Category Archives: Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers

Cellular Detoxification Made Easy

There are three key things I want you to think about when it comes to cleansing the body or detox. The first one is that you need to supply the body with the nutrients required to get the job done. You need food for fuel but also to provide the energy for the body’s cleansing processes. The body has an excellent ability to cleanse itself when you supply the right fuel.

Secondly, you need sufficient amounts of water. The body is made up of approximately 80% water. Water and electrolytes, especially the four main electrolytes (calcium, potassium, sodium, and magnesium) are critical for cell-to-cell communication and for the body to operate efficiently. If you don’t have enough water or minerals, the body’s detoxification processes won’t work properly. Before you even think about cellular detoxification, make sure you are drinking enough water.

Thirdly, you need to try and stay reasonably fit with an appropriate body mass index. You want to avoid having too much body fat because the body can’t efficiently operate if it’s too big. It also can’t efficiently operate if it’s too small. If you are carrying a couple of hundreds of pounds, it’s a lot harder for the body to detox than if you’ve lost a bit of weight.

Cellular detoxification is a process that involves enzymes and antioxidants.

An antioxidant is something that stops cellular damage from free radicals. Free radicals can originate from heavy metals, from smoking, and chemicals found in food. Glutathione is a tripeptide (three amino acids together) that acts as a potent antioxidant. Glutathione is found to varying degrees in all cells. It can even help get rid of mercury from the body. The liver, one of the major detoxification organs, contains a lot of glutathione.

The three amino acids found in glutathione are cysteine, glycine, and glutamine. You can get these amino acids from protein-containing foods. You don’t need to take pills or fancy powders to get glutathione. In fact, some experts say that glutathione supplements don’t work like the glutathione you form in your own body.

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You can get cystine from nuts, seeds, and certain vegetables. By increasing the amount of cysteine, glycine, and glutamine-containing foods that you eat, you will increase your body’s ability to manufacture glutathione.

The second antioxidant to pay attention to is superoxide dismutase (SOD). SOD is a group of enzymes and antioxidants that work by cleaning up the body. SOD gets rid of a lot of junk in the body. The four main minerals required for SOD to function effectively are zinc, copper, manganese, and iron. Foods that contain these minerals include seafood, organ meats, almonds, sesame seeds, and spinach. When you start increasing zinc, in particular, in your body, you are increasing your body’s detoxification capacity.

One of the most powerful antioxidants in the body is called Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10). CoQ10 is a super powerful redox molecule, meaning that it undergoes complete cycles of oxidation and reduction. It can

give and take electrons. CoQ10 is exceedingly important because it feeds tiny organelles inside cells called mitochondria. Mitochondria are powerhouses found inside every cell of the body. If you want to improve cellular detoxification, you need to enhance the ability of mitochondria to be effective inside the cells. To slow down aging and improve detoxication, keep your mitochondria in great condition. When mitochondria get sick and tired, when they degrade and don’t get enough CoQ10, aging is accelerated, toxic buildup in the body increases, and you are pushed towards chronic disease.

CoQ10 can be purchased as supplements. Beta-blocker and cholesterol-lowering drugs can sap all the CoQ10 from the body. You can find CoQ10 in several foods, including organ meats, spinach, bone broth, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Lipoic acid or alpha-lipoic acid is another chemical that plays a role in detoxification. Lipoic acid is a scavenger that cleans up “crap” in the body. Lipoic acid is a powerful liver antioxidant. The best sources of lipoic acid are organ meats and spinach.

For detoxification, you can also take a variety of herbs such as St. Mary’s thistle. You could also take Swedish Bitters. Many herbs improve the way your liver functions.

Cellular detoxification is not hard. Just remember, eat the right foods and drink plenty of water. Once you start feeling a little bit better, you can consider colonic therapy. You can also consider sauna therapy.

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Questions & Answers

10 Things That Get In The Way Of Recovering From Leaky Gut

Anyone with leaky gut is going to want to get better as quickly as possible. The following tips will help you follow a lifestyle that facilitates the return of good digestive health.

1. Alcohol: You are very much mistaken if you think you can engage in even mild alcohol consumption if you want to recover from leaky gut. Once your digestive system, your energy, your sleep, and your sense of well being are great, occasional use of alcohol may be okay.

