluffs, 130 acres.
At the time, I had already had my business, and I was certified organic in my other location of three acres. And really, this was such a gift to me because I was looking for just five acres or any place at all I could continue my business. But this was a place that I found and it was just because of the circumstances, I was able to get it for a really good deal.
So that’s very cool, and it’s just so beautiful, and like I said, pristine.
DEBRA: There’s a great picture of it on your website. Listeners, you should go to her website, FourElementsHerbals.com, and on the homepage, there’s a little slideshow, and one of them is her farm, and it’s just so beautiful.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, you can see how it’s surrounded by nature, not agriculture. So that’s a really good thing.
So my husband and I both have horticulture degrees from UW Madison, and so I also had this vision of having a small family farm, and it was my interest in herbs that grew into this line of herbal products.
We do grow the herbs that go into the products. We make teas, tinctures, creams, lip balms, soaps, salves, all different herbal products.
The Tea Project is a more demanding with the quantity of herbs, and I did find a certified organic herb farmer in Minnesota who has more equipment than I do. So I’m able to buy some of my herbs from him. But because my real passion is growing plants and also how they’re used, we still like to grow almost everything right here.
DEBRA: That’s just wonderful. I know having grown plants myself, herbs and flowers, and food, and even here in Florida, I have these little pots outside my backdoor where I grow various herbs like – culinary herbs I grow. So I’m not looking at them medicinally, but to have something like fresh parsley and fresh chives, and my very favorite, herb is pineapple sage.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: It’s so pretty too.
DEBRA: It is, and I eat the flowers.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, they’d be beautiful in a salad too.
DEBRA: Yes, they are. I love pineapple sage. I love growing nasturtiums and then putting flowers in my salad, the nasturtium flowers that are so peppery.
I had some mustard plants in California when I lived in Northern California. In the springtime, they just have fields and fields of mustard. And I would eat the mustard flowers. And so, I actually grew some mustard flowers here and put them in my salad one spring.
And just having – listeners, if you never had this experience of growing your own food or herbs, or not going someplace where they’re growing them. I’ve had a lot of experience with that too, going to small farms and things where you can just eat the food or the herbs just right out of the buds.
It’s such a different experience than even if you go to a farmer’s market.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: It is. And you really brought up a good point too about – you were mentioning that these were culinary herbs, but really, the culinary herbs have great medicine in them too.
We think of sage and thyme as being something that we season food with. But these are highly antiseptic plants that have a lot of activity in them.
One of my favorite remedies for a cold would be either sage or thyme tea, especially thyme helps to open the bronchioles.
So by growing even some culinary herbs, you’re going to get a lot of medicine out of that. Parsley is so full of vitamins and minerals. It’s really – if you buy any type of vegetable powders, you can add just your own fresh parsley into your drinks or your foods and have just a powerhouse of vitamins and minerals.
DEBRA: I think that there’s a difference between something that’s fresh and something that’s dry then powdered. There’s a vitality to it. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take them dried and powdered. But there’s a vitality to the freshness.
When I cut a piece of parsley and then it immediately goes in my salad. I just eat it, just eat those flowers of the pineapple sage. It just feels different.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: It’s also very empowering to grow something of your own too. Even if you have a pot that you put – if you live in an apartment and put it outside someplace, by growing just a few herbs that you can use, it’s very empowering for you to be able to grow some of your own either food or herbs and use them.
I think there’s really great energy in that too, just the self-sufficiency of taking care of yourself in that way.
DEBRA: I also like – I agree with everything you said. I also like the process of knowing that I’m taking care of the plant that I’m watering it and I’m feeding it, and I know what goes into it, and then it produces something for me. It’s like a gift.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, it is a great interaction. That’s just such an important point about just the whole relationship of people and plants, how our culture has been getting more and more removed from plants since World War II and relying on store-bought stuff.
Even if you can go to nature and find something, have a proper ID book, and even collect some dandelion greens in a place that isn’t sprayed and add those to your salad, that’s a great digestive aid. And bitter, like I was saying before, which is so great for your digestive system. It can help with a lot of digestive issues by adding bitters to your salad and just finding some things that grow in the wild that you can properly identify.
DEBRA: When I lived in California, it was very easy to find those. Just as I would go for walks in the woods, I would learn what those were. It’s a lot more difficult here in Florida because I live in a suburban area. So the difference between living out in a rural area in Northern California and living in suburbia in Florida is amazingly different in terms of what and the original ecosystem is there. Not much here at all.
We need to go to break. But when we come back, we’ll talk more with Jane Hawley Stevens at Four Elements Organic Herbals. Her website is FourElementsHerbals.com.
We’ll be right back.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. My guest today is Jane Hawley Stevens. She’s the founder of Four Elements Organics Herbals at FourElementsHerbals.com.
Jane, tell us, what does Four Elements mean?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: The four elements are air, earth, fire and water. And of course, we use those a lot when we’re doing gardening and growing plants.
DEBRA: So there’s a Chinese system of four elements. Are you just referring to the four elements, or are you referring to the Chinese system?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: It’s not really the Chinese system because if it is was the Chinese system, I think they would have the fifth element of wood in there.
DEBRA: Yes, you’re absolutely right. So the four elements are traditional earth, air, fire and water that goes into the growing of all the things, all the plants.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: That’s right. That’s what we’re based on.
DEBRA: Okay, so if somebody is looking for an herbal product, what are some guidelines about how to choose a good one? Are there herbal products that don’t have any herbs in them for example?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: I think – and this is a big issue because the FDA is wanting – there’s some talk coming down the pipeline of every time somebody is – a manufacturer makes something with an herb, they’d have to take it to a lab to have it tested. But it does make sense if you’re just getting a powder from who knows what source, and you can’t identify it.
It’s different with me because I get the seeds, I grow the plant, I know what it looks like. And so I know I’m harvesting the exact gene or species that I want to work with. But I would – there are very reputable companies out there, but I like companies that are maybe smaller-owned in that the owner has a good reputation as an herbalist. It’s great if the person is growing their herbs and there are a few companies left like that too.
DEBRA: I agree with you. I know that – especially when I lived in California and it’s not so much available here in Florida. But I used to belong to community-supported agriculture, and so I could actually go to the farm where my food was being grown. I could work on the farm with the farmer if I wanted to. I could help harvest the food and put it in a basket.
So I knew exactly what was going on.
One of the things that is most distressing to me about the consumer world is that even as a consumer advocate, I can’t always find out what has gone into the product, whether it’s a food product or any other kind of product. And yet, if I were to decide that I wanted to buy one of your products, for example, I can just talk to you. I can send you an e-mail. I can pick up the phone and you can tell me all about it.
And you would.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: True. All of the ingredients that are in my products, you can read them. It’s not a long chemical name. It’s all simple ingredients that can be read easily. It’s just a real basic herbalism.
DEBRA: What’s your best-selling product?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Well, it’s called Look, No X Ma! and I designed it for my daughter. When she was just an infant, she developed eczema. And I really researched that situation really hard and came up with this one remedy that is, by far, my best-selling product. It floats my whole business really.
We also make a soap out of that same combination of herbs.
DEBRA: What’s another product that people like? If you didn’t have eczema, what would be a good, first basic product for someone to try if they don’t have any experience with herbs?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Well, I love the Rose Comfrey cream. So I have two comfrey creams, an unscented comfrey for the very chemically sensitive. It has very few ingredients in it. Another one of my top best-sellers is Calendula Neroli cream.
Down in Florida, you probably know how beautiful the orange blossoms smell. And that’s the scent when it’s distilled into a scent oil, orange blossoms mare called neroli.
So this is – calendula, bright, sunny, healing, calendula flowers. And then combined with that great scent of neroli, it makes a really lovely cream.
DEBRA: I’ll tell you when I first moved to Florida, my house is not a farm. It’s on a, what I would call, a large suburban lot. And so I have this beautiful backyard with all these trees, oak trees. And then when I moved here, there was an understory of citrus trees, different types of tangerines and grapefruits and oranges and things.
And there was a certain week in the spring when they would all bloom. And it was just so heavenly. You just go out in the backyard and have this gorgeous scent.
At that time, I was planning a wedding of my own, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get married just on those days when all the citrus trees are blooming?”
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Would that ever be nice? So gorgeous. And I just knew you were going to use the word heavenly when you described that smell.
DEBRA: It is. There’s just nothing like it. I just could breathe that all day long when those trees are blooming.
And that’s what nature is like. There’s nothing that duplicates. Nothing man-made that can duplicate that magic of nature, whether it’s the fragrance or the taste or the way it makes your body feel. It’s just a pretty incredible thing.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes, nature is here for us. Nature is here to heal us. I think it’s just so clear even to spend a time in a walk or watching the sunset, which is something that you have in Florida, either the sunrise or the sunset. All that beauty and majesty can really soothe us and help heal us and provide even an opportunity for our intuition to speak to us clearer.
Not to mention all the great plants that are out there that we have that are traditionally used or even have not yet been discovered their use.
In fact, that’s one definition of a weed, a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.
DEBRA: Yes, I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that definition and I think that that’s right. I think all plants have virtues. We just need to find what they are. That sounds so lovely.
Are there a lot of non-organic herbs that – is there something about how herbs are processed that we should make sure we should get organic?
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Well, I think everything should be organic. We should have an organic plant as far as I’m concerned.
DEBRA: Yes, I agree.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: I wouldn’t really want to take medicine that’s been sprayed. It seems very counterintuitive to say the least, not to mention, there’s so much toxicity in fungicides and herbicides.
I was so happy to hear your message about glyphosates before the show. But yes, it’s really important to be certified organic too because you really have to prove in a lot of different ways to your inspector who comes every year about how well you’re keeping your products or your plants clean.
It really creates a great paper trail, which helps in a lot of other ways. You have to write down your daily chores and any off-farm inputs, anything that came from not on the farm that came onto the farm.
And so you have a great paper trail.
It is pricey but I think it’s worth paying to prove to people for that security that you are walking your talk. You’re not just saying it.
DEBRA: That’s right. I agree with that. I, of course, have heard the word organic for many years, but as a consumer advocate, I continue to research and learn more and educate myself as the years go by. Within the last few years, I’ve done a lot of research about what does organic really mean.
It means a lot more than just no pesticides, which is a big and fluent thing. But the whole process of certifying organic and all the things that you have to not only keep track of, but think about and consider that each one of those steps, each and everything that you do…
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Because you have to rebuild the soil. You have to take your soil out of production and put it into a cover crop every three years. And I think that’s really a beautiful thing because it just gives you a chance to honor and rebuild that soil in a way that you might not if you weren’t required to.
It’s so easy to just want to keep growing something either because you love growing something or just for the production sake of it.
They have a lot of good requirements.
DEBRA: I think so too.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: There are all different certifying agencies but it’s a very worthwhile thing to just assure people that you are walking your talk.
DEBRA: I think it would be great if all products of all types had that same kind of structure that required reporting and record-keeping, and all of those things so that – every product has a story, and if everyone could tell the story of their product to the customer, I think that would be incredible.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: Yes. A great idea while you’re saying that, I thought, wouldn’t it be great if you would have to prove if you sprayed chemicals and all the organic people wouldn’t have to go through all of that.
DEBRA: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: And then, the people who spray all the chemicals, they don’t have to go through all the paperwork and prove it and pay the fees.
DEBRA: I often say that a label shouldn’t say organic apple sauce. It’s the other apple sauce. It should say apples and pesticides.
JANE HAWLEY STEVENS: There you go. Someday, we can create a vision here.
DEBRA: Yes. Well, thank you so much for being with me, Jane. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you. And again, Jane’s website is FourElementsHerbals.com. And you should just go there and see how beautiful her farm is, and how beautiful her plants are.
I’m just so happy that we talked.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and find out who’s going to be on for the rest of the week. Also, you can listen to any of the 200-plus past shows. They’re all archived and some are even transcribed.
Be well.
What We Can Do About Cancer
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about cancer—what it is, how you can prevent it, and how you can help your body fight it if you have it. One of every two men and one of every three women in the USA and other western nations now have a chance of getting some type of cancer in their lifetime, but it is preventable. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
What We Can Do About Cancer
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld
Date of Broadcast: August 26, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It’s Wednesday, August 26th 2015. I’m here in sunny Clearwater, Florida.
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s on every other Wednesday, so she was on two weeks ago and will be on two weeks from today again.
I have her on so much because she has so much information from her viewpoint as a registered pharmacist who also dispenses medicinal plants and other natural substances at her natural pharmacy, here in Clearwater, Florida.
So, she talks to us about drugs and their side effects and how they might not be so good for us and she also talks about what we can replace them with. She’s familiar with how the body works, how different substances interact in the body and what we can do to get healthy and stay healthy.
Today we’re talking about cancer. And that’s because two weeks ago when she was on, I was talking about somebody that I know who was just diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer.
Right before that I’ve heard about one of our guests that we’ve had on the show. She called me and said she was just diagnosed with breast cancer. In fact, she just had surgery last week.
This is just too much cancer. It’s too much cancer. There are so many things we could do to prevent cancer. There are natural substances that we can use to help our bodies recover with cancer. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Hi Pamela!
PAMELA SEEFELD: Hi! It’s great to be here!
DEBRA: Thank you! So, where should we start?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, I think a good starting point will be talking about some of the chemicals or some of the things that are in our environment that are making us more prone to cancer. We know the statistics are pretty high as far as the incidents of breast cancer in the United States.
We’re exposed to chemicals on a daily basis in the environment around us and really, most people that are probably listening to the show eat pretty well, probably pretty clean and diet does affect to some degree what you’re doing. But also you have to realize that environmentally, you’re not living in a bubble and you’re exposed to pesticides, chemicals, especially in the drinking water and in the soil and also, in the tire dust.
If you walk by a road or if you’re jogging outside or even if you’re coming in and out of the store, the dust coming off the road is pretty high in cadmium. So really, I want people to realize that everybody has some risk and some skin in the game, so to speak.
DEBRA: I would agree with that, that even if we were to remove every chemicals that causes cancer from our homes, that out in the world when we go to a store or school or walking down the street, breathing, there’s actually a lot of carcinogens in car exhaust. So, if you’re sitting in traffic or even driving your car, these carcinogens are there.
So, one of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is not so much about avoiding chemicals anymore (although we should certainly do that), but it’s more about managing our chemical exposure, I think and being able to find the balance between reducing it as much as we can and doing the other things that we need to do like detox in order to help our bodies cope with the other chemicals that we are being exposed to that we can’t do anything about.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct! And really, that’s why in previous shows, we had to talk a lot about it. I’m a big advocate of doing the Body Anew and I know you really like the Zeolite a lot. When you do these things on a daily basis…
DEBRA: I like taking Body Anew also, I do both of them. I take both of the on a daily basis.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Perfect!
DEBRA: Both of them.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, absolutely! And what I can say is when you’re doing these processes, you’re removing out chemicals on a daily basis that you’re exposed to. It’s like taking out an insurance policy, that’s the way I look at it.
I’ve been on the Body Anew probably almost 18 years now, at least 17 (I’ve lost count). It really makes a huge difference in taking these things out of the body on a daily basis.
It’s important to realize that even heavy metals, they stay within two inches of the surface soil. They’re not going to be going anywhere. So, you don’t know if somebody dumped them in your backyard a hundred years ago and we have to think about that too.
People are more acutely aware today perhaps, environmentally, of how things are being affected, how animals are being affected and plants. But a hundred years ago, people were really not being careful with chemicals and with the byproducts of industrial wastes because the knowledge wasn’t there.
DEBRA: That’s right. That’s totally right! And they would just go and put things – if they had extra gasoline, they would just go and dump them on the ground.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Exactly! That’s exactly right. And so, we can’t control some of the things that are happening here.
And also too, a lot of the pressure-treated wood that people are using in their decks has arsenic. And so, the soil will definitely test higher for arsenic. The thing is you don’t know necessarily that in previous times, if they were using those types of wood beams to build some part of the structure of an older house perhaps (even now, people are using those wood decking), there’s a lot chemicals that are being used to treat that wood that does have bleaching effects on the soil.
DEBRA: It does. A few years ago, I needed to buy a post to put my mailbox on. I wanted to buy a wood post. So, we were going down various stores, looking to see what we could get. Here in Florida, wood rots every easily.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct.
DEBRA: So, the choices were that we would either get the pressure-treated or just a vinyl post, neither were good choices.
But when we were shopping, I was asking somebody who works as a builder and he works with pressure-treated wood all the time (and this was before they changed it to the new less toxic ones, but still toxic) and he said, “Oh, that’s not toxic. With our bare hands, we just put those in the ground and then, eat lunch.”
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, my Lord!
DEBRA: And so, they still have this stuff on their hands and they’re picking up their sandwiches and hamburgers and putting them in their mouths.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, my gosh! That’s a crazy story! But I believe it. I really do because ignorance is bliss. If you start looking around and seeing where these things are coming into your life, you’re going to be much more aware of what is happening.
DEBRA: So, what are some of the chemicals specifically that people should watch out for?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Right. Good. This is pretty interesting. If we look at HPTE, that’s an abbreviation for 2,2-bis(p-hydroxyphenyl)-1,1, 1-trichloroethane. I’m just going to pick some random chemicals, we’ll talk a little bit about those and I did some searches on this.
DEBRA: Okay. Good.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Estrogenic effects, most specifically. And with this pesticide effect (and this is pretty prevalent in the environment), the estrogenic effects is it affects follicle-stimulating hormone in women (that’s FSH).
When you have something that mimics and estrogen, the collective term to chemicals that mimic something else and they have bioactivity in the body is xenobiotics. That’s the term that they’ve assigned…
DEBRA: That’s a great word. I had to look it up. It’s X-E-N-O-biotics.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct! Yes, xenobiotic. This particular chemical which tends to be pretty ubiquitous, it’s highly in the environment (you spray this on foods and so forth). This particular pesticide, affecting follicle-stimulating hormone, what does that mean?
Well, for women follicle-stimulating hormone is what starts to be elevated when they have menopause. When it goes up and it’s elevating, that’s when you get the hot flushes and you’re getting the night sweats, the irritability, the weight gain.
So, we can just further the dots when we know that this is affecting FSH, that maybe the women’s estrogen is affected in a way in FSH, that menopause maybe more severe, menopause may come sooner than in normally would and may affect fertility. And this is very important because that’s what women especially are going be very concern about.
DEBRA: Yes. Go ahead.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So, that’s what you need to look at. What I can also say and what also would work as xenobiotics and estrogenic effects are not just these chemicals, but plastics in the environment. So, if you heat up food in plastic, little beads of plastic.
They are starting to come to recognize the dangers of these little beads of plastics that they put in these some of these soaps. They’re finding these all in the oceans.
So, these little plastic beads or the plastic itself is leeching out into the food that we’re eating, they act as estrogens in the body.
And I can say that there’s actually a homeopathic product that if you’re really concern that you’ve warmed up food in plastics for a long period of time, you have breast cancer in the family, you’ve had breast cancer or they’re watching certain areas in your breast because of density, there’s something by Desbio called Detox 3 that actually removes out plasticizers that have xenobiotic estrogenic activity in the body.
DEBRA: I think that’s a really important thing for people to be aware of because we’re exposed to so many of these plasticizers in so many different ways unless you’re doing things like me where you’re storing your food in glass instead of plastics. I don’t know, I have plastics in my house, but not very much.
We need to go to break. When we come we’ll talk more about cancer and what we can do to prevent it and other things having to do with good health. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She is a registered pharmacist that prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substance. She has her own natural pharmacy here in Clearwater called Botanical Resource. You can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com.
But Pamela, why don’t you give us your phone number. She is happy to talk to you at no charge if you call this number she’s about to give you and make some recommendations for you about how you can get off-drugs and use natural substances instead. Tell them what you do.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, absolutely! So, my background is clinical pharmacy, but I also studied pharmacognosy, which is plant science, at the University of Florida. I have my own pharmacy which does not have much in drugs. We do natural products, homeopathics, many professionally used and other health food store ones.
I’m very respectful of people’s time and money, so I don’t suggest something that’s overly priced. I would very honored to help you with your family, also for your animals. I do veterinary homeopathy as well. The consultations are free. You can call me here at my office, it’s 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I’d be very helpful in anything that you might have, any questions and even your health issues.
Also, today we’re talking about cancer, if you are worried about preventing cancer, you have family history, I would like to help you pick out the right quality products that would be most beneficial for you.
DEBRA: Thank you. So, before we go on, I just want to mention a few things that I’ve come across recently. The page I’m looking right now is on the Breast Cancer Fund website. It’s called Chemicals and Radiation Linked to Breast Cancer. And it has a number of – let’s see how many, a couple of dozen, maybe three dozen different chemicals where there is a page for each one of them. These are all chemicals related to breast.
Some of the things that are on here are pesticides like Atrazine, Bisphenol A, which is in so many things (canned food and cash register receipts, when you’re touching cash register receipts, you have Bisphenol A on your hands unless there are using the BPA-free ones).
Also, bovine growth hormone (that’s in milk), cadmium (that Pamela mentioned earlier), DDT in pesticide. What else do we have? Hormone replacement therapy, hormones in personal care products, infertility drugs. It just says oral contraceptives, phthalates that are in chemicals and personal care products, parabens, methyl and propylparabens that have been used for – it used to be that all the natural products have methyl and propylparaben because we thought they were safe and they’re taking them out now.
There’s a whole list here. So again, it’s called Chemicals and Radiation Linked to Breast Cancer. If you just type that on to a search engine – actually, I’ll put a link to this on the page on ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com about this show, I’ll put that link.
And also, the Environmental Working Group just came out with a list a couple of weeks ago, a PDF where they’ve put the top 12, their Dirty Dozen. They have a Dirty Dozen Series. They’ve picked up their dirty dozen top chemicals that cause cancer including lead, mercury, phthalates again, DEHP, let’s see, PBDEs, all these numbers, triclosan (which is in disinfecting soap), things like that. So, you can take a look at these.
But there’s another thing that I wanted to mention and I think Pamela read about this too.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct!
DEBRA: This new report from Environmental Working Group where they took a research from a project called The Halifax Project where 300 scientists around the world are studying how cancer is formed. And one of the things that they’re studying with regards to chemicals is how chemicals that don’t even – if they don’t cause cancer by themselves, but combined, they cause cancer.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.
DEBRA: The reality is that in our world, we’re not being exposed to these chemicals one a time. They’re in the environment, they’re combined when they get in our bodies. They combine in our bodies. And this is just wow! This just upped the stakes. If we can’t identify the exact chemicals that are causing cancer, it makes it a lot harder to control them.
But they do have specific chemicals that they’re looking at. And in the Environmental Working Group site, they have a list of chemicals that are being investigated by The Halifax Project. I’ll put a link to that too. So, you can just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and look at the archives and you’ll see the post for today’s show. I’ll put those links on there.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Really, this data is just very humbling for all of us. They’re trying to be so proactive and we realize that we’re bombarded.
And that’s how life really is. When you look at chemicals in the body and the things that we combined, our whole body is a chemistry factory.
These chemicals come in and out of the subcutaneous fat. They come in and out from our food, from the water, the air we breathe. It’s really important, the detoxification processes of body (mainly in your respiratory tract, your skin and also the fact of your liver), that these things are all working collectively in your best interests and that they’re effective.
That’s where nutrition is very important, your health is important, getting enough sleep is important , taking a detox product. All these little things can add up to quite a big difference. All it takes is one of these chemicals, either additive or alone, to start turning on the genes. And once those genes get expressed as cancer, if your immune system does not identify it, you result in having the diagnosis.
DEBRA: We almost need to go to break. But when we come back, I want you to talk about how the genes get turned on. As you’re talking, I’m thinking it’s not just one part of your body, it’s not just the detox system, it’s the immune system too, it’s the digestive system because you have to get those chemicals out through the intestines. Really, every system in your body needs to be working in order to prevent and fight cancer. And how many of us can say that every part our bodies are working?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely! That’s one why doing these detoxification processes is so important. Not doing it on a daily basis, you’re really taking a chance.
DEBRA: I completely agree with that – completely, completely. Okay, so when we come back we’re going to talk about more with Pamela Seefeld about how genes get turned on and expressed and turn into cancer.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and Pamela’s – would you give your number again in case people want to call you.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s 727-442-4955.
DEBRA: Okay, we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances at her natural pharmacy called Botanical Resource. That’s BotanicalResource.com.
So Pamela, tell us about what happens with the genes.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay. So, they’re called as the gene expression. Cancer cell is characterized as uncontrolled cell growth and proliferations. These cells are growing, their turnover is very rapid and they don’t look like the cells around them.
It’s important to say that. When we have chemotherapy, it targets this turnover, this cell cycle, which is at a higher rate than the other cells around them. And that’s why people lose their hair and also why they get sores in their mouth and their GI tract because the cells in the mouth and in the mucousa of the GI tract and also the cells in the follicles of the hair tend to have similar growth cycles with cancer. Their turnover is very fast. That’s why people lose their hair. I think it’s important for people to understand that what we’re talking about in relation to chemotherapy as well.
So, that’s what cancer is all about. It’s got this higher rate of turnover, it doesn’t look like the cells around it. And when they do a biopsy and they bring it to the pathologist, what they look at is histology. They look and see what are the cells are made of. That’s how they identify what cancer you have. That’s kind of the basics.
But it’s important to know about the genes and what regulates cell growth and how these cells, these genes get turned on that cause problems. We’re talking about chemicals and heavy metals and pesticides and all these things collectively as a whole, we know that these can be instigators of cancer.
So, gene expression of cancer can be enhanced by these chemicals. Something has to turn the genes on to start making these unusual looking cells or the cancer cells. These things that we’re talking about, that’s why this is so important to know, taking these out will stop the expression.
Some of the things you can do to enhance the good gene expression, believe it or not, fruits and vegetables. We’re talking about our diet.
DEBRA: I’m laughing because Pamela talks about this in every show, fruits and vegetables.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. Gene expression, we know that when you eat a salad and it has lots of nice, colorful vegetables that they’re always saying for everyone to eat, we know it turns on the genes.
When you’re taking blueberries, why don’t you think the antioxidant property is supposedly so good and it’s so healthy for you? Berries have high propensity of turning on genes. These flavonoids, they have activity on the actual genome. And if you think about that, that is just so amazing, that literally, we are what we eat.
DEBRA: We literally are. And also, the thing that just impresses me so much is how in the larger picture of life, life has provided all these healthy things that create healthiness. The plants are there, so if we eat the plants, we’re going to get all those things that are just there. They are not manufactured. They’re there as part of life. And if we take advantage of those things, our bodies will be healthy. If we don’t eat them, our genes don’t get turned on.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right! Life is really amazing. We’ve talked in previous shows that I think that the enzymes that we have in our liver or in the plants, we share a lot with the plants and the animals around us as far as we’re made of carbon and hydrogen. We really are made from the same building blocks, we just look a little bit different. And we have a different genetic expression depending on what we are.
It’s important to know that for people, we know that the diet does a make difference and also, removing some of these chemicals out. I think it’s important for people to realize that.
And this is interesting, when I was looking at getting prepared for the show here, I was looking at drugs in the water supply. This is pretty much the problem. I just found there were several different drugs. But apparently, what’s happening is these drugs are in the water supply and they use chlorination and they use this process of cleaning of the water, the drugs, a lot of times, remain in there. But when they chlorinate the water, it causes it to just become more reactive.
DEBRA: Ahhh.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. And they gave an example of Tramadol, which is a very common pain reliever. And what they found is that once it’s been chlorinated and it’s released back to the water supply and it’s back [inaudible 00:31:18], they can test. What they’re finding in the lot of the water, believe it or not, is conjugated estrogens from birth control pills and anti-depressants. There’s a lot of that in the water.
They came measure that. Most municipalities can measure that.
This is interesting. They were talking about these drugs and all the drugs that have the same issues as well. The chlorination process, when they try to clean up the water and the drugs are still there, it gets activated and then actually, it becomes more genotoxic.
DEBRA: Wow!
PAMELA SEEFELD: Right.
DEBRA: I’m not surprised. Again, it goes back to this combination…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. And is buried in the Library of Medicine. This is recent. This one is published August 17th of this month. So, this is not some old data. This is brand new data. They’re showing that these medications, because we’re so highly medicated here in this society, these medicines ending up in the water supply, they go through the chlorination process to try to clean up the water, and as the result of that, we realize that some of these things get activated in a much more dangerous form that they originally were.
So, even if you’re not taking these medicines, you’re still getting them.
DEBRA: That’s right! And another reason that everybody needs to filter their water.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely.
DEBRA: …and filter it with the water filter that I recommend because it will filter more out than any other water filter that I know.
Excellent! Excellent information, Pamela! Wow! So tell us…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Go ahead.
DEBRA: So, tell us real quick, before we have to go to break about how the immune system looks for cancer.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, good. So, the immune system identifies cancer cells and it finds it and it destroys it. It has different cells that go after cancer itself. Natural killer cells are the ones that actually have the most activity against cancer cells themselves. But our regular immune system does find and see it. It’s kind of like amoebas where they engulf it and destroy it.
When the body sees this and starts to go and kill these areas, the cancer’s gone in that particular day. So, we actually have the beginnings of cancer every single day in our body, but our immune system find it. It’s when our immune system is maybe not working as well or the gene is an aggressive type of cancer that’s in one particular area that the immune system does not have high activity in. And then, as a result of that, the person could end up with cancer.
I think keeping your immune system working properly is a big component, not just the gene expression, but a big component. The oncogenes are what they originally discovered. These oncogenes are turned on by chemicals and they produce cancer and that’s the big problem. If your immune system is not working as well as it was in the past, cancer can definitely take hold.
And I have to tell you too that older people have a higher propensity for certain types of cancer. And the reason why is because they’ve collected these chemicals all over their lifetime in their body and they haven’t taken them out.
So, the net amount in your body is going to put you more at risk for having a cancer outcome. That’s why you see a lot of these in really elderly people especially ccute myelogenous leukemia. The incidences have gone up considerably in that. They have a new study that was just published today, that imitations in remission are still there even after they’ve had the chemotherapy.
DEBRA: You know we can really see this easily. I know that when I was a child that everybody was smoking. All over the place there were ads for cigarettes, people were smoking on TV. Everybody thought that smoking is fine. And then, they started discovering that it takes 30 years of smoking cigarettes to develop cancer. I think that these chemicals, even though we’re not seeing the results of cancer maybe in our bodies right now, these chemicals are creating cancer just like cigarettes.
We need to go to break. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio and we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela [technical problem 00:38:56]
DEBRA: A little technical problem there. I think that we’re doing fine now. So, what was I about to say? Pamela, I don’t know if I told you that both of my grandmothers and my mother all died of Cancer.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh no!
DEBRA: So, I really have it in my family. And where I lived when I was a child turned out later to be cancer cluster. A lot of people on my block got cancer where I grew up for – let’s see from age 7 to about 21. So, this is not…
PAMELA SEEFELD: It was definitely environmental.
DEBRA: it was definitely environmental. I don’t know what the chemicals were in that particular area. But that house, we moved into a brand new house, it had wall to wall carpets. And my mother loved everything modern and so we had plastic furniture giving off all those plasticizers. That’s what I grew up with, just the standard American home. And my mother died when I was 24.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, my gosh! That’s terrible! I’m so sorry. Very young.
DEBRA: She was only 52. Anyway, so, how does family history affects whether or not somebody get cancer?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, that’s good. So, family history definitely plays part in especially breast cancer, but also can be for stomach cancers and colon cancers as well, heredity. And actually, I have to say too, sometimes there’s probably a quarter or maybe more of the breast cancer patients that get diagnosed that have no family history at all. So, you can’t always rely on that, but definitely family history is kind of a beacon to start looking for things and to be more proactive about preventing. That’s kind of what I’m in.
I’ll just talk for a few seconds about some of the homeopathics stuff that you can put in your water that would prevent and maybe up your bets as far as what you would have as far as family history. It’s important.
We were talking about the Body Anew and that’s important because that just basically takes out the base chemicals out the body, pesticides out of the subcutaneous fat that regulates the liver, the glucuronidation and conjugation, to help remove it out. And I also think it helps a lot in the sweating process of removing heavy metals out from underneath the surface of the skin because that definitely promotes that process as well.
There’s something in homeopathy that we used called Bio Gallium. Bio Gallium has anti-cancer property, it also has anti-viral property. It’s kind of a hallmark that you can use either as a treatment or you can use as a preventative. It’s liquid, you can put it in your water and that’s pretty much what most of the homeopathic doctors will use for cancer itself.
Also, we were talking about in previous shows about pH and alkaline.
DEBRA: Wait! I want to ask a question about Bio Gallium.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Please.
DEBRA: Now, one of the things that I’ve learned with my friend who had – I don’t know why I said had, but has cancer (he was recently diagnosed) is that he had no symptoms, no symptoms whatsoever. It was something entirely different that took him to the doctor. It wasn’t cancer symptoms. It was pain from the cancer eating away at his bones.
And so, I think that there are probably a lot of people – I don’t know if this sounds scary. But there’s probably a lot people who have cancer in various, early stages that have no idea that they have cancer. And so, taking something like Bio Gallium, that would help cancer of those early even if you don’t know it.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right! I do have people that continue to smoke (I’m not here to judge people, I don’t tell people what to do, I have clients of all socio-economic backgrounds) and if they want to smoke, I tell them that you really need to be in the Body Anew and the Bio Gallium everyday and they do that. And that’s just to protect against the inevitable perhaps it might end up as lung cancer.
Remember, there are people that never smoke that end up with lung cancer. So, this is the problem with this. I’d still say it comes down to…
DEBRA: Well, outside of you. My great uncle lived to be a hundred and he smoked everyday and he did not die of cancer. But look at this…
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s true!
DEBRA: But let’s look at this for a minute because he was born a hundred years ago. I mean, he died like 10 years ago. So, he was born way back at the beginning of the 20th century when people had good food. They were not exposed to toxic chemicals. His whole health was established at a time before World War II when they started making all these chemicals and all these plastics and all these things that so many of us were born into. He lived to be a hundred while smoking.
PAMELA SEEFELD: No, absolutely! I see this all the time. Actually, there was another lady here in the area that was 102. And this lady, she drank a lot. She was a retired doctor, she drank quite a bit and ate a lot of red meat and she was even smoking most of her life.
This is really true. What you have to look at the genes are definitely there, but also the fact that environmentally, depending upon what you’re exposed to. And these people that have been around for quite a long time, they were raised not on pizzas and Cheetos, but they were raised on real food. They still may be eating that way to some degree, that makes a huge difference.
Like I said, the foods that you eat have the genetic propensity to activate and make these genes expressed. It just depends what you’re coming in contact with. The majority of the time, when they were younger (and even to middle age), they’re clean living. It probably had something to do with their outcome.
But taking Bio Gallium and taking detox, it’s very reasonably priced. You’re only going to be using a little bit every day. Putting it in your water and drinking it throughout the day, if you’re really concern about cancer risks, family heredity, maybe you had cancer, you’re on remission, I highly recommend it.
It’s a pretty easy thing to do and it doesn’t really take a lot of time on your part that you have to spending stuff, mixing things, doing things.
It’s not going to take a big amount of time on your day. The rewards can be quite beneficial.
DEBRA: Also, if you’re an environment when you can’t remove the toxic chemicals like if you work some place that is a dangerous environment (or that could be even an office building)…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely!
DEBRA: Yeah, if you’re around toxic chemicals and you can’t remove them or don’t have control over them, taking something like these detox products will really help your body have more resilience instead of just succumbing to the effects of those products.
So, it’s just that the more times go by and the more I learn, the more I think that every single person just needs to be detoxing because there is not a place on Earth that anybody can go where there is zero toxic chemicals.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely! You have to realize too that a lot of the chemicals we were talking about, like heavy metals, they’re neurotoxic. So, not just even the fact of the cancer we’re talking about today, but the fact that you might end up with neuropathy, seizures.
There are a lot of other things that could be happening, taking these things out.
I mean, we’re talking about cancer today, but you have to look at the other health implications that are pretty severe and pretty debilitating that you really want to prevent especially like copper and nickel. When they combine (we were talking about the list of additive toxicity), when those two combined together in the body, they’re doubly more toxic.
And that’s important for people to realize. You have to be taking some things, perhaps on a daily basis, depending on your risks and depending on your own tolerance of what you want to take. You want to be doing that.
Also, they actually make a homeopathic product that I use quite a bit called Radiation. We’ve been using that multi for people that are actually undergoing radiation to help prevent collateral damage to the tissue. But if you’ve had lots of chest x-rays, lots of MRIs, these sorts of things, just from the past, just your own history, then you really might want to go on some homeopathy to take some of that radiation damage out. There are things that we can use for that that are developed by physicians. They are not homeopathic products, they are health pills, they are health food store quality. They are more of medical grade. That would be much more effective.
So, you have to look at your risks. Like we have said earlier, I’ll be glad to have a conversation with you at no charge to see what you’ve been doing up to date here. Perhaps you’ve had cancer, maybe you have a new diagnosis of cancer.
The good thing about homeopathy is that you can use this along with conventional therapy and I highly recommend that.
DEBRA: Yeah. Pamela, we’ve got less than a minute left. So, why don’t you give your phone number again?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. It’s Botanical Resource and my number here is 727-442-4955. I would be glad to help you and your family in any health need that you may have.
DEBRA: And Pamela is very well-regarded here. Even my medical doctors said that, “If Pamela tells you to do it, do it.”
So, we have to go. We’ve only got about 20 seconds left. Thank you so much, Pamela! I always learn so much.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Thank you so much!
DEBRA: I know you wanted to say something about pH, but we don’t have time.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s okay. Have an excellent day! Thank you so much!
DEBRA: Okay. You’re welcome! You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and find out who’s coming up, the new guests coming up and you can also listen to all the shows in the archives. Be well.