As soon as you get to two alcoholic drinks per day, or even several drinks per week, and you’ve got leaky gut, you’re not going to recover from leaky gut with that level of alcohol intake. That’s true even if you’re following a perfect diet, you’re exercising regularly, and everything else in your life is balanced. Alcohol is that powerful when it comes to interfering with gut recovery.

Mistake number one is thinking that you can drink even small amounts of alcohol regularly when you have a leaky gut. You must fix the gut first. Get your digestive system into great shape, and then from there, figure out how much alcohol your system can tolerate will style staying healthy.

2. Stress: Alcohol sometimes comes hand in hand with stress. Some people drink more in response to stress or unfulfilling lives. Work and marriage problems and conflicts with other people contribute to high levels of stress. Work out what the stressors are in your life and deal with them as part of fixing your leaky gut.

Stress undermines your autonomic nervous system. If you can’t get a handle on your stress, it will continue to impact your emotionally and physically – including contributing to poor digestive health.

3. Junk food: Many people think it’s fine to eat junk food or take out once a week. But if you want to recovery from leaky gut, don’t make the mistake of thinking occasional junk food is okay, because it’s not. If you’re going to get your digestive system into great shape, eat healthy meals all the time. Make good dietary choices every day.

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4. Regular medication: Taking paracetamol, ibuprofen, birth control, antidepressants, and taking acid-blocking medications can contribute to leaky gut. If you are on long-term medications, this can make it more challenging to improve your digestive health. Investigate if there are alternatives to using drugs that compound leaky gut.

5. Not testing. If you’ve had a leaky gut for a long time, you may need to do an intestinal permeability test or a comprehensive stool test. For ongoing digestive problems, not having testing done is like sailing on the ocean without a compass. You need to investigate the cause of your symptoms to know how to treat them most effectively.

6. Being overly preoccupied with your diet: Many people that I see talk only about what they eat, but they don’t look at their lifestyle. They don’t look at the quality of their sleep. They don’t look at their breathing. They lack regular relaxation in their life. Stress affects your gut more than you might think. A hectic lifestyle must be addressed.

7. Only treating one particular aspect of your digestive system: For example, only taking L-glutamine because you think you have leaky gut. Or only taking CanXida supplements because you think you have Candida. This relates to point #5, not testing. You must understand the full gravity of your situation and what needs to be treated. Testing will allow you to prioritize everything that needs to be addressed.

8. Not enough relaxation: A significant issue I see with a lot of people is that they are not breathing properly. You can watch some of my videos which provide suggestions on relaxation. I recommend that everyone have a 20 to 30-minute relaxation session every day.

9. Improve your sleep. If you have poor sleep, you will never heal a leaky gut. Poor sleep leads to impaired immune function, adrenal problems, and thyroid dysfunction. An excellent sleep pattern will help optimize your digestive health.

10. Worrying too much about your health: Too many people worry incessantly about their health. Don’t be a hypochondriac. Don’t assume that every little ache or pain is a sign of a life-threatening illness like cancer. Stop worrying about your health, let it do its own thing, and you’ll be much more relaxed. Anxiety about your health contributes to poor health, poor sleep, low energy, and adrenal fatigue.

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Questions & Answers

What Causes Sulfur Intolerance?

Some people write to me about having a possible histamine reaction. In fact, they could be having a problem with sulfur in their bodies.

Sulfur is a natural compound found in a whole bunch of different foods. It’s found in Alliums like garlic and onions. Sulfur is also found in brassica vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli. Eggs contain a lot of sulfur. You can even find it in watermelon.

If we look at proteins and break them down, we’ve got 21 different amino acids. Two of these amino acids, cystine and methionine, contain sulfur.

Sulfur is very important in the body. It plays a role in detoxification. Methionine and cystine drive three main detoxification pathways in your liver. The liver has two main phases of detoxification: Phase One and Phase Two.

Phase 1 involves the enzyme system called P450 enzymes.

Phase 2 uses five different pathways to break toxins down. Three of these pathways rely on methionine and cystine to work properly. These three pathways are sulfation, glucuronidation, and glutathione-S-transferase.

If you have a problem with sulfur, you can have a problem with detoxification, and it can make you feel quite sick.

So, how do you get around this?

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You can’t entirely avoid sulfur.

It is very hard to get out of your diet. There are a couple of reasons why sulfur could be playing up with you. You could have a genetic mutation. We know for vitamin B12, for example, we’ve got the MTHFR gene, so that you can be homozygous for a bad copy of that gene. That results in a problem called CBS, or cystathionine beta-synthase.