Healthy Home Detox With Ron & Lisa
My guests today are Ron & Lisa Beres. As healthy home experts, building biologists, published authors, professional speakers and Telly Award Winning media personalities, this husband-and-wife team help busy people eliminate toxics from their home with simple solutions to improve their health. We’ll be talking about how to “Change Your Home, Change Your Health in 30 Days.” Lisa is also the author of the children’s book “My Body My House,” and the duo are co-authors of “Just GREEN It!“—simple swaps to save the planet and your health. Lisa and Ron’s TV appearances include “Dr. Oz,” “The Rachael Ray Show,” “Nightly News with Brian Williams,” “TODAY,” “The Doctors” and “Fox & Friends.” www.ronandlisa.com
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Healthy Home Detox with Ron & Lisa
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Ron & Lisa Beres
Date of Broadcast: August 04, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. I’m fussing around at the moment with technical things. Okay! This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
So it’s – I don’t have that page up. It is a date. It’s the 4th of August. Sometimes, I’ve just got all these technical stuff to do and I have to do it while I was coming. Oh, shoot! Okay, we’ll get this right.
So, it’s now the 4th of August and I know who my guests are. My guests are Ron and Lisa Beres. They are a wonderful couple. I’ve known them for a long time. They know so much about indoor air pollution. They now have become media personalities. They give webinars, they give trainings, they give consultations. They know so much about indoor air pollution. They are actually trained and certified in this area.
They’re building biologists.
Today, we’re going to talk about their healthy home detox. They’re about to do a program and it’s called Change Your Home, Change Your Health in 30 Days. We’re going to be talking about that.
Ron and Lisa, I’m not usually this scattered. It’s just I’m having one of those mornings. Hi, Lisa.
LISA BERES: We all do.
DEBRA: Sometimes you have these days where all of a sudden, there are all these things that you have get done. And then, the phone rings and you have to talk to the person on the phone for half an hour. And then it’s noon and it’s time for the radio show.
LISA BERES: It should be Monday, but it’s Tuesday.
DEBRA: It is Tuesday.
Here’s what’s happening, listeners. Lisa and her husband, Ron are both guests on the show today, but Ron can’t make it until later on the show. So he’s going to be joining us. In the meantime, we have Lisa who knows everything. She can say everything.
So Lisa, why don’t you start by telling us how did you and Ron get interested in doing what you do?
LISA BERES: Well, we started this journey about over 13 years ago. Actually, I’d say it’s about 15 years ago at this point. Time flies!
Ironically, I was engaged to Ron about the time that this all happened. So it’s a really unique time for us.
I was working as an interior designer. That’s what I went to college for. I loved my job and I really thought I was living a healthy life.
I do like to share this story because I think a lot of people can relate to it.
I was working out, I was a vegetarian, I shopped at Whole Foods and thought that, “Hey, this is it! This is the end of the story, being healthy.”
DEBRA: Yes, a lot of people think that.
LISA BERES: A lot of people think that. And I am so happy, by the way, that you do what you do because you bring so much awareness on a bigger scale and really educating people about such an important topic.
A lot of people really do. The buck stops there with food. They think as long they’re eating healthy, that’s the end. As you and I know, there’s a whole another segue to being healthy and that’s obviously your environment.
So at that point, I had just moved in. I wanted to move closer to Ron, we were engaged. I found this little charming beach cottage not too far from him. It’s pretty close to the beach. It had just been newly remodeled. So I was so excited.
It had a brand new hardwood floor, brand new carpeting, fresh, new coat of paint. It had a new, cozy gas fireplace. It had new vinyl windows and sparkling white, new thermofoil kitchen cabinets. I was in heaven! I thought that I found the best place you could possibly move into.
So I was working from home at the time and I moved in there. And suddenly – it happened really quickly for me after being there because I was literally in this house almost 24/7. I started getting really severely sick. I could not get out of bed in the morning.
Prior to that, I’ve been pretty energetic. I’m working out even sometimes twice a day. I could not get out of bed in the morning.
And then my hormones started going crazy. I literally stopped having my period for a year. I’ll get into that in a minute. And then I was having chronic sinus issues. I was chronically fatigued. It was just a nightmare. This was supposed to be the happiest time of my life. I was engaged and planning this wedding. I just felt horrible all of the time. My stomach was bloated. I was just a wreck.
So I started researching and began researching. And that time, there really wasn’t the information that’s available now. So I had to really dig and I stumbled across building biology. And I started connecting the dots. I started realizing that my symptoms were directly linked to these chemicals that are in our home.
And every single thing I mentioned in the home was off gassing chemicals that I was being exposed to in a really high dose. I was severely having reactions to that.
So as I started connecting the dots, I ended up becoming a building biologist. I studied that for quite some time. But during this process, I was, little by little, changing my environment. So I would start with one thing, and then go to the next thing, and then [inaudible 00:06:43] water and then air and then bedding and all of this.
It took about a year. I forgot to mention this. This is extremely important. In this process, I visited at least a dozen doctors. I visited everyone from acupuncturists to chiropractors to MDs to naturopaths, you name it, endocronologist. I went to everyone and every kind of doctor because I wasn’t getting the answers.
So I’d go to one doctor and he’d try to load me up with prescriptions. This doctor wanted me on this. I was never getting better. No one could explain why these things were happening to me. Especially, with my period, they’d say, “Well, you just need to be on the pill. That will fix it all. Let’s just mask yours symptoms with more medications.”
I actually did do that for a year because I got so desperate. I felt horrible. So I did go back on the pill for a year. And guess what? My period stopped even on the pill. So I knew something was really wrong.
As I didn’t make the changes to my home – it literally took me about a year. But after that my health did a complete 180. I was healthier after all of that than I was when I started.
DEBRA: That’s my experience too.
LISA BERES: Is it? It’s amazing because I didn’t really know much about detoxing your body and how these chemicals could affect us.
And so as I cleaned up my environment and cleaned up myself (I did detoxification through this), I literally became a different person. Ron and I looked at each other and said, “Are you kidding me? We have to do something about this.” We have to create a business or something where we can help other people because people don’t realize that their environments are directly affecting their health. They’re just thinking about –
DEBRA: That’s my experience too. As I started getting well, I figured all this out. I was doing this even earlier than you. I was doing this in 1978.
LISA BERES: Wow! I wish we met earlier.
DEBRA: That’s when I started. It was in 1978. I had no information at all. There wasn’t building biology then or there wasn’t me. I couldn’t read my own books.
LISA BERES: You couldn’t time travel to the future.
DEBRA: I had to go and just sit in the library and look in industrial journals and things to find where the chemicals were. I had a clue it was the chemicals, but there was no information. And by the time I dug up all of this information and I started removing these chemicals from my life, my home, I felt so much better I said, “I have to tell people about this because nobody was talking about it. I had exactly the same response.
LISA BERES: Yes, they look at you like you’re crazy. Definitely, one doctor offered me anti-depressants because I cried in her office. I was so at the end of my rope with nowhere to turn. I felt so overwhelmed. I literally got a little weeping moment, nothing crazy. And she said she could prescribe me anti-depressants. And that made me cry even more.
DEBRA: Listeners, listen to how vibrant, alive and energetic she is right now. I’m sure this is not how you were at the time.
LISA BERES: No, not at all. And I don’t take anti-depressants.
It’s crazy. And I think that western medicine, that is the underlying theme. It’s, “Hey, let’s just give you a pill and make everything better.” No mention of side effects and no mention of how these medications are loaded with so many other things that can cause problems. At the end of the day, they’re just masking, so they’re never really curing anything anyway.
DEBRA: Wow! Great story1 Very much like a lot of other people, and aren’t we fortunate that we found this out because I think there’s a lot of people who are suffering from this and not knowing what it is. And of course, they go to the doctor and the doctor doesn’t know what it is either. So that’s why we talk about it here.
And we’re going to go to break. When we come back, Lisa’s going to tell us about some of the toxic chemicals that she found in her home and their health effects.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Lisa Beres. Her husband, Ron, is going to be on with us later. He’s off at another appointment at the moment. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Lisa Beres of Ron and Lisa Beres. And they are media personalities who go on TV and radio and speaking engagements, and tell the world about toxic chemicals in the home and how they can make you sick, and how you can get well by eliminating them from your life.
So Lisa, what are some of these toxic chemicals and what kinds of health effects do they cause for people?
LISA BERES: Oh, boy! I wish we had more than an hour. It’s not enough time to list them all. There are so many. I want to talk about some of the ones that are most prevalent inside of our homes and the ones that made the biggest difference for me.
Indoor air, in general, I like to call the umbrella of the home. Basically, if you can clean your air, you’re really covering a lot of the things that fall under it. So when we talk about toxins in flooring or carpeting or paint or bedding, well that’s all permeating into our indoor air. So if we can clean up our air, we’re addressing a lot of the problem.
Indoor air, it can have everything from biological contaminants like mold and pollen and pet dander to bacteria to chemicals. It can have flame retardants. It can have VOCs, volatile organic compounds. I know you know this.
DEBRA: No, you’re talking to the listeners. They need to know.
LISA BERES: I do like to say this because we hear the term VOCs a lot especially this paint, but people don’t really know what that is. So I’ll just give you a quick rundown.
So VOCs, they are volatile organic compounds. And at room temperature, they off gas, which means they vaporize into the air into a gaseous form. We breathe in these chemicals. So a lot of times, especially in our homes, we can’t smell these. We definitely can’t see them. But we are, in fact, breathing them in.
And that’s what happened to me. I didn’t know that I had all these chemicals I was breathing in in the home. VOCs can include really dangerous chemicals, many of which are carcinogens that cause cancer. Some of the chemicals are formaldehyde, xylene and toluene, benzene, trichloroethylene, ammonia, acetone and the list goes on and on and on. And so, our homes basically are a toxic brewery.
As the green building craze happens – that was a good thing for energy efficiency. It saved on our electric bills. But what happened is the homes became very tightly sealed and these chemicals really got trapped within our homes.
So back in the 1970s, the average air exchange in our home was once every hour. So we were getting a new fresh exchange of air once every hour. Today, it’s once every five hours. People aren’t opening their windows and they’re definitely not purifying their air like they should. So we’re literally breathing in and these chemicals are getting circulated through our HVAC systems.
DEBRA: Maybe if we didn’t have the whole energy thing happen, so that we tightened our homes, that these chemicals might not have ever concentrated to the degree, so that we wouldn’t have the whole field of what’s now called indoor air pollution.
It wasn’t called that. When I started, there was no such field.
LISA BERES: None of this existed.
I can’t even imagine your journey because I felt like doctors looked at me like I was crazy. So back in 1978, I’m sure they were like, “What is this person talking about?” It’s nice to know that there are so many amazing doctors now that do address this.
But yes, that’s a great point. The tightening of the building envelope has definitely addressed that. But you know what else? There are so many more chemicals on the market today. We’re talking about over 86,000 chemicals [inaudible 00:17:35]. And of those, less than 200 have ever been effectively tested for health. And that’s according to the president’s cancer panel.
I think people also don’t realize that. They think that if something is for sale at the store, then it must have been approved and gone through rigorous testing. There you go. It’s, in fact, safe for you to bring into your home. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Cleaning products, for instance, are largely unregulated. It is a multibillion-dollar industry, and they don’t, by law, have to tell us what’s in the product. So they can list a couple of the ingredients or none of the ingredients or all of the ingredients. And they’ll often the use the term “fragrance” to hide hundreds of chemicals.
So people really need to be educated and really need to learn how to understand labels and know what to look for and what to avoid because this is how we can get trapped into bringing chemicals to our lives and our families unknowingly.
DEBRA: One of the things that really astonished me when I started studying this was the labeling laws are so different for different types of products. And the ones that are most toxic, cleaning products and pesticides, are not required by law to list their ingredients. But they are required to give these signal words like “caution” and “poison”. It was supposed to give you some degree of how toxic they are.
But many, many years ago, I read a report that said that these aren’t even correctly applied. So the most toxic products we have have the worst labeling and the least opportunity for us to know what’s really in them. I don’t think that’s right. I think that needs to be changed.
LISA BERES: It so needs to be changed, Debra. I am so with you on that.
The Toxic Substance Control Act was actually formed in 1976. And this is the problem. 80,000 of the 86,000 or something crazy like that (maybe it was 60,000) chemicals are grandfathered in, which means they never went through any testing.
This law has literally not been updated since 1976. So I know so many people in the grassroots movement are trying to get this changed, but they’re going up against big corporations who don’t have the vested interested in doing this because they don’t want you to know what chemicals are in your products. They want to put them in there and confuse you.
In fact, I know you’re familiar with EWG, the Environmental Working Group. They created their Cleaners Database. They have actually over 2000 different brands of cleaning products.
For consumers and especially anybody listening who’s like, “Hmmm… I have this product. I wonder because they’re not listing all the ingredients,” you can actually plug in the name of your cleaning product and find out the toxicity rating. And they’ll tell you how hazardous it is and what’s in it.
But they also created what’s called the Hall of Shame. And these were the worst offenders of all in the cleaners. I got to tell you this because this blew my mind when I read it. Comet disinfectant powder, the green powder (and I actually used this growing up because I had to. I was doing my chores. It’s crazy), they literally found that it emitted 146 different chemicals in their testing. Some of the chemicals were thought to cause cancer, asthma and reproductive disorders. And the most toxic chemicals that they found were formaldehyde, benzene, chloroform and toluene. Some of those are carcinogens. And they were not listed on the label.
DEBRA: Wow! That’s just wrong.
LISA BERES: It’s wrong. And it’s shocking. I really want to stress that because these are name brand cleaners that people are using and trusting.
And then Febreze air effects. People spray this thinking they’re cleaning the air. Actually, they’re just contaminating their air with more chemicals. That was shown to release 89 air contaminants.
DEBRA: Wow!
We need to go to break but we’ll be right back. We’ll talk more with Lisa Beres and her husband, Ron, is coming up too. You’re listening to
Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Lisa Beres. And also her husband, Ron, will be here, I think, in the last segment. And we’re talking about healthy home detox.
Now, Lisa and Ron have a new program called Change Your Home, Change Your Health in 30 Days. And you can go to their website. I’m going to read it to you, but it’s long. You can also just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and I’ve got the link there. You can just click right through.
You can go to TinyURL.com/HealthyHomeSignUp, and you can sign up there for a free webinar which will tell you more about it and give you some information about how you can clean up your home. And you can find out about how to sign up for their Change Your Home, Change Your Health in 30 Days.
I think it’s great, Lisa, that you’re doing because I know you. I know you’re an organized person and that you have all the information. Putting it all together in a program so that people, together, you can help each other make these changes in your life, I think, is absolutely great.
LISA BERES: Thank you. That was the goal. And I know you’ve done such a great job with your books doing that as well. Because we both were in a situation where we didn’t have tools to turn to, I thought, “Mine would be great.”
We made it 30 days, but you can take it as long as you want. But if you want to finish it in 30 days, you can. And it goes through 12 modules.
So it goes through pretty much every room of your home. And we covered kids, how to grow healthy kids, your kitchen, how to detox your kitchen, pets, your bedding, your air, your water. So many things that obviously, we aren’t going to be able to cover today.
We try to make it fun because this is really overwhelming and in depth, intricate topic. When we talk about our homes, there are so many elements that comprise our homes. So we go through each. It’s digestible bites of information and you’re not really overwhelmed. You go at your own pace. So that’s really the goal.
DEBRA: That’s very good. So tell us some of the things that people can do.And I just want to say that Lisa mentioned earlier that they’re really focused on indoor air pollution. I think that that really is like a basic thing. You could change the water that you drink, you could change the food you eat. But you still got this air going on 24 hours a day.
And so that’s a segment of life in and of itself that you need to handle. And there is so much that’s involved in it that it really is important to learn it and do it, and then be healthier.
So what are some of the things, give us some examples of tips that people can do or things that you’re going to be talking about in your course?
LISA BERES: Starting with indoor air, obviously, implementing an air purification system in your home, it’s literally essential today. I don’t even think it’s negotiable. You need to do that.
Opening your windows, really letting your home breathe like homes used to is great. We can’t always do that depending on where we live and the time of year. And now, it’s allergies. Over 60 million Americans have allergies today. So that’s not always an option. That’s why I’m a really big proponent of air purifiers.
If you’re on a budget, there are air purifiers that you can buy that aren’t going to break the bank. There’s really an air purifier in every price points.
I think, generally, you do get what you pay for when it comes to these air purifiers. Some of them are only going to filter up to 3000 square feet. Some of them will filter just a few hundreds. At a minimum, have one in your bedroom and your kid’s bedroom. Children, especially babies, definitely need to be breathing in good air.
In our program, we go through all the air purifiers and break them down and tell you which ones aren’t good. There’s actually some on the market that product ozone and that can actually be more toxic to your health. So knowing what to avoid and what to look for is super important.
And then, you know what? If you’re at a really tight budget, then you can actually get plants, certain plants. NASA did a study and found there were 50 indoor house plants that normally produce oxygen, but actually remove chemical vapors and toxic gases from the air we breathe. It’s fascinating.
DEBRA: That was really fascinating, they do. I don’t remember the numbers off hand, but I calculated out how many plants you would need and it was a huge number.
LISA BERES: It is a huge number. To effectively clean your air, it’s one every hundred square feet. So if you have a large home, you’re going to have a lot of plants.
It’s not going to replace your air purifier by any means. But these plants, what’s really fascinating is each plant was different, and some remove benzene, some remove formaldehyde, some remove the trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene, ammonia.
And so you can pick the plant based on what you need. Certain ones are better for your bathrooms, certain ones are good to have by your bed.
That’s great too in an office situation. If you’re in a cubicle and you can’t do anything about your air, you can put some plants at your desk and at least try to keep that area better, giving you good, clean oxygen and also absorbing some of those chemicals that are common in an office situation.
DEBRA: I totally agree with all that.
LISA BERES: There’s a lot we can do. Changing your furnace filter, that goes without saying. But yes, so many people are not doing that. 41% of homeowners are not doing that frequently enough. And so really getting in the habit of changing all of your filters, changing your air purifier, your furnace filter, your water filters.
You may have to get on a schedule of making sure you’re doing that because these can cause more harm when these start to get backed up with bacteria and things like that if you’re not changing them.
DEBRA: I totally agree. And I also think that indoor air pollution is such a big subject. And it’s so critical because of these gaseous chemicals that are in the air that just go right into your body so quickly.
The first thing I think people should do is get an air filter because it takes time to handle your carpets and your bed and all these different things that you need to change in order to reduce the indoor air pollution.
But just putting an air filter right from the start, you start protecting yourself right away.
LISA BERES: Exactly! I think that’s such a good point because we talk about you want to have organic bedding and you want to have organic sheets and you want to do all these great, expensive investments. But if you’ve got that air purifier that’s absorbing some of those VOCs and formaldehydes off the bat, you can actually weight and stagger these projects.
You’re probably familiar with this study that they did in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology where they found the average home has 400 chemicals. Some of the chemicals are toxic, some were untested. And so this is just what’s going on in America across our homes.
DEBRA: It is. I know it sounds fantastic or unbelievable to some people because you look around and you go, “Well, I don’t see anything” and you say, “I’m not sick.” But the thing that’s so key about this is it’s not about getting sick like being exposed to bacteria and getting a cold. These are chronic exposure chemicals. It’s like you can smoke cigarettes and not be sick and then suddenly, get cancer.
It’s that kind of chemical where they build up in your body. And as they build up and build up and build up, then somewhere down the road, you’re going to get an illness that’s really a major illness. And it’s changing your DNA and all these stuff. You can’t see it, but it’s there. And then one day, you get sick.
LISA BERES: That goes back to, you mentioned, the labels on the cleaning products, the warnings, the danger and the caution. Those are literally there just for the acute symptoms. Is the chemical going to burn your skin instantly or are you going to have a reaction right away?
But nobody labels products about the long-term health effects.
DEBRA: No, they don’t label them at all. Not at all, not at all.
We need to go to break. When we come back, I’m hoping Ron will be there with you.
LISA BERES: Yes, he’ll be here.
DEBRA: Okay, good. So you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guests today are Ron and Lisa Beres. You can go to their website, TinyURL.com/HealthyHomeSignUp and get more information about their program, Change Your Home, Change Your Health in 30 Days. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guests today are Ron and Lisa Beres. They are healthy home experts, building biologists, published authors, professional speakers, and Telly award-winning media personalities. Actually, we have an interesting topic here. So is Ron there now?
RON BERES: I am here, Debra. Yes, thank you for that intro. That was very nice.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. Thank you for being here. It’s nice to have both of you on.
So Ron, I don’t know if Lisa told you but we have a special topic for the two of you to discuss together.
LISA BERES: I did. I filled him in.
DEBRA: So listen, what we’re going to talk about now is about husbands and wives and toxic chemicals. I hear a lot from women, especially, “I want to clean up my house, but my husband doesn’t believe me. My husband doesn’t care about this. My husband thinks it’s all in my head.”
I want Lisa and Ron to talk about how they’re working together as a team to have a healthy home and to be supporting each other and reducing your toxic chemical exposure. So I’ll let you guys decide where you’re going to start.
RON BERES: Lisa, I’ll jump in because I know you’ve been speaking here. I do want to say, I was not that husband, but I was that fiancée.
I have absolutely been that.
I did not really know what was going on and I have to say I came from a very traditional background, worked in Corporate America, I met the girl of my dreams, Lisa, on the phone right now. And so we were very excited. We just started our relationship. She moved into a home that was really nearby where I lived. And that’s when things got a little bit weird.
I have to admit, I did not see what I see now. My eyes were wide shut, quite frankly, because through Lisa’s experience, she was feeling chronically fatigued (I think you guys went over this earlier)…
DEBRA: We did.
RON BERES: And so, it wasn’t that I didn’t believe Lisa, but it was frustrating because I wouldn’t fear, feel this or hear this. I really was that guy initially. But through the process of just – as Lisa was discovering things, and she was getting better, and things we’re making sense to me, I really changed my path there, and I can tell you, it does happen.
There usually will be a skeptical spouse at first because let’s face it, they can’t physically see what’s going on. And it’s multi-layered. Particularly, if there are a lot of things that can be bombarding or affecting your health (and in Lisa’s case, that was definitely true) from, you mentioned the air quality.
I’ll tell you a funny story. Our first few months of dating, one of the first things Lisa wanted because she just moved into her home was an air purifier. She started…
LISA BERES: For my birthday, yes.
RON BERES: For her birthday. And I was like, “Wow,” which is great. It could have been more expensive than that. So we got her an air purifier.
LISA BERES: Not a very romantic gift.
RON BERES: Yeah, first year relationship. Needless to say, it’s been quite a journey. And even some of the initial literature and things that
Lisa was reading to better educate herself and before we became building biologists, I didn’t really accept it at first. And ultimately, I’m living and breathing it now.
We are so inspired by how Lisa turned around with her health that at that time, we wanted to go to the rooftop and just preach and shout, “This is what happened. This is so great.” Especially me too, I didn’t initially know what was going on.
So we made it our mission to go out there and educate people. I know you’ve been doing this for a long time too, Debra. It’s great to speak to you again. We always admire the great work that you do.
DEBRA: Thank you.
RON BERES: So we did books, then TV, then speaking engagements. We even had a retail business. And so we really just absorbed ourselves in being the best we can be to not only help us but other people.
And fast forward to today, we are now working together in a business that is focused on healthy living, and it’s awesome. It’s great. We have learned through the years (and Lisa, you can attest to this), don’t want to totally hog the conversation here but how to work together effectively.
And so, we’re both partners here. I think the key to really working together effectively is to make sure that someone is heading a particular project or someone takes a leadership role in something else and the other person has a leadership role in another area. And then it blends together and gives someone that detail power and everyone feels comfortable. But it does take a little time to do this.
DEBRA: I totally agree with that because I know in my relationship, if he’s in charge of something like the garden for example, and I’m in charge of something else, like the home, then each of us gets to be in a leadership position instead of just having one person be the dominant thing. And then we trust each other, and we help each other and everything gets done because we’re both leaders. And I think that makes a huge difference in a relationship.
LISA BERES: Yes, I really do, trusting each other. We all have different talents too. So honoring the talents that each person has and letting really bring that to the table and shine. And I think the trust factor goes back to really even – anyone listening who is going through a situation where they’re sick and their spouse doesn’t believe it, which is usually the woman.
It’s usually the woman saying her husband doesn’t believe it because we have more body fat, we store toxins more. We’re more susceptible to these things. Plus, we’re in the home more as a general rule of thumb.
And really, really trusting that because Ron went with me to these doctor visits and had to hear the doctors say, “We don’t know. We don’t know. We believe you’re having these issues, but we can’t find the problem.” And so that makes you feel insecure when you’re going through it. And Ron really stood by and said, “We’re going to figure this out.”
I think as a spouse, you really need to do that. You need to have ultimate faith in what your spouse is saying.
We just did the Dr. Oz Show actually a couple of months ago. It’s the same, exact situation. They had mold in the home. The wife and the daughter were the ones with the most severe reactions. The husband was really skeptical. He didn’t believe it. And it caused them to divorce.
DEBRA: It does, I hear this.
LISA BERES: And so this can really destroy your relationship. So you really have to trust your partner – and not even your partner, any of your family members – and just believe that what they’re saying is true and really stand by them because they need support.
DEBRA: They do. They absolutely do.
Many years ago, I was engaged to a man that I didn’t marry. And this was when I was first learning about all of these things. I would go to his apartment. It was an apartment in a renovated big, old house. And so it had a lot of toxic things, especially the heater was a freestanding heater with an open flame. You could see the flame burning.
And so, I didn’t know what all the toxic chemicals were then. So, I would go there and I would get sick and I would get upset and we would argue. None of these things would happen when we weren’t in the apartment.
And so finally, we broke up. Several years later, he found me and he said, “I have to tell you that you were right all along about the apartment making us sick.” I kept saying, “There must be something going on in the apartment.” And he said because he got much sicker after that.
And this is before I knew anything.
I’ll tell you something because this is so horrible. It was the bathroom. They had put in a shower where they had just made a frame and then they had cemented the walls of the shower. And they didn’t put any tile. They painted it. And it was very small. And so every time I would take a shower, I’d get paint chips all over my body.
So finally, one day I said, “I’m going to take all this paint off.”
I took very toxic paint stripper, the most toxic paint stripper. I took off all my clothes and I got in the shower, this little tiny shower that you could barely stand in, no ventilation and I’ve got toxic paint stripper. I put it all over the walls to loosen up the pain and then I’m standing there with a razor blade scraping it off in this little box full of toxic fumes. People do this all the time.
LISA BERES: They do it all of the time.
DEBRA: I know. I look at things that I used to do and I’m just horrified.
LISA BERES: It’s amazing. Like you said earlier, I don’t know if you had exposure or symptoms at that time, and maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, but I have similar stories where there was a lot of toxic exposure. Maybe you didn’t get a symptom at that time, but this is about the long-term symptoms.
Just because you used the products that was toxic and you didn’t have any symptoms doesn’t mean it didn’t affect your body.
DEBRA: That’s exactly right. And that’s what makes this so difficult. Over the years, I really found that what I need to do is objectively look at the data and say, “This causes cancer. This causes this. This causes that. And these are the chemicals I’m not going to have in my life.” I understand it that it’s these chronic exposures that build up and build up and build up. That’s why it’s so difficult to say this chemical led to this symptom.
LISA BERES: It’s still hard to pinpoint. That’s why it’s so hard for people to say. Out of sight, out of mind. “Oh, I know that has a carcinogen in it, but whatever.” They’ll use it anyway – from cosmetics to cleaning to home products. You name it! I guess you can’t emphasize it enough.
Even pregnant women you’ll see pregnant women remodeling their nursery. Babies today are being born with 287 chemicals already in their blood. We even had an advantage over that. We came in, I’m sure, with less chemicals. How about this new generation that’s already coming in with some many chemicals? How soon are they going to have the effects of exposures?
DEBRA: Well, we see it already that people are getting illnesses that they didn’t use to get until they were 60, they’re now getting when they’re 30.
Anyway, we’ve only got about 20 seconds left. So I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show. I’m so excited about the work that you’re doing. Again, listeners, you can go to TinyURL.com/HealthyHomeSignUp to find out more about their new program which is Change Your Home, Change Your Health in 30 Days. Thanks, Ron and Lisa. Bye.
RON BERES: Thank you, Debra.
LISA BERES: Thank you so much.
RON BERES: Thank you.
Toxics in the Air We Breathe—Indoors and Outdoors—and How it Affects Our Health
My guest today is toxicologist Steven G. Gilbert, PhD, DABT, He’s a regular guest who is helping us understand the toxicity of common chemicals we may be frequently exposed to. Today we’re going to talk about indoor and outdoor air pollution: the different types of pollutants, how they affect your health, how you are exposed to them, and what you can do to reduce your exposure. Dr. Gilbert is Director and Founder of the Institute of Neurotoxicology and author of A Small Dose of Toxicology- The Health Effects of Common Chemicals. He received his Ph.D. in Toxicology in 1986 from the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, is a Diplomat of American Board of Toxicology, and an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington. His research has focused on neurobehavioral effects of low-level exposure to lead and mercury on the developing nervous system. Dr. Gilbert has an extensive website about toxicology called Toxipedia, which includes a suite of sites that put scientific information in the context of history, society, and culture. www.toxipedia.org
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH STEVEN G. GILBERT, PhD, DABT
- Toxic Solvents and Vapors
- How Pesticides Can Harm Your Health
- Why Do People Doubt the Science Behind Toxics?
- There is No Safe Level for Lead Exposure
- Fewer Chemicals Make Healthier Babies
- Why We Shouldn’t Have Nuclear Power Plants
- How Mercury Affects Your Health
- Nanoparticles
- Persistant Bioaccumulative Toxicants
- How Endocrine Disruptors Disrupt Our Endocrine Systems
- The Dangers of Exposure to Radiation and How to Protect Yourself
- Toxics Throughout History—Exposure to Toxic Substances is Not New
- The Ethics of Toxics
- How to Determine Your Risk of Harm From an Exposure to a Toxic Chemical
- The Basic Principles of Toxicology
- Meet a Toxicologist
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Toxics in the Air We Breathe – Indoors and Outdoors – and How it Affects Our Health
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Steven G. Gilbert
Date of Broadcast: July 30, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. It is Thursday, July 30th 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida with overcast skies, so it’s going to be cooler today. It’s only 80 today, that’s good.
Today, we’re going to be talking about air, air pollution and the air pollutants that can be making us sick both in outdoor air and indoor air. What’s toxic about air?
My guest today is toxicologist Dr. Steven Gilbert. He’s a regular guest on this show and he’s helping us understand the toxicity of common chemical that we’re maybe frequently exposed to. And if you’re listening to this show, you are being exposed to outdoor air pollutants for sure and indoor air pollutants if you don’t know about them and haven’t been doing things to clean them. So, we’re going to find out all about this today, what are the pollutants and what to do?
Dr. Gilbert is the author of a very good book called A Small Dose of Toxicology which you can get on his website for free. Everybody should have one. I just think that it’s the best way to start with toxicology. His website is Toxipedia.org. Dr. Gilbert, is it an .org or a .com?
STEVEN GILBERT: It’s .org
DEBRA: Toxipedia.org. I don’t have it right in front of me. So hi, Dr. Gilbert. How are you?
STEVEN GILBERT: Hi Debra, how are you this morning?
DEBRA: I’m good! And I actually start by saying something first. Usually, I let you talk but I have a post on my blog on my website that talks about air pollution is now the world’s single largest environmental risk to health. That was stated by the World Health Organization in March 2014. There may be more recent numbers about this.
It says that there that there were deaths. They’re not just talking about runny noses and it’s hard to breathe. So here are the outdoor air pollution that cause deaths, 40% of heart disease, 40% of stroke, 11% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 60% of lung cancer and 3% of lower respiratory infections in children.
So here, what we’re talking about today is not just how this affects your health. It’s talking about people dying. That’s what I wanted to start.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah. That is really, really a great starting point. Air pollution is a worldwide issue. It’s a serious matter that everybody should thoughtful about. I have some statistics too about that.
According to what I have from Mother Jones article (there’s a great article there about air pollution), over 1.5 million of people worldwide die of heart disease, 1.4 of stroke, lung cancer, 222,000 die of pulmonary disease, 43,000 people die every year as a consequence of air pollution. So, it really is a very serious matter, both indoor and outdoor. I’ll just say it’s bad.
Air pollution, for a long time, we still have not talked about this issue. But yeah, I see it’s getting better in some countries. I’ll just read this little quarter:
“As soon as I had gotten out of the heavy air of Rome and from the stink of smokey chimneys thereof, which, being stirred, poured forth from whatever pestilential vapors and soot they had enclosed in them, I felt an alteration in my disposition.”
This is by Seneca in 61 BC.
DEBRA: Yeah.
STEVEN GILBERT: So, air pollution is a serious matter as our population has increased for a long, long time.
DEBRA: Yes, it has. So, what I’d like to do is I’d like to do the first half of the show on outdoor air pollution and then let’s move to indoor air pollution. Instead of mixing them up, let’s separate them out.
So, why don’t you start by telling us what are some of the air pollutants that people are being exposed to outdoors?
STEVEN GILBERT: Well, outdoor, probably the most serious one is ozone, which is O3. It can be a very serious pollutant. Ozone at the upper stratosphere is very important. You’ve probably heard [inaudible 00:05:34] ozone hole in the upper stratosphere. Ozone at the upper stratosphere is very important. It protects us from ultraviolet light. But that’ll also be a serious lung irritant. So, it’s very important that we control that.
It’s produced by high nitrogen oxide. For example, produced from cars (too many cars on the road). I think that that’s where a lot of air pollution comes from, cars. Industrial pollution such as coal-fueled utility plants are a very important producer of air pollution and particulate manner. Diesel particulate matter is important. If you live near a port or a very active port, you know all about the air pollution that comes off of ports from the diesel engines that run the big ships that are coming out.
Here in Seattle, you’ll certainly see a lot of that. We’ve tried hard to reduce the amount of soot that’s produced by these generators that are on these ships. They plug in to the grid. They’re not running their big engines right next to the city.
So, I think another for outdoor air pollution are sulfur dioxide. They are an important air pollutant that produces acid rain and really clogs the atmosphere.
A pollutant that come out are also mercury, for example, with coal-fired utility plants. They produce mercury. It gets into the atmosphere, then mercury comes down as rain. And with rain, it enters the dirt, it enters the soil. It ends up in the rivers and the ocean. It gets into the fish we eat.
So, there are all kinds of outdoor air pollutants that are really critical. And of course, it all leads to climate change.
We get too much carbon dioxide from pollutants that come out of cars, from our industrial systems. It is causing global warming and global climate changes that we’re all becoming more and more familiar with.
And I think [inaudible 00:07:22], for example, that’s going to be really serious because it’s starting to melt the ice in the poles of the earth and it’s going to cause great increases in sea level. If it continues to rise, it will flood many things.
So, air pollution really has many, many different effects. It’s also affecting our health and well-being. It’s really important to pay attention to air pollution. UK is trying to regulate more of that. The United Sates actually has pretty good, clean air. They’ve done a really good job in trying to clean up the air, but it’s still a big issue.
In fact, the consequence of India and China and other developing countries that have a lot of coal burning plants and the air pollutants comes off of those in the air. It gets into the upper atmosphere and it ends up in the West Coast here. We see the pollution from China and other developing countries in our atmosphere.
So, it is something we really got to look as a global issue. We have done that in the past with ozone, for example, and volatile organic compounds and trying to reduce the amount of ozone contaminants that are killing off the ozone in our upper stratosphere.
We can do this. I think climate change [inaudible 00:08:35] air pollution goes.
DEBRA: Well, what can individuals do at home or in their personal lives to help reduce air pollution? I think it’s pretty clear that almost anywhere you are, particularly if you’re in a city or in a place like you are from Seattle where the pollution is coming from other countries across the Pacific that there’s going to be more air pollution.
And if you’re out in the country where you’re not next to so much cars and some things like that and industrial pollution, the air is going to be cleaner. But I think it’s probably safe to say that there probably isn’t a place on Earth where the air is actually clean.
STEVEN GILBERT: You’re absolutely right, Debra. It is really a serious problem, industrialization of the globe. It’s causing more and more air pollution. If you look at it historically, outdoor pollution, the Donora smog that occurred in 1948 in Donora, Pennsylvania was produced by a US Steel Corporation, Donora Zinc Works and American Steel.
The air [inaudible 00:09:44]. It was cold air that stuck the bottom air, so the air pollution stayed very low. Over 7,000 people died in this period of time.
DEBRA: Yeah.
STEVEN GILBERT: So, we’ve moved away from this gross example of pollution in the United Sates. But we can still issue. When you go out and look out in the ocean out in Seattle here, you see that pink sunsets, that’s the particulate matters in the air.
So, we’ve learned that these particulate matters, [inaudible 00:10:15]. They’re very small, fine particles. They’re a serious part of air pollutants. They enter our lungs, deep into our lungs. It can cause heart disease and other disease that can actually lead to death as well as asthma and things like that.
It’s very important that we can cure air pollutants and look at ways we can reduce it. For example, I’ve moved…
DEBRA: Wait! Hold on, we need to go to break. So, let’s go to break and when we come back, you can tell us how we can reduce it. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Steven Gilbert.
He’s the author of A Small Dose of Toxicology which you can get at Toxipedia.org. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. I’m sorry, I’m a little distracted here.
During the break, I was looking up the article you’ve mentioned, the Mother Jones article about air pollution. Well, I found five articles in Mother Jones. It was like a big thing, just now in June 2015. The one I have in front of me now is about our national parks. They rated 12 parks most harmed by air pollution. I’m looking at this picture of Yosemite.
I used to live in California and I’ve been to Yosemite National Par. It’s absolutely gorgeous! And when you go there, it’s way high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It’s got these gorgeous mountain peaks. And you’d thinks if there’s any place in the world where there’s going to be clear air, it would be Yosemite. It was one of the four national parks to regularly have unhealthy air pollution levels, Yosemite National Park!
STEVEN GILBERT: Yes.
DEBRA: So, this is what I was talking about earlier. There isn’t a place on Earth where you can go and breathe clean air. That’s just astonishing to me.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah, it really is depressing! I think that, you asked earlier, “What can we as individuals do?”,
I think it’s a little bit of politics. But also, I think we can do some things and one is solar panels. We need to stop producing electricity from these large centralized systems that produce live air pollution on their own like coal-fired utility plants, even the gas plants. There’s a lot of air pollution from that.
I’ll just give you an example. I’ve put solar panels in my house about a year ago. For the last 30 days, I’ve generated 1.2 megawatts of electricity. Right at the moment, I’m generating over 3000 watts of electricity. And yesterday, I generated 47 kilowatts of power. It doesn’t sound like a lot. It’s not a lot for a house. [inaudible 00:15:54] to utility company 24, almost 25 kilowatt hours of electricity back to the power plant.
So, it’s really important for us as individuals. I also got an electric car this year. I tried to plug in my electric car and charge it off to solar panels from the grid. It’s [inaudible 00:16:16] have gotten great opportunities to move towards solar. But we’ve got to have better laws that encourages [inaudible 00:16:23] great incentive towards solar. [Inaudible 00:16:26]
DEBRA: That’s exactly right! First of all, I just want to remind the listeners that you’re in Seattle and the percentage of cloud cover days because it’s raining so much is enormous and you’re still getting that amount of energy that you just described.
Here in Florida, we have so many sunshine days. There’s so much sunshine here that actually – I think it was back in the ‘20s or something. There was actually a lot of solar. It was like almost everybody had solar hot water. That as the way they did it. We’ve lost all that easy, solar technology. It’s all been replaced by these pollution energy technology and we could easily do this.
For me, I would have solar panels on my house in a minute if I could afford it. If there was government incentive here, I’d do it in a minute!
STEVEN GILBERT: It’s that great incentive. And back into the politics, we have to talk to representatives, “We want solar! We want distributed power generation and move away from this large centralized systems.”
DEBRA: I totally agree! Another thing would be – how can I say this? If we use less energy in our homes, then are the power systems still going to generate that energy whether we use it or not?
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah! I generate it. The systems are set up so that all the excess power generated goes back to the grid, so my neighbors are using the powers I generated.
Yesterday, I sold 25 kilowatt hours back to the electric company. I have not paid an electric bill since last July when I installed the system on my house.
DEBRA: Wow!
STEVEN GILBERT: The power companies have to get onboard with allowing us to do this and adapting to the fact that as individuals, we can generate a lot of power in our homes. It’s very important we do that because that reduces the pollution and modern powers required from the utility plants.
And if it moves to electrical currents, we also use power from those plants in our house that we generated ourselves, but also, we reduce pollution that we’re putting out in the atmosphere from our cars because we have a whole bunch of cars that are pollution free, which is just great. I think…
DEBRA: I think that’s great! I would do exactly what you’ve done. I just need to figure how to make that work financially for me. I got a smaller car this year because my other car totally broke down and so I bought a very fuel-efficient car and I’m very happy I did that. Even if people were to move to having more fuel economic cars, that would reduce it a lot.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yes, it would! Unfortunately, gas prices have dropped, so people are moving back to the less fuel-efficient cars. It’s very important. And I really honor your decision to buy a fuel-efficient car. That might seem like a small thing, but it’s actually a big thing that we can all do to reduce pollution in the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gasses.
It’s really important for us to reduce the use of greenhouse gasses so we’re not contributing to climate change and we’re starting to be thinking of future generations, of our children’s children, of what kind of globe we’ll leave them.
If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up with a lot of ocean rises, increase in ocean levels. It’s going to flood out a lot of properties. A lot of people live on the coast. It’s going to cause all kinds of problems. Florida, in particular, will be vulnerable to this.
DEBRA: Yes. I just want to ask you quickly because we only have about a minute before the break, “What kind people do to protect their health from outdoor air pollution when they’re walking around?”
STEVEN GILBERT: Well, that’s more difficult because we don’t have a lot of control of the outdoor air pollution. But I think the important thing is to look out for ozone, in particular, if it’s a high air pollution day. And then, don’t exercise if there’s a lot of pollution in the atmosphere.
But the main thing is we’ve got to reduce, we’ve got to ask our representatives to reduce our air pollution, to support the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s very discouraging to see this. Some of the republicans I met are going to wipe out the EPA or to reduce its authority. We’ve got to give our government agencies more authority to help reduce the air pollution that we inhale. We’re inhaling air pollution.
DEBRA: Yeah. It’s just way too much air pollution. So, I just want to mention before we go to break that one of the things that I recommend is to take Liquid Zeolite. The brand that I like is Pure Body Liquid Zeolite because it removes heavy metals and other things in your body in situations where you can’t control the exposure. And this is just one of those situations.
Outdoor air pollution is one of the reasons why I take this every day. And if you go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and look up this show in the archives, there will be information there about how you can order that if you decide to do that.
So, we’re going to go to break, but we’ll be back. And when we come back, we’ll talk about indoor air pollution with Dr. Steven Gilbert, author of A Small Dose of Toxicology. You can get that free at Toxipedia.org. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Steven Gilbert, author of A Small Dose of Toxicology, which you can get free at Toxipedia.org.
So, I want to start this segment with the statement that according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, they have called indoor air pollution the nation’s number one environmental health problem. So, now we have the World Health Organization saying that outdoor air pollution is the number one environmental health problem in the world. And then, the EPA says that indoor air pollution is the nation’s number one health problem.
They say that people spend more than 90% of their time inside. The quality of our indoor air impacts our health far more than our outdoor air. And so, some things the indoor air pollution can cause is irritation to the eyes, nose and throat, headache, dizziness, fatigue, asthma, hypersensitivity, pneumonia and long term effects can include respiratory disease, heart disease and cancer. It can be severely debilitating and fatal. This is what our United States Environmental Protection Agency has to say about indoor air pollution.
Okay, I’ll let you talk now.
STEVEN GILBERT: You made some great, great point there. Your indoor air pollution is really critical, especially for young children, because children are not like adults. They eat more, breathe more and drink more than their body weight. Their airways are not as big as adults. So, indoor air pollution is really important for young. They also spend more time indoors. And also for the elderly, they will often have compromised lung function and they also spend a lot of time indoors.
So, indoor pollutants are really important. A lot of it are comprised of outgassed chemicals. For example, if you go the store and buy one of your plastic, rubberized shower curtains, that shower curtains will offgas phthlates and other chemicals. Even that new plastic smell is an important source of air pollutants that we inhale.
So, if you have that in your bathroom, you don’t have a fan, you increase humidity in your bathroom, you get mold in the bathroom, that mold outgasses particulate matter and you also inhale that. You get asthma and other conditions from that.
So, there are lots of indoor air pollutants. It’s actually hard to know where to start. You’ve got things like radon in certain places in the country. [Inaudible 00:29:30] I don’t about Florida so much.
DEBRA: We don’t have it here.
STEVEN GILBERT: You don’t?
DEBRA: No, we don’t.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah, radon causes lung cancer if you can inhale. There are all kinds of different aspects of air pollutants. If three billion people around the globe have used wood, animal bones, crop waste, coal for cooking, if they’re heating their homes, those will produce lot of indoor air pollution.
People that use wood in certain places like Washington state. People still have a wood burning stove. There’s actually a little community. In Seattle, there’s still a lot of wood burning stove. [Inaudible 00:30:15]. That can be very reactive for some people. They’ll have really troubled breathing in wood smoke filled air. It causes a lot of problems in both outdoor and indoor pollution.
I have to mention lead for a second.We added lead to gasoline in the 30s and we produced a horrible mess of lead pollution which goes indoors and outdoors. Kids are exposed to lead from cars that once burned lead, of course. We got rid most of the leads from gasoline in 1990, which is a great move.
It’s still used, for example, used in airplanes, propulsion of airplanes. They have leaded gasoline. There’s lead around the outdoor. But indoors [inaudible 00:31:00].
For example, with pesticide, it’s the same thing. You use a lot of pesticides outdoors, you bring them indoors. It gets into carpets. The carpets has dust in them. Who’s going to breathe down the carpet? Kids again.
DEBRA: Right.
STEVEN GILBERT: So, kids are exposed indoors. Pesticides and lead are two good examples. There’s a whole other bunch of other examples.
So, it really is a complicated thing. I think indoor pollution is an underrated problem.
DEBRA: I totally agree with you! So, I’ve been writing about indoor air pollution for a very long time. I’ve been writing about the whole subject of toxics for more than 30 years. And indoor air pollution was one of the first things that I started writing about.
And at that time, it wasn’t even called indoor air pollution. They haven’t even done the studies yet. But I knew from my own experience (and the experience of others) that when we were breathing these things, then we felt sick. And when we didn’t breathe them, then we didn’t feel sick. It was pretty clear even though studies have not yet been done at that time.
So, things like carpets give off fumes that are very toxic. I know in my particular case, I was being made very sick by the chlorine fumes that were coming off of the water in my shower. And it’s not just chlorine. It mixes with other things in the water, so it actually turns into chloroform. And chloroform is that thing in old movies where the villain would put this cloth over the heroin’s face to knock her out. That’s chloroform. It just really does knock you out.
So, I would actually faint when I would take a shower from the amount of chloroform that was in my water. And all of these were considered to be indoor air pollutants.
I want to mention that there are two things that people can do with indoor air pollution. One is my website is full of products that don’t emit toxic chemicals, things like paints and even like the materials used to make your bedding and clothing. All these things, they are all emitting toxic chemicals into the air. And so…
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah, things like that and perfumes, deodorizers. Absolutely deodorizers, they’re all outgassing.
DEBRA: Yeah, I remember when I first started being interested in these. One of the things that I had just done is taking vinyl shelf paper that’s sticking on the back. I thought it was so pretty. And so, not only did I put it on the shelves, I lined my whole cabinet with vinyl shelf paper. And then, I learned that it was out-gassing toxic vinyl and I’m like, “Oh, my God!” I ripped it out.
But I do a lot of consulting were people have me come to their homes and find the toxic chemicals. I can’t tell you how many times they’ve got these built-in closets with these cabinets and these shelves and stuff. Those are particle boards. They’re just wreaking formaldehyde. It just goes on and on like this.
So, one thing to do is to start identifying where are those sources of indoor air pollution are. There are a lot of information on my website and in my book about what that is.
But the thing that I would really recommend is just right away, get an air filter. Get an air filter that is really going to do their job. That way, you start reducing the air pollutants while you’re removing the sources. You can just immediately improve your air quality with the right kind of air filter.
And again, I’ve put some information if you go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Look for today’s show and in the archives. There are some information there about the air filter that I use in my home. Even though I don’t have any toxic things in my home, toxic stuff is coming in from the outside. You can’t keep it out. So, this is something that we all need to be considering and taking care of in order to be healthy.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Steven Gilbert, toxicologist and author of A Small Dose of Toxicology. He’s at Toxipedia.org and we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dr. Steven Gilbert from Toxipedia.
So, we’re in our last segment. It always goes by so fast. There’s always so much information. So, what else would you like to make sure we say about indoor or outdoor air pollution?
STEVEN GILBERT: Oh, yeah. It’s really short. We should have divided this in two parts and done indoor air pollution one week and outdoor air pollution next week.
But it is a big, complex thing. We all need to be paying attention to what we breathe in. We’re only given one set of lungs that we start off with and it’s really important to protect our lungs.
One of the biggest issues that I can’t help but mention is tobacco products. We need to never smoke indoors. It really pollutes the indoors. You get not only the tobacco smoke, second hand smoke form indoor pollution, but you also get a third hand smoke through the walls, your clothing. It gets covered with tobacco products which outgasses it. So, the child, in particular, will inhale those products that are stuck on your clothes or in the walls of indoors.
DEBRA: Yeah.
STEVEN GILBERT: So, do not smoke indoors. Do not smoke to start with.
DEBRA: Do not smoke, yeah!
STEVEN GILBERT: Don’t smoke. Think about this. [Inaudible 00:40:13] The smoke that enters your lungs are all particulate matter [inaudible 00:40:17]. It is not good for you.
The other thing is I want to just hit on really quickly is industrial issue because I think the workplace is a really important part. A lot of the adults spend quite a bit of time in the workplace. It’s a very serious source of potential contamination especially, for example, silica, asbestos (you’ll really want to avoid asbestos). A lot of some older homes have asbestos. They wrap the ducting for their furnaces. So, be really careful about that for older homes. You want to watch out for asbestos in the workplace also.
Silica is another big issue. Silica will be from sand. It goes from cutting concrete, from grinding parts like that. It causes silicosis which can also be fatal in the lung damage. [Inaudible 00:41:09] So, take home products end up in the home can contribute to indoor air pollution.
Paint, formaldehyde, glue, you mentioned indoor cabinetry. That stuff will outgas for quite a while formaldehyde, another two three years to make those products.
Then, you have commercial cleaning products, also personal care products. Those things are very important.
Anything that’s got some kind of perfume on it is out-gassing chemicals. You’ve got to be thinking about that. If you have something that has perfume in it, it is built to offgas chemicals. Some of those chemicals they use are phthalates as well as other complex chemicals that make up perfumes. Air Fresheners, tire sheets…
DEBRA: There’s thousands, thousands of toxic chemicals in perfume, anything that is perfumed or scented or anything. That’s one thing you can do. If you were to just remove all the scented products from your life, you will greatly reduce indoor air pollution.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah, things like that. If you have garage attached to your house or indoor garage or something, you drive your car in that garage, the car is offgassing a whole bunch of chemicals, oils and gasses and things like that, which contribute to the indoor air pollution of your home.
So, it’s really important to be thoughtful of where the pollution is coming from – cars, mold, dust. You really got to be careful about mold. You want to reduce the amount of mold. You don’t need to clean molds. If you do have molds in your bathroom, just use soap and hot or warm water on the mold.
Do not use chlorinated products on mold because it does not clean them off. It’s just bleaching, so you can’t see it.
So, just get down there and scrub away and then reduce the moisture. Mold feeds on moisture, so you just want to reduce moisture or you reduce the food source for all kinds products like that.
DEBRA: I think we’ve given a good overview. We still have about five minutes left. Let’s see what else can we say about indoor air pollution. What else would you like to say?
STEVEN GILBERT: Well, I would to just say you have to be really careful indoor and outdoor pollution. I think to come back to outdoor, I think it’s really important we try to figure out how to reduce greenhouse gasses in our materials that’s contributing to greenhouse gasses and then contributing to global warming and climate change.
The EPA has been doing a lot of work on that, trying to reduce the amount of fumes from the large industrial manufacturers, electricity-producing companies like goals and gas. Electric utilites are major source of pollutants and we really need to reduce the long run, the long term. We need to figure out how to do that. We need to start producing indiviually our own electricity because that will reduce outdoor air pollution.
I think reducing air pollution is everyone’s responsibility. Driving less, mass transit is really important. How do we increase mass transit in our society, so we don’t have to drive our own personal cars anymore. Walking is really important. I have a meeting in 10:30, I am [inaudible 00:44:21]. As soon as I get out of this call, I’m going to walk to my next meeting.
How do we do things like that? How do we reduce our contribution, our carbon footprint so we are not producing those greenhouse gases? In the long run, it’s going to cause us a lot of pain and trouble.
DEBRA: I know that at different times in my life, the choice about where you live and how you organize things in your life – like I work at home, so I don’t have any commute at all. I don’t need to take a bus, nothing. I just go from the bedroom to the kitchen to my desk.
And earlier in life, I lived in San Francisco. I worked downtown. And so, I lived in an area where I could walk to work in San Francisco. It took me about 20 minutes to go downtown, but I walked every day and I walked back. And now, where I live, I don’t have to go to work. But I have other activities that I do.
How much do I drive? I mean, everything that I do is within about a five mile radius really. So, it’s very rarely that I will drive across the bridge to Tampa, maybe once a month. But otherwise, I’m just in this little, tiny radius. It’s a little wide for me to walk it, but if I have maybe an electric scooter (which I am seriously thinking of getting), if I had an electric scooter, I could just scooter around to these places because they’re so close to each other.
So, that’s very different from people who are sitting in commute traffic for two hours every day.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah. That’s a really great point. [Inaudible 00:46:11]. I also work from our house too, so it’s really important to make your life something like that so you try not to contribute to the air pollution that’s out there already.
DEBRA: Yeah! I think that with wise decisions like that, we can reduce the outdoor air pollution that we are creating or experiencing.
I remember there was a time I was working in San Francisco and I was living in Oakland, which is across the bay bridge across San Francisco and I was driving a little Fiat X19 sports car. I do this commute with the top off. I’d just be sitting there for hours in the commute traffic breathing all of those exhaust. I mean, things that I used to do just horrify me now that I know what the consequences are. But I know that there are millions of people who are doing this.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah, there are. There are all kinds of people that are just sitting in a lot of traffic and really breathing in the fumes from the cars all around them, which in the long run is not good for our lungs and not good for the future of the Earth and the planet and they’re not good for our children.
So, we’ve got to be thoughtful about that. We need to be me more considerate of our lungs and everybody else’s lungs. So, if you’re out there driving or polluting or even electricity, think of the pollutants that’s coming from that and all the pollutant that you’re producing and you’re breathing in at the same time.
It’s really important to be thinking about that, thinking about our homes, a lot glues and other solvents in our home. Our cars are manufactured with a lot of solvents, even the paint in the car. Paint produces a lot of chemicals. We need to be thoughtful about that and reducing our paint usage. Use only water-based paints. Stay away from all oil-based paints because there are a lot of oils and solvents in them. We need to reduce the amount of oil and petroleum products we’re using.
And we need to have regulation. I hate to come back to politics again. But again, we need to have those regulations.
DEBRA: We do.
STEVEN GILBERT: Know what’s in the products we’re using, know what chemicals are in the dryer sheets, the air fresheners and perfumes, so we know what to avoid and how to do that better and know what to buy.
DEBRA: That is a really big problem. Manufacturers don’t disclose what’s in their products. And that’s a topic for a whole show in and of itself. I’ve been a consumer advocate for more than 30 years now and the biggest problem I always have is I can’t find out what’s in the product. And if I can’t find out what’s in a product, then I just don’t use it.
There are ways that you can get around and find some of the ingredients. But the difference is that now, I’m starting to see that there are websites that fully disclosed their ingredients. And not only that, they tell you where they’re from and all about each ingredient and they’re very open about that. I think that that’s the world that we’re moving, that direction because how can we make decisions as consumers unless we know what’s in the product.
STEVEN GILBERT: Yeah, [inaudible 00:49:35] The American Lung Association is great. My book has a big chapter on air pollution and other materials about that. But I think we need to educate ourselves about the products that are produced and that we’re using
DEBRA: And we need to go because it’s the end of the show. Thank you so much Dr. Gilbert! I know, it goes by so fast! You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well!
How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
Today my guest is Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about mercury dental fillings, which were front page news in our local newspaper last week. Senior US health officials stopped a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal that would have told dentists they should not use mercury fillings in cavities in pregnant women, nursing moms, children under 6 and people with mercury allergies, kidney diseases or neurological problems. It also urged dentists to avoid using fillings that contain mercury compounds in any patient, where possible. Pamela and I will discuss the toxic effects of mercury in your body and what you can do to protect your body from the dangers of mercury fillings. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
How to Protect Your Health from Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph
Date of Broadcast: July 29, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. It is Wednesday, July 29th 2015, I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. And today, we’re going to talk about, actually, some news, something that was in the newspaper.
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s on every other Wednesday because she has so much information. She’s a registered pharmacist, first to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs.
But she knows all about drugs. She knows all about how toxic chemicals work in the body, what kind of things happen in the body because of our exposure to toxic chemicals and to drugs, and she knows what the natural solutions are.
So, every time she’s on, we talk about a different subject. This week, we’re going to be talking about how to protect your health from mercury fillings. The reason that we’re talking about is because Pamela actually alerted me to an article that was front page news here in Tampa Bay area, where I lived (although it wasn’t in any other papers across the country).
It was on the news service, so anybody could have picked it up, but not very many did. I also subscribed to a lot of newsletters concerning health and toxics and I haven’t seen it in one of them yet. But that doesn’t mean that that it’s not an important issue.
So, what you’re getting here is actually information that’s not being picked up in mainstream media and not even, alternative newsletters, but nonetheless is extremely important.
So, what happened last week was that it was found out that the FDA has a document which recommends against using mercury fillings and that they wanted to actually make that official. It was turned down by the Department of Health and Human Services.
So, what we’re going to talk about today is mercury fillings, that the FDA is now recommending against them and what they’re doing to your body and what natural things you can do in order to protect yourself if you have mercury fillings in your mouth.
Hi, Pamela!
PAMELA SEEFELD: Hi!
DEBRA: Thank you so much for letting me know about this article because I don’t know that I would’ve seen it without you.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, you’re still really sweet. I read three newspapers a day. And you’re right, this article is not showing up any place else. I’m very surprised.
DEBRA: I’m very surprised too! Because actually, I think it’s historic that the FDA has reversed their position on the danger of mercury in your mouth.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correction, this is really all about economics. If you look at the article, which is saying that, they don’t actually list the person or the committee that decided to not go through with recommending against using these mercury fillings. That’s really the problem too. Basically, the whole thing is being covered up.
DEBRA: In the article, it says it has been covered up for the last three years and it concludes, the article, that during that period of time, millions of people could have been affected, their health could have been affected. I’m just shocked! Isn’t the whole point of the FDA is to be alerting us to the dangers of toxic chemical exposures and then, recommending to the government that something be done about them?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely. And if you actually look at some of the statements that they’re saying in the article, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, they’ve banned use of these mercury and amalgam fillings for a long time. So, it’s not a new concept that other countries are trying to dispose of these dangerous fillings.
And I think it’s interesting too. Today, we’re going to be talking about this. Not only are these things being covered up. The fact that they we’re concern that low income individuals would not be able to afford more money, perhaps, or maybe Medicaid should pay for it (it costs a $100 more on average to fill the tooth with a different composite other than amalgam filling), really, we are trading cost for somebody’s life. That’s really something that, to me, is very frightening.
DEBRA: Well, to me too. Especially since it might cost a $100 more initially to fill your tooth with something else, but if you continue with the mercury and amalgams, you’re going to spend way more than $100 on health effects.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s actually right! And this is really interesting. Just reading this and being pretty upset about the situation, I went and did a full Medline search quite a long time to look at what is the new evidence about what does mercury do to the body, how do the vapors get into the body. There were some interesting articles. This is all stuff from the last year and a half that we’re going to be discussing today in relationship to this. But it’s important to realize that the definite link between these amalgam fillings and chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety and even suicide in some cases. These vapors are being release out of the tooth.
And even interesting to note is there’s one study here that I was looking at that I really had not even any idea. When you go for an MRI (so if you have MRI), it releases the vapor in a much more significant amount.
DEBRA: Wow!
PAMELA SEEFELD: What they found (and this just came out less than a year ago) is high-field MRI and mercury release from dental amalgam fillings. They’re suspecting it could even be from mobile phones, but maybe not that extreme. Any kind of magnetic field that’s produce around the mouth, if someone has an MRI of their head or their body and especially people that have cancer already, what they have found is even 72 hours after the MRI, the difference in the urinary mercury that was excreted (and they could tell that the vapor coming right out from the amalgams) was significant.
So, this is something to think about. It’s not just, even, “Okay, I have mercury fillings. I shouldn’t be concerned. They said it was safe.” There are things like small amounts of magnetic fields around you that are actually affecting the vapor release as well.
DEBRA: I have never heard that before, but that seems likely to me. I don’t know if you read this, but in the article, it was talking about the proposal. But I think maybe on the day – I don’t know if you read it on the paper online…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.
DEBRA: But online, now, the word proposal is linked to the actual document from the FDA. And in the FDA documents, it talks about how the mercury is being given off into your mouth on a continuous basis. It’s more when you first put it in the fillings and then, it’s less over time. But you actually breathe the vapors of mercury into your lungs and that’s how it gets into your body. The FDA is saying this.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. This is the most shocking part, which we’re having a discussion. People, they really need to think about what’s happening here. We are not being protected in this manner especially when they’re coming out with a position paper. And then, all of a sudden, it’s retracted because of the fact that, first of all, they don’t want to warn people and secondly, they don’t want to have increase cost of fillings. This is really pretty bad!
Now, some other interesting things, it looks like there’s variance. We’re going to talk about some the genes and keep going back to the articles here. But it looks like boys are much more susceptible to the effects of the mercury vapors than girls because of the way genes are turned on. And what happens with mercury in the body is it’s not only causing central nervous system problems, kidney problems, liver problems, immune problems, of course, fetal development problems and of course, cognition, the CNS cognition.
DEBRA: Right.
PAMELA SEEFELD: …but the big things we’re looking at is it affects methylation in the body.
DEBRA: What is that? What’s methylation?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Methylation is why we want to take SAMe or folic acid especially (I use a lot of that). Methyl donors are like anti-oxidants, kind of think of it that way. When you take a supplement (and it’s a methyl donors), what it does is it helps to keep some of the damage done of free radicals in the body.
Methylation is very, very important for cells to work correctly. If methylation is taking place correctly in the body and the cells, it changes your aging process and helps you not age as fast. Exercise increases methylation. And this is all coming down to methylation and what’s called epigenetics.
Epigenetics is a science of…
DEBRA: Wait, Pamela, we need to take a break.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay.
DEBRA: I know! We could just talk, talk. Anyway, you’re listening to Toxic Free talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, she’s a registered pharmacist who’d rather give out natural supplements. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. I don’t have my page open to that. It’s BotanicalResource.com. And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who has her own natural pharmacy at BotanicalResource.com.
Pamela, before we go on about mercury fillings, do you want to just tell people that they can call you?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes! So, my pharmacy has natural products and we specialize in medical homeopathy. You ou can call me here. It’s a free consultation. Today, we’re discussing mercury and the implications of such, but I cover everything from pet homeopathics to adults. If you’re interested in getting off your medications, either mental health or otherwise, blood pressure, cholesterol, I can help you with that from a pharmacist’s perspective. The products work very well, they are reasonably priced and we keep a chart for you. It’s very professional.
You can call me here at my office, it’s 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955, I’d be very honored to help you and your family with any questions you might have about your medications or treatments.
DEBRA: She’s helped me with some things that I was not able to handle otherwise. She’s right here in Clearwater, Florida, where I live and she’s very well-respected by the doctors here. I know a lot of people who have been to her with excellent results.
If you do have any question about your medications, you’re taking too many medications, you want to be more natural, please do call Pamela because she can help you with this.
Okay, let’s go back to dental fillings.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So, I was talking just a little bit – this is really how it’s going to tie in with these articles about the mercury fillings. Epigenetics is very important. This is really a new science. It’s the study of mechanisms that turn and switch genes on and off.
We’re concern about this mercury and how this is affecting our bodies. Well, it’s affecting our bodies by changing which genes are being turned on and turned off and this methylation or this process to protect the body.
There are two different things going on here. And when I was looking at this particular study, I was talking about boys, it seems that young boys that are exposed to mercury, they can have these genes that get turned on, the genotype for 27 variants in 13 genes. What this means to people is that it looks like it can be more so for males than for women, but women are also affected.
What’s happening is the mercury is causing an epigenetic change, meaning that is changing the way that genes are expressing themselves and this change is leading to disease. That’s important to realize. And this can be even mercury exposure to some degree from too much fish, but more often than that, what you were describing in the continuous release of the vapors out of the teeth, it’s important to realize there’s a chemical function with the genes being changed the way they are expressing themselves in a very negative format. That’s really harming people.
And the problem with this mercury exposure is (and this is what I like to say to people), it is variable and non-specific. It’s different for every person. This is why we’re having trouble with the FDA making position statements on these things. It’s because the symptoms are variable.
If you have the fillings, you might have different symptoms as somebody else. And the reason why this is, is because of the epigenetics, how it’s affecting the way the genes are changing because your genes will react differently to mercury exposure than my genes.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: And this is why this variability is leaving this to be an open case that people say, “Well, it’s all in your head. You’re really not sick.” It’s because these genes are being affected for different people.
DEBRA: But isn’t that true for any chemical? I think there are a lot of chemicals that are allowed and I look at this and I go, “Why? These are toxic substances.” I can just go to any toxicology book or online and see, “Here’s a study that says it cause this and it causes that,” but it’s not getting cause these symptoms in every single person. So, you could either look at the group that is not responding or you could look at the group that is responding and say it’s safe or it’s not. Is that the way it goes?
PAMELA SEEFELD: You’re absolutely right! That is why (let’s say in a very easy to understand statement) that this has become oversimplified as being safe and it’s very difficult to prove the dangers and the problems that are associated with some of these things because of the variability of the individuals. It’s not the same for every person.
If we see a pattern and it’s pretty much turning on genes the same way in every person (there are things that do that), then we’re saying, “Okay, there’s an outcome, a coincidental outcome and there’s statistical significance.”
I think if they looked further, they would see more statistical significance than they actually think so. But really, the studies are pretty limited. I mean, I found a bunch of different studies that some are saying yes, some are saying no.
But the biggest things that I saw in the last year were the DNA changes and the way the genes were expressing themselves and they’ve actually identified the genes. They know which one is turning on, which one aren’t.
This is pretty interesting. They studied mercury biomarkers among Michigan Dental Professionals. They took all these dentists and there were 131 different dentists. It’s a decent size group. They went and took the mercury, they took the hair and they did a mercury sample of it and they checked to see what was going on with these individuals and to see if there were altered DNA methylation and they did find that. Remember, I was talking about the methylation, the way these function groups. The best way for methylation really is folic acid, anti-oxidants, things of that nature.
They found that this particular process, epigenetic, most definitely, it’s called SEPW1 and SEP1. They found that they have hypomethylation with increased mercury in the hair. What this means is that when you have low methylation, you’re more at risk for the diseases to take place, for the chronic illnesses to take place and it was directly correlated with this particular gene. It being expresses specifically when the mercury levels were high.
So, that’s important to realize, that there’s a genetic component to this. In most people, when their mercury levels are high, they’re going to have genetic predispositions to more disease.
DEBRA: This whole thing about epigenetics, it is pretty new. How long have they have been having epigenetics studies?
PAMELA SEEFELD: I would say it’s been around for 10 years in discussion, but the last five years, they are starting to get it more significantly. I have attended quite a few conferences that involved epigenetics in medicines and nutrition in people.
Actually, what I think your listeners would find really interesting, it’s not just we’re talking about mercury and what’s going on a body, but we know (and there’s a new study that just came out that I found when I was looking through the Medline search, it just actually came out this year) that low fruit consumption and folic deficiency are associated with LINE-1 hypomethylation in women of a cancer-free population.
So, they took women that we’re really healthy, they were of average age of 35. You wouldn’t be expecting these types of things…
DEBRA: Hello. Well…
PAMELA SEEFELD: I hear the music. Is it time for a break? I’m sorry. I’ll talk about the study, but I hear the music. I’m sorry.
DEBRA: That’ll be fine. You’re listening to Toxic Free talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist who dispenses natural substances. We’re talking today about mercury in the body and particularly, that the FDA has reversed their position on the danger of mercury fillings from totally safe to don’t use them. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s on every other week, every other Wednesday, because she has so much information about drugs and toxic chemicals and their interactions in the body. Every two weeks, we talk about a different subject and how it affects the body and what we can do in a natural way to protect our health and be more healthy when these things are around us especially drugs that you may be taking.
But today, we are talking about mercury and mercury fillings. Before we go on Pamela telling us about the health effects and how it affects the body, the thing that is most dismaying to me (that’s not a strong enough word, but we’ll use it) is that we’ve been talking about mercury coming off of dental fillings and how it vaporizes in a continuous basis. We also talked about it’s difficult to make a connection sometimes with some people because some people, their bodies will respond to the mercury and others won’t.
But we’ve known that mercury is toxic for a very long time. In fact, I want to give you two examples from the past about mercury. One is you’ve all heard of Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Well, there used to be a phrase, “Mad as a hatter” and it is a very common phrase. The way that that phrase came into our language is because it used to be that people who made hats called ‘hat-makers’, called ‘hatters’, they had occupational chronic mercury poison because the work of belting the hat involve prolong exposure to mercury vapors and it had a neuro-toxic effect.
So, these are the same mercury vapors that are now being installed in our teeth where they are being released into our bodies on a continuous basis all day and all night. In the past, it was known (it has been known for hundreds of years) that these hatters had exposure to mercury vapors, that they had neuro-toxic effects including tremors and irritability and going mad. That’s where the word “mad hatter” comes from.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct.
DEBRA: And the other thing that I want to point out, because it was so poignant to me, is Mozart, the famous Mozart, the composer (if you’ve never heard of Mozart’s music, it’s incredibly sublime and wonderful), he died at age 36 or 37 I think (I don’t remember exactly). But he died, he had syphilis. He died not from the syphilis but from the mercury that was given to him to heal the syphilis. I think about how much more just incredibly gorgeous music could he have written if he hadn’t died of mercury exposure.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, absolutely! Those two stories are very true and warnings to all of us that mercury exposure from these fillings in people’s teeth are extremely dangerous. Just because the FDA has reversed their position and just actually doesn’t even want to come out and say what’s going on, it should still have people in target mode to be cautious about having any of these fillings in their mouth. They’re very, very dangerous.
DEBRA: To me, mercury is one of those dangerous things that you can – even environmentally, that when mercury gets into an ecosystem, the fish die. I was born in the San Francisco Bay area and San Francisco Bay is having problems with mercury in the bay. And mercury in the fish all over the world is a problem. People are warned to not eat fish because of mercury. And then, dentists put this very same mercury in people’s mouths where they’re exposed to it by evaporation of the vapors of the mercury in their mouths 24 hours a day.
So, whether you happen to be a person who is susceptible to the negative health effects or not, this is one of those things where you just should say, “There’s a danger here. Let’s just be careful about this.”
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely! If you look at what the proposal was, it basically was saying that they were going to recommend, “Do not use mercury fillings in cavities of pregnant women, nursing moms, children under six and people with mercury allergies, kidney diseases, neurological problems.” How many people that have Parkinson’s, MS, Alzheimer’s, dementia have mercury fillings? These things are contributing.
DEBRA: Probably very many.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct!
DEBRA: Yeah! And then, it went on to say that it also urged dentists to avoid using fillings that contain mercury compounds in any patient where possible.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct!
DEBRA: Any patient.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. To me, the whole situation, I just can’t put my head around it really. I’m without words that this was just taken off there. And really, what we’re talking about is it seems to be more of a cost issue. They’re concern that people don’t want to pay more for the fillings, so they’re just going to say, “We’re not going to have a position against it. If they get hurt, they get hurt.” It’s extremely disappointing.
DEBRA: If they were to use that logic, then they would have to apply it to all the other rising costs that are going on in the world today. I mean how about – I’m not going to say this.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s true! No, you’re right. Healthcare problems are out of control and it’s not because of the mercury fillings.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: The cost that we’re talking about versus the person chronically being sick and seeking extra healthcare because all of their obscure illnesses that they can’t figure out what’s wrong with them, I’m sure there are lots of people that have this like fibromyalgia, these kinds of things that a lot of doctors want to treat as psychosomatic, there’s probably mercury involved in some of the toxicity of some of these individuals.
DEBRA: Well, it’s a chronic exposure and it just goes on and on. It’s not one-time exposure. It’s everyday every night, day after day after day. That builds up in your body.
So, tell us more. Actually, could you just tell us – we only have a couple of minutes before the break, so tell us why so fast. Could you just tell us, explain from your viewpoint, how chemicals, when they are being expose on a chronic everyday basis, how that builds up in the body?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct. So, we’re talking about epigenetics and we’re talking about the baseline health of the individual. Your genes are going to turn on from different exposures than my genes. As a result of that, there’s variability. It’s hard to pinpoint. This is why some of these things just kind of go under the radar. They’re not really trying to fully embrace the dangers of using these products.
So, what we find is that chronic exposure to chemicals by itself could be more insidious. When we have acute exposure to something, you can measure it in the peak in the bloodstream. It’s going to be very, very high and it’s something to treat. Maybe they are going to be extremely symptomatic at that point (especially if they get exposure to arsenic).
Even exposure to mercury, if it’s acute and it’s sudden, the person is going to become extremely ill. They’ll be able to do a blood test and they can even do a hair analysis and see where the hair’s growing out at a particular time and say, “Okay, we see this.”
But when it’s chronic, it’s insidious.
DEBRA: Right. We’ll just finish up with that thought when we get back from the break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist, but she also has a natural pharmacy at BotanicalResource.com. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. We’re talking about the announcement that the FDA reversed its position last week on mercury fillings and now is recommending that people not use them. If possible, not any patient have them.
So, we’re in our last segment here, Pamela, It goes by so fast! So, tell us quickly, finish your thought about the difficulty of establishing chronic exposures to chemicals. And then, let’s talk about what you can do.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, good! So, this low level exposure is insidious and perhaps, even more dangerous than a chronic, acute exposure where all of a sudden you’re exposed to something. An acute exposure to anything, you feel different and you’ll notice the difference and it’s an immediate thing that you would go and seek medical help for.
Whereas if it’s chronic and ongoing, “I feel fatigued, I have blurry vision. I’m tired, foggy thinking. My muscles and joints ache,” all these things are obscure symptoms of something else. And so, many times people have used diagnosis as maybe chronic fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and it could very well be the vapors that coming off of their teeth and into their body.
DEBRA: That’s exactly right! So, what do we do? Obviously, the first thing is if you have no cavities and you suddenly have a cavity and you go to a dentist, you say to him, “I don’t want mercury fillings.” And there are other things that they use for fillings. We don’t have to use mercury.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Absolutely! They have composites that they can use that are very safe and have no toxic mercury in them at all.
DEBRA: The next thing is if you have mercury fillings in your mouth, what do you do?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, this is good. Good question! You can do one of two things.
And I just want to mention one thing. I was talking about this study a little bit earlier that the fruit consumption (how many fruits and vegetables you eat) affects methylation significantly in the body. It turns on several different genes. So, before we talk about some of the homeopathic things you can do and some of the surgical things you can do, eating correctly makes a big difference.
I can tell that this is very, very important. People will think, “Well, yeah right. What are you talking about?” But these studies show that the methylation is significantly enhanced and works more efficiently in people that are eating fruits and vegetables.
DEBRA: I just want to say that my diet has changed immensely over the course of my life. But what I’ve noticed is that the healthier I get, the more I want to eat raw fruits and vegetables. I’m not trying myself eat them, but it’s just want to eat. I eat salads for lunch and dinner now.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You’re absolutely right!
DEBRA: I used to eat a bag of cookies for dinner.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Right! And you know what? Your body feels better. Some of this is epigenetics and a lot of these genes turning on and reassuring you that this is what you’re supposed to use, that these components, the flavonoids and the components in the fruits and vegetables turn on these genes to make you feel better, but they also protect you against toxins.
DEBRA: That’s right. Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: And that’s very important to understand, your diet does make a difference, how you feel and the internal functioning of your body takes place.
DEBRA: It does. I can vouch for that. Okay. So then, what else?
PAMELA SEEFELD: So, say somebody has a mercury amalgam filling and they’re thinking what are their options.
Your options are you can have them removed. You have to make sure that the dentist who does this has the equipment and has the expertise in doing this. And there are dentists that do these. They have to have you wearing respirators at the time of the removal, they have to have the vents above the patients to make sure that any vapors are captured and not placed into the rooms and placed back into the patient.
But if that is not an option, I’m a big fan of using the Body Anew, the homeopathic detox. I have used this in the past for people that have tested highest in mercury or tested high for lead and arsenic. They didn’t want to use chelators.
They didn’t want to have mercury situation. They couldn’t afford to have their teeth redone at that present time. And after using homeopathy, specifically, to take out heavy metals and take out these components, their hair analysis and their blood work came back far improved after they have done that. So, that’s just a testament for that.
[Inaudible 00:43:17] every single day and it’s pretty easy just put it in the water. I would really highly recommend for people that have fillings. If they don’t want to go through the expensive process or perhaps they are saving up money for it or they’re looking for the right dentist, doing some homeopathy to start taking out these mercury components out of the body –
I’ll tell you, neurologically, the thing we should really be concerned about when people are exposed to mercury, the cognitive function and the variability of the cognitive function. The person might think, “Oh, I’m getting older… senile moment,” that kind of thing, but that’s not necessarily the case. If the person’s not on a bunch of prescription medicines and they are noticing some differences, there’s lots of studies that show – especially with tuna fish exposure in kids, it affects them scholastically. So, it’s so important to protect your brain, that you can have your cognitive function.
DEBRA: Yeah. So, I take Body Anew every day. Pamela’s been taking it for 15 years. I just consider it a standard thing to do because no matter how much you avoid toxic exposures (and you can greatly reduced your toxic exposure), still, if you’re going to leave your house and going out into the world, just driving your car or walking down the street, you’re going to be exposed to some. Body Anew will help your body process those chemicals.
Another product that I like a lot is Pure Body Liquid Zeolite, which I also take every day. It will also remove mercury and other heavy metals. So, I actually take both of these products.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s smart. That’s very, very smart.
DEBRA: They work hand-in-hand. Our world is so toxic. I live in a as non-toxic house as can possibly be had. I still take these products because your body has a whole lifetime of chemicals that it’s having to deal with. Your body wants to that detox and you’re being exposed to new ones.
So, if it were me, if I had mercury fillings, I would get them out. But if I couldn’t get them out, I will take Body Anew and Pure Body Liquid Zeolite.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s really good advice! I really have recommended some kind of a homeopathic detox with the Zeolite. When you take mercury out, at least, it buys you some time. That’s what you really want. You want time to decide what you want to do, maybe find the right dentist for you.
I know that some of my patients that have had removed mercury from their teeth, it’s can be quite expensive and insurance does not cover this. So, it’s something that you might not be able to do each tooth at one time. But maybe do one tooth. And then, save up and go do another tooth and find out if they have some kind of a financing plan.
But if you don’t want to spend that much money, first of all, whatever new fillings you get, as we’ve discussed earlier, no more mercury. After that, doing detox on a daily basis, I think it’s really important. Maybe having some baseline hair analysis or blood work and seeing where your mercury levels are at.
DEBRA: Absolutely! Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You have to know if it’s high or not. That gives you an idea how rigorous your treatment need to be.
DEBRA: I totally agree with that! I mean, if you can see those numbers then, you can see, “I’d really need to do something about it.” It’s not a guessing game.
I would say just in my opinion and estimation, if you were to take a hundred people who have mercury fillings and test all their blood, all 100 would have high mercury.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely.
DEBRA: I would think that would be the result.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Actually, I had a client of mine maybe about two weeks ago, he nearly had a heart attack and so he was checking everything to make sure everything’s okay (and he’s actually doing well). His mercury came back high previous to the heart attack. That was just a routine test that he had done. And then, he came back with the results after we’ve put him on a bunch of different things like Body Anew and of course, some things for his heart, and it came back much lower. I was like, “Look, this is a huge difference.” And it did take things out.
And this wasn’t even something we were looking for. He was just so concerned because of the heart attack that he was like, “I need to make sure everything is taken cared of in my body.”
You have to realize that these heavy metals, like I said, the reason they’re not warning people is because the symptoms that are very variable. And I’m telling you, if we cannot give any more important information to your listeners today, you really need to eat correctly if we can the majority of the time. You need to be taking antioxidants, any of these epigenetic influences we were talking about.
Really, this whole talk is really about the toxins and the teeth and the mercury and the craziness of the position that are not substantiated by the FDA. They know this is dangerous. They’re not going to have with their original statements. It’s very important that diet and epigenetics are playing a role in the process of methylation and some of the removal of some of these toxic chemical and heavy metals out of the body.
So, you are what you eat. It’s really important to realize that nutrition, it does have a component in some of these along with the homeopathics and the Zeolite.
DEBRA: I agree and I would say that even if you don’t have mercury fillings (but especially if you do) to do those, eating fruits and vegetables, do some kind of detox like Body Anew and/or Pure Body on a daily basis. Exercise, get good rest, those are things every single person should be doing as basic, bottomline things. No matter else you do, do those things and you’ll feel a lot healthier no matter what’s going on with your body.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct! I also would like to say too that I really think pH balance makes a big difference in the way heavy metals are released out of the body with detox products. You really want to make sure that you’re using some kind of a pH adjuster in your water like Alkalife. There are some products that adjust the pH. There are different water ystems that affect the Ph as well and make their water alkaline. But you really want the water between 9 and 13, the pH. That makes a huge difference as far as the removal of these processes out of the body.
DEBRA: That’s an interesting subject! Actually, we should do a show about pH because I have questions.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, absolutely!
DEBRA: But we only have 15 seconds left. So, thank you very much, Pamela!
PAMELA SEEFELD: Thank you!
DEBRA: She’s at BotanicalResource.com. Give your phone number really fast.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, 727-442-4955.
DEBRA: Great! And we’ll see you in two weeks.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Great! Looking forward to it!
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well!
Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about basic principles pharmacists use to maximize the effectiveness of drugs in your body and how you can apply those same principles to maximize the effectiveness of supplements and other natural substances you take. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld
Date of Broadcast: July 15, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It’s Wednesday, July 15, 2015, I’m here in Clearwater, Florida and we’re having a little weather pattern here. Usually the rainstorms, the thunderstorms (we have thunderstorms almost every day), usually, they come from the Atlantic Ocean across the state of Florida and hit us on the afternoon. And now, they are starting in the Gulf of Mexico and coming and hitting us around noon time. So, we may be having more thunderstorms this week, but we’re fine right now.
So today, we are going to be talking with my guest, Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist. She’s on every other Wednesday. So, she’ll be on two weeks from now again. And I have her on so often because we’re talking about drugs, prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, how they affect your body and what you can do naturally instead of taking pharmaceuticals.
She is a registered pharmacist. She has been a pharmacist over 20 years. She works in a hospital as a pharmacist. And what we are going to talk about today is actually something a little different. What we are going to talk about is how she applies what she knows as a pharmacist and what she knows about the body and how things move with the body and what happens on the body, how she applies her pharmacist’s training to giving people the natural remedies that she gives them. She also has a botanical pharmacy here in Clearwater, Florida where we both live.
So, that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. I asked her to do that because she keeps like throwing in these little things every time she’s talking about different natural remedies and the pharmaceuticals. I just wanted her to get all these ideas into one show so that we can learn how we can better take our natural remedies in a way that there has some intelligence and design behind it.
Hi, Pamela.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Hey, it’s great to be here.
DEBRA: Thank you. So first, I want to tell you something and I’ll our listeners too as long as they are listening. No, but this is a personal message to Pamela.
I want to tell you. So, if you’ve been listening, listeners, if you’ve been listening for any period of time or have listened to other shows where Pamela is the guest, you know that she does consultations and anybody can call her. We’ll give her number during the show. But anybody can call her up and for free, she will find out what’s going on with you and help you choose some natural remedies.
So, if you can get them in front of her, she will look at your blood test. And so I took my blood test and I’ve been taking them in to her. A few months ago, I took in a blood test that showed kidney irregularity which indicated to her that I needed to pay attention to my kidneys now and not wait until the future when I have kidney failure. We did a whole show on kidney failure and how to take care of your kidneys naturally.
But I wanted to tell you, Pamela that I got another blood test and my kidneys are absolutely perfect.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s great!
DEBRA: Yes!
PAMELA SEEFELD: Good for you!
DEBRA: So, Pamela gave me, she gave me how many perfect remedy to detox my kidneys and it worked absolutely perfectly.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I can add things to that. Today is a very special day to me because my bichon frise, she’s going to be ten in October. She had a blood test. Her B1 kidney parameter was 40, which was high for her breed. Two months ago (and I told the vet), I said, “I’m going to treat her with some homeopathy and I need to have the blood test repeated. Yesterday, I brought her to the vet and I got the results this morning and she’s at 28. That’s’ only two months. She’s just completely reversed. I’m so happy! So, Vicky and you both have great results.
DEBRA: Yes, we do!
PAMELA SEEFELD: I’m just super thrilled. I’m super thrilled for you and I’m very thrilled for my pet because I love this dog very much. I’m very good with the animals as well. So, for your listeners, if they have their cat or dog has liver or kidney failure, these kind of things that there is really nothing in the veterinary realm, in medicines to take care of this, please call me because I have very good results with my own pets and other people’s pets.
DEBRA: And go ahead and give them your number.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. My number to the pharmacy here is 727-442-4955. I’d be very honored to help you with your family or with your animals with any concerns you might have.
DEBRA: And she’s excellent, she’s excellent. She has a very good reputation in Clearwater, Florida both with people with the community and doctors. I’ve said before that my medical doctor when I told him that Pamela has given me something, he said, “Just do whatever Pamela tells you to do.”
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s great!
DEBRA: Yeah. So, we’ve done so many shows, but I think way back in the beginning when we did the first show, I’d probably asked you this question. But I want to ask you again today because we’re talking about pharmacology. What made you interested in becoming a pharmacist?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, I always was very good in chemistry and I’ve always been interested in the chemical realm of nature and so forth. When I was in high school, I want to be an organic chemist and that’s what I wanted to do when I graduated. In my senior year in high school, my dad was an engineer and he told that I needed to get a real job.
So, the truth of the matter is I really wanted to be a chemist. He told me that’s too hard and being around dangerous chemicals, I’d be in laboratories all my life. That might not be the best suit for me.
So, one day I came home after touring the Pharmacy School of the University of Wisconsin and I came home and I said, “You know, I think I’m going to be a pharmacist because I found that it has lots of chemistry and I can help people.” I came home and my dad was all excited, he goes “You’re going to be a pharmacist?” I said, “That’s what I’m going to do.” And that’s exactly how it happened.
DEBRA: So, once you became a pharmacist, how did you get into your field of pharmacognosy? Details…
PAMELA SEEFELD: I was actually fortunate to study pharmacognosy at the University of Florida. They don’t have that anymore, but they did offer that and I did study that quite extensively as a side major to what I was working on. So, plant medicine is something that really most people probably aren’t paying much attention to.
You have people that do herbalism and they study the plants and how they react in the body, but that’s more wild crafting and I’ve studied a lot of that too. But I’ve been very fortunate. I studied a lot in Europe on homeopathic medicines. My formal training was in the University of Florida.
I’ve really made it my passion. I actually collected all the pharmacognosy books written in English all over the world. I’ve one of every volume. I’ve read them all.
I find plant chemistry very interesting, the primary and secondary metabolites of plants and how they act in the body and the fact that we could realize that the plants produce these for reasons of their own. It’s not just they’re producing them because they want us. A lot of these things were produced because to ward off herbivores and animals from eating them. But as a result, when we take them, they actually have different restorative properties in the body.
Understanding how this chemistry of the plants and the homeopathy work on receptors in the body, really, it is important for me to train the people and to educate them that this isn’t some sticks and twigs and hocus focus. There is actual scientific data that I can prove on the remedies that I am proprieting for patients.
DEBRA: So, now we know about your background. Now, I know that we have several different areas that we want to talk about today. We have just a couple minutes before the break, but let’s get started. What’s the first one you want to talk about in terms of what you can tell us as a pharmacist that will help us understand better how to take natural remedies.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So, what I like to look at is that certain things sequester your supplements when you’re taking them. So, we’re going to start to talk about that, introduce that subject. So, sequestering agents can somebody taking psyllium like Metamucil. A lot of people or a vegan, they’ll use Metamucil as a thickening agent. I know I used to make them like a crust, if you’re making a quiche that is vegan.
Fiber is also very sequestering. So if you have bran, flax, any of these things that have lots of fiber, when you eat them, they can act as a sequestering agent. So, say in the morning I have steel-cut oats and then I put a lot of flax there and then also some psyllium in there. And then I start talking all my supplements. Well, there’s a problem with that because if you don’t separate them by one or two hours, you’re probably not absorbing 90% of what you’re taking.
DEBRA: Well, that’s a very good thing to know because I just started eating a whole lot more flax and…
PAMELA SEEFELD: And the fiber is good, but separating it, it’s important.
DEBRA: Right. So, I see what I need to do because I do take my supplements. I eat my flax and then I take my supplements.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s just that it’s reducing some of the absorption because if you think about it, you’re taking these things and they sequester cholesterol, which we want. They kind of clean the GI tract to some degree. They’re taking things kind of whatever. They’re not supposed to be there and they’re taking it out with it. But at the same same time, when you’re doing this, you’re actually reducing absorption the supplements you’re taking.
DEBRA: That’s really good to know. We need to go to a break now. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. And today, we’re talking about how what’s she’s learned as a pharmacist can help us better take our natural supplements. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist, but in addition to being a pharmacist, she has a natural pharmacy where she practices a field called pharmacognosy. We’ve talked about the meaning of this word before. The root of this, ‘pharma’ is drug, but ‘cognosy’, it means information. So, plants actually have information. You want to explain that, the difference between plants and drugs?
PAMELA SEEFELD: So, actually what’s interesting is that two-thirds of all drugs come from plants. Originally, they’re found in nature. That’s what we have to think when people say, “Oh, you know, but pharmaceuticals, they’re so good.” They came from the plants. They find them in plants. And then, they synthesize them in a lab. That’s how we get medicines.
So, what’s interesting about plants though is that they have activity in the body almost somewhat to what they produce in the plants. So, I’ll give you an example. I think it’s pretty amazing that quercetin is ubiquitous. It’s really in two-thirds of plant. Quercetin works in plants. If quercetin was not in the leaves of the plant, the leaves will basically fall to the ground because quercetin works as a vascular stabilizer of the plant vasculature. It makes the nice and taut and tight and it allows for the nutrients to go to the vessels in the plant.
When we take it orally as people and humans, when we take it, it does the same in our blood vessels. So, I use it for eye problem with the blood, small capillaries. I use for people that are bruising. I use it for hemorrhoids. I use it for leaky gut. I use for a lot of different things where there’s a permeability of the blood vessels.
To me when we think about the wonder of nature that it is pretty intelligent and amazing that the plant, how something works in the plant works exactly the same in people.
DEBRA: That’s so interesting. But I see that in nature (I’ve done a fair amount of study about nature myself), there’s consistency in their order and design and…
PAMELA SEEFELD: And, the cytochrome p450, which are the enzymes in your liver are found in the plant as well. That to me was the craziest thing that I have ever read. The liver enzymes that we have to metabolize medicines and what’s called phenobiotics, which is a terminology for like anything that we consume, maybe a chemical or plant, the metabolism in our liver is inherently related to the metabolism in plants themselves.
DEBRA: Wow! Amazing!
PAMELA SEEFELD: It is. So, we have to have a great appreciation for plants and understand that they provide wonderful things.
And most people, even if they don’t want to believe in alternative medicine (which I would find really hard to not be able to embrace that), everyone’s like, “Eat your fruits and vegetables. Eat plants. Eat salads,” well, what are you doing when you’re eating plants? You’re absorbing these vital nutrients and they’re helping your body.
So, you can help someone’s diet just by how they’re feeling and how they’re doing. I think your 20s and your 30s are very forgiving. People eat a lot of junk and stuff and they can get away with it. When you start you late 40s and your 50s, that’s when you’re not taking care of yourself and you’re not eating salads and trying to do something (it can’t be every day probably for most people, but in general, the trend of what you’re eating isn’t as healthy), that’s when people start having health issues.
That’s typical when I see people come to me because they’ve been able to coast along and now all of a sudden, things have happened. So, eating the plants, consuming specific remedies that I can suggest to you at a very economical cost –
And that’s really important people to know, that this is not very expensive stuff that I’m suggesting. We keep a chart for you, it’s very professional. If you call me and say, “My liver enzyme parameter came high. My kidney parameter came back a little high,” the time it would take you to deal with these issues is when you first find these numbers. When you wait and see what happens and you’re like, “We’ll keep watching it,” well, “watching it” means they hope it doesn’t keep going up. The problem with that is that there are certain things in the herbal medicine realm that can treat very well whereas in regular pharmacy, they have nothing.
DEBRA: Yes, that’s part of the problem. I know, I know. I see the difference. I have to go to a medical doctor because many, many years ago, I started taking thyroid supplement and you can’t just stop taking thyroid supplement although I’m holding out the hope that one day, I’ll figure out how to do that.
So, I have to go to the doctor every three months. I have to get a blood test. I have to get my thyroid prescription, et cetera. I can’t just stop taking it cold turkey because I would go into a coma. I almost did once when I tried that.
But in terms of keeping my body healthy, the doctors, the medical doctors just don’t have anything to give me but a drug. And that doesn’t contribute to health.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, yeah, you’re right. It’s important to realize that we’re not saying everything’s good or everything’s bad. I like to think to myself that I’m very reasonable about straddling the lines. Okay, you’re on thyroid medicine. I have homeopathic T3 T4. Is it going to replace your Synthroid? I don’t think so. For somebody that maybe is a little low on the bell curve and their reading is a little bit lower and for some reason, the doctor doesn’t want to give them thyroid, but there having symptoms of thyroid and they are having symptoms of hypothyroidism and they want to use that, perfect situation.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You maybe don’t want to be on as much medicine or the doctors not willing to accommodate your needs as far as adjusting it a little bit because you feel like you’re just very sluggish. T3 T4 can help a little bit.
But basically, when the TSH just keeps releasing it and it’s elevated and it’s trying to release thyroid and it’s not, that feedback mechanism is gone. And as a result of it, you really need medicine.
I think life is not about good and bad, black or white. It’s really about knowing that there are certain things you can treat well with herbal medicine. Then there are other things that I tell people, “No. This is the medicine that they should have given you.” I’ll write the name of the prescription down and I’ll say, ” Go to the doctor and this is what they should have ordered.”
So, you have to really look at that, that your knowledge, you use it in a very effective manner for your patient. That’s what really comes down to. It’s not about saying, “This is also good or bad.” It’s really about, “Let’s be reasonable and from the chemistry stand point, what you need…”
And many times, I can say, “Look, let’s just try and get rid of it” and it does work. So, really, experience matters a lot.
DEBRA: Well, I think one of the reasons why I like you so much (aside from that I just think you’re a wonderful person), one of the reasons why I like you as someone to have around to advise me on some of these things is that you do have both the drug background and the natural background.
And so many people who have natural background don’t have a drug background. So, you could bring both of those and say, “This is the one that will be most effective thing to do in this particular situation.” You can help people…
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s a very true. That’s why I’m very proud of what I do because it’s not about shaming medicines. It’s not about totally saying 100% of the time that herbal medicines are going to work.
I know from the repertoire that I use here what works and what doesn’t. Case in point, your pre-kidney failure for yourself and for my pet, I know that product works. I’ve actually given talks to the doctors on that and they were pretty amazed because I’ve seen some dramatic results.
DEBRA: Yeah. We need to go to break again, but when we come back, we’ll talk more about specific things that knowing will help you take your natural supplements better. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Pamela Seefeld. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also knows about how natural remedies can work as well if not better than drugs. But she also, as we’ve been talking about, knows when we need to take a drug as opposed to a natural remedy.
So, Pamela, before, you told us that if we eat a lot of fiber, that can interfere with absorption. Is there anything else we need to know about food?
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s good, yeah. Fat and protein, when you take fat and protein in a meal, it delays the emptying, the gastric emptying. And so, it delays the [inaudible 00:27:25] of the blood stream.
Let’s give it two examples. Say you’re having a really bad headache and you want to take a homeopathic remedy, you want to take a vitamin that helps for fighting a headache. If you want a peak in the bloodstream, you want it to be high and immediate and not have a delay of at least 20 minutes to an hour. You would want to take it in an empty stomach or you would want to take it with something fizzy, something that’s carbonated because carbonation pushes it to the bloodstream and you’ll get a peak within three to five minutes.
DEBRA: Oh! I didn’t know that. This is just great. It’s just great to know these things.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That way, it’s absorbed through the stomach. So, even pain relief. Let’s say you sprained something, you hit your hand and you’re taking a homeopathic that maybe has Arnica in it (I like tea relief a lot, which formerly was called Tramil), if you wanted to have a peak in the bloodstream faster, instead of just taking it orally or taking it under your tongue, if you put it in something that’s carbonated like Perrier or some Sprite (of course, I’m not a soda person), something that’s got some carbonation in it, even just seltzer water, your peak in the bloodstream is going to be immediate. That’s a good little trick to get it to absorb to the stomach. Fat and protein delay emptying.
So, if you take something that’s time released or you want this to last over the course of the day, you want to take it with a meal. That’s how food affects absorption with these particular things.
DEBRA: Very interesting! The first time I realized that what I was eating was affecting my medication was I used to take soy protein bars for breakfast. I would take my thyroid pill and I would eat the soy bar only to find out that soy negates thyroid.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yup, you’re absolutely right.
DEBRA: And it just amazes me. I had no idea. I was just eating and taking vitamins. We don’t even think about these things. I was completely negating my entire prescription. So then, when I went back to the doctor, he asked me if I was eating soy. But nobody ever told me at the beginning that soy could do that.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s very important to know, that what you’re eating at the same time as you’re taking supplements, we were talking about fiber sequestering it, so your peak in the bloodstream is low and you might not even absorb the contents because it’s going to be sequestered in the bowel basically inside the fiber.
Also, if you’re taking something that has Vitamin A, D, E and K, which are the fat soluble vitamins, you need to take fat at the same time to have them be absorbed. The reason behind that is that the taste of fat in your mouth (even if it’s just a few almonds), the taste of fat in your mouth releases bile acids in the small intestines. And so when you have a vitamin that has these fat soluble vitamins, say, Vitamin E, you’re not going to absorb it if you’re taking it with pear. So, that’s important to know.
DEBRA: That is important to know. Now, but also, I think it applies to the vitamins in food as well like a supplement. If you’re eating those foods that would have those vitamins in it, then you need to eat some fat with those foods. It’s so interesting how to optimize all these things.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It is.
DEBRA: I think it’s all so new, but once we start understanding it, I think can actually apply this.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I was going to say, another thing to, say you’re taking a homeopathic to block acids, we know stomach acids peak between 10 pm to 2 am. So, that’s why a lot of people have indigestion at night, more heartburns are going to be in the evenings.
So, I used a lot of Reflux Rx because people don’t want to be in a proton pump inhibitor like Protonics and Prilosec and these medicines, we have to remember when you take Protonics, Prilosec, Nexium, any of those medicines that are proton pump inhibitors (and a lot of people are on those), when you take those medicines in a consistent basis, you absorb no calcium and no iron. And that is very important for people to know. You’re going to end up with anemia and you’re going to end up with very frail, brittle bones.
DEBRA: Another important thing to look at. See, this is why I wanted to do this show.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It is important!
DEBRA: You mentioned about time of day. I think there is more about time of day.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct! So, some interesting tidbits, the Wallstreet Journal had a really interesting article…
DEBRA: Very good article.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, very good. It’s about your body’s witching hours. It talks about the worst times of day for your health. And I think this is very important for your listeners.
Overnight, you blood pressure and your core body temperature and heart rate are at their lowest, which makes sense. But melatonin, of course, is at its highest. But the liver releases large amount of glucose and blood sugar levels rise between 4am and 6am.
Now, how is this important? It’s important for a person that’s watching their fasting blood sugar when they first get up in the morning if they’re a diabetic. It’s normally going to be elevated because the liver is dumping all this sugar.
So people need to take that into account when they’re checking their fasting blood sugar. They haven’t eaten all night, they take their blood sugar, if it’s high, it might not necessarily be pre-diabetes. It might be the fact that depending on how much glucose the liver has dumped, that might be pre-disposing you to inaccurate readings.
DEBRA: Especially if you get up at five in the morning and take it. That’s just the peak time.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right.
DEBRA: That’s the peak time. That’s an important thing.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Right. So maybe somebody that’s monitoring their sugars, maybe their fasting blood sugar is like in the 90s or close to a hundred. They have a glucose monitor. They’re really on top of things. They’re trying to figure out how to get their sugars down. They keep taking it early in the mornings and it’s registering high. But when they take it in the afternoon, maybe fix or six hours have gone and they haven’t eaten, then all of a sudden, it seems normal. They’re perplexed, they can’t figure out why. It’s important to realize what times of day sugar is being released at a higher amount.
So also, cortisol. Now, cortisol is a stress hormone. That increases in the morning when you first get up. The reason why that your body does that is it’s trying to prepare for the day. Your mind starts racing, “Oh, I’ve got to call this person. I’ve got to go buy groceries. I’ve got to go, do here.” Let’s face it, all of our days are filled with errands and things to do.
So, cortisol goes higher as a stress hormone. That’s why we know more heart attacks and strokes between 6:00 am and noon. Cortisol can be a pre-requisite to heart attacks.
DEBRA: Good, Good. So if anybody wants to look up this article, it’s called Your Body’s Witching Hour. Is that the title?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct.
DEBRA: You can just search for that, but I’ll put a link to it.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s Tuesday, June 2nd of this year, that’s when it came out
DEBRA: That’s a very good article. Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So knowing what times of day heart attacks are more frequent. If you’re going to taking a baby aspirin or in place of a baby aspirin, if you want to be taking a 800 to 1200 units of vitamin E, you need take it in the day time, not in the afternoon because you’re most at risk for the heart attack in the morning. That’s important to know.
And as I was saying, if you’re going to take something for heart burn, for stomach acid, I used a lot of Reflux RX. It’s medical. It’s very good for people that don’t want to be in the proton pump inhibitors as I was talking about, the acid not being there to absorb those things. You want to take it at night.
DEBRA: Okay, good. And that’s why doctors tell you take this at night or take it with your meals or whatever. When we come from the break, we’ll talk more about when to take you take your supplements and how to determine your dose.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Pamela Seefeld. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Pamela Seefeld. We’re talking about what we can learn from a pharmacist about how we take our natural supplements.
So Pamela, there’s a couple that I can think go together that I’ve noticed and that is about dose and also, about taking your supplements throughout the day. Talk about what you tell about drinking water throughout the day? Knowing you has changed completely how I take things because I have my bottled with my liquid supplements in it. I also spread my solid supplements throughout the day, breakfast, lunch and dinner for the reasons you’re going to tell us.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Right, a very good question. So, a lot of times, when I give somebody homeopathic remedies, we’re putting it in a water bottle and you’re drinking it over the course of six to eight hours a day.
The reason why you want to do is that every time you take a sip, your body is taking a hit of the medication. It’s like getting an IV fluid. We think about the people in critical care at the hospital, you have them on continuous drip. There’s a reason behind that. We want this to be released continuously into the body.
When you take something just for one time, let’s say you take everything in the morning with a swig of water and you walked out the door and you don’t take anything else the rest of the day, depending on what you ate, whatever your breakfast was [inaudible 00:40:02], maybe you add a big bowl of All Bran’s extra fiber and you didn’t absorb any of it or maybe you had some fat and protein if you had some scrambled eggs and then maybe it’s delaying it for another hour, the peaks in the bloodstream are going to be a sudden peak. It’s going to be, in the bloodstream, let’s say, 15 to 20 minutes, maybe less than that. And then after that, there’s no medicine around.
So, if you’re trying to get a therapeutic outcome and you’re looking to have a result, if you’re not just taking them just because you just want to take them (and I respect people’s time and money ), if you’re going to take something and you really want to absorb it and you really want it to be effective for you, then as a result of that, you really need to look and see taking it through the day.
And a lot of people are taking the homeopathic supplements that are liquids because it is easy. Just throw it in your purse or put it on your desk, drink it through the day and you have much more consistent result because of that.
DEBRA: Yes, I just think that’s so important because I used to take everything in the morning. I would say, “I can’t remember this through the day. “ But after listening to your explanation about this it made so much sense to me that I now make sure that I take it all day long.
I actually have three little containers on my desk where I work. One says ‘breakfast’, ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’. I can see them in front of me all day long. So, there’s no forgetting. I know that I’m just supplementing my body all day long and it does seem to make a difference.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It will. And the thing that’s important too. Like we were talking about the different times of the day, as another aside, I’m talking about this article here. Arthritic joints are stiffest and most painful between 8:00 am and 11:00 am. That’s because when you sleep at night, you have a rise in pro-inflammatory markers.
Now, why is this important? Because these rise and pro-inflammatory markers that takes place while you’re sleeping (it makes you have arthritis and stiffness in your joints when you first wake up in the morning. And of course, part of it is inactivity when you’re lying in bed), but a lot of this is these pro-inflammatory markers, if your c-reactive protein or your SED rate or your estrogen (there’s different things that the doctor can do) or your ANA, all these different tests, these numbers (the c-reactive protein is more associated with heart attacks. If they’re worried about your heart, they’ll do that, so they can be aware of what your number is), if those are mildly elevated, then you need to take some anti-inflammatory at bed time before you go to bed. It -might help the morning stiffness and some of the arthritis that may be associated for some of these individuals.
DEBRA: Good!
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s important to know. Those inflammatory markers, that’s probably part of the explanation we were talking about heart attacks in the mornings. This article doesn’t go into that factor. But heart attacks are more frequent in the morning, we know cortisol rises in the morning, we know that stiffness due to pro-inflammatory factors is from the evening when you sleep is rising, it would make logical sense that the c-reactive protein, these inflammatory markers that are elevated at night not only contributing to arthritis, but they’re also contributing to heart attack prevalence.
DEBRA: Yes, good.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So, taking these things, if you’re going to take an anti-inflammatory, arthritis or not, but maybe you’re worried about heart disease, maybe you have heart disease in your family, maybe your doctors are already giving you something for heart disease prevention, the time to be taking homeopathic or vitamin supplements for inflammation might be at your bed time.
DEBRA: Okay.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So, that’s important to know.
DEBRA: You want to take things at the right time of day, that’s so important. So, we only have few minutes, but I want to make sure that we just talk about dose for a minute.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah.
DEBRA: There’s a big difference between taking six pills or one pill. How do you what the right dose is.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, obviously, we’re talking about the dose. When we dose children, we dose it in so many milligrams per kilogram. So it’s done on weight.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: If we’re not talking about [inaudible 00:44:01] and we’re not talking about smalls animals (like we were talking about this earlier in the show), then we are looking at what is the normal therapeutic dose for most individuals.
Most of the time, I’m very conservative. I start with a few things and I start with the lowest dose that I think is going to be successful. If you start on a dose that’s higher, first of all, you might be overmedicating. And secondly, if we do a dose that’s higher, you’re going to be more at risk for side effects. And there can be side effects for anything.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: And I have to tell people too that when you’re talking about dose, when you see a product and it’s a vitamin product and it’s got about 20 different things in it and its says it’s herbal pain relief or just some kind of a generic product, when you have lots of different herbal products in one container, one capsule, there’s more chance for side effect than if you use one single agent at a time.
So, a lot of times, I use single remedies. I don’t use a bunch of combination remedies because if someone’s not responding correctly or they’re responding adversely, you don’t know which ingredient is causing the problem.
DEBRA: Exactly! I tried to take just single ones too. Right now, I’m taking an herbal blend because that was what I was given, but I’m actually doing really well on it. But usually, I just try to take single things and I tell people to just take single nutrients or herbs or whatever because that way, you’ll be able to tell what is the problem if there is a problem.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Also, I wanted to caution people. When you’re taking blood pressure, because a lot of people have hypertension, your blood pressure will peak at 9:00 pm at night. So, if you take it in the morning and you take it night and every single time, you take it in the evening and then every time you go back to the doctor, he’s looking at your numbers that you’ve been writing down and he says, “Oh, your blood pressure is going up at night. Let’s add another medicine,” (I’m just bringing blood pressure as an example. I can treat that homeopathically for your clients that are listening), but what I want to tell people is that typically, this is what they’ll do, they start somebody on a beta blocker or something like that at the doctor’s office and then instead of titrating that particular medicine up and bringing it to its maximum or near maximum dosage, just because the dose was too low, they add another drug. And then, they add another drug.
It’s not uncommon that I see someone with mild hypertension on three things, low doses of three different things.
So, you need to question that. If you take your blood pressure at night, it seems like it’s high, but it’s normally what it’s supposed to be. It’s important for you to look at those numbers and not be over-zealous in treating them.
And if their doctors are giving you two or three different things for your blood pressure, maybe it’s something that you can approach – unless you have another existing condition like congested heart failure or something else. But a non-complicated mild hypertension, please question whether you need to be on two or three medicines where they’re using low doses and they never really have used the correct dose of the first drug.
DEBRA: Well, also, I know from watching from other people around me that you can take care of high blood pressure just by taking magnesium.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.
DEBRA: …that it can be just a nutrient deficiency. Just taking magnesium can take care of that. So, I’ve seen that happen over and over. It’s pretty amazing to me have a lot of people seem to have high blood pressure, but it’s not because they’re sick in some way. It’s just that they are not getting enough nutrition.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. Magnesium makes a big difference in the blood pressure. But also, if someone has a mild hypertension – you know, people are stressed out a lot. Cortisol is a big driver of hypertension. And especially the top number, the systolic blood pressure, if you use 1500 mg vitamin C of time-released vitamin C and you do that twice a day (I use a 12-hour release Vitamin C called C-Max), that would lower it 20 points in four days. And that’s an easy way to get the top number down.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: For the bottom number, I use Cartego Complex. It’s homeopathic Hawthorn. That takes that bottom number down nice and easy.
So there are things you can do. Blood pressure, and we were talking about kidney failure and different things, there are things you can do and you need to question whether you need to be on so many medications. Titrating up to the correct dose is really more important than keep adding in another medicine or another homeopathic remedy. We respect people’s time and money. You want to make sure that if you are not maxing out at the right dose of whatever product you are using or whatever vitamin, then you are not really sure what’s working and what isn’t.
DEBRA: How do you know what the right dose is?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Empirically, it will depend on the product that you’re using. But as a pharmacist, I can tell you – I’ll give you an example, Vitamin C. After 5g of vitamin C at any one time, you really don’t absorb it anymore. It basically spills out into the urine. So, if you’re going to give someone high dose of vitamin c, you would want to say, “Okay, maybe I should split that dose up through the day if I really want to absorb it,” so this person gets the full benefit of the C and it’s not necessarily going and being wasted. So, it’s important to know.
And these doses have all been determined by scientific method. So, now we know. And people can look those up. I wouldn’t just search it in Google, but if you look it in the National Library of Medicine, you can find all the medical data that’s been published on things.
Or I would just say to tell them to call me. I’d be glad to answer over the phone if there’s a question about, “Are you taking too much? Are taking too little? And what are you treating?” Sometimes people are just taking thing empirically just for their general health. That’s great. Other times, somebody actually has a real condition and they are trying to treat something. And if they are using sub-therapeutic dose, they are going to see any outcome.
I see this a lot where people say, “I tried that vitamin and it didn’t do like they said.” And then I’m like, “Well, what was the product you were using and what was the dose?” And then, they give me this glassy-eyed look. People don’t realize you just don’t take something randomly off the shelf and take it and think that it’s going to work. There should be…
DEBRA: I have to interrupt you, Pamela just because we only have seconds left. So, why don’t you give your phone number real quick.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, it’s 727-442-4955.
DEBRA: Okay, thank you so much! This has been a great show. You can go to the ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and find out about all the shows and there are transcripts. So, if you want to read the transcript of this show, it will be available next Tuesday.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well!
Tests You Won’t Find at Your Doctor’s Office
My guest today is Wendy Myers, CHHC, NC, founder and head writer of Liveto110.com. We’ll be talking about special tests that Wendy offers that go above and beyond what you can get from a medical doctor. Things like organic acids and neurotranmitters, and how these relate to your health and detox. Wendy is a certified holistichealth and nutrition coach in Los Angeles, Ca, She is also certified in Hair Mineral Analysis for the purpose of designing Mineral Power programs for clients to correct their metabolism and body chemistry. She is currently seeking her masters in clinical nutrition at Bridgeport University in Connecticut. Wendy hosts the weekly Live to 110 Video Podcast and the Modern Paleo Cooking show on her Live to 110 Youtube Channel. store.liveto110.com/functional-medical-tests
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH WENDY MYERS
- Toxics in Your Body? Tests Can Tell You the Truth
- Choosing and Using Home Saunas to Remove Toxic Chemicals From Your Body
- Deep Detox With Minerals
- Health and Nutrition Coach on Diet and Detox
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Tests You Won’t Find at Your Doctor’s Office
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Wendy Myers, CHHC, NC
Date of Broadcast: July 08, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. It is Wednesday, July 8, 2015. I’m here in beautiful Clearwater, Florida.
Today, we’re going to be talking about tests that can you can have done on your body that you’re not going to find in your doctor’s office.
I go to a medical doctor. I go to alternative doctors. I go to practitioners that know about health but aren’t even doctors. The experience that I’ve had in the doctor’s office is that there are so many tests even that they could order through a lab that would tell you things like how much vitamin D is in your body, for example or testing other things like how well your kidneys are functioning and various kinds of things.
But they don’t order those things even though they are there and they’re available to the doctor to order. They don’t order them. Several months ago, I got a list of tests from Pamela Seefeld, who is on every other Wednesday. She’s a pharmacist. And we’re talking about how you can not be taking pharmaceuticals but instead, be taking natural remedies.
And so I asked her what are the tests that I should be taking, and she gave me a list, things that the doctor should be ordering. It was much longer than what my doctor was ordering, and I took it in, and I said, “We do order these.” And he said, “Sure.” And that was the last time he did it, only just because I asked him that one time.
So then I asked the receptionist about ordering and she said, “Well, the doctor can only order the tests that go with your diagnosis. He can’t order anything else and have it be covered by the insurance.” And I don’t have insurance but that’s another issue.
But the thing is that regular medical doctors are not necessarily ordering the tests that could be telling you things about your body that you might want to know.
So my guest today is Wendy Myers. She has a bunch of letters after her name which we’ll ask her about when she comes on. She’s the founder and head writer of Liveto110.com. And she is very trained in a lot of things that most people aren’t trained in. She has just started offering a lot of tests. And we’re going to talk about some of the different tests that she has available to you now, things that she can interpret that you’re not going to find in a lot of other places.
Hi, Wendy.
WENDY MYERS: Hi, and how are you?
DEBRA: I’m good. How are you?
WENDY MYERS: I’m doing fantastic.
DEBRA: Well, I have a bunch of letters after your name. CHHC, NC, and you now have FDN. What are all these things?
WENDY MYERS: The first one is a Certified Holistic Health Coach, this certification I got from this nutrition school I went to. The Nutritional Consultant I got when I got certified in hair mineral analysis. That’s my first love. I love hair mineral analysis. It’s such an amazing tool which I’ve done with you a handful of times.
And the next one is FDN, Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist. And I added that because I really felt that I needed to—I wanted to do all kinds of testing with my clients, testing that’s not typically done in a medical doctor’s office and testing which is needed.
I think that’s why a lot of people are going outside of their medical doctor and seeking the consults, the natural health professionals that are doing a functional diagnostic testing to get to the root cause of their illness, as opposed to covering it up with medications because that’s a doctor, they’re trained to do, and that’s what the insurance company would pay for.
So that’s what I do. I do functional diagnostic medicine to help unroot the cause of illness and to correct it naturally, to completely resolve the health issue at hand.
DEBRA: Why did you become a health coach?
WENDY MYERS: Well, I was having my pregnancy and I started studying nutrition and health, and cleaning up my environment, prepping for the baby and whatnot, and I just thought, “Why haven’t I studied this before?” I was so interested in this. And then I became very, very passionate about it. And then my father was diagnosed with cancer and really it was devastating, and he passed away within six months of his diagnosis. And I was angry about it. I didn’t understand why his cancer treatments made him so sick. I felt like he could have lived a few more years had he not undergone this treatment, radiation and chemo and whatnot. And I just started studying—I had all these questions. Why is everyone so sick? Why is everyone having cancer? Why was my father on 10 medications? And that contributed to his demise.
So I just started studying. And I started my blog, Liveto110.com, and I just wanted to share everything I was learning. And I just discovered about the underlying root cause of disease are mineral and nutrient deficiencies, and heavy metal and chemical toxicity.
When you blow it down and you look at all the disease labels, the majority of them are due to these two factors. So that’s my main message that I’m trying to get out to the world is that people need to do a foundational work that they’re not getting with their physicians. They need to mineralize their body with targeted nutrient therapy, like the sniper approach as opposed to the shotgun approach, of just taking a multivitamin. And they need to detox their body of heavy metals and chemicals.
You really don’t have any hopes of being healthy long term if you don’t address these two pressing health issues.
DEBRA: I completely agree with you. And I’ll just tell our listening audience that I figured out exactly the same thing before I even met you. So when we met, it was like, “Oh, here’s some agreement.”
We’re approaching it in slightly different ways, I would say, they were complementary, in that you know so much more than I do about how the body works and nutrition and all these tests, and you have all these certifications to do your nutritionist work. And I know more about where the toxic chemicals are and how they affect your body and what you can use instead. So I think that Wendy and I go together really well.
WENDY MYERS: Yes, we do. We’re like peas and carrots.
DEBRA: So let’s start talking about your tests. So what is the most important test that you think—now, before you answer this question, I’m on her page and it’s a huge page. Let me see how many tests are done on this page. There are 22 tests, I think, of all different kinds. And we obviously can’t talk about all 22 tests, in just this hour that we have together. So let’s start with which test do you think is the most important?
WENDY MYERS: Well, my favorite test is the hair mineral analysis. It gives me a picture of your body’s chemistry. But after that, an organic acid test is very, very important. That’s what gives me a tremendous amount of information about the acid that’s the ones gut bugs are producing.
DEBRA: Before we go on, tell us what the organic acids are because when I—I’m sure that most people listening have no clue what it is. I’m not even sure I know what it is.
WENDY MYERS: Basically, the gut bug too, what it is. It’s the waste products that your gut bugs are producing. And so by looking at these acids, we can tell what bacteria or families of bacteria you have in your gut. But it also tests other things in it as well. It tests your neurotransmitter metabolites. So we can see if there is an imbalance in your neurotransmitters. It tests amino acid absorption, so we can see if there’s possibly some reduced intestinal absorption, maybe some leaky gut, if you’re not absorbing proteins. It tests all your B vitamins. You can see if those are low. It’s just got so many different markers that it’s such a tremendous amount of information.
For instance, your ammonia levels, if those are high, we know you’ve got some liver problems going on. We’re going to work on that liver health. It will give an indication of your phosphoric acid and perhaps you’ve got some bone density issues, if that’s low. It gives a lot of information and it really helped me to work on someone’s gut issues. If they have bacterial infections or yeast infections, or it can show me potentially, you might have mold issues going on.
DEBRA: I need to interrupt you for a second just because we need to go to break and we’ll finish talking about this when we come back.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Wendy Myers with many letters after her name. She’s at Liveto110.com. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Wendy Myers. She’s the founder and head writer of Liveto110.com. And we’re talking today about a new set of tests that Wendy offers. If you want to go exactly to the page, you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, find today’s show, and there’s a link to the page that has the functional medical test. That’s the name of the page, functional medical test.
Wendy, if they go to your website, how can they easily find that page?
WENDY MYERS: You can go to Store.Liveto110.com, and then on the left hand menu, you go to functional medical test, and it will all be right there.
DEBRA: So we were talking about the organic acids test.
WENDY MYERS: Well, I was saying before that when I discovered what type of gut infections people have, almost every person I test has some sort of gut infection. I automatically assume that everyone has parasites. It’s kind of a given especially sushi lovers. Each square inch of sushi has 10,000 parasite eggs.
DEBRA: I knew there was something I didn’t like about sushi.
WENDY MYERS: It’s pretty gross when you think about it but it sure is tasty. I like it.
So the organic acids test does not show parasites but it will show yeast and bacteria. And then based on that, I can give people all natural biocidal. They work just as well as prescription antibiotics. You have to take them for longer though. I’ll give people a course for about six to eight weeks and start with the parasite, then do bacteria, then do yeast. That’s six to eight weeks for each of those protocols. And then we’ll re-test in about six months and see if we were able to clear everything up.
DEBRA: That’s good. I just want to mention that I’ve had some test with Wendy, and she found some things and gave me some things. And when we had the next test, there was an improvement.
WENDY MYERS: You had a lot of improvement.
DEBRA: Yes, I’m really happy about that.
So what about oxalates? First, what’s an oxalate?
WENDY MYERS: I forgot to mention that.
DEBRA: There are no organic acids tests.
WENDY MYERS: The main reason you want to do the organic acids test, in my mind, is to find out if you have oxalates. And the Great Plains Laboratory is the only lab that does the organic acids test, that shows oxalates. Genova does not—many of my clients coming to me that the organic acids test with their doctor, using Genova, but you are missing a key component of the test, a key indicator of oxalates, which are major impediments to your health.
Oxalates are these little crystals that form in your body, one, through dietary intake. High oxalate foods include cacao, collagen, [inaudible 00:17:07] or using lots of collagen. I’m not a big fan of that because it’s very high in oxalates. A lot of greens like spinach and Swiss chard, the green smoothie fanatics out there, extremely high in oxalates. So you need to be very careful about that.
That’s just one aspect of oxalate intake. The next is if you had gut infections or long term gut infections, those produce oxalates as well.
DEBRA: I actually looked at the oxalate diet, and I was on it for a while because it was high oxalate—I had high oxalates in my body. But I was going on a kale kick, and you read things and you say, “Oh, I should be eating more greens, more kale, more this, more that.” But you don’t often find out the other side of it. And so if your body doesn’t deal with oxalates, well, then they’re going to build up and you need to watch out for that.
And so there’s all these balancing things that we need to watch out for.
WENDY MYERS: It’s a big problem. I find oxalates in 9 out of 10 people that I test. It continues to amaze me how many people have issues with oxalates. And when you have these, they cause so many problems in the body.
Number one, an inability to detox. The oxalates, these crystals will bind in mercury and lead and can make people very, very toxic, if these metals would be lodged in these crystals, and then lodged in your body, and you can’t detox them. It interferes in your entire body’s ability to detox, your ability the methylate, which means creating your own transmitters, and just so many different processes in your body are involved in methylation. It really gums up your whole body’s metabolism.
Not to mention causing really tight, achy muscles. People out there, their neck is always hurting, or you’re getting massages and just nothing helps it. They’re taking [inaudible 00:19:16]. Perhaps they’re taking pain medication or you have fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue. These can be caused by oxalates.
And so I think it’s very important, especially for anyone who has long term GI issues or known gut infections or parasitic infections. Get tested for oxalates and address it because it’s a fairly simple regimen to remove the oxalates from your body. And what I do with a client is I address the oxalates and once those have been broken down to a significant degree in the body by taking a handful of supplements and doing the low oxalate diet, after that, then I see what’s still left over that we need to address. But it really solves a lot of problems and removes a lot of health symptoms in the body that are bothering clients.
DEBRA: And it’s so not wildly known.
WENDY MYERS: No, it’s not. I don’t know why, but it’s not.
DEBRA: But it’s so important, and especially if you want to detox. And if you’re having problems detoxing, this could be something to look into.
We’re actually needing to go to break in about 40 seconds, so when we come back, let’s talk about neurotransmitters. I think you mentioned that the organic acids test tells about the neurotransmitters, right?
WENDY MYERS: It always shows the neurotransmitter metabolites. So it will only give an indication of an imbalance of them. But I like to do a direct test for neurotransmitters, which is a urine test. That’s a little bit different than your organic acids, but at least it gives an indication of some issues that require further investigation.
DEBRA: Okay, we’ll talk about that when we come back from the break.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Wendy Myers. She’s the founder and head writer of Liveto110.com, and she has a number of nutrition certifications that give information that is very different from other people that you will go to, including a doctor and other natural practitioners. Her website is Liveto110.com, and we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Wendy Myers. She’s the founder and head writer of Liveto110.com, and has many nutrition certifications. She knows more about nutrition and especially about detoxing than practically anybody I’ve talked to. She always amazes me with what new things she has to say.
Let’s talk about neurotransmitters. First, tell us what a neurotransmitter is, and what can go wrong with it.
WENDY MYERS: Well, neurotransmitters are substances made in the body. They begin with amino acids, so you have to have proper protein consumption and intestinal absorption of proteins.
And so this is very, very important. A lot of different things can interfere with neurotransmitter production. The main neurotransmitters people have are serotonin, dopamine, other catecholamine, like norepinephrine, epinephrine. And most importantly is gaba. A lot of people are missing gaba and we’re so overstimulated today with stuff like the internet and even just the effects of EMF and wireless internet on our body. And always looking at screens, and we’re getting caffeine all day, and doing all this stuff that we’re so stimulated, we are depleted in gaba.
DEBRA: What is gaba? What does it do for our bodies?
WENDY MYERS: Well, gaba is the break. Gaba is a substance that turns all the stimulating neurotransmitters off. So the adrenaline, the norepinephrine, the epinephrine, gaba shuts that down, so you can relax.
So anyone with anxiety, anyone who can’t go to sleep or they’re constantly waking up, they probably need gaba. And for me, it was life-changing when I started taking gaba. And I recommend it to almost every single of my clients because they all usually some sort of issue with sleeping or falling asleep, et cetera, or anxiety. You do want to do neurotransmitter test first because if you just take gaba, it can make you depressed if you’re depleted in some stimulating neurotransmitters. So there has to be a delicate balancing act where you may need to supplement the amino acids to improve and upregulate the production of stimulating neurotransmitters or gaba can make you feel down or depressed or really tired.
Another really important one that was really life-changing for me was PEA, and PEA is found in chocolate. So for all of you chocoholics out there, like myself, you may just be—
DEBRA: I love chocolate.
WENDY MYERS: Any of you women out there or men that are—you’re going to murder someone if you don’t have your chocolate.
DEBRA: I used to be that way but my body’s calmed down about it. And now, I feel like I have a choice that I can eat chocolate or not eat chocolate, and I’m okay either way, whereas before, I had to have my chocolate.
WENDY MYERS: I was that way for a number of years. I had to have my chocolate. Where’s the chocolate? And I’d have anxiety if I didn’t have it. And I made the correlation that when I ate chocolate, I was really able to focus and work really productively for a few hours following the consumption of chocolate. I thought it was just the sugar. I was doing a sugar high. But what I found out when I tested my neurotransmitters is that I was deficient in PEA, and chocolate contains PEA.
And so now that I’ve supplemented the precursor the PEA, which is phenylalanine, kind of a mouthful, I don’t even think about chocolate. And I lost actually—yes, it called phenylalanine, and it’s just a simple amino acid that I take in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon if I feel I need a little more brain functioning or concentration or focus. And it completely took away all my brain fog, any kind of remaining brain fog I have left over. I can focus for hours. My thinking is still clear. My verbiage, when I speak very, very clear, and it just was really life-changing for me, just taking this one supplement, and following supplementation of the phenylalanine, I lost 20 pounds in about two and a half months because I no longer ate this gigantic chocolate bar. Literally, I ate a massive chocolate bar about 2 to 3 pm every day. I wanted some sugar and I wanted some PEA, and that gave me the focus to finish off the rest of my day.
DEBRA: Let me tell you, as I have a similar story. So I don’t eat chocolate bars because I don’t want the sugar and stuff, and so I figured out how I could make with organic cocoa. I would make what I would call “fudge.” And so what I would do is I would take about a heaping teaspoon of organic cocoa. I would put in coconut sugar and grass-fed cream, and butter made from grass-fed cream. And I would mix it all up, and sometimes I put walnuts in it or some kind of flavoring like orange extract or something. But I had to have this every day after lunch. I just had to have it after lunch as I couldn’t work unless I had this chocolate.
And now, I don’t eat it anymore at all. I haven’t lost 20 pounds but the point is that I must be doing something right in my diet and in the supplements that I’m taking because I’ve gone from craving specific foods to—in the past couple of weeks, it’s been so ripe that—I don’t even want to eat almost. Yesterday, honestly, I made this wonderful salad that was all vegetables. It was lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocadoes, and I put wheat-free soy sauce on it and olive oil. And my body loved it so much. I got so much satisfaction out of that that I had it again for dinner.
And that’s all I ate yesterday. And if you were to have said to me eat that a few years ago, I would say no. I want my chocolate. And I felt good all day long.
WENDY MYERS: One of those things where when you are taking the right supplements, especially minerals, and you’re nourishing your body, you don’t need as much food and you don’t have the food craving you used to have. Before I started taking minerals, I always craved salt and vinegar potato chips, and my body just wanted that salt. It just desperately wanted that salt. And as soon as I started taking minerals, I started having calcium and magnesium and zinc and a handful of trace mineral complex, et cetera, it’s amazing to me that I never looked at them again.
DEBRA: That’s very interesting.
WENDY MYERS: It’s just amazing to me. So a lot of women out there I know are struggling with certain cravings and things like that, and biology will always overcome will power. And so you have to listen to your body. Your body is trying to get a nutrient need or minerals or if you’re craving chocolate, maybe PEA, magnesium, copper. There are all kinds of things that your body is craving that you probably need something in that. If you’re craving carbohydrates, your body is trying to make serotonin. You need serotonin.
DEBRA: We need to go to break. So hold on. And we’ll be right back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and today, I’m talking with Wendy Myers, founder and head writer of Liveto110.com. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Wendy Myers, founder and head writer of Liveto110.com, and holder of many certifications about nutrition that are far beyond what most nutritionists are going to talk to you about.
Wendy, so another test you have is the genetic test. Tell us about that and why should somebody get that done.
WENDY MYERS: Well, I love to do a genetic test on clients because it gives us a lot of information about nutrients people may be needing more of, should avoid. And it gives us a lot of information about—it explains to clients why they have certain health issues. For instance, if someone has a lot of GAD smith, or mutations in those genes, they’re going to have a lot more anxiety, a lot more propensity for drug and alcohol abuse, and it will explain why their family members or a lot of their family members have additions and things of that nature. It also will show someone’s propensity for certain issues, if they need to bio haggard, do a work around for.
Namely, if people have this one smith, they will need to really be worried about their estrogen. People that tend to have estrogen dominance and there are people that really need to worry about their liver health and be worrying about xenoestrogen intake and their environment or detoxing these estrogens because they’re at risk for estrogen-dependent cancers.
These are people that need to really maybe avoid hormone replacement therapy or birth control pills.
There’s a lot of different things that people learn about, about their health, and it can really help them to tailor their health regime or their supplement program, tailor it to their individual genetic needs.
DEBRA: So can there be information in this test that would help people understand how their body detoxes or doesn’t detox?
WENDY MYERS: Yes, exactly. It will tell me if people are having trouble making glutathione or if they have trouble with liver detoxification. It just gives a lot of different markers for detox issues. It also will give me markers for mitochondrial function or energy production, if they’ve got a lot of problems with their mitochondria and perhaps, it explains why they’re so tired all the time.
So again, it really helps me to really target their supplementation or get it more customized for their genetic issues. And that’s really, really important. There’s another pattern called the [inaudible 00:42:03] pattern, where these are people that cannot take flouroquinolone medications like antibiotics, certain antibiotics like Cipro and a handful of other family of antibiotics. And this will make them very, very sick.
I know there’s a lot of listeners out there that have taken Cipro, a round of antibiotics at the hospital with their doctor, and they were just never the same afterwards or it took them years to recover. So it can be very, very important to pinpoint if you have the [inaudible 00:42:36] pattern, but we call them [inaudible 00:42:38] because they need to avoid flouroquinolone medications because it can really kill them or make them extremely ill.
DEBRA: I’m actually really interested in the genetic test because I think that each of our bodies as an individual—we are like snowflakes. There are no two patters that are the same and our fingerprints are all unique. And I think that we probably all have unique genetic patterns that can tell us something about all these things that you’re talking about and where our strengths and weaknesses are. And we don’t know that if all we’re doing is taking drugs.
WENDY MYERS: Yes, exactly.
DEBRA: More and more I’m understanding the necessity to test whatever the test is, whatever method you use, to find out what’s really going on with your body because I see doctors just handing out prescription drugs. Of course, they do some testing but not as much as what you’re talking about and even natural practitioners whether they’re herbalists or homeopaths or whatever, it’s not that they’re not doing their own method—I’ve been to so many different people and I’ve never had a genetic test. And yet, that’s the basic blueprint of my body. And I didn’t even know that I could get one.
You hear about them on TV. Some character on a TV show needs a paternity test or something. But if you look at a hospital show or a doctor show, they’re not saying, “Well, let’s do a genetic test.” They just don’t do it.
WENDY MYERS: It takes a very special doctor to go outside his medical training, question his medical training and further their training even if they just have a personal interest or whatnot to be able to further their education and really want to provide their patients the very best care. Very few doctors that are cognizant of doing the latest test because it takes a lot of work. It’s a lot of reading and training, et cetera. Many doctors are overwhelmed with their patient load, especially if they work for HMO or whatnot, or at a clinic, a very busy clinic.
But it’s still important to learn about your genetics, your genetic weaknesses and propensities for certain diseases so you can do the work around for these, and the supplements according to your genes. But additionally, there’s a new field called pharmacogenetics where you can get a test done to find out what medications you should take and which ones you should avoid because every pharmaceutical company has to create a blueprint of the pathways that certain medications have to go through to be metabolized.
For a lot of people that have drug side effects or really bad side effects, it’s because they can’t metabolize certain drugs. So when you do this pharmacogenetic test, you can find out the drugs you should avoid or ones you should take. And you have to do this. I mean, I personally will never going to take medications but if you do take medications, which can be life-saving for many, you need to find out the ones you should avoid and the ones that work for your body.
DEBRA: Actually, I’ve never heard of that. That’s very interesting. But wouldn’t that also apply to—well, this test is designed for drugs, but to me, there should be a test like that for taking supplements. I just keep thinking about how so many people will take supplements or drugs or alternative therapies just on a shotgun approach, where you just take it and see what happens. And you’re approaching 180 degrees and absolutely opposite direction of saying, “Here are these tests and then I can give you supplements that are going to be exactly pinpointed for you.”
WENDY MYERS: And that’s important. It’s all about bio-individuality in supplementing according to you bio-individuality and taking medications based on your bio-individuality. And I have an article in my site about pharmacogenetics. It’s right on my homepage at Liveto110.com. I think it’s an incredibly interesting field that not a lot of people are talking about. You can get the testing with [inaudible 00:47:16] Laboratories. All those links and everything are on my website.
For me, I just think taking multivitamins are so 1990s. Today, it’s all about individual supplementation and medication.
DEBRA: I’m so glad to hear this. Now, we only just have about two minutes left. But I just want to mention that people can change their genetics. They can change their DNA. And so a test could be done before and then you could do things to improve your genetic situation. And a test done afterwards and see what happens.
WENDY MYERS: It’s very, very important.
DEBRA: Well, we only have a minute and a half left.
WENDY MYERS: So what was your question again?
DEBRA: I was talking about the genetic test and how we can change our DNA and that’s a whole show in itself about how we can change our DNA. I should probably do one on that. But we could take the test before and take the test after and see how we’ve changed our DNA.
WENDY MYERS: Actually, genes don’t really change at all. You want to do that test one time, which is great. But you can change your genetics or prevent mutation by detoxing your body and by eating a healthy diet. You have to be cognizant of this because many metals and chemicals cause our genes to mutate, and you can pass this down to your children, the future generation. So I think we’re becoming more and more sick as a population because of so many metals and chemicals in our environment mutating our genes, causing cancer, mutating cells, et cetera. But the gene mutations do get passed down to your children.
So it’s a paramount importance today to be thinking about your health, eating the right diet, avoiding chemicals in your diet, and thinking about a lifelong detoxification strategy which I talk a lot about on my podcast in the Live to 110 Podcast and on my website as well.
DEBRA: And I need to interrupt you again because we’ve only got several seconds now. So I want to say thank you so much. And everybody can go to Liveto110.com and Wendy has such interesting articles there and podcasts. Liveto110.com. You can also go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and find out more about the guest to come and the guest from the past. All of our shows are recorded and you can listen to the archives.
I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about your kidneys and how to keep them healthy in our toxic world. Your kidneys filter all your blood so they are constantly exposed to toxic chemicals that have made their way into your body. More than 31 million people in the United States alone are on dialysis because their kidneys don’t function. Learn what you can do naturally to protect your kidneys. Doctors have no drugs to help kidneys, but nature can protect and restore them. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph
Date of Broadcast: June 03, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free. It’s Wednesday, June 3rd 2015 and it’s, again, a beautiful day in Clearwater, Florida. It’s our sunny summer. And let’s see, I have a thermometer on my window. It’s 84° here. We’re having summer.
Today, we’re going to be talking about kidneys, our wonderful, valuable kidneys that do so much for us to detox and how we can end up with kidney failure.
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s on every other Wednesday. So she will be on again two weeks from now and every two weeks after that. And you can also, I should say, go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and you can listen to her past shows because what we’re doing is we’re talking about different parts of the body, different illnesses that people have, different drugs that people take and how those things can be taken care of with natural remedies. So if you’re just tuning in and hearing her for the first time, you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and listen to all her past shows.
So today, we’re talking about kidneys. I especially wanted to talk about kidneys because the way kidneys work is all the blood in your body passes through your kidneys and so all the toxic chemicals that may be in your body, the heavy metals and all those things, in addition to all the body waste that are floating around in your body all passes through the kidneys. Those toxic chemicals can damage the kidneys. And when your kidneys stop functioning, then your kidneys aren’t taking those toxic chemicals out of your body. And also, when your kidneys stop functioning, you end up on dialysis.
Pamela, I’m getting to you. I just want to say this because I just got this email yesterday with an ad for something and it said that the average annual cost of monthly dialysis treatments is $44,000!
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, I would believe that. In fact, in 2009, Medicare here in this country (and then of course, today, it’s even more, but that’s the last statistic), just on kidney failure alone, they spent $33.8 billion.
Debra: I looked at that and I thought, “I can’t have kidney failure.” That number really woke me up.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s a tremendous cost and it’s a tremendous disability to the patient as well.
Debra: Yes, because you have to go in – let’s see, it also said something about you have to go in for four hours three times a week or something like that.
So explain to us. If somebody is on dialysis, what’s going on with their kidneys or what’s not going on with their kidneys?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, good. This is just kind of a lead-in to talk a little bit about what’s going on with people and kidney failure. What typically will happen is you have some common things that put you at risk for kidney failure. The most prevalent is diabetes. Diabetes can put you at risk because of the sugar going to the kidneys. Secondly is high blood pressure that’s not treated. So maybe somebody is in hypertension and they’re not taking something for it.
There’s something called glomerulonephritis, which is the inflammation of the glomeruli or the cells in the kidney themselves. And sometimes, people can have a hereditary disease. That’s the next thing. And then, also, there’s something called interstitial nephritis and pyelonephritis. That’s when people get urinary tract infection and the area keeps getting inflamed and infected. And sometimes, people have inflammation of the blood vessels.
So those are the ways that these can take place. But I can tell you from personal experience seeing people’s blood work that a lot of people are in pre-kidney failure and they’re not aware of it. And actually, nine out of ten people who have stage III chronic kidney disease, moderately decreased kidney function do not know it at all. This is what’s really bad because if they don’t know it, they can’t do anything about it. Dialysis really is the end means of everything. And definitely, you want to avoid that.
Debra: So you were telling me what happens when people go to the doctor and what doesn’t happen about kidney. Tell our listeners about that.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So what I see (and this is pretty typical) is that [beeping 00:05:32] nine out of ten people that have stage III kidney disease do not even know it. They’re not told about it. So what happens is you go through your physical, you have your blood work, your routine blood work [beeping 00:05:43] and they do what’s called the CMP, which has the kidney function as part of the panel. If somebody’s serum creatinine is mildly elevated (let’s say it’s 1.2 or something like that), most of the time the doctor doesn’t even mention it. And the reason they don’t mention it is because they don’t have anything for it. When you go to the physician, we’re really looking for medicine, right? There’s no medicine for that.
So what they typically will tell one of my patients is we’re going to send you to the nephrologist (who’s a kidney doctor) and then, when they go to the nephrologist, the nephrologist tells them, “I’ll see you every six months. And then when you go on the dialysis, I’ll see you every month.” I told one of my clients, “Are those the kind of odds you want?” That’s what they offer, dialysis. And unfortunately, in the pharmaceutical realm, there is really nothing that they have that’s efficient for preventing kidney disease.
So I would really urge the listeners that if they’re already having some elevation in their serum creatinine, they can call me. It’s a free consultation. I can tell them some things that they can do because I have had very good luck with some of the homeopathic products reversing the pre-kidney failure.
Debra: Yeah. I think the numbers are staggering. What did you say to me… 3.31 million people in the United States are on dialysis?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, chronic kidney disease, 31 million. Kidney disease is the 8th leading cause of death in the United States. It’s just something I tell people to take seriously.
All kidding aside, there’s a lot of different things – maybe someone has gastritis, maybe they have IBS, maybe they have diabetes, either chronic or ongoing hypertension. These are all ongoing problems and they can all add up to bigger problems as we can see.
But when someone has pre-kidney disease, their serum creatinine is starting to be mildly elevated, the time to act is now. That’s not one of these things that you want to just sit around saying, “Well, you know, let me think about it.” These things are very insidious and they can creep up on you. These can become extremely debilitating.
There are also some racial ethnic risks. It looks like relative to whites, the risk for African Americans is 3.8 times higher. Native Americans are two times higher and Asian is 1.3 times higher for a person to develop kidney disease. So knowing that almost 40% of all kidney failure cases are related to diabetes, it’s important to be using some homeopathic products that can prevent the sugar from increasing too much to start damaging the kidneys and also, to reverse the pre-kidney failure itself.
These are things that you can really look at. The statistics are really overwhelming.
Debra: And I just want to say again (and I’m probably going to say this twenty times during this show), toxic chemicals in your body that you’re being exposed to every day, if you’re not reducing your toxic chemical exposure, if you’re not reducing your heavy metal exposure, then all these things – the kidney is the filter.
Pamela, tell us how the kidney functions so that everybody gets that this really is a filter. So all these stuff is coming through your body, then you’re just damaging your kidneys. Your kidneys, every time, it’s having to deal with these toxic chemicals. And you can stop the toxic chemicals by not being exposed to them in the first place. So tell us more about how the kidney functions.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, the kidney regulates water and electrolytes and it also regulates protein. So when someone is in pre-kidney failure, they might be spilling out a lot of protein into the urine, protein that normally is reabsorbed and stays in the blood.
Also, sodium and potassium, the electrolytes are affected by a person’s kidney function as well. That’s why a person might be – what I like to say is that the electrolytes will get messed up. So many times, when a person is on dialysis, they have to put electrolytes into the dialysate to try and compensate for that.
So it’s not just that the kidney is filtering – and I want to tell people too that the best time that the kidneys are filtering your blood is when you’re sleeping. The reason why is your center of gravity changes and of course, the center of gravity and all the fluids in your body pretty much are going through the kidneys at a higher rate during that time.
That’s part of the reason why when you go to bed at night, you think you have to keep getting up and going to the bathroom. The reason why is because your body is really trying to clean up everything from the day time during that process while you’re sleeping.
So there are very different types of kidney disease and we can probably just break down each one. What I would say is you need to look at your risk factors. And if you don’t know your serum creatinine number, that’s very, very important. Call your doctor and find out when was the last time you had your blood work done and what was the number.
Anything above one, I start to be concerned. Most people are going to be lower than that. And then also, there’s something that we calculate in pharmacy and in medicine called creatinine clearance. That’s kind of basing your age and your weight. That calculation can be done and that’s also another indicator of how your kidneys are functioning.
But I really want to impress upon listeners that there’s a product…
Debra: Wait, wait, wait. Pamela, we have to go to break, so you can talk about this when we come back.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, okay. Sorry.
Debra: It’s okay.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Thank you.
Debra: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who uses natural substances instead of drugs. We’ll be right back.
Debra: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. You should just call her up if you have any questions because she’s totally happy to talk to you. Pamela, why don’t you give your phone number?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. My telephone number here at my pharmacy is 727-442-4955. That’s 722-442-4955. I would be most grateful and honored if I could help you or your family with any of the things we talked about today or any other issues you might have about your medications or your health.
Debra: Pamela, she’s right here in Clearwater with me and she’s very well-regarded in the Clearwater community. The medical doctor that I go to, I told him that I was taking something that she had given me and he said, “If Pamela tells you to take it, take it.” She’s just very highly regarded.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Hmmm… that’s great. Yeah.
Debra: So creatinine, did I say that right?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. Correct, yes, the creatinine. That’s the magic number. You need to know where your serum creatinine normally lies. A lot of times, people look at the BUN, which is called blood urea and nitrogen. That’s another measurement. But the BUN sometimes doesn’t always correlate as much with the kidney as human creatinine. And that is pharmacy. When we dose medication, when we decide to adjust somebody based on their kidney function for their medications when they come into the hospital, a lot of its calculations are based on the serum creatinine.
So knowing what that number is – and I would really urge your listeners, if your serum creatinine is mildly elevated, anything above 1.0, I’d be glad to have a brief discussion as far as what they can do to get it down and prevent your risk.
But it’s interesting. Another statistic here says, “Dialysis patients have adjusted all-cause mortality rates 6.5 to 7.4 times higher than the general population.” So not only the fact that the debility, the fact that you’re spending hours a week sitting on a chair being dialyzed, you have a much higher chance of dying. And don’t forget too diabetes with it, not just the kidney failure, but just the complications of amputations and eye problems and so forth.
So all these things are all-encompassing and we really want to treat them. I think it’s important to mention that once you know what your serum creatinine numbers – and especially, I would urge anybody that has some pre-diabetes or diabetes, since that’s really a big, integral part of leading into kidney failure, you know what that number is. I have encouraged earlier that perhaps if that number is mildly elevated, I really would like to help you get the number down.
Most people will think of the kidneys as taking cranberry. I want to just focus on some of those things. What cranberry does, when you take it – and I’m not talking the cranberry juice a lot of times. You want to take the concentrated cranberry in a capsule because the juice has a lot of sugar. But when you take cranberry, what it does is it prevents bacteria from adhering to the bladder wall. So somebody that has urinary tract infections with frequency – which of course, also put people at risk for kidney problems. You want to make sure that this isn’t something that happens quite frequently, that you take some preventive mentions. Taking cranberry capsules would be one of them.
The Body Anew, we talked about this before, is the detox product. And your emphasis the prior part of the discussion on the chemicals and what’s it doing to your kidneys, I really would encourage and let people know that what happens with Body Anew is it goes to the liver and in the liver, it up-regulates what’s called glucuronidation and conjugation.
Those terms are how a fat-soluble drug like a pesticide or a chemical is changed into a water-soluble substance via the liver. And as a result of that, it’s able to be filtered into the kidneys and into the urine. So that’s how things leave the body. By up-regulating that process, you’ll probably have a much better outcome and less chance of having any damage.
Debra: It’s important to do that. And we can always just avoid them in the first place. But in today’s world, we really can’t avoid every single chemical or every single thing that’s harmful to us. We can do a lot and everything that we can do to reduce it, I think, everybody should do. I do as much as I can.
But we can do all these things in our homes. We can choose what we’re eating, we can filter our water. We can do all these things, but we’re walking around in the world. And when you’re walking around in the world and there’s all these toxic chemicals and you’re going to be exposed to something. And so the more we can do to reduce that home, the more we can do to detox our bodies, the better off our kidneys will be and every other part of our body.
PAMELA SEEFELD: And it also is important to mention some other things that people won’t probably think of as frequently causing some kidney issues. Dehydration is first and foremost a very important problem. We’re in the warm climate here. If you’re doing a lot of exercise, if you’re doing a lot of yard work and you’re not drinking enough fluids and you notice that your urine is really concentrated, that’s bad. When you have that situation, you’re not putting enough fluid and water through the kidneys to try and filter that out.
And also, I want to caution on doing too much protein. Protein, a lot of people, they want to lose weight. Everything’s got protein fortified in it now. I like to eat a lot of protein. I feel better because of the exercise I do. But protein, you need to compensate that with lots of water. So if you’re going to do a high protein diet, you’re going to do an Atkin’s diet, you’re going to eat a lot of meat or whatever kind of protein you want, but if your protein in your diet is 75 to 150 grams a day (you’re doing protein shakes and protein bars and all these kinds of things), you need to be making sure that you’re consuming enough water to clean that out.
The protein being too high can also lead to kidney failure. I’ve seen that before with people doing more of an Atkin’s type diet trying to lose weight and not drinking enough water at the same time. All of a sudden, their serum creatinine go up. Also, too, what you see with people eating too much meat, their calcium levels will go up in their bloodstream and that’s indicative of bone loss because calcium is a buffer and will go out into the bloodstream to try and buffer the elevated acidity. So you could actually end up with very bad frail bones and fractures too.
So those are some things I just want people to know. These are lifestyle things that you’d really want to take a look at. Make sure that you’re hydrated correctly. And if you’re going to eat a high protein diet, you’re drinking enough water to make sure that you can clean all that through your kidneys.
Debra: Yes, that’s very, very important especially in the summer time. Right now, it’s summer time. I know people are going to listen to this in the archives in different times of years. It’s just so important to get enough water, just so important because the water is flushing all those toxic things out of your body through the kidneys.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. Water is the most important. And I would say too that when you’re drinking the water, check and see what your baseline is. You can look at your electrolytes and so forth, but a lot of times, people forget too that if they’re drinking a lot of water, they’re sweating. You want to make sure you have maybe some electrolytes in the water too.
Debra: Yes, I agree with that as well. We need to go to break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who has a natural pharmacy with many, many things to help with many different things going on with your body. We’ll be right back.
Debra: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances in her natural pharmacy in Clearwater, Florida. Her website is BotanicalResource.com.
Okay! Pamela, so tell us what we can do to protect our kidneys.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, good. I want to talk a little bit too about hypertension. Say someone doesn’t want to be in medicines and their blood pressure is mildly elevated. We have the systolic and diastolic blood pressure. That’s the second leading cause of kidney failure. We’ll talk a little bit about the second.
What really works well to get the top number down if your top number is high is something called [Inaudible 00:27:31]. It’s a 12-hour release 1500 mg. time-released [inaudible 00:27:31]. If you take it every 12 hours, typically you’ll see that number come down about 20 points. It works on cortisol and the adrenals. And just this particular formulation seems to work the best. I’ve tried several different [inaudible 00:27:43], but this one brings it down the fastest. So if somebody has a higher systolic blood pressure, their top number, that’s what I would recommend.
[Inaudible 00:27:51] Complex is a homeopathic product. It’s a medical product. It will lower the diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number, probably 20 to 30 points probably between five to seven days.
Debra: That’s fast.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. This is really important. So if you know you have some borderline hypertension, you don’t want to take the medicines, you were on the beta blockers maybe before, you don’t want to take them, you’re trying to get off your medicines, whatever situation you might have, you definitely would be wanting to treat the hypertension and try these things first because these have no side effects and they’re natural alternatives to blood pressure medicine.
So treating hypertension is really important because like I said, that’s the second leading cause of the diabetes.
Now, cystitis is where there’s inflammation in the bladder. People that get cystitis, sometimes they see blood in the urine and sometimes they don’t. But they’ll find it painful to void. The people that have cystitis know about this. Interstitial cystitis is actually pretty common.
And what works great to treat cystitis – and of course, cystitis is actually number four as far as causes of kidney problems – is Quercetin. Quercetin works great just to close up those leaky membranes and the inflammation because Quercetin has anti-histaminic properties, it has vascular stabilizing properties and it can work really well in those interstitial spaces in the bladder to prevent some of these things.
Also, there’s a homeopathic product called Hamamelis. Hamamelis is a homeopathic witch hazel and it’s an astringent inside the body, so it can work on blood vessel swelling anywhere in the body.
Any of these are homeopathic, so when you take them, what happens is these products concentrate in the urine when you take them orally. So that’s just typically what happens with even medications. That’s why when we treat urinary tract infections – say someone is very sick and are in the hospital. They have a urinary tract infection and they’re getting IV’s. They can use a much lower dose of medication that we can for, let’s say, a lung infection.
So it’s important to realize that whatever you take is going to concentrate on the urine. And Hamamelis has high effects specifically for that. That’s why it’s important for people to realize that sometimes, you can use less homeopathic medicine if you’re treating kidney bladder than if you’re doing other areas of the body. It’s probably a little fact that many people don’t know.
Debra: I didn’t know any of those little facts.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. Well, it’s kind of pharmacology 101. It’s like what we do in the hospital, but most people aren’t going to really realize that. So what you would want to do is you can concentrate them by drinking them. And that’s the great part because if you think about it, that’s where all things kind of end up. That’s the end result. So that’s very important for people to realize.
Now, the first leading cause (and we had talked a little bit about diabetes) is diabetes. Using some things that can lower the blood pressure is really important. So, all the time, I recommend people use the Body Anew just to get the chemicals out of their body. But you can add in the pericardium triple warmer to lower your blood sugar if that’s the cause.
And a lot of people perhaps that sees their fasting blood sugar in the 90 to the 110 range, that’s pre-diabetes and you might want to treat that especially if you see that your serum creatinine is starting to become elevated. I really have to impress upon to people. The take-home message today, find out what your serum creatinine is and find out what your fasting blood sugar is. Those numbers mean a lot.
Debra: Yes, yes, very much so. And let me just ask you a question about people getting blood test. I get a blood test every three months, but I think that most people don’t. I don’t even remember the first time I got a blood test, but it seems like I went through most of my childhood not having a blood test at all. Blood tests can tell you so much. Can you just talk about that for a little bit?
PAMELA SEEFELD: So the blood test, why it’s important – and typically, when we’re looking at these things, you can order what’s called a BMP, which is a basic metabolic profile and that will have the kidney function and it’ll have the electrolytes and the fasting glucose. It just has a few things.
When you do your physical or even if you’re doing it every year or every other year, you want probably what’s called the CMP, which is the complete metabolic profile and that has your liver function. It has all these other things that are very important to look at as well.
When people have the blood sugar – most people’s fasting blood sugar should be between 75 and 85. Well, that’s not going to hit the majority of the population, but that’s ideal. So any time where you’re starting to get into the 90’s and into the 100’s, you’re maybe not ready for medicine, but you’re getting there. I would just caution your listeners that if those numbers are already starting to creep up and then the serum creatinine number is starting to go up, you need to treat that.
And what I’d like to emphasize that the treatment for serum creatinine, mild elevation or even if it’s really high, if it’s over two is something called detox II. Detox II was designed specifically for the kidney and I’ve seen very, very good results with it.
There was another product they used to use called Renil that was out of Germany, but I’m not able to get that anymore. They’re only making it in Europe. But the Detox II is having the same result I used to receive with my patients for the Renil. This is a liquid, which is a lot easier to dose because the other one is a tablet, so you had to dissolve it in your mouth.
But what I’d like to emphasize (and this is very important), if somebody has a serum creatinine mild elevation, I have seen personally three patients in the last year that their serum creatinine went down dramatically. And one was really a great success. My point is that he came to me (and he had been a client for a very long time, he still is) and the doctor told him the dialysis, “You’ll get pre-kidney failure. I’ll be seeing you more often.” The kidney doctor was telling him how he’s going to have to go on dialysis someday. He came to me and I said, “I don’t want that.” I agreed 100%. This is not just an option we want to explore.
So he went on a Detox II for 30 days and his serum creatinine went from 1.9 to 1.3. Now, that’s a huge difference. Life is about like, “You know things I don’t know and I know things you don’t know,” but if you would know from a professional standpoint (anybody that’s in the medical field that knows what these numbers mean), for 30 days, to have that number drop that much – and he’s perfectly fine now. It’s a very big deal.
So I have to tell people that if you don’t do anything else, this is something that you really probably need to take with the body in order to clean this up.
Debra: Yes. Yes, there are things that can be done and we don’t have to – you know, I think that earlier in my life – and I don’t think this way anymore. I think a lot of people think this way if they haven’t changed their minds. It’s like you go through life and you just don’t do anything about your health until you have symptoms or you can’t get out of bed or whatever. And then you go to the doctor and it’s already too late sometimes or more difficult.
But if you can get these blood tests, if you know what you’re looking for, if you can catch it early, it’s a lot easier to turn things around.
We need to go to break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. We’ll be right back.
Debra: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist. Pamela, why don’t you give your phone number again for people who might want to call you to ask about their kidney problems?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. My number here at my pharmacy is 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955. I would be grateful to help you with your kidney problem or any other issues you might have. And I have to emphasize that it’s really not about selling things. Debra knows that I do a lot of things outside of this. This is just more of something of my passion that I really know I can do very well. If your human creatinine is even mildly elevated, I really encourage you to try and get that number down and prevent some of the problems that are associated with kidney disease, which can be very debilitating.
Debra: Yes, and I know Pamela. She and I are friends. And so I know that she’s not doing this to make money. She doesn’t need to do this to make money. She’s doing it as a public service that she’s bringing her knowledge as a pharmacist.
And Pamela, I was just thinking so much as we’ve been talking that we should do the next show on Pharmacology 101 because…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Good idea!
Debra: Yeah. Because I think that people don’t understand about what a pharmacist knows and can do and how you have a different perspective. So let’s do that for the next show.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I think that’s an excellent idea. All these little tidbits are things that I can reveal of how things work in the body, where they go and how to…
Debra: Right. You know these things. You have a different perspective than anyone else I’ve ever talked to about how these substances go in the body, how they work. You were talking about dosing earlier.
Nobody knows anything about dosing, but you know as a pharmacist that things have to be dosed correctly.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, because once you know the dynamics of the vitamins or the things you’re taking, you can use that to your advantage to see that things are more effective. If you’re going to pay money for something, you’re going to take it, take the time and take it, count it out and take it, you really do want them to work well and you want to take it so they work properly and perhaps some thing that need to be with food, some things don’t, some things, you can concentrate more in a particular area of the body by doing certain select things. It is very important to realize that you have control over some of these.
Debra: Okay. So we’re going to do this for the next show. Now, two weeks from now, we’re doing a replay because it’s my birthday and I’m going on vacation.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Happy birthday!
Debra: It will be four weeks from today.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s great.
Debra: So I’ll tell you, it’s going to be my 60th birthday. Can you imagine that?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Oh, my Lord. That’s wonderful! I think you definitely don’t look it. I’m very happy for you.
Debra: Thank you, thank you. Listeners, she sees me all the time, so she knows what I look like.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, yeah. She looks great. You don’t look sixty at all. No, you look great.
Debra: No, no. People, sometimes they ask me how old I am and I always say, “How old do you think I am?” The other day, a man said to me that he thought I was 47.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I believe it. Maybe even younger. No, you have great skin and you look very healthy. You don’t have a wrinkle on your face.
Debra: Thank you. Alright! So let’s keep talking about kidneys. Go ahead.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So what I would like to emphasize in some of the things we were talking about is if you have any of these symptoms, if you’re dehydrated a lot because you work outside and you’re not drinking enough water, if you have diabetes or pre-diabetes and your fasting blood sugar is in the 90 or 100 range, but they haven’t diagnosed you as a diabetic yet, if you’re borderline hypertension that you’re either treating or not treating, that’s something that really needs to be addressed as well.
And I was talking about cystitis. People know when they have cystitis or some kind of inflammation in the bladder. That’s very important to treat.
I was talking about some simple things to use for those particular things. When we look at chronic kidney disease and we think about what’s happening, the fact that nine out of ten people don’t even really know that they have kidney disease yet because the doctors haven’t mentioned it to them (and I told you the reason why. By default, they don’t really have anything for it, so they kind of wait until things get bad), this is one thing –
There are a lot of things in medicine when you go to your physician that he’s really in control of the situation and monitoring these things and trying to make good decisions for you. But when it comes to your kidney, I have to really emphasize that you’re pretty much on your own.
You’re going to have to know what these numbers are. If it’s starting to elevate at all over the course of the year too, it’s time to take action and not wait because these people, the nine out of ten people that don’t realize they have pre-kidney failure, it’s pretty bad once the revelation that comes to light that they have this. This might be something that unfortunately is not being shared with you.
Debra: I want to say I know some people don’t even have doctors. And so if you don’t have a doctor and you’re not going to a doctor on a regular basis and you don’t have a medical professional who can diagnose and run blood test – especially I know people who go to chiropractors or massage therapist or herbalists or what, none of those people can order blood tests.
But here’s what you can do. There are places now. Just go online and type in ‘blood test’.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Good point.
Debra: I was just looking this up the other day because there are places where you can just walk in and you can get a blood test without a doctor’s order. They have a doctor on staff. You can walk in and say, “I want a creatinine test” and it will be $45 or something. I don’t know, I haven’t looked it up to know. But you can order these tests individually. You can order a panel. All these things that a doctor will order for you, you can order yourself now.
And then you can see what your fasting blood sugar is. You can see your creatinine. And whatever else you want to know about your body, you can look on the blood test.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. And this is really great information for your listeners because it’s true. A lot of people are using alternative practitioners to MDs and NDOs. And as a result, they’re just not given access to this information. It’s really important.
If you have not done this, I really think having a baseline number is very, very important because once you know where your baseline is, you have a reference.
And if the person’s serum creatinine as I had stated earlier is anything over 1.0, that’s when I start to think, “Okay, it’s starting to come there. It’s starting to get a little bit worse.” Anything over 1.5, you’re starting to get closer to two, I’d seen people that they really hadn’t been to the doctor in a while, the serum creatinine was closer to two and they really had to try and get their mind around that they were starting to have kidney failure and was getting worse. The treatments that they’re offering are none. I mean, the doctor doesn’t have anything for them.
So really using the Detox II and Body Anew. And what I would do is I’ll tell people to do a month’s course and get the number repeated and see where it’s at. It’s going to be down. And hopefully, it’s going to be close to normal and then there can be a decision making time, “Do I need to continue this? Do I need to continue it for a few days a week?” I must emphasize too that I have used this on dogs. Animals will respond to the homeopathy as well. I’ve had two dogs that had some pre-kidney failures and the drops reversed it. And actually, one of them was my dog that I’ve treated before in the past. She had a mild elevation of her serum creatinine and I got it back down.
So it’s important to realize that even your pets might be at risk for these kinds of things as well. This is something that can be easily treated with, some simple drops to put in the water. I really would think if we had nothing else to summarize for the talk today, that you need to know what your baseline number is of your fasting blood sugar, you need to know what your serum creatinine is and you need to know your blood pressure.
And the blood pressure, you can even take these just at a drugstore. They have these little machines someplace. But knowing what your blood pressure is, if your blood pressure is high, this is something that you have to treat.
Debra: And it all comes down to awareness of what’s going on with our bodies. It’s not about focusing on illness. It’s just focusing on monitoring what is going on in your body. You want to know is something normal or is something cause for needing to do something about it. The earlier you can touch these things, if you just know to look at blood sugar, at blood pressure, at creatinine, whatever those basic things are and look at them on a regular basis especially if you’re going to an alternative practitioner who’s not a medical doctor, you’re not going to a check-up, a yearly check-up where they would check these things, then you need to check these things.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, this is really important. And I’m assuming there’s probably a portion of the people listening that really never had given second thought to this. And that’s okay.
Debra: I think so.
PAMELA SEEFELD: This is to reveal what’s really going on. Those numbers belong to you. Those numbers are indicative of something going on in your body that you don’t feel any difference. That’s the problem, you can’t tell. You can’t look and say, “I feel like I’m having some pre-kidney failure.” There are no signs and symptoms. All of a sudden, they’re going to come to you with this number, send you to the kidney doctor and that’s about it. And really, I think those are terrible odds.
Debra: I agree, I agree. It’s just like all of a sudden, we’re going to go to the kidney doctor. No, I’d rather know a little beforehand, so that we can do something about it. And that’s basically what we’re talking about today especially since our kidneys are just being bombarded with toxic chemicals all the time. It’s like poor, little kidneys. We need to take care of them. We need to be aware of what’s going on with them.
So Pamela, thank you so much for…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Thank you. I really enjoyed talking. And if anyone has any questions, please give me a call. I really would love to help you.
Debra: Yes, she’s really good. The doctors around here love her. The patients around here love her. She does really good work. She has many things to choose from and she knows what to tell you what doses to take and how they affect your body.
So I want to tell you more about Toxic Free Talk Radio. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and you can listen to all the past shows. There are more than 200 of them. I also have transcripts for many of the shows. You can go listen to past shows that Pamela has been, but I have a wide variety of people talking about different issues about living in a toxic-free way.
So thanks for listening. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. Be well.
How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about our blood vessels today—what can go wrong and how to keep them in good shape to carry blood to all parts of your body. We’ll cover problems with blood vessels in the eye, the legs, and peripheral neuropathy experienced by diabetics. There are no drugs for these conditions, but they are highly responsive to supplements, and we’ll learn which to take. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing with Supplements
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld
Date of Broadcast: May 20, 2015
DEBRA: Hi. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free. It is Wednesday, May 20th, 2015. It’s a beautiful day here in Clearwater, Florida. The sun is shining. We’re probably going to have thunderstorms, but not during this hour. It’s a beautiful day.
Anyway, today is Wednesday. Every other Wednesday, my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs.
She just has so much knowledge about things that can help your body that aren’t drugs and how to get off of drugs and how your body works. She just has so much information and she’s so healthy. She is the healthiest person I’ve ever seen. I can hear they are laughing in the background.
Pamela lives here in Clearwater, Florida with me. Not with me, but here in Clearwater, Florida just as I do and she’s very well-regarded in our community. The first time I met her face to face, I just thought this the healthiest looking person I’ve ever seen.
Anyway, I have her on every other Wednesday, so that she can just give us all her wisdom and knowledge. Hi, Pamela.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Thanks for the great intro. It’s wonderful to be here.
DEBRA: Thank you. Today, we’re talking about vascular health. I’m just going to let you explain to our listeners what vascular health is because I think it’s something that most of us don’t even think about.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct. And this is a really good topic to talk about because it encompasses a lot of the diseases and a lot of the issues that people face. Vascular health, I want to say in a simpler word, is all-encompassing. It can be explained. The blood vessel health and the ways the permeability of the blood vessels themselves are connected too.
I’m just going to just go through some of the things we’re going to talk about today literally starting from the top of our body, allergies, sinus infections, so on and so forth, glaucoma, eye problems, lungs, asthma, GI, colitis, Crohn’s, leaky gut, your legs, peripheral vascular disease, going all the way down to your body. Your blood vessels and how they’re functioning are responsible for a lot of the outcome of these particular states. So it’s really important that we focus on this.
What we can do to close up the leaky gut membrane, close up the vasculature and also improve the health of it in case things are impregnated and stuck in these particular areas? This is what’s really important.
If you think about it, all these disease states are directly responsible from the vascular health. That’s the very, very foundation of the problem.
DEBRA: That’s so interesting. Before you tell us everything you want to tell us, I want to ask you a question. When toxic chemicals come into your body, they get carried all around your body through the blood vessels, right?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct.
DEBRA: Yeah. So are they damaging the blood vessels as they’re moving around?
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s a very good question. I went and did a search in the library of medicine. We’ve known this, but there are really interesting studies.
The big thing is the chemicals themselves can cause genes to change and change the expression of them and can cause cancer. Of course, we already know that’s what does cause cancer, if the genes are expressed for cancer. They have to nudge it along, usually the chemical that we come in contact with.
But a particular concern as well is exposure to particulate matter constituents in the air. What we know is that long-term exposure to particulate matter – usually these things, you can’t see in the air because they’re copper, iron, nickel, potassium, sulfur, silicon, things like that, vanadium, zinc, moving [inaudible 00:05:04] around things, get tossed up into the air and these particulates.
And we’re not even talking about factories because we’re not really actually near factories here. But it does apply to other people that perhaps are.
You’re breathing these things in. It is directly associated with the increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Where’s the cardiovascular? Your vascular system.
DEBRA: Right.
PAMELA SEEFELD: So we know that for some reason it is directly correlated when people are exposed to these things, these airborne particulates that we breathe in. There are very poor outcomes as far as cardiovascular health. And this actually might explain why cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the country.
DEBRA: The EPA has said that air pollution, indoor air pollution actually is the number one health problem in the country.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.
DEBRA: It’s just…
PAMELA SEEFELD: That would make sense.
DEBRA: That would make sense because we’re breathing all these gasses and particulates coming from consumer products that we have in our homes, unless of course you’ve been listening to the show and going to my website and taking all those out of your homes.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah. That’s true. It’s important that people realize that we have some control over these things, but also there are some things that are way out of our control. We have to be responsible and understand that most people are going to have an issue in their lifetime.
Maybe they have asthma. Maybe they have leaky gut. Maybe they have IBS. All these things are related to the blood vessels. That’s why we really need to focus on what’s the very bottom line. The basement membrane is where all these problems originally take place.
DEBRA: Okay. So go ahead and tell us about our vascular system because I learn so much from you with all I think take-in biology and things in school. I think that most people are not aware of what’s going on in their bodies when I ask people. “Do you know what your body systems are?” People would say, “What?”
The cardiovascular system is a very, very important system. But when we hear that word cardiovascular, I think most people don’t know that cardio means heart and vascular means your blood vessels. That’s why anytime you hear that now, just think heart and blood vessels. It’s the whole system in your whole body.
So tell us what the cardiovascular system does.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You have to think of it like the pipeline. All these blood vessels, you have these really small blood vessels, the capillaries, literally these red blood cells that are going through a single [inaudible 00:07:37], these large areas where the blood flow is massive and it’s fast.
The heart is obviously pumping the blood and it’s going through our body. And this is a closed circulatory system or it’s a closed piping system.
What we want to concentrate on is to say that the blood vessels themselves are made of cells, each individual cell and they’re all sitting next to each other, altogether and they form this particular means of allowing blood to go flow through the body and allow waste products, oxygen, these things, nutrients to bring to the cell.
So we know this is the exchange process taking place. What’s really interesting is that when you think about the blood vessel, you have to realize that our blood vessels are sensitive to things that can cause permeability issues.
Let’s talk about the sinus infection. Let’s just talk about that. Sinus infection or the runny nose allergies, when you have this, the fluid has to come from someplace.
What happens is there are permeability issues in the nose and in the sinuses. The fluid that normally is inside the blood vessel is allowed to escape to some degree and it goes into the sinus cavities and then you have to blow your nose. That’s how it happens. It’s got to come from someplace and that’s what happens.
We think about just the simplicity of it. If we use vascular stabilizers throughout the body, we can have the blood vessels in one area like the sinuses – maybe you have allergic rhinitis, you have the allergies, you can affect that. But there are also the other parts.
So I tell people, a good example is when somebody has spider veins or the blood vessels are breaking really easily and they have a lot of bruising. They have blood vessel problems elsewhere.
I see this too in the people that have hemorrhoid. Hemorrhoid, you’re going to have trouble with blood vessels in the eye. You’re going to have allergies. You’re going to have other things too because the blood vessels are swelling and the rest of them are also swelling in other areas as well.
That’s the thing that people really need to get their head around. Inflammation and swelling and permeability issues in one area of the body with the blood vessel can affect another, in fact even vice versa. In a person, in the GI tract, it can also affect our eyes because the blood vessels in the eyes might be affected as well.
This is what’s really important. These things are all interconnected. So if you are having one set of symptoms, you might eventually start having others.
DEBRA: It’s because the basic problem is your vascular system.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Right, exactly. And it’s not confined to just one area because it’s all connected. That’s what people should see.
Say somebody has asthma. We just talked about the [inaudible 00:10:18] and we talked about the sinuses. Maybe someone has glaucoma.
They might also develop having some GI issues as well. A lot of times, the alternative people could classify this like leaky gut. It can be IBS as what maybe the doctor would call it. And maybe the person has issues with – they have diarrhea, constipation. Or maybe they have [body?] cramping. Maybe they feel like they’re having allergies.
The hallmark of leaky gut is the person just feels low when they’re eating certain foods. The reason why is because the permeability of the gut has been compromised and particulates are allowed to go into the bloodstream and make antibodies.
DEBRA: Wait. We need to go break. We’re going to need to go to break. When we come back, I’ll have you just start right there and talk about what happens when particulates are going into the bloodstream. We’ll be right back.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Pamela Seefeld. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. In fact, she helps people get off prescription drugs by giving them natural alternatives.
Pamela, before we talk about leaky gut syndrome as we started before the break, tell the listeners about how they can call you.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay, very good. Thank you. If you have any questions about your prescription medications or if you have health issues for not to be on prescription medications, you can call my pharmacy. My consultation is free and I will be glad and very honored to help you and your family. The number here at my pharmacy is (727) 442 4955.
DEBRA: Great. Now, tell us about leaky gut syndrome. The way you just started was so interesting because you explained exactly what was happening.
PAMELA SEEFELD: What’s happening is permeability issues in the leaky gut, the blood vessels are allowing space between them. They’re allowing the fluid to move back and forth more copiously and more exchanging than they should.
As a result of that, the foods that you’re eating, certain things are not supposed to be passing into the bloodstream. They’re going into the bloodstream and you’re making antibodies to them. So all of a sudden, they can make you think you’re allergic to banana or whatever.
That’s what’s happening because these foods are [priming?] the immune system. The immune system will see something in the blood and recognize it as foreign. When people have leaky gut, they have all these food sensitivities and different things like that. What is really happening? It’s the permeability of the gut.
So all of these issues…
DEBRA: Wait. When you say permeability of the gut, I think really what you’re saying if I understand this is the permeability of the blood vessels…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct.
DEBRA: …in the intestines. So you have intestines…
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, the micro [colitis?]. The small areas there where the absorption takes place at that particular location, the blood vessels are inflamed.
They’re not just inflamed, but they’re compromised. They’re allowing things to come in and out and the exchange back and forth from the gut in an unreasonable manner. As a result of that, things are getting into the gut and then making people so sick. The case in point, when people eat something, then all of a sudden, they’re just not feeling well, that might be what’s happening and they might have this very issue going on.
And the great part about it is that this particular problem and the ones we discussed prior to that, they are heavy responses to supplements. So this is really a great thing.
I mean when somebody has a GI issue or even some of these things we’re talking about, I usually say the vascular health is highly responsive to supplements. It’s pretty inexpensive and easy to treat. And even just having GI issues, the first thing you should think of is permeability issue. And this applies to somebody that’s getting colitis, somebody that has Crohn’s disease.
Obviously, Crohn’s in some cases will need treatment in steroids and things like that. But most people, when they’re [in re-emission?] or have to prevent a reoccurrence, they can use the things that stabilize the blood vessels and the inflammation in the blood vessels themselves and have a great outcome.
DEBRA: What kinds of supplements would you give somebody for this?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay. When we look at what supplements work for allergies, for the eyes, for lungs, for the GI, we can look at several different things.
What the studies show is that flavonoids are highly responsive. That would include rutin, quercetin and hesperidin. I tend to like quercetin quite a bit. But the studies show, especially in allergic rhinitis, that rutin is highly effective for that.
Now, resveratrol is another supplement that works very, very well. Actually the new studies show that when someone actually has a spinal cord injury or they have bulging or hernia or just any kind of back problems, it’s causing inflammatory changes in the body as a result. Believe it or not, it’s all encompassing. They can change the whole body chemistry. That resveratrol seems to help that and it helps the injury on the spine as well.
So that was pretty interesting. Both sequences have vascular stabilizing properties, but they also seem to have some neurological positive outcomes as well. That’s very important as well.
What I tell people too is that using the detox, the Body Anew is important because permeability issues, especially the sinuses or the lungs – when things get stuck in the area, the lung tissue and the sinus cavities and mucus membranes, when things get stuck in those particular areas, we know for a fact that moving it out makes a big difference.
If the area is constantly irritated with particulates like the gut, if the area is potentially irritated with particulates in different areas of the nose, the mouth, wherever the problem may be, especially the lungs of people with asthma, if you don’t get the particulates out, that’s where the problem is.
Remember we were talking about particulates in the air, things you’re breathing in? Well, they get stuck in those membranes and then they’re allowed to stay in there. They’re going to start moving in and out. That’s where some of the issues really are. You need to remove it.
DEBRA: What about bloody noses? What causes bloody noses?
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s a good question. Bloody nose, first of all, can be spontaneous, which means it just shows up out of the blue.
It can probably be something that’s going on with the blood vessel itself. Maybe the person was blowing her nose so much that it has actually broken a blood vessel, so it continued to bleed.
It could be the person’s platelets are too low. I always tell people that if they’re starting to show lots of bruising or there are lots of bloody noses, things like that, you really need to check your CBC with your doctor and just see where your platelets reside because you’d be surprised some people come out with really low their platelets.
The platelets of most people are probably going to be around 250. That’s the number when the platelets are taken. But you can also see people – quite frequently I see people in the hospital that have 100 and below. And you can have a spontaneous bleed if it’s below 20. I mean you’ll start bleeding anywhere.
Most people will probably don’t think about that. You have to look at it too. Maybe a multivitamin has a lot of vitamin E in it. There are other ways you’re getting blood thinning activity. A lot of people take a baby aspirin for cardiovascular disease and also for preventing cancer. Baby aspirin is excellent for both of those things.
It can really be other factors too. A lot of times, you need to look and see where the platelet count resides because that just gives you clue as to whether you need to look in that particular direction. The platelets will definitely affect whether it’s clotting or not.
DEBRA: Okay, that’s good. We only have a few seconds before we go to break. So I’m not going to ask you a new question.
I’ll just say during these few seconds that you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. My guest is Pamela Seefeld and her website is BotanicalResource.com. You can go there and get her phone number and find out how to call her and get a free consultation.
We’ll be right back after the break and hear more about vascular health and what you can do.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs.
And she really does get a lot of people off prescription drugs and feeling healthier and happier. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. You can call her for a free consultation.
So Pamela, talk to us about peripheral neuropathy. I think so many people have a problem with that or so many diabetics in the world.
PAMELA SEEFELD: The peripheral neuropathy is the nerves being affected. When someone has peripheral vascular disease, they can also have…
DEBRA: Yeah. Let’s clear this up. Okay, go ahead.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s okay. It’s alright! [Inaudible 00:27:32] The peripheral vascular disease is important to focus on when we’re talking about vascular health. There are several different things that can cause it, diabetes, smoking, chemicals, those particulates that I was talking about, untreated hypertension.
And it’s really important for your listeners to know that when someone has hypertension and it’s not treated, it does damage the blood vessels. I’m not saying it’s going to cause permeability issues, but it could lead to that. The bad part about it is that it puts strain on the blood vessels themselves.
It’s very important if someone does have high blood pressure and perhaps they don’t want to be on a prescription, they can just give me a call and I can tell them what would work naturally and would be very effective. That’s very important to realize. There are a lot of options for that.
So a person that has abnormal cholesterol is another thing. Say someone is procrastinating and their cholesterol is 290 or 300. Trust me. I don’t think cholesterol is the big demon that they think it is. But most people, that’s how to check the cholesterols in the normal range. So this doesn’t really have anything to do with the cholesterol.
But we know that if the inflammation is there, permeability problems there in the blood vessel and then you add extra cholesterol in the bloodstream, you’re going to have a problem. And that problem will be that the arteries are going to start collecting the cholesterol and letting it form this peripheral vascular disease where it just narrows.
As a result of it, you have this terrible circulation in your legs. You can tell when people have peripheral vascular disease or vascular problems through their legs because they’ll be swollen, they’ll be red. It will maybe lead to what’s called cellulitis, which is an infection to the skin.
And many times, the people will complain of pain. That’s the most common thing. People would be walking and then all of a sudden, their legs start really hurting badly and they can’t walk stairs, they can’t walk across the yard, things of that sort. This is actually preventable.
When someone has a vascular issue, we would want to put them on those bioflavinoids that I was talking about. There’s also a homeopathic product that I use a lot for people that have issues with circulation in their legs. It’s called Circulation, no doubt. Yes, it’s a great name for it. This particular product increases blood flow down to the legs about 90%.
You can also use arginine, which is an amino acid that does have dilating effects on the blood vessels. And there’s a product from Thorne called Perfusia, which I use quite a bit. It dilates arterial blood flow and increases about 40%. So we can use that for the legs.
I also like to mention for our male clients that are listening on the radio today that using Perfusia or using arginine to increase blood flow in the legs also increases blood flow to someplace else. So we use it for erectile dysfunction.
And if you think your blood vessel issue is just delegated solely to your leg or to your eyes or to your sinuses, that might explain some of the other things that are going in the private areas of the body. I think it’s important for people to realize that that’s connected as well.
DEBRA: It’s so interesting to me that you keep saying that all these things are connected and that this one thing in vascular health can be affecting all these different areas of your body. And yet in the world of drugs, there’s a different drug for each of these different conditions.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You are the smartest woman in the world. Yes. Isn’t that amazing that they have a drug for each condition and they have a whole series of doctors for every single condition we’ve mentioned for some specialty?
But really what it comes down to it is the vascular health of your body can be reversed and can be improved simply by doing some simple supplements and realizing early on when you start seeing some of these things happening that you need to literally start treating it. And start treating it with vigor until it’s finished.
That is really important because when one thing crops up, something else is going to show up eventually. I can promise people that. It will lead to something else and to the next thing and to the next thing.
I think this really explains a lot of people, just their decompensation of their body and how, as they get older, they expect states would start showing up. And if they do, it’s like you put it out there and you get it.
Your vascular health is something that is heavily responsive, believe it or not, even to vegetables, eating vegetables in your diet because there are lots of bioflavonoids in your vegetables, having a big salad with lots of colorful vegetables. You can eat bioflavonoids. Those have vascular stabilizing activity.
That’s why people that have a vegetarian-based diet or having lots of plants in their diet have better vascular health and less of these chronic diseases. It’s directly functional to what you’re putting on the blood vessels and what you’re allowing them to be in contact with.
DEBRA: Does it make a difference if the vegetables are cooked or raw?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Not necessarily. In fact, some vegetables actually release more bioflavonoids when they’re cooked.
I want to believe it is carrots and broccoli that might release more than being raw. When they’re raw, digestion itself has to break all these down, especially for carotenoid vegetables. So we’re talking about maybe carrots and sweet potatoes. Cooking actually helps them to release their nutrients better.
But when you take bioflavonoids in a tablet, you would have to be eating a huge amount of produce to get the same results. If you actually want to do a treatment, you really would be best off to say, “I’m going to take some bioflavoinoids.”
The great part about bioflavonoids – resveratrol is pretty inexpensive. It’s not a big cost layout and the results are excellent.
DEBRA: What if the people listening to this are saying to themselves, “Maybe I should just take these supplements to help strengthen my vascular system and avoid problems,” would that be a good idea?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Most definitely. Prevention is really the key in anything. You’ve seen the way I have my practice here. You’re preventing problems.
You have to look at the crystal ball of your own life and say, “What am I at risk for?” You look at your family. You look at your blood work, which I do with people. I look at your blood work and say, “Look. I see this is coming. It’s not here yet.”
And if you can look at some of the leg health, if the legs are bruising really easily, if they have allergies that are just not seeming to get better, but then all of a sudden, they start ending up to hemorrhoids and other problems or a man gets erectile dysfunction – all of a sudden, you’re thinking all these problems are just new problems showing up and that’s just the way life is. It’s not because you’re doing things that stimulate and close up these permeability issues that are highly affective.
That’s why really taking some bioflavonoids everyday, especially for your eye health is really important. And it’s easy. Like the quercetin, I use quercetin in liquid quite a bit. And you can even just put it in water and it really has a great effect to fight allergies, hemorrhoids, things of that nature, but also probably ED to some degree.
DEBRA: Wow. This is so interesting to me. Every time we do a show, I learn new things from you.
This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist. But she likes to give natural substances instead. Her website is BotanicResource.com.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, a registered pharmacist who dispenses natural substances instead of drugs through her pharmacy at BotanicalResource.com.
Pamela, this is our last segment now. We only have about 10 minutes left. I’m going to let you talk about whatever you want to talk about, about the subject.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Okay. You’re so sweet. I would like to repeat my phone number if anyone would like to call me and has any questions in particular. I would like to help you. The number here at Botanical Resource is (727) 442-4955.
I like to talk a little bit about the supplements some more, about looking at preventing these vascular issues.
One of the things that you should probably be taking everyday – we were talking previously about the peripheral vascular disease and how fat deposits can go into the arteries. And there’s permeability issues associated with that as well. And then all of a sudden, there are areas narrow and the blood cells can’t go through there very well and you end up with very painful legs, trouble walking and in some case, you’ll really need surgery.
We can’t prevent the fatty deposits by taking pantethine which works very good to lower cholesterol or red rice yeast. I’m sure most people know about that. But the big culprit in a lot of these is elevated fasting blood sugar, which is causing the lipids to rise in the first place.
What I can tell people is you really want to know what your blood pressure number is. We were talking about hypertension causing some problems and causing problems in the blood vessels. Maybe you want to do some homeopathy if your systolic is a little bit high.
Case in point, if your blood sugar and your fasting blood sugar is anywhere around 100, if it’s getting up to that point, in the high 90s or 100, you need to look at that and say, “Am I at risk for diabetes? And is this elevated blood sugar in particular causing problems with the vasculature itself?”
DEBRA: Wait. Could you talk about that a little more?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, absolutely.
DEBRA: How could elevated blood sugar do that?
PAMELA SEEFELD: What happens is elevated blood sugar is doing several different things. It’s circulating cytokines, which cause inflammation in the blood vessel. It also increases blood lipids, triglyceride cholesterol and LDL.
In turn, when it’s increasing these lipids and there’s inflammation present from the cytokines when they’re enhanced and it was causing them to start up causing inflammation, what happens is the area becomes sticky and allows the cholesterol and the lipids to attach to the blood vessel lining. Peripheral vascular disease could set in, in these patients that are not treating the cholesterol itself.
So inflammation, it all comes back to your blood pressure and in your blood sugar. Those two things really are hallmarks. Remember I was talking to you and we were talking about vascular health and your platelets. You really want to know where they’re at and see if they’re on the low end of normal. That’s something to really watch for bleeding.
In particular, the sugar itself is causing several things. It’s causing increased inflammation. It’s causing increased lipids. And in turn, it’s causing the blood vessels to become occluded. So cardiovascular disease has lots of different tenets, but we know that blood sugar elevation allows for the other damaging aspects to take place.
DEBRA: Very good explanation. Okay, I interrupted you. Go on with what you are saying.
PAMELA SEEFELD: No, it’s good. I like that you have a question in between. What I would tell you are the things that people really should be on. You need to be on fish oil first and foremost. That lowers your triglyceride, 30% of them.
And fish oil does have lots of other effects in the body. We know it has central nervous system effects for cognition. We also know too that it has anti-arrhythmic effects on the heart. The reason why I bring this up is that we’re talking about the heart and we’re talking about the vascular system.
I don’t know if your clients and the people that listen on this show have heard about this. But atrial fibrillation is when the heart is quivering. It’s beating too fast. And atrial fibrillation shows up in a lot of people. This is something I see quite frequently working as a pharmacist and a lot of people are on Coumadin or on blood thinners. The reason why is they have what’s called as AFib.
AFib can show up from several different things. But really it commonly happens when someone has diabetes or is overweight. The ones that are at risk for it also, believe it or not, are people that are drinking. Alcohol can put them at risk for AFib. There are a lot of different things.
When you have AFib, you have to be on blood thinners. And a lot of these people are on it for the rest of their lives.
I would say taking care of your heart and taking care of your blood vessels is very, very important. That might be something that people are overlooking.
I was talking about the resveratrol, looking at improvement from spinal cord injuries, people with inflammation and also had blood vessel disease. Taking quercetin, these are very inexpensive. That would be very good. I think taking fish oil is very important.
And I think taking the Body Anew – we were talking originally about these particulates getting stuck, chemicals and pesticides as well, but also more particularly the things you’re breathing in the air in your house and outside. These things that get stuck in the mucus membrane, in your nasal passages, in your lungs – you want to take that out. And by removing it, you’re going to have a much better outcome. That’s first and foremost.
It’s the Body Anew with quercetin in the water and maybe an anti-inflammatory. I really like taking something called [Traumeel?] or you can use [Chronogies?]. There are different ones you can put in the water. If you drink that through the day, your inflammation will be drastically reduced. So those are very important.
DEBRA: Let me just insert here. Pamela has been talking about drinking things in water. One of the thing that she does with all her clients is that she has – I’ll say S because I’m one of her clients.
Start the morning with a bottle of water and then add things to it that are liquids like homeopathic remedies and things. And then drinking it through the day is being on an IV. Didn’t you say that one?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct.
DEBRA: Throughout the day…
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right because you’re getting continuous peaks in the bloodstream of the medication. That’s how medications are dosed when someone’s in a CCU or an ICU or something like that. It really changes the dynamics of how things work in your body.
When you take a pill and you swallow it and you get a peak in the bloodstream and then 5 to 10 minutes after that, it’s not around anymore, that’s the problem. You want to have something that’s released all day long.
DEBRA: Right. I’m kind of lazy about taking supplements. People will tell me, “Take one of these at breakfast, lunch and dinner.” And I go, “Yeah, I can’t remember this.”
For a while, I was just taking all my supplements in the morning. And then when I learned this from Pamela, I went “Oh, that’s why they say take it at breakfast, lunch and dinner.” I realized that I just need to train myself to do that because the best way to be taking supplements or medications or whatever is throughout the day.
I have my bottle here. It just sits on my desk all day long and I just keep sipping it. And I have my supplements sitting right here at breakfast, lunch and dinner. It gets rid throughout the day and then my body gets what it needs when it needs it instead of just having it all in the morning. I think that’s just a really important point.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It is. And the continual dosing of the medication and the homeopathic medicines in the water is really, really a hallmark of a lot of things to do here. If you’re just taking it or you’re having it just in the morning, you’re not going to get it all day long.
I’ve been treating some people that have cancer or if they have a really sever infection of some sort – we really want to have even a morning bottle and an afternoon bottle so you’re covered all day long. You don’t want to have it temporarily like you’re just getting a small peak in the bloodstream. That’s why liquids are really the way to go if you want to have a better outcome for patients.
And it’s the same thing with the quercetin. I know quercetin are tablets and I do use those here. But quercetin and liquid will be far more effective for somebody that’s looking for this type of outcome than someone that’s using it with the tablet and taking it three times a day.
You’re right. The compliance of somebody taking something sporadically through the day and capsules is very low. I see that most people don’t do the liquid and don’t drink it through the day and bring into their office, put on their desk. But taking tablets through the day doesn’t really work as well.
I can help people if they have questions about any of the vascular issues we discussed today, especially if that’s affecting you or your loved ones. You can really treat that pretty easily with some bioflavonoids in the Body Anew to really pull that out.
I would really tell your listeners that that’s something that they should really think about, especially we were talking about the peripheral vascular disease. And also allergies are extremely common. Most people realize that this is usually treatable.
And it’s treatable in your pets, your dogs and cats. If they’re sneezing a lot, if they’re scratching, you can use bioflavonoids for animals as well.
DEBRA: This is so interesting. We only have just a couple of minutes left, but I just want to say that one of the reasons why I have Pamela on so much is because she has a unique combination of understanding of how things work in the body because she’s a pharmacist and then she’s applying that pharmacist understanding to using natural substances. It just makes a combination that I’ve never seen any place else, but it makes so much sense to me.
Usually if people want to use something natural or a natural supplement, they just go to the natural food store, they read an article or something. And people are taking supplements not understanding how they work in the body.
Pamela does understand these things. That’s why I just appreciate her so much. Anyway…
PAMELA SEEFELD: I appreciate you. I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk to these people and help them understand.
Thank you.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Your vascular health is really in your hands. Believe it or not, there are some things you can’t control. There are some things that people come to me and I’m like, “You know what? This is better handled with medicine.” I’m very, very honest about that.
DEBRA: Yes, she is.
PAMELA SEEFELD: There’s not a lot, but this is one that medicine does not address.
DEBRA: Yeah.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Really. Medicine does not address all these things we talked about, the sinus problem, asthma, the colitis, the Crohn, the leaky gut, the peripheral vascular disease. All these things to some degree are preventable and treatable pretty easily with some common supplements. And your outcomes are pretty much better than taking a bunch of medications for these things.
I would tell you that…
DEBRA: Wait. Pamela, Pamela, the music is coming on in two seconds. Thank you very much.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Thank you.
DEBRA: Until you’re back in two weeks on Wednesday. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well.
Obamacare Alternative Insurance That Includes Holistic Care
My guest today is Kari E. Gray, Founder of GreenSurance Natural Medicine. We’ll be talking about Obamacare requirements and some options for how to fulfill them, including her innovative new program that cove rs alternative medicine as well as conventional. A passion in Kari’s professional career left by terminal cancer, Kari’s determination to survive by exploring all options despite medical diagnosis of no survival, led a tenacious, driven mother to natural treatments that in time gave her a second chance at life. Twenty-five years later she has an even more amazing story and passion to lead the natural medicine healthcare mission. As an insurance professional, Kari’s knowledge of healthcare including first-hand experience of being denied coverage when choosing natural treatments, empowered her with a commitment to ‘pay it forward’ and help people with life saving healthcare. www.mygreensurance.org
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
ObamaCare Alternatives Insurance that Includes Holistic Care
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Kari E. Gray
Date of Broadcast: May 19, 2015
DEBRA: Hi. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. It’s Tuesday, May 19th, 2015 on a beautiful day here in Clearwater, Florida. Today, we’re going to talk about insurance, insurance, insurance. Oh, wow! I just want to say what a mess this is.
Okay. So I’ll just say that for the past – I don’t know how many years, four or five years, I had a wonderful little insurance – I’ll say “insurance” – that I pay $69 a month for. What it does is it pays for doctor visits. It pays 100% of labs and it gives a prescription discount. It’s $69 a month. Now, that is ending because of ObamaCare.
So I did my taxes this year. There’s this thing about having to pay the penalty if you don’t have insurance. What I saw in my tax return was that it just asks you, “Do you have adequate insurance?” And then you just get to answer yes or no. I just answered yes because I felt like that I had adequate healthcare. But it didn’t even have a definition of what that meant in the instructions with the taxes.
My guest today knows all about this. Not only does she know all about ObamaCare, but she has a new insurance program that qualifies for being your insurance for ObamaCare that also gives you holistic care. She’s going to tell us all about everything.
Her name is Kari Gray. She’s the Founder of GreenSurance Natural Medicine. Hi, Kari.
KARI GRAY: Good morning. How are you?
DEBRA: I’m good. And you’re in Hawaii. How is it in Hawaii?
KARI GRAY: It’s wonderful! It’s Hawaii. Is there more to say? We always have sunshine and we have rain. And it’s green and it’s always beautiful.
DEBRA: It sounds like Florida. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I’ve seen pictures and it’s a place I’d like to go one day.
KARI GRAY: Yes.
DEBRA: Tell us your story of how you got to establishing GreenSurance Natural Medicine.
KARI GRAY: This has been actually quite a long journey. But I’ll focus in on just the most recent part of it just because of the fact that it’s most relevant.
Basically, as you know, we have this ObamaCare legislation. I have written a patent actually for a natural medicine health insurance. Recognizing the bureaucracy of insurance – I’m a licensed insurance professional, so just recognizing how flow change is coming and recognizing that there’s also this love-hate relationship that people seem to have with insurance.
So really, just doing market testing, as we called it, kind of field of testing a product, people were very excited of the idea that there would be a product that would give them alternative medicine, but weren’t [inaudible 00:04:24]. It was kind of strange, the responses that we’re getting from people are strange.
And so continuing the research actually the legislation is how I actually came upon a different kind of application. The law basically said that there were exemptions to the penalty. So I really focused in on what the exemptions were. I won’t go into all of it now. Anyway, there were a number of different exemptions and organizations that qualified. It was a strenuous list and it seems really rather unusual that anybody could even pass this.
For example, they had to be in existence before 1999 and they had to have third party verification. There were just a lot of very ambiguous things. I was like, “Wow! I’m not for sure who else qualifies for this because who would have known in 1999 or before what was coming down the pipe years later.”
Anyway, as I continued to research, then I found that actually there were a lot of organizations to start with that applied for that exemption. But because of the criteria – there were more – they couldn’t pass. And what remained were just a handful of organizations that actually qualified.
That’s how this actually migrated from insurance to what’s called cost sharing. And cost sharing is an alternative. It’s like if you think about the difference between what a credit union offers and what a bank offers.
When you realize that there is a difference between the two, yet the service they provide to individuals feels the same, there is a completely different dynamic that goes into how they do and what they do. And that is for profit is what a bank does and for people or for members is what a credit union does. That’s really the similarity and difference that health insurance has with cost sharing.
We are a non-profit and we’re a coalition of non-profit. What we’re doing is using the federal law to provide something that’s really not done anywhere. And that’s what’s really exciting about this because what that has now opened up – we’re not inside, we’re not mandated by ObamaCare to have all of the kinds of coverage that ObamaCare requires for an insurance company to have, which is what skyrocketed the rate. For example, no one can be turned down. That’s a big problem. So that means everybody has to be insured.
The next problem is that you can have any kind of lifestyle and you can have any pre-existing conditions. All of those things are what are making it hard for all the other people, who, like yourself, may have had one small insurance policy. Now, those are no longer in existence because there are actually 10 different criteria that, according to ObamaCare, an insurance policy have to make. If it doesn’t make that, then that’s why they basically have to put some money to the policy or they can’t even reissue them. So that explains how your policy is lost because it just doesn’t qualify any longer.
There are a lot of people that are kind of thrown under the bus in all of this. Anyway, the great thing is that the cost sharing is a wonderful alternative. It’s not insurance, but it actually serves the same capacity and it gives people also what has never been given before. So it’s not just alternative, but it’s a conventional and alternative approach to medicine and it’s all under the same organizational services that are being offered now.
DEBRA: So now, there are a lot of details that you can give us and I want you to give all these details. But before we get to those, I want to talk a little bit more just because I think that I and a lot of other people don’t understand this. So what ObamaCare wants – and we’re going to run into the break, so you might not get to answer it all and then we’ll finish after the break. What Obama wants is for everybody to get insurance, regular insurance according to the guidelines that they have in ObamaCare. Correct me if I’m wrong. If you don’t, you have to pay a penalty. Am I right so far?
KARI GRAY: Yes, you’re correct.
DEBRA: Okay. So could you tell us about this penalty?
KARI GRAY: Yeah, sure. The penalty basically starts out small. It’s 1% of what’s called your AGI. That’s your Adjusted Gross Income. In other words, it’s not what your income starts out at. If you take some deductions, it’s that final number.
So it’s 1% of that number or $90. I think that’s how it starts. In other words, for a person who doesn’t even make enough that he would qualify for that, then it’s just $90. It’s not too bad, but basically what’s going to happen is time goes by, every year, that number goes up.
Anyway, it’s going to be a lot more significant. Of course, the more income the person makes, the more significant that’s going to become. So it’s going to actually be thousands and thousands of dollars as time goes by because I think by 2016, it will be 3%.
Just to give you an example and just to give your audience an example of what that really means. So if you just estimate what your adjusted gross income is, times that number, times 3%, you can just get an idea. Now that’s just what the penalty is.
That means you still don’t have any options really, but you’ve got to pay a penalty. That’s what it comes down to.
DEBRA: This year, when I was doing 2014 taxes, this is the first time that I saw that penalty. So it’s $90 for the 2014 taxes or 1%. Is that what you said? And then there’s 2015. By the time it’s 2016, it’s 3%. And then does it go up from there?
KARI GRAY: Actually, the legislation doesn’t go into it. This is where the…
DEBRA: Oh, wait! Wait! I have to cut you off because we have to go to break.
KARI GRAY: Okay.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. I’m talking with Kari Gray, the Founder of GreenSurance Natural Medicine about ObamaCare and what we can do to have alternative health as part of our insurance. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: We’re having some technical problems, but now we’re back. Kari, I hope you are still there with me. Are you there?
KARI GRAY: I am.
DEBRA: Yeah. Wasn’t that strange? I’ve been doing this show for two years and I’ve never had something like that happen. So I’m sorry that it happened on your show, but here we are again.
We were talking about – what were we talking about? I asked you a question. I’m sorry. My attention is on all this technical stuff. What were we talking about?
KARI GRAY: You were asking about the penalty. And I said that it’s going to be 3% by 2016 and you were asking if it goes up any further.
From anything that I’ve read, I don’t see anything expressing that right now, but it could be. I read a lot of information. I’ll let that be something that we can leave for another conversation when we have more time to research that. But I know that it goes up to 3%. That’s what I have seen.
DEBRA: So this is like forcing us to get insurance.
KARI GRAY: That’s the idea.
DEBRA: What if we don’t want insurance?
KARI GRAY: Then that’s what the penalty is to coerce a person into. I mean, that’s really what it comes down to. You can’t go to jail for it, but basically though they can seize some assets or freeze assets. Really the way they collect this is through refunds. That’s how they enforce it. It’s through an overpayment of taxes, then the IRS can take it from your refund.
DEBRA: I can’t tell you how unhappy this makes me because what is going to happen for me is that I’m either going to have to pay the penalty or I’m going to have to get insurance that I don’t even use or I can get something like your program.
KARI GRAY: Yes.
DEBRA: Your program is not insurance, but it qualifies under that other thing. So if I were to get your program – I don’t want to call it insurance, your cost sharing. But I guess people think of it as insurance anyway because it’s like [inaudible 00:19:01].
KARI GRAY: Yeah. It’s what most people think of it, but it isn’t and we don’t want to represent it that it is. That’s why we always clarify that it is not insurance.
Basically, I use the illustration about the credit union. Really cost sharing is where people come together with a united purpose. That united purpose is the fact that they basically are going to put their money together. It’s kind of an insurance called a risk pool.
Basically, when you pay premium, then that goes into obviously covering the cost of the insurance and all their salaries in the company and the profits and all that. But then a portion of it goes into what’s called the risk pool. When that claim is paid out, it comes out of the risk pool.
In cost sharing, it’s not the same, but it is similar in the fact that the person makes a donation to the community. And then those community resources are what actually in the end (because they’re combined with other people in the community as well), it actually is similar because it is what pays the medical cost that a person experiences at the end of the day. That’s really what we’re looking for. It’s a way to not go health care cost alone, which is what the penalty is all about or to try to encourage people or force them actually once it becomes more enforced.
It will become more enforced as time goes on. It’s written in the body of law, but it’s not really clear yet what’s going to happen.
But anyways, point being is that what cost sharing does is it gives people a way to really give themselves that protection, which is that they’re not going to be penalized and that they’ve got freedom. What we say is, “Freedom equals choice. And choice is power for medicine.”
If your choice in your health care is not just looking at things that potentially could be toxic. If you want to have some options outside of just the status quo of conventional approaches, then cost sharing actually is what you really need to look at because that’s the only way to get the freedom that, even under ObamaCare, will never be offered.
DEBRA: Okay. We need to go to break. We’ll talk more about this when we come back.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guess today is Kari Gray. She has found an alternative program for ObamaCare. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guess today is Kari Gray. She’s the Founder of GreenSurance Natural Medicine.
Kari, before we go on and have you to tell us all the details about your program, you have quite a dramatic personal story of how you got interested in this. Would you tell us your story?
KARI GRAY: Sure, yes. Actually that’s the true beginning of how this started. In 1988 – actually I’ll start with the funny part of the story.
We all remember – or we’re old enough to remember I guess I’ll say. When Oprah Winfrey evaporated in front of everybody when she throws this coat and there was this much smaller version of Oprah and it was shocking to everybody.
And then she followed it up with pulling a wagon that represented all the weight she lost.
DEBRA: I remember seeing that on TV. Yeah.
KARI GRAY: Yeah. It was an epic moment. Oprah had some real epic moments in her career as a talk show host for sure.
That motivated me because I always felt like I was overweight even though actually at the time, I really wasn’t. But anyway, it motivated me to go to my doctor because she had taken this miracle substance called Optifast. You had to go to the doctor and get a physical in order to get on it. That’s actually how I got started.
So I went to the doctor thinking, “I’m going to try this.” So I go and I have a complete physical. When I called to go back for my results, I didn’t even begin to guess where this was going.
I was given two diagnoses. The first one was multi sclerosis. I asked what the cure of it is. There is no cure, they told me. And the next thing was liver cancer. I said, “What?”
They said, “Yes. And the bad news is that you’re too far gone for chemo and radiation. Basically you didn’t have much longer to live. So I’m sorry. There’s really nothing we can offer you.” That was the news I was given that day.
That was very devastating needless to say. And 25 years old and I had a house full of kids and I was dying. It was very, very overwhelming. I was depressed, I was devastated and I was dying and I just went to bed.
So [inaudible 00:29:12] and I really didn’t know what I was going to do. But the one thing that I had the presence of mind to realize was that first of all, I needed to start exhausting options. Maybe there was something that the doctor didn’t know about. That was my first thought. I had no idea at the time what that could be.
And then the second one is I realized, especially when I got the second diagnosis, that the first thing I needed to do – I could feel what’s in me. I was starting to die. I could feel the process happening. It was like psychologically, I was starting the dying process. I recognized that the first thing I needed to do is I needed to stop listening to bad news because that really was creating quite a psychological mind play on my psyche and my will to live.
Anyway, that’s basically how this all got started. I don’t know if you can hear rain or not, but that’s what that is if you do hear it. Anyway, that’s how my story got started, basically just exploring the options.
I felt my eulogy to my children would be that, yes, I died young, but I exhausted every option for their sake. That’s what really pushed me to start reading and researching and talking to people. You got to realize this was before the Internet.
There was a lot of diligent effort on my part. And sure enough, it eventually got me to a practitioner who not only did she immediately, through her testing methods, find the cancer and again confirm that I was terminal with not much longer to live. But the good news for me was that – since I already knew, I told her she wasn’t breaking the news to me. So she felt better.
But she asked me if I believe that I had a chance. I said, “Well, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I had a chance. That’s why I’m looking for something other than my doctor and what they told me.”
She said, “Here’s the thing. I believe that you do have a chance because you’re young.” And she said, “But it’s going to require 100% diligence on your part. You got to be fully committed to everything I tell you to do. This is going to take a lot of change on your part.”
But she said this. “Your health insurance, you have insurance, right?” I said yes. She goes, “Your health insurance is going to pay for it.” I said, “Wow! Okay, let’s do it.” I didn’t know what other options I had and I really didn’t have any.
That’s how this shift started in my own personal story. I was just basically trying to survive, a catalyst, the soon-to-be death that I was facing.
What I was found was the problem. I found that there were a lot of things that I was doing wrong. That’s really what was causing the cancer.
Unfortunately, I had a lot of people. Every time we have a health issue, I just went to the doctor. And I usually ended up with a prescription like an antibiotic prescription. I did recognize how the overuse of antibiotics and all the other things in my life, too much sugar in my diet, too much stress in my life, birth controls. All of those things were contributing to setting me up to having a compromised immune system.
So I learned all the things that I was doing wrong. And I learned how to change all of those things, and it was a massive change. She was right when she said it’s going to take a lot of change, a lot of commitment on my part. It really did.
Anyway, here’s the interesting part. Eight months later, I’ve been spending thousands and thousands of dollars on all of this.
First of all, I submitted all my receipts. I thought this is [inaudible 00:33:19]. I submitted all my receipts. What’s interesting is the letter that I got back. They said that not only was I out of coverage for what I was doing, but it was unproven. So I was like, “That’s very interesting.”
I ended up going back to the doctor and I want to suggest seeing if I had made any progress. Now the way that the conversation went from here really again shifted my consciousness.
The first thing is my doctor was shocked that I was alive. “Okay, that was great. That was great news.” So I want to tell her why I was alive and what I was doing. And then I was shocked because she didn’t want to hear it and I was like, “What?”
She said, “Absolutely, I do not want to hear this.” And she said, “We are running new tests and you need to prepare for the works.” And I think she thought maybe I was delusional. I don’t know. But the point is that I spent a few more days anxious of waiting again, more bad news.
But this was where it all shifted for me because when she came in, she had my charts down and she didn’t make eye contact with me. So I sat there in silence for a while. And then I thought it was awkward. So I just decided to break the silence and started talking again about what I’ve been doing. And then she immediately stopped me. So we sat there.
And then finally, she looked at me and she said, “I saw what your original test was like and I see what these look like. And I’m here to tell you, the liver does not do this on its own. I don’t know what you’ve been doing and I don’t want to know. But I know this much, you’re cancer-free. Congratulations!”
DEBRA: We’re going to go to break there. That’s an amazing story, really wonderful.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Kari Gray. When we come back, she’s going to tell us about her program that you can use instead of Obama Insurance so that you can get alternative health as part of your program and not just regular doctors. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Kari Gray. She is the founder of GreenSurance Natural Medicine.
Kari, as we ended off before the break, you were telling us how you did all these alternative things to get cancer-free and that your insurance didn’t cover any of them. So I consider that would be a big motivation for you to come up with a program where people who are having catastrophic situations like you had would have a program where they can get some help and support with the financial and with those kinds of illnesses.
So would you tell us in detail now about your program and what people get and what they don’t get? What does it cover? What is it all about?
KARI GRAY: Sure. There are a lot of things. Basically we let people to be aware of it. Our website actually is a great source of information and it actually is always kept most up to date. So please, if I can mention the website.
DEBRA: Sure.
KARI GRAY: Okay. It’s MyGreenSurance.com.
DEBRA: Is it not .org?
KARI GRAY: Yeah, it’s both. We have .com and .org. Yeah, we own both. Anyway, basically that’s where all of the facts are up. Anything that I’m not covering that people still have, the FAQs is a great page to look at and so is the health plan. It just narrows it all down.
But basically what we’re talking about is this. The purpose of the community approach is that it’s to offer lessened basic treatment to people versus what conventional wants to do oftentimes. That really is nice. People don’t like to be having basic things if they can avoid that.
And it also offers things like it prevents more costly conventional treatment. That’s big because really now you’re getting into more proactive things that you can do for your health.
Just to give an example. In ObamaCare, it requires things like screening. They call that Preventive Treatment Screening. The problem with screening is that if the screening finds the disease, then it didn’t prevent anything. That’s the irony.
But we know more about ourselves, especially once we get educated and become in tune with ourselves. Providers do obviously. I mean their job is to figure it all out. But if we’re really in tune, then that really helps us to stay proactive and healthy.
That just gives you an overview of really what the criteria is. So it really opens up doors to things like acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal regimes, massage therapy, homeopathy, colonics, detox programs, Chinese medicine.
And then if you are talking about some of the bigger things like cancer for example, you have to understand that this isn’t a health plan for people who have cancer. It’s a health plan for people who are healthy who can get cancer for example.
The way to illustrate that is you don’t buy car insurance after an accident. You buy car insurance in case.
DEBRA: Yeah. That’s what insurance is for. It’s the in case.
KARI GRAY: That’s where we get – sometimes people will say, “I have cancer.” It doesn’t work in a cost sharing environment because we can’t keep the rates low if the people that are participating and donating to the cost sharing communities are coming in terminal already.
That’s the reason why unfortunately we can’t put them in the cost sharing. But we do have another program we’re working where they can have access to at least discount services.
Once a healthy member is diagnosed with some terminal illness, things like this will be very important, which is like intravenous vitamin C treatment or we have got things like [inaudible 00:43:32] technology. There are a number of them.
[inaudible 00:43:40] cream, hemp oil, there’s a lot of real specializing for cancer for example. Oxygen therapy, chelation, oxygen IV therapy, there are a lot of things for serious disease that really open up the door to recovery. That’s really what the bottom line is in all this.
It’s not the slow road and the most profitable road to an early to an early grave. It’s actually how to help a person recover their health so that they can have the optimum life. That’s really what we’re talking about, not a managed care or treatment mentality.
That’s really the difference, just the polar extreme between conventional and alternative. While conventional deals with symptoms, alternative deals with causes. That’s really what we’re talking about. It’s opening up this place for people now to start addressing causes so that they don’t have a lifetime dependent on a prescription because that’s actually not covered in the health plan, health insurance either. A short term is, but not long term.
That’s why we use the alternatives, then we can break the symptom dependence cycle, pill for every ill, which is basically often what happens when a doctor is limited only conventional approaches, which is what is part of ObamaCare.
DEBRA: So I just want to be clear because you and I have talked about this. I’m considering getting this program myself. I haven’t made a decision yet if it’s the right thing for me.
But one of the things that I learned about when I was talking to Kari was that it’s not insurance-like if you were to get insurance and then they pay for all your doctor visits and stuff like that. It really is for if something happens in the future that is a big thing like cancer or heart disease or something like that where you have a lot of medical bills, that it covers those kinds of things.
So you still have to pay for going to a chiropractor, going to a dentist, doing whatever. It’s not kind of plan. But when you need it if you need it, it’s going to allow you to get all these alternative treatments that insurance doesn’t cover.
And it’s a very low price. Tell them about the price.
KARI GRAY: Okay. Let me just clarify something here. Just to give your listeners an idea here.
We’re talking about things like accidents, ambulance, X-rays, lab work, emergency rooms, home health care, hospital services, surgery, [inaudible 00:46:27] outpatients, maternity care, prescriptions, surgery, therapy, on and on it goes. I mean it’s not just singular approaches with alternatives, but it’s actually the very comprehensive health plan.
There are a lot of things to understand about it. I know that it’s hard to digest a plethora of information all at one time, but just to give you an idea. This is really part of the excitement that people have when they realize how low cost this really is.
For example, if…
DEBRA: Before you go on, let me just tell you that we only have three minutes left.
KARI GRAY: Thank you for that. So if it’s a single person, it could be anywhere from $249.99 a month to around $380. If they’re married, it could be $349 to $580. If it’s a family, it can be anywhere from $499 to $680.
Those are estimates because everyone falls in those estimates based on their health questionnaire that they complete. So those are just lows and highs, but it’s very, very affordable.
DEBRA: It is very affordable in comparison. I’m so happy that you’re doing what you’re doing because whether it works for everybody or doesn’t work for everybody, you’re taking a step out of the old insurance idea.
And you’re looking at how to bring the alternatives, help people afford the alternatives when they need some help. I think that what you’re doing will grow in the future to have other kinds of plans as well. That’s the way I see it at least.
You really are forging a new direction. I really appreciate that.
KARI GRAY: Thank you very much.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. We do have still about a minute left. Are there any final words you’d like to say? Let’s give your website address again.
KARI GRAY: Yes.
DEBRA: It’s MyGreenSurance.org or MyGreenSurance.com.
KARI GRAY: That’s right.
DEBRA: It really has all the information there.
KARI GRAY: Yes. Really what we say is that GreenSurance is about people who are ready for change. GreenSurance is about people who want an alternative to ObamaCare.
GreenSurance has a lot of messages, but really what it’s about is about environment. So it’s about being able to finally start having some control over something as important as your health care. And really isn’t that refreshing?
DEBRA: It is refreshing.
KARI GRAY: Yeah, it’s very fresh and organic. And people are very really excited about that. We have the ability now to become the change that we want to see. How that happens is like-minded people get together for making change happen. That’s why we invite people to join us.
DEBRA: That’s great. That’s great. Again, I’m going to give the URL for the website. It’s MyGreenSurance.org. There’s so much more information there.
When I think about having to pay the penalty, why not take that penalty money and actually put it someplace so that I can get some help if I need that help? This sounds like an interesting place to put it. I’m looking for all kinds of alternatives for making sure I make the best ObamaCare choice.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well.
How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use—And How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and into Health
My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about the latest studies that show how inactivity contributes to illness (and subsequent drug use) plus how simple exercise can help your body be healthy more than expensive drugs. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com
LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD
- Vaccines: Harmful or Necessary?
- Evaluating A Study and Testing a Test
- Seven Deadly Drugs
- The Hidden Dangers Affecting Your Heart and How You Can Protect It Naturally
- What We Can Do About Cancer
- The Power of pH
- How to Protect Your Health From Toxic Mercury Dental Fillings
- Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage
- Are You Heading For Kidney Failure? Natural Remedies Can Help
- How to Keep Your Blood Vessels Open and Flowing With Supplements
- How to Protect the Environment from Pharmaceutical Pollution by Using Natural Medicinals
- Hidden Toxic Dangers in Common Dietary Supplements
- See More Clearly with Natural Remedies
- Hidden Mental Health Dangers in Common Drugs
- Different Types of Detox
- Getting Off Prescription Drugs with Natural Remedies
- How Natural Remedies Could Have Saved A Life
- Natural Alternatives to Sleeping Pills
- Natural Back Pain Treatment Options That Work
- How Toxics Age Your Body & What You Can Do to Stay Young
- You CAN Lose Weight—Even if You’ve Had Difficulty Losing Weight Before
- Calcium—Is There Really a Deficiency in America?
- It’s Cold and Flu Season—How to Support Your Immune System and Why You Shouldn’t Get a Toxic Flu Shot
- How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help Your Cells Create Health
- Toxic Psychiatry and How to Have Mental Health Without Drugs
- Why You Should Take Fish Oil and How To Choose the Right One for You
- Medicinal Plants Can Replace Toxic Drugs
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
How Inactivity Leads to Illness and Drug Use and How Exercise Can Get You Off Drugs and Into Health
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld
Date of Broadcast: May 06, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It is Wednesday, May 6, 2015, and I’m here in sunny Clearwater, Florida. And today is every other Wednesday so my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. She knows so much about how we can use natural substances to heal our bodies that I have her on every other Wednesday. And today’s the other Wednesday. And so here she is again.
What we’re going to be talking about today is inactivity, how inactivity leads to illness and drug use because when are inactive, as most people are in the modern world, then we get illnesses that lead to us taking drugs and then we start going down that drug spiral.
So today we’re going to be talking about how inactivity leads to illness, how exercise makes you healthy, and what we can do so that we can be drug free. For anybody who is still taking drugs or knows anybody who is taking drugs but is close to you, this is important information.
Hi, Pamela.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Hey, it’s great to be here.
DEBRA: Thank you. You sound so bright and healthy. You always do.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I feel healthy. I feel great.
DEBRA: I have to tell everybody. I said this before but I just want to say it again that Pamela is the number one, healthiest-looking person I’ve ever seen. When I first saw her, I thought, “This is a healthy person. I want to be healthy like this.”
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, I feel really great. I really do. I’m very blessed. Great health.
DEBRA: Yes, you are. But you do so many things to be healthy. And so we’re talking about inactivity today. So I’m sure that sometime during the hour, we’re going to talk about how active you are.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct. How we want to try and get America and everywhere else as well, try and get everybody to get up and start moving because the new statistics don’t look very good for what we’re actually doing right now.
DEBRA: So why don’t you tell us about this statistics? I think you have some studies to tell us about?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct. The Wall Street Journal, two days ago, had a report and they published this, and they were talking about this brand new survey that took place that’s called the Physical Activity Council that took the survey, and it found that one in four Americans didn’t exercise at all in the past year.
So that’s one in four. That’s a lot. So that’s 25% of the population and we know that – and actually, it’s closer to 28%, it says here, but more than a quarter of the US population, 28% did not participate in a single physical activity last year as defined by the Council. And the definition of physical activity is simple stuff, even yard work, walking around the block. It’s not going to the gym and working out for an hour and running a marathon. It’s simple activities that people just are not doing even at all and these inactivities are not just because of people always so concerned about their weight. That’s a factor. But also the fact that it causes metabolic syndrome and allows for diabetes, hypertension and other things took place, even if the person is of normal weight.
So that’s very, very important to realize that it’s not just okay – I’m telling people to get active because I want them all to get skinny. It’s not necessarily about your body habit as in your weight. Though sometimes with activity, of course, that can help to lose weight. But the fact that these people are all going to be at risk for a lot of metabolic diseases is very, very dangerous.
DEBRA: I think about prior to the industrial age when people used to live out in nature and they had to get everything that they needed directly off the land. People were incredibly active that they were – there were no cars and so they walked everywhere. And if they wanted to eat, they had to go hunt a wooly mammoth or whatever they were hunting. And there’s this whole period of time that’s called the hunter/gatherers. And so the men were off hunting animal which they had to run after and chase and go to the areas where the animals were, and the women were to gather everything. They had to walk around and find berries and carry them home. And they were walking to the stream and carrying the bottles of water, the jugs of water I should say.
And people were just moving around all day long doing the basic stuff of life. And we don’t do any of that anymore. And I think that most people just sit at a desk and they go home and sit in front of the television.
PAMELA SEEFELD: This is what the Physical Activity Council is really saying. And they’re saying also that the number of Americans, whom we describe as totally sedentary, and that’s in quotations, has risen to its highest level since 2007. So we’re talking about the epidemic of lots of diseases and most of the people listening to this are probably interested in improving their health and doing some simple things. Obviously, not being on a bunch of medication is one of them. And if we’re totally sedentary, we’re not walking to do things and do the yard work, maybe go to the gym, it doesn’t mean you have to be working out, per say, on an exercise equipment all day long. That’s not what we’re talking about.
But even mild activities – and I really have to think that a lot of people I know really outsource a lot of the things that they used to do, their housework, the washing of the car. All these things that used to be activity we don’t want to do, especially in Florida. People don’t want to sweat so they hire people to do everything.
Look at everybody here in Florida. I have yard service. I have lawns. And I have a pool guy. You have people for everything.
DEBRA: Hello, I don’t.
PAMELA SEEFELD: You don’t because you probably don’t have a pool to take care of, a yard maybe. I have all these people doing all this stuff. Now, I’m still very active, but I see this everywhere I go. You look in Florida, how many yard services are out there? There must be a million. Everyone has a yard service.
DEBRA: I think part of it in Florida because it’s hot and humid most of the year that you don’t want to go out there. It’s hard for me actually in the summertime that it’s so humid, it’s difficult to breathe.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I mean, if people haven’t come to Florida, we can tell them from firsthand experience that it’s like walking into an oven.
DEBRA: It is. Or like walking around in a sauna all day long, all night long. If I don’t close my windows for six months of the year and run the air conditioning while I’m sleeping, I wouldn’t be able to breathe at night because it’s so 85 degrees and humid for six months of the year.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Absolutely.
DEBRA: And that’s what it’s like. So that’s why I think people aren’t doing their yard work. But some people are out there, really sweating and exercising. And they’re getting plenty of activity doing our yard work for us.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s right! Well, it’s true. [Inaudible 00:08:11] I’m always was like, “Can I offer you some water?” because it’s really hot.
But the thing about the sedentariness and really, I really do think the study is very valid. Wall Street Journal is pretty upfront about publishing things that are not bogus. We see this in activity level has gone to such a crisis level here in the United States. And in looking at physical education in schools has been really pretty much phased out in many cases. A lot of times, it’s just really not important to them to do these things.
I think it’s really important to look at little things that we can do in our daily live to increase our activity level and of course, going to the gym. And I think we need to focus on the fact that a lot of the medications that people are taking from high blood pressure, maybe for diabetes, for a lot of these different disorders are really related to inactivity.
And don’t forget too, exercise. When you exercise and you have your heart rate go up, what it does, it really boosts the immune system. And how this works is the white blood cells are hanging on to the side of the blood vessel just during inactivity. And then when you get this rush of the blood moving through, what happens is, you get this process called demargination of the white blood cells. And what this means is the blood cells come off of the blood cells where they’re hanging out and doing nothing and they become very active.
So if you’re sick (and you’re not definitely sick, I’m not talking about someone that’s really, really sick, but you maybe have a bad cold or something), you can really boost your immune system by just working out.
DEBRA: That’s so good to know. That’s very good to know because [cross-talking 00:09:45]
PAMELA SEEFELD: There’s a physical process involved and this activity, you will see a transit increase in white blood cells after a person has done cardiovascular exercise. And that’s why I always make sure that when I’ve been sick, unless I’m running a high fever, I used to go out and run all the time doing that because you cough all this stuff, you’d feel a lot better and your fever eventually would just go away because you have the transient boost in white blood cell activity that’s very reproducible and it also works for the differentiation of the different white blood cells like lymphocytes and macrophages.
They all have a little, special assignments. Some go after viruses, some go after bacteria. It’s really important to realize that even small amounts and burst of activity can increase your immune system tremendously besides fending off the fact that we’re talking about these metabolic diseases which a lot of it is a result of inactivity of people.
DEBRA: And we’ll talk more about this after the break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. And today, we’re talking about how inactivity leads to illness and drug use and how we can turn all that around by getting a little exercise.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. She has a great, little shop here in Clearwater, Florida called Botanical Resource. And she also has a med spa there in the back of the Botanical Resource Natural Pharmacy where they do all kinds of natural facials and things like that.
And Pamela, tell us a little bit about what you do and tell us about your consulting services, your free consulting service that you can help people get off drugs.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, absolutely. I’ve been doing this probably 20, 25 years, at least. And my store here in Clearwater is a homeopathic pharmacy but we also do natural supplements. I actually teach this and I grant review for the National Institute of Health in Washing DC as well on alternative medicine.
So my consultations are free. You can call here at any time. My hours are normally here at the store is from 10 to 5, Monday through Friday, 10 to 2 on Saturday. But I’m always here pretty much between noon and 2 before I go to my other thing. And I would be very honored and happy to help your family if you want to get off prescription medications, if you’re interested in something alternative to narcotics, high blood pressure medications. And I also do a lot of veterinary work as well in the homeopathic realm.
But I would be very happy to help your family. My number here at the pharmacy is 727-442-4955, and I’m very sure that I would be very successful with you and your family. Any quick questions you might have about the medications you’re on or trying something else.
DEBRA: And she is very knowledgeable. She helps me and many other people here in Clearwater, Florida. Doctors send their patients to her. I once said to my medical doctor that Pamela had recommended something and he said, “Absolutely. Take it. Do whatever she tells you to do.”
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s great. I feel very assured that we can provide excellent service for you and you’ll be very satisfied.
DEBRA: Yes, I feel that way exactly too.
So Pamela, in that study from the Wall Street Journal, were there any other categories of how much exercise people were getting? Or were they just looking at that one?
PAMELA SEEFELD: They were looking at the one study and talking about the metabolic syndrome. But also, I have to think that – this is kind of an aside, but it’s really funny – apparently, we need to look to the fact that a quarter of Americans are completely sedentary. And if you realize, Chipotle will now deliver.
So if you can’t go and get your Chipotle, they will come to you, which is really to me, absolutely insane. And they were saying that there are 90,000 Chipotles in New York. And people can pretty much walk to any of them and they’re going to deliver your food for you now.
DEBRA: I don’t think there are 90,000 Chipotles in New York.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It does sound pretty [inaudible 00:16:43]. But the fact that people can really – they made things way too easy. I want to go back again to talking about the metabolic syndrome and what happens when people are sedentary.
The fact that detox is very important for having your body move. So you know how you feel really sluggish and you feel tired and not well when you’re sitting for long periods of time? The problem is most of our desk jobs are very sedentary. And so we can’t get around that. So it’s just important to stand up, move around, so on and so forth.
But what I would like to mention to the listeners is that when you start moving around, you’re not only moving the blood, but you’re allowing the fat to start mobilizing fat-soluble chemicals. And they go to the liver and they become metabolized, and they’re water-soluble, and they go out in the urine. And it’s really important.
If you think about the detoxification processes of a lot of people, if they’re sedentary, a lot of that process is not fully taking place and we now know that the study show that people, especially with diabetes, that they’re testing very high for urinary pesticides. And a lot of this might be because the fact that maybe their detoxification process to the liver and the way things are handling, the way the fat is releasing these chemicals is impaired to a great deal because of the sedentary activity of the person.
DEBRA: Well, that makes sense to me because I’ve actually studied, and I’m sure you have too, a lot about the detoxification system in our bodies. And one of the things that I learned is that if we’re not doing things like – we have to sleep. We have to sleep at night in order for the detox system to work. So it would make sense to me that we also need to move our bodies. One of the things I know is that the lymph system that carries a lot of these things around in the body in order to be detoxed, that doesn’t move unless you move your body. It just doesn’t move. It doesn’t have a pump like the heart. And that’s very important, the lymph system, to our whole detox.
And so I really, even though I grew up not liking exercise at all, I had one very positive exercise experience in my early 20s when I lived in Downtown San Francisco, and I went to Jane Fonda’s Workout. Do you remember that? Jane Fonda’s Workout?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.
DEBRA: I went to Jane Fonda’s Workout and I had my own private trainer who was just adorably cute, a very cute, young man. And then I went to aerobics class and my teacher was a male ballet dancer, the aerobics teacher. And it was great because I went every day. I had professionals absolutely telling me what to do every minute, and I lost weight and I felt great. And it was the best shape I think I was ever in, in my entire life.
But then they closed. They closed and I could never duplicate that experience. So I just went back to not getting much exercise. But more recently, I’m really paying a lot more attention to exercise and one of the things that I started to do that was the easy thing was that I just got a little bouncer, mini-trampoline. And then I just get up from my desk once an hour, and I go bounce on the trampoline. And I could only do 20 bounces and I got up to a set of 300 bounces at once.
The next hour, I get up and bounce a little more. And it just gives you arrest and clears your mind, and gets your blood moving, and all of these things. And it doesn’t take a lot of time.
PAMELA SEEFELD: No, it doesn’t. I want to bring back a point. You were talking about the lymphatic. The Body Anew, the detox product that I use a lot, has a lymph gland drainer in the kit. And one of the bottles is specifically to increase the lymphatic drainers. And it’s about 40% increase, very significant, as far as moving things out.
So when we’re thinking about that maybe we have to spend a certain part of our day at the computer working, it’s important to maybe be taking the detox. And I used to have a lot of my patients drinking it whether there are their desk or even when they’re working out because [cross-talking 00:20:29]
DEBRA: I’m drinking it right now, actually, I got my bottle [cross-talking 00:20:59]
PAMELA SEEFELD: Good for you.
DEBRA: And it’s got Body Anew in it.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That makes a huge difference because what we want to acknowledge is that a lot of us have desk jobs and we have to be on the computer for certain period of a time for the day. Maybe it’s a significant time and we really want to move things out.
DEBRA: We need to go to break. When we come back, we’ll talk more about inactivity and activity, and how we can be healthy without drugs by being more active.
I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio, and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist and she has her own natural pharmacy, Botanical Resource. Her website is BotanicalResource.com, and you can go find out more about her. We’ll be right back.
= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. And you can go to her website at BotanicalResource.com.
So what else would you like to tell us, Pamela, about inactivity and activity and good health?
PAMELA SEEFELD: So exercise does some other things to the body that’s very important. When we think about atherosclerosis and we think about people trying to get healthy as far as preventing cardiovascular diseases, we know that cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and so forth, is the number one killer of people in the United States. That’s an epidemic problem.
And the reason why we want to label it as endothelial dysfunction – the endothelium is the inner lining of the blood vessel. Endothelial, the area, is sensitive to several things, and especially, it is sensitive to reactive oxygen species. They abbreviate that ROS. And reactive oxygen species, why this is important to recognize is that’s why you want to be taking antioxidants. You want to be using vitamin E, vitamin C, maybe a multivitamin with antioxidants. Reviratrol is a great antioxidant, grape seed extract and things like that.
Because when we have reactive oxygen species, which can be present in the body – and let me tell you where they can be present from. Fish oil that’s old, fat vitamins that are old, old olive oil, things you’re cooking with. You’d be surprised. Reactive oxygen species, especially in fats, are really prevalent in different areas. But the reactive oxygen species are necessary for endothelial damage. So when there’s a damage to the inner part of the blood vessel, then what we find is we start to get sticky, is inflamed, and as a result, the plaques are adhering to these areas. And then subsequently, we start having heart attacks when in fact, we don’t need to have them. Going in there and cleaning things up, so to speak, having a cardiac test.
So all these things are a process, and let me explain that when you exercise, reactive oxygen species are taken down significantly. So doing that has a huge effect on cardiovascular disease. It’s not the fact so much we have multiple things. It’s the fact that reactive oxygen species are happening. It supports the healing of the endothelium or that inner part of the blood vessel, and at the same time, remember I was talking about the immune system, how the white blood cells are being kicked off and basically saying, “You’re lazy. We’re going to make you start being active.”
All these things are doing, so there’s a lot more process. So when people think, “I guess I have to do all those heavy exercises.” But we’re not even so much that. It’s the movement and moving around and taking the antioxidants which are so important. When you’re taking these antioxidants, reactive oxygen species are made to a very, very small amount. And as a result, you really decrease your cardiovascular significantly.
So it’s important to think about this. I don’t want people to think, “Oh, my gosh. I have to go out and run. I have to do all these heavy, heavy execises.”
It’s really not so much about that. It’s about taking the antioxidants, doing the detox to make sure you’re getting these chemicals out of the body, and the pesticides that might be due to metabolic syndrome, and acknowledging the fact that these reactive oxygen species can be contained with exercise.
DEBRA: So I just recently changed my exercise a month ago. And I want to talk about a bit about that because it’s made a big impression on me. And I actually started doing this because I watched a friend of mine just get fit right in front of my eyes by going to the gym. And as I said earlier, I had this one good gym experience many years ago. Many, many years ago.And I saw such progress with him and when he got down to this – he looks like he lost 10 years, not just losing pounds. He just looks so much younger. And he looks fit and attractive. And he said, “You should come to the gym with me.”
And so I went and what I learned was that when you do certain type of exercise that it builds what’s called a lean muscle mass. And that you can do other kinds of exercise but they’re just burning calories and they’re not creating lean muscle mass. And what the lean muscle mass does is that it actually is burning fat while you sleep.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right.
DEBRA: And so if you put in your time building the lean muscle mass on your body, then – most people, they try to reduce their calories and whatever. But they’re not turning their bodies into fat burning machines. And I really didn’t understand this. I’m an intelligent woman and I really didn’t understand this until I went to this gym, and they started explaining to me about building lean muscle mass and how to do it.
And so I started going three times a week.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Good for you.
DEBRA: I do lean muscle mass building on the machines. I do four machines. It takes me maybe 15 minutes. And then I ride on the stationary bicycle. And when I started, I could do maybe 4 minutes, and now I’m doing 12 minutes. And when you do it on a stationary bicycle, you can push up the strenuousness and it just is a very organized thing.
But what I found was that I’m only doing – it’s not like I’m lifting these big weights. I’m only doing enough weight so I can get resistance. That’s all.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s what you need.
DEBRA: Yes, it’s just resistance. It’s not a big push. And you can push and it can be like pulling on a rubber band, when you’re not pulling it, it’s just clobby. I don’t know how to describe this. But then if you put a little more weight on, there’s a point where you have to push without straining. And all I’m doing is just doing this easy push and I’m doing my little 15 repetitions. And it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big sweat, I just go in with my shorts and my tank top, and my little tennis shoes. And I push these weights. And that’s it. I just go and do it for three times a week. And I’m starting to build muscle. I can see the muscle.
But the most interesting thing was that this past week, I’ve had a virus so – I should have continued to go to the gym, listening to you. But I didn’t go to the gym. And what’s happening is that I’m starting to feel like my muscles are actually burning fat while I’m not exercising. And I have more strength and it’s just like I can see the results for very, very little effort. And that was the thing that was amazing to me. So little effort, and I’m getting such a big result.
PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s what I’m saying to people. Physical activity, even small amounts, are really important. Now, I was looking here at a new study, and this is really important. Physical inactivity – and they have a diagram. This just really explains it really well. If we have physical inactivity, you get abdominal adiposity. So you start putting on weight around your middle. And what happens is the macrophages, these particular white blood cells that go after infections, they start going into the visceral fats. They actually start going into that area there and become chronic systemic inflammation. That’s what’s really happening.
DEBRA: That’s very good to understand. We’ll talk more about this when we come back from the break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist. And she has a natural pharmacy here in Clearwater, Florida. You can go to her website, BotanicalResource.com. And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld, registered pharmacist, and she dispenses medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. She can help you get off prescription drugs. She can tell you what prescription drugs are coming up in your future by looking at your blood test. She’s just able to do so much around prescription drugs and natural substances that she can help you with.
Pamela, give your phone number again.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. So you can reach me here at my pharmacy. It’s 727-442-4955. That’s 727-442-4955.
DEBRA: Thank you. So what are some things that people can do that are small, easy to get started with movement things? How can people incorporate more movement into their lives?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, very obvious things like taking the stairs, parking your car a little farther away at the grocery store. Just looking for opportunities or physical activity maybe instead of having always somebody clean your house or do your yard work. Maybe you can do some of that at some time as well.
It’s important to find small amounts and we know that little spurts, if you’re going to go walking and then do a run, if you do small spurts of running between walking, it’s called interval training, that you get better results.
The thing that I wanted to focus on too is that if you’re going to do detox and do Body Anew, even regardless of your physical activity or if you’re physically active, it’s going to make it better. A lot of these things are going to start moving out and it’s going to facilitate your weight loss but also helping to get rid of the adipose amount that are in your abdomen, as far as how much it’s storing. That’s important because we now know that when we start having chronic inflammation and we have increases in visceral fat, we are at risk for breast cancer, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and also depression and dementia and colon cancer.
So there are so many diseases that are associated with the physical inactivity. And it doesn’t mean that you have to be at the gym. I really want to stress that because I don’t want people to feel – a lot of times, when people aren’t exercisers and they hear these types of talks, they feel overwhelmed and they get more depressed. It’s like, “Oh, my god. I have to do this now.”
That’s not what we’re trying to accomplish here today. We’re trying to say that I really think small burst of activity can be very helpful. I think getting up from your desk and walking around can be very helpful. And I think doing a detox to try to remove some of these things out of your body that maybe are in a static form, it’s very important.
DEBRA: I think so too. I constantly am saying that I think that detox is the number one most important thing anybody can do for their health because as long as you have those toxic chemicals in your body, you would do everything else and none of it is going to work if it’s the chemicals that are causing the health problems. And in many cases, it is.
Pamela, tell us how many years you’ve been taking Body Anew.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I would say 15, maybe longer, close to 16. Really, when you think about it, most of my clients – sometimes, they’re like, “Well, I only want to do it twice a year” and that’s fine. But I think it’s extra insurance. When you’re taking the detox on a daily basis, you’re not in a bathroom. It’s not laxative. It’s not the kind of a detox [cross-talking 00:42:11] body. And what’s important about that is you think you have control over everything. You have a lot of control on what you eat, but you don’t have control environmentally of things that you’re exposed to just randomly. Going to the store, walking along the road, you’d be surprised. Most people are saying, “Well, I’m all organic.” They’re very proud of all the different things they do but you really don’t control everything.
DEBRA: That’s right. I think that’s a really important point to make because I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years. And at first, I thought if I just remove all the toxic chemicals from my home, and I did a really good job with that, then my body would naturally detox. But I wasn’t considering all the things that I’m being exposed to outside. Unless you’re in your home 24 hours a day, and you removed every single chemical from your home, and you’re filtering the incoming air, you are being exposed to toxic chemicals.
And you do need to do something about those. And they’re getting built up in your body. In addition, there’s all the toxic chemicals that you’ve been exposed your whole, entire life until now. Everybody has what the CDC calls body burden. Every single person on the planet needs to be detoxing in some way.
Pamela likes Body Anew. I’ve been taking Body Anew since I’ve known her. It’s so easy to take. You don’t even know you’re taking it. You just put little drops of water in a bottle and little drops out of a bottle, into a bottle of water, and you just siphon it. It’s just easy. I have no detox symptoms from taking it and I know that it’s working every day.
PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s an easy, inexpensive way to detox in a long term basis without having to worry about not feeling well. It’s safe for children. I use it pretty much for everybody. I think the idea of increasing your activity in small burst, if people are able to do that and doing the Body Anew, and also realizing that when the chemicals are in effect, the cell signals are messed up. And as a result of that you get increases in circulating cytokines and these inflammatory components. These things feed on each other. We’re just starting to learn about cell signaling and different things that affect the way the cell signal each other, and they communicate with these little messengers. And these messengers definitely are very sensitive to the environment which they’re living in. And if they signal each other and there are other things that are in the way, that’s called extracellular matrix, the area outside the cell where things need to be drained out. And if you have the extracellular matrix that’s full of, I don’t want to use the word toxin so much but just full of chemicals, full of debris, cellular debris and so forth, you’re going to get congestion in those areas and you know what you’re going to end up with? Inflammation, pain, trigger point.
All of these things that are really very avoidable. You’d be surprised. The general body habit is in the health of the individual by moving these things out. Activity helps a lot. Massage helps a lot. But really, having a homeopathic product that facilitates the extracellular matrix kind of cleaning up and mopping up all the stuff with the huge difference as far as the trigger points and for pain for a lot of people as well.
DEBRA: Yes, I think that everybody should find some detox product that they’re happy with and just continue to take it.
PAMELA SEEFELD: I agree. The conversation here today is talking about inactivity, the fact that 28% of Americans really are doing no activity at all. None. Zero. And that the inactivity we know is associated with, obviously, gaining weight, but we have to think about these macrophages going into the visceral fat. They’re causing systemic inflammation. It’s chronic inflammation. And as a result, you get insulin resistance, you get atherosclerosis, neurodegeneration, tumor growth, and it puts you at risk, especially for these things that are – obviously, type II diabetes, breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, but realize that depression is also a side effect of this and dementia, which is a horrific problem here in the United States with all the people getting older.
These things are preventable to some degree. I understand genetics do play a role but the genes have to be turned on by something. And the something is the chemical.
DEBRA: Right. And then this exercise helps with the good genes?
PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, because when you exercise, there are thousands of genes that get turned on as a result of the cardiovascular exercise. And those genes have healing properties. When you are continually exposed to inactivity and to chemicals, you don’t have an active process of removing them out thoroughly, as a result of that the chemicals are what instigate and turn these things on. That’s why people when they get older, it’s not just because their genes are more active as far as turning on dementia and these sorts of things. It’s because the chemical compound and the net amount in the body is so much higher as you get older.
Think of a big tuna. That’s why we worry so much about tuna. It’s a huge fish. It has a time to accumulate all of these metals and toxins. Small fish like sardines don’t. That’s why they use sardines for the higher quality oil.
DEBRA: So we only have a couple of minutes left. Any final words you want to give?
PAMELA SEEFELD: The final words are that when you look at type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, dementia, depression, these are just some of the disease we know that having activity, increasing small amounts of activity can be actively prevent these things. If we can keep systemic inflammation down and off from the road, we’re talking about the endothelium inside the blood vessels, a lot of this is preventable by taking antioxidants, by taking the Body Anew, and also having some kind of activity every day.
DEBRA: Activity is just so important. And I think that it gets talked about a lot. But I think that people don’t really understand what’s going on. I know I’ve heard it my whole, entire life. But when you start getting older and you start seeing that things are getting older in your body, you just start saying, “What can I do?” And exercise is really the thing. I live in Florida where a lot of people are retired. And I see all these senior people walking around my neighborhood. They’re just all walking and walking every day. I see the same people walking around.
And it is great. They have on their little visor hats and their little shorts. And some of them walk their dogs and they’re just out there saying hello to their neighbors and walking around and getting some exercise. And I really see when I exercise more how much better my body feels. And it really cuts down on how many supplements I need to take, it increases how well I fell, and it’s just a matter of, if you can’t do it yourself, get a friend. Find a friend who is going to the gym or going for walks, or ask a family member to do it with you. Or just find a way to start moving. It will make all the difference and it just shakes up things in your body so those stored chemicals start releasing and then they can be detoxed. It’s so important to the detox process. I can’t even say how important it is because it’s just so important.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Immune system moving chemicals out. I’m talking about the white blood cell activity. All these things are intimately affected by what you do. And you have control over these things. It means walking to your car. It means walking upstairs. It’s some simple, simple lifestyle changes.
DEBRA: And I’m going to say thank you, Pamela, because the music is going to come on in about two seconds. Thank you so much.
PAMELA SEEFELD: Thank you so much. Have a great day.
DEBRA: You too. This is Debra Lynn Dadd with Toxic Free Talk Radio. Be well.
Toxic Free Lifestyle As The New Medicine
My guest today is Naturopathic Doctor Tina Christie BSc, ND. She lives and practices in Ontario, Canada, and is producing a summit in May called “Lifestyle is the New Medicine.” I will be speaking about how the toxic free living as a lifestyle and how it can improve your health. We’ll be talking about lifestyle as medicine, what a naturopathic doctor uses for treatment, and how she incorporates toxics reduction and detox in her practice. Helping others through naturopathic medicine is Dr. Christie’s great passion. She was accepted immediately out of her undergraduate program at the University of Toronto (Bachelor of Science, Biology/Chemistry) into the naturopathic program at CCNM and graduated in 2001 at the top of her class. www.themindbodydoctor.ca
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Toxic Free Lifestyle as the New Medicine
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Dr. Tina Christie
Date of Broadcast: April 28, 2015
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
It is Tuesday, April 28, 2015. You can probably hear I have a little stuffy nose. Well, there’s just stuff going around here, allergies, people coughing and sneezing. It’s raining today. But even though I have a little stuffy nose and a little sinus stuff going on, I’m still feeling good in here in doing my radio show and living my life. And even though stuff’s going on in my body, I still have the strength, the stamina and interest to be able to continue life and not just lie in bed.
I think that’s one of the benefits, one of the results of living without toxic chemicals because – sorry, I just got a little distraction there. That’s one of the benefits of living without toxic chemicals because your body gets strong, your immune system gets strong, all your body systems get strong because they’re not being destroyed and/or made weaker by toxic chemical exposures.
So today we’re going to be talking about actually living toxic free as a lifestyle. And we’re not going to talk about it exactly today. I’m going to be talking about it at a summit that’s coming up in May. I don’t have the dates right in front of me. I think it starts May 7th, but that’s a wild guess. And I’m going to be speaking on May 10th about a toxic-free lifestyle, what is a toxic free lifestyle?
We’re going to touch a little bit on that today. But what we’re going to talk about more is the whole idea of lifestyles as the new medicine. And when my guest contacted me and asked me if I would speak about lifestyle as the new medicine, how perfect, because that really is what I’ve been talking about for more than 30 years, is to look at how you’re breathing and how that affects your health.
And just like you take a medicine because you want to relieve symptoms or make your body healthier if you’re sick or whatever, you can do that with the choices that you make in your life, with the foods you eat, with the things that you have in your home, with the things that you’re exposed to. Everything has either a negative effect, a non-effect (it’s just neutral) or it has a beneficial effect. And choosing those beneficial things to create our lifestyles with I think is the perfect thing.
So my guest today is Naturopathic Doctor Tina Christie. Hi, Tina.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Hi, Debra.
DEBRA: How are you doing?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: I’m great, thank you. How are you? You have a little sniffle.
DEBRA: Good. I have a little sniffle. So as a naturopathic doctor, what would you tell me to do?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Well, if you’re feeling good, if your appetite is good, your energy is good, it should go pretty fast. Stay away from sugar completely.
DEBRA: I stay away from sugar all the time.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: That should boost your immune system by up to 50% for up to five hours. No sweeteners, no sugars, lots of water, lots of sleep.
DEBRA: I think what’s going on here actually is that my body is detoxing because on Saturday, I started taking a new homeopathic remedy for kidneys. It’s a kidney detox homeopathic remedy. And ever since that time, I had a headache and my nose is running. And all of those things I recognized as detox symptoms. So that might be what’s going on.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: It sounds like it could be. Are you drinking lots of water to help?
DEBRA: Lots of water, lots of water.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: The other thing that can help if you’re feeling good energy-wise, nothing too intense, but to get some exercise even if it’s just a nice walk. When you move, you drive more blood to your liver. And so you get more detox effects that way as well.
DEBRA: I didn’t know that. Well, thank you. I’m actually about to go sit in a car for six hours. I have to drive across the state of Florida sideways all the way to the other coast, pick up something and drive back. But tomorrow, I can go for a walk. That’s a really good idea.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: So much for that advice today.
DEBRA: So how did you get to be a naturopathic doctor?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Well, I always wanted to go into medicine. I was one of those little kids that said – I remember my grandmother saying to me when I was five, “Are you going to marry a doctor when you grow up?” And I said, I’m half-Italian so I said, “Nana,” which is Italian for grandmother, “Nana, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m not going to marry a doctor.”
But I grew up with a lot of health problems. I had a lot of infections, lots of antibiotics, tired all the time. My mom was always taking me to the doctor.
And then when I was 17, I started having a lot of stomach pain, higher up kind of stomach pain. And I got diagnosed with something called gastritis. It’s not an ulcer, but it’s an irritation of the stomach lining where an ulcer is a more of a hole. I was only 17 and I had prescription medication for bad menstrual pain, which I took occasionally. And that can cause it.
And so I thought, “Wait a second! I took one pill. And now I have this problem. And now, I’ve got another pill, and I’m 17 years old, where is this taking me?” And in a big, emotional moment, I said, “That’s it. I am not going to medical school. I am finding something different.” It was one of those huge, emotional reactions, but it really was a turning point for me.
And from there, as silly as it sounds, I went to the public library where I lived and took out a whole bunch of books on everything that I could find that had to do with natural healing. And that’s how it started.
DEBRA: Wow! I hear the story over and over and it’s always a different illness or a different symptom. But usually people become interested in natural healing because of something extraordinary that’s going on with their body and wanting to heal that. And so right there, at the beginning, you had this idea of lifestyle as the new medicine. But you didn’t say, “I’m going to take a pill. I don’t want to take a pill.” You said, “Let’s find out what to do.”
So tell us more about the summit and this idea of lifestyles as the new medicine.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Well, the summit is 22 speakers, all talking about different aspects of the way we live. The idea is that I see so many patients that are living in a way that they’re not eating healthy food or they’re stressed out and unhappy all the time or we want to lose weight, but watch four hours of TV a day. Their lifestyle is just beating their body down and beating their health down. And then they go looking for a solution.
If they come to me and they’re in that mindset of, “Let me just find a solution to compensate for everything I’m doing,” they’re probably coming to me for a supplement or that there’s a food they can eat. You read studies, “Oh, eat blueberries. They’re so good for you and they cure all these things.” But that’s not the way it works. It’s not the way it works.
One of the examples I like to give patients is to say, “What’s the one thing you could do to make your relationship really strong?” One thing. And just do that.
Well, there is nothing. It’s a constellation of things. And lifestyle is the same way. We’re living longer than ever today. Most people are going to live to the late 70s or early 80s. I think men, the average lifespan is 78, and for women, 83. But the difference is how are we going to live.
I saw my grandmother lived to one month before her 99th birthday. And for about 20 years before that, she sat on the couch. She was tired. She had arthritis, horrible arthritis in her knees. She did crochet a lot for the last couple of years. She had such bad arthritis in her hands and she couldn’t even do that. She took naps and she watched TV.
DEBRA: To me, that’s not the way to live. I’m older than I used to be and I’m looking at how many years do I have left, but how many good years do I have left? How many more years do I have to complete the work that I want to do in terms of toxics and all the things?
I want to go see the Aurora Borealis live. And how many more years do I have while I can still do that?
And so I’m really revving up my health care in terms of what I’m doing myself to make my body healthy and exercising more and really maybe giving more emphasis to doing things that I wasn’t quite doing as well as I could be doing to take care of my body because all of a sudden, you get to an age and it’s like, “Well, okay. Everything is going to start falling apart unless I do something.”
We need to take a break. But when we come back, we will talk more with my guest, naturopathic doctor, Tina Christine. And I’m at her upcoming summit called Lifestyle as the New Medicine. And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is naturopathic doctor, Dr. Tina Christie. And she is hosting a summit called Lifestyle as the New Medicine, which is coming out in May. I’m going to be speaking on Sunday, May 10th, about Toxic Free Lifestyle as the New Medicine. And you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and scroll down the page and you’ll see a place where you can sign up. I’ll just tell you to go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, you’ll see the place to go there. I’ve got a big picture there of me and Tina. And you can just click right on there and you can sign up to hear me speak about toxic free lifestyles as the new medicine.
So Tina, I know that toxics play a part in your treatment. As a naturopathic doctor, what kind of things are you seeing in your practice that are the results of toxic chemical exposure?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: I see a lot. One of the big things that toxins do is slow down thyroid. They either slow down thyroid function itself or they slow down how well your body makes active thyroid hormones. I see people being tired and sluggish. I often see people who want to lose weight and while that’s fine, they want to lose weight because they feel gross in their body, is often the word they use. I find that fat is a build-up of toxic chemicals. Because when I detox people, they don’t lose a lot of weight. They maybe lose a couple of pounds of fat and they say, “Oh, I feel great. I still want to lose some weight but I don’t feel gross anymore.”
So it was the toxin build-up. Just fatigue, sluggishness, for a lot of people, it causes skin problems as well. Eczema, psoriasis as well, but especially eczema and acne. Often your body is pushing a lot of toxins through your skin.
I find that it can affect mood as well. When your body is so burdened down by toxins, you’re really not running at your peak. And it’s the stress on your body, and that can pull your mood down. And it can also add or promote weight gain, just going back to the weight piece for a second. But I also see joint pains. Often, toxins, when they’re not really being pushed through our skin tissues, people can have body aches, joint pains, they can settle in our joints. And they can also disrupt our digestive system and cause digestive upset, bowel problems, poor digestion.
So it really runs the gamut and that’s actually one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the summit because if you’re overloaded with toxins, no matter what you’re doing, it’s going to pull you back down.
DEBRA: See, listeners. Listen to her say that because I say that every day. If you’re overloaded with toxins then you can be doing any number of treatments in order to try to feel more healthy, but the toxins are still pulling you down. You just can’t get well without addressing those.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: And that there exactly, Debra, is the thought process behind lifestyle being the new medicine. That it’s not the treatments you do. Yes, you may need treatment, but that’s not the crux of it. It’s how are you living, first of all.
DEBRA: And it’s so interesting to me. If you’re trying to empty a bathtub but you have the faucet on, you can’t ever empty the bathtub because it keeps filling you up and filling you up. And it’s the same way with lifestyle because if you’re having a lifestyle that’s a faucet just pouring water into the bathtub all the time, then when you’re trying to get well, which would be to empty the bathtub, then you just can’t because there’s all these stresses on your body of all the negative things that you’re doing in your lifestyle. And if you fix the lifestyle, then you actually don’t need so much treatment.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: It’s true. It’s absolutely true. And I see that, I’ll change someone’s diet, I’ll do some detox, I’ll get them sleeping better, and half of their probems or 75% of their problems sometimes, depending on what they’re coming in with, go away.
DEBRA: Yes because so much of it is just what we’re eating and what we’re exposed to in our home.
So what kind of things do you do for detox for your patients?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Well, first of all, the foundational stuff. So I get the chemicals out of people’s lifestyle. I get the chemicals out. I try as much as possible to have people switch to organics because there’s a lot of chemicals coming in.
Sometimes I do these tests and they show that organic food or regular produce, you test the outside of the produce and say, “Oh, it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of chemicals on there.” But these plants have had chemicals sprayed on them from the time they were sprout. It’s not just going to sit on the surface. It’s going to be absorbed into the inside of the plant.
So you can’t just test the outside and see what’s there.
DEBRA: That’s right. But also, they’ve done studies which show that if you stop eating regular food and switch to organic food, that it takes as little as three days for the pesticides to no longer be in your body. That there are some pesticides, it’s a whole group of, toxic chemicals on some of them last for a long time, but other ones, they flush right through your body.
So if you continuously are eating pesticides, you’re going to continuously have pesticides in your body. If you stop eating them, in three days, you’re going to have a lot less pesticides in your body. That’s all it takes.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Amazing.
DEBRA: I was really amazed when I read that. Because the changes can happen so quick. The changes can happen so quick.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: They can. It’s fantastic.
So I get the foundation going first. If there’s food sensitivity or food intolerance, I take those out. If people aren’t sleeping, you produce so much extra stress hormone when you don’t sleep. And that is a toxin in and of itself. The more toxins your body has to eliminate, the slower everything goes.
So it’s not the very first step I do with people in terms of doing a detox because I want to make sure, again, we’re turning off the bathtub tap before we try to empty the bathtub.
DEBRA: And let’s just stop right there because we need to go to break. And you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is naturopathic doctor, Dr. Tina Christine. And she’s doing Lifestyle is the New Medicine Summit, where I’m going to be speaking on May 10th, and we’re talking about lifestyle and toxic chemicals, and what she does as a naturopathic doctor.
And we’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Dr. Tina Christie. She’s a naturopathic doctor and she is putting on a summit called Lifestyle is the New Medicine, which is coming up in May. I’m going to be speaking on May 10th about creating a toxic free lifestyle. And it’s a very good interview. At the summit, they pre-record it. The interviews are then played during the summit time. And it’s a really great interview. I was really pleased with how it turned out.
So Tina, so after you get the basics in about detox, then what do you actually do to help the detox process?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: For the detox process, I’ve bounced around between different things in the past. There is herbal detox. You can do homeopathic detox. But the one that I’ve settled on the most that I see some of the best effect is a detox that uses, it’s like a protein shake. It’s a powder that contains protein powder as well as a variety of nutrients that support the detox pathways.
Because there are two different pathways. Our detox pathway isn’t actually just one pathway, it’s two pathways that hook up.
DEBRA: Tell us about those.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: So they’re a little tricky. The first pathway and the second pathway don’t necessarily, and a good percentage of people, they don’t go at the same pace. And it’s not uncommon especially for people who are unwell into any degree that the first pathway goes either too fast. The first pathway goes really fast and the second pathway goes normally. Or the first pathway is normal but the second pathway is slow.
DEBRA: So what are these two pathways?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Pardon me?
DEBRA: What are the two pathways?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: They’re called phase 1 and phase 2. And in between them, whether the second one is slow or the first one is too fast, in between, stuff can build up. And the stuff that builds up in between phase 1 and phase 2 are very bad. It’s actually worse than the toxins before your body started detoxing.
It’s a little crazy. And the stuff in between phase 1 and phase 2 causes more damage than the toxins before we started detoxing them. So we still want to detox these toxins. They can’t stick around. But if they get halfway through, if they get through phase 1, and then they sit there because there’s back-up, phase 2. And phase 2 can’t keep up for whatever reason, it’s going to cause more [inaudible 00:29:43] free radicals, it can damage DNA, it’s associated with increased risk of cancer and just overall toxicity.
So the protein powder that I use are the protein shakes, let’s call it, has a variety of nutrients in them. And there are some different companies that make these. And they also have extra nutrients to support phase 2 and to make sure that phase 1 doesn’t go too fast.
DEBRA: So could you describe what phase 1 and phase 2 are?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: So phase 1 is, it takes the chemicals in your system, or the toxins, and it starts to break them down, but it only goes halfway. Before your body can actually eliminate them through stool and urine, they need to be broken down further.
DEBRA: Then that happens during phase 2.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Yes, and that happens during phase 2. But there can be a bit of a backlog, almost like traffic on the highway when there’s like a bottleneck. One lane is closed, so you get home 40 minutes late.
DEBRA: I totally understand what you’re talking about. So how would somebody know if that was going on in their body?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: They wouldn’t. There’s no specific sign that, “Oh, I have a slow phase 2.” Some people may notice but they just don’t seem to process toxins. Say they’ll do a detox that their friend did. And they got really sick right away. The friend felt amazing and they just feel really, really sick. Or they get a detox reaction and instead of lasting for a day or two, they’re two weeks into their detox and they just feel like they’re going downhill. They’re not getting any better. And if anything, they’re getting worse.
I have a slow phase 2, and if I try to detox and I don’t support that phase, this is how I actually got into really this way of doing it, I don’t support that phase 2. Anything that detoxes me, my skin breaks out in about an hour, two hours. And it does not slow down. It’s not one of those temporary healing reactions.
So people may notice that. There’s something going on when they try to detox. It just really doesn’t go well.
DEBRA: I have heard this from people. And I’m sitting here with this headache after I started taking this detox product and I know that’s a symptom of detox. But this makes sense what you’re saying. So what is the product that you like?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: The one that I like, it’s by a company called Metagenics. And it’s called Ultra Clear Plus. Lately, I also use Ultra Clear Plus PH. They put some extra potassium in there that’s alkalinizing. Because when you alkalinize, it helps your body remove toxins a little bit easier as well.
And there are other companies that make these detox protein powders as well but I got into this one years ago and I know that it works well, and I know what to expect from it. And it’s the one I use for myself also. So I also like to stick with what I know works and what I know is going to give a good, predictable result.
DEBRA: Good. Now, is this a professional product or is it something that people can buy and use themselves?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: It’s mostly sold just through professionals. Some health food stores have professional-run staff that bring it in. It’s not necessarily the best thing for people to do themselves, in case there’s another factor in the way. Remember how I talked about, to set that foundation for people first. If there’s another factor in the way and people detox, for example, if someone’s not having good bowel movements and they detox.
DEBRA: That’s a very good point. Another thing I say a lot. Go ahead.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: They’re probably going to feel worse because you’re dumping all these toxins into your colon and then you’re soliciting there and you’re re-absorbing it. I’ve actually seen people feel a lot sicker if they’re not having proper bowel movement. Or heaven forbid, if anyone is a smoker and they decide they want to detox anyways, and I’ve had smokers come to me and say, “Can you detox me? But I don’t want to quit smoking.”
That’s like having five bathtubs in one.
DEBRA: Wow. Talk about messing up the phase 1, phase 2.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE:Yes, no kidding.
DEBRA: Wow. Well, I would say if somebody wants to detox and they smoke, they first thing they should do is stop smoking.
We have to go to break. So we’ll talk more about this one when we come back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is naturopathic doctor, Dr. Tina Christie. And she’s putting on a summit in May called Lifestyle is the New Medicine. And you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and sign up. It’s free. It’s free to attend the whole two weeks of 22 lectures by people like me who are talking about their special part of the lifestyle as the new medicine. And you can just go to Toxic Free Talk Radio and sign up for free and you can hear me on May 10th.
We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Dr. Tina Christie. She is a naturopathic doctor and she’s putting on a summit in May called Lifestyle is the New Medicine. And I’ll be speaking on Sunday, May 10th, about toxic free lifestyles as the new medicine. But there will be 22 speakers in all who will be talking about different aspects of things that you can do to help your health yourself.
Okay, so before the break, we were talking about doing a detox and you were talking about a product that is only available to professionals. So I have two questions. One is, if somebody wanted to detox at home, and we’ve talked about on the show about different types of detoxes. But if somebody wanted to do something without going to a professional, what would you recommend?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: Well, first of all, if they want to detox at home, to set that foundation. Go on your website, all the chemicals and products you mention. Just by having less chemicals come in, your liver detoxes, that phase 1, phase 2 that I’m talking about, 24/7. If that stops, you’re in liver failure.
So when you have less toxins coming in, now those processes in your liver have more resources to deal with the toxins that are sitting in your body. So a natural increase in detoxing what you’ve got in your body will happen, again when you turn that bathtub off. So switching out the toxic products, switching over to organics, and then something called dry skin brushing helps your skin draw off more toxins. Exercise drives more blood to your liver. Drinking enough water. There’s a lot of people who don’t drink enough water.
DEBRA: And how much do you think they should drink?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: It’s an ounce for every two pounds of body weight.
DEBRA: So I don’t know how much that would be. So you basically would take your body weight and multiply it by two, and that’s how many ounces?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: No, take your body weight and divide it by two. And that’s how many ounces. So for the average, 140, 150 or so pound person, you’d be looking at about two liters a day.
DEBRA: And how much is a liter? I’m asking these questions because I know the listeners, many of them are not going to know what a liter is.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: You know those regular-sized water bottles you buy for 99 cents or something like that at the, and I’m not a fan of plastic bottles, that you buy at the corner store? That’s half a liter. So it would be four of those.
DEBRA: So I just figured out if you divide your weight by two and then you get a number, and then you divide it by eight, that’s the number of cups you need to drink.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: I’ve never actually done that. I always have a one-liter bottle sitting on my desk at the office. So when patients say, “Well, what is that?” I’m like, “Okay, this is a liter. Drink two of these.” That’s a good conversion.
DEBRA: So you’re in Canada though. Don’t you have metric there? So everybody knows what a liter is?
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: What do you guys go in there? Ounces?
DEBRA: Ounces and quarts.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: I’m so sorry. I talk in pounds but I also talk in liters. So I’ve got one foot in each camp because we also do kilograms here for weight. But I don’t do that. So yeah, 140-pound person, let’s say, divided by two, that’s 70, so that would be 70 ounces.
DEBRA: 70 ounces. That’s right. And then if you wanted to know how many cups that is, then you divide it by eight. So that’s about, I’m doing it my mind here, so that’s probably nine cups. It’s four cups to a quarts, so that’s about a half-a-gallon.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: What I’d like to encourage people to do, let’s say you’re going to have 10 cups a day, is not to try to get 10 cups. If you got a fill a cup up to 10 times, most people aren’t going to do that. Unless you’re really diligent. But then I don’t know if that is really sustainable because it’s a lot of thought all day long.
DEBRA: I’ll tell you what I do. What I do is I have a big, I don’t even know, it’s more than a quart, glass bottle. And in the morning, I fill that up and then I drink that, and then I make sure that I drink two or three of these throughout the day. And I just have it sitting on my desk. So I’m just sipping water all day long. This is part of my lifestyle.
DR. TINA CHRISTIE: And that’s perfect. That’s what I usually recommend. Get a big container, let’s say, it’s going to be about half of what you’re going to drink for the day. And then set a time. By lunchtime or whatever, it needs to be empty. And then you fill it up at lunc