You can do a test for CBS and then decide if you want to avoid foods with the highest sulfur levels.

One of the most common ways people get a sulfur sensitivity is through heavy metal toxicity. The four primary metals that can cause a sulfur problem are lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury. These are sulfhydryl metals. These metals can make people with a sulfur sensitivity quite sick if they have a build-up of them, particularly a build-up of mercury. If you have high levels of these heavy metals in your body, working on getting rid of them will help sulfur work more effectively in your body.

You can do a hair analysis to find out the levels of heavy metals in your body.

You can test if you have a big sulfur problem by using an organic acids test (the O test). It’s a test that measures urinary metabolites. The markers that you could find include high sulfates, ammonia, orotate, citrate, isocitrate, or vitamin B6. These substances can be affected if you have a sulfur problem.

If you have confirmed that you have a sulfur sensitivity, I suggest doing an online search for the highest sulfur-containing foods. Try and eliminate some of them from your diet and see if it makes a difference. If it does, and that’s the only change you have made, you can put some of the higher sulfur-containing foods back into your diet to see if you start getting more symptoms again.

Some of the symptoms of sulfur sensitivity are itchiness, hives, asthma, headache, nausea, fatigue, flushing, and brain fog.

The last step in sulfur detoxification is an enzyme called sulfur oxidase. If you take a trace element called molybdenum, it helps that enzyme work effectively and excrete more sulfur from the body. The other thing you can do if you need to excrete sulfur from your body is to take chlorophyll drinks or other alkalizing and detoxifying green drinks such as green barley grass and spirulina. It also helps to eat dark, leafy greens like spinach.

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Questions & Answers

A Holistic Approach To Treating Stubborn Oral Yeast Infections

When it comes to managing oral yeast infections, I like colloidal silver. I think it works well. One of my favorite brands is called Silver Biotics.

You spray it in your mouth a few times. That is going to help quite a lot to kill the yeast in your mouth.

There are many different tips you can do for oral yeast. But remember, the mouth is just the beginning of the digestive tract. What you want to do is treat the whole gut, not just the mouth. There is no point in only treating your mouth because you probably have Candida in your throat as well. You may also have Candida in your bowel. It’s important to get that checked out properly.

Make sure that you follow a Candida or SIBO kind of diet. I also suggest that you add some yogurt into your diet.

Here are some of the tips I give my clients who have oral Candida:
1. Make sure you have good dental hygiene. Brush your teeth at least twice a day and floss your gums well.
2. I recommend oil pulling every morning. A tablespoon of coconut oil works quite well. The oil attracts yeast spores, allowing you to eject them and stop them from multiplying.
3. After breakfast, flush your mouth with lukewarm water that contains a pinch of salt.
4. Follow that with a few sprays of colloidal silver.

Probiotics and digestive enzymes work very well for the oral cavity. You can take supplements, but if you want to get good bacteria growing in your mouth, rinse your mouth with a good, sour Greek yogurt.

Make sure you have plenty of garlic in your diet. Chew the garlic thoroughly to help release the substances that will help improve your oral health.

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Some of my patients have recommended sucking on cloves. Some people get relief from chewing on fennel and other seeds. The seeds and spices help reduce the smell of oral yeast. They also release essential oils that help to kill fungal spores.

Some people recommend brushing the tongue. I’ve had patients who’ve seen great improvements by replacing their old toothbrush. Get a new, soft bristle toothbrush that has never had toothpaste on it. Put a drop of tea tree oil on this toothbrush and gently massage the gums. Brush the tongue as well and then spit into the sink.

You can also massage your gums with your finger using some coconut oil or tea tree oil. Massage all of your gums with the oil.

Above all, when you are dealing with stubborn oral yeast, watch what you eat and drink. There is no point in trying to get rid of yeast in your mouth if you’re drinking soda and eating French fries, candy, and ice cream. You need to eat fresh, healthy, natural foods full of enzymes. Eat fresh vegetables, lean proteins, maybe some legumes, nuts, and seeds.

Avoid junk in your diet. It’s the junk food that triggers oral yeast infections in the first place. Smoking and alcohol have no place in your life if you want good oral health.

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Questions & Answers

What To Do If You Have Persistent Oral Thrush

If you have a persistent oral yeast infection (thrush), I recommend that you don’t just focus on your oral hygiene habits. Other important factors are your diet, your adrenal healthy, your energy patterns, and your sleep patterns.

It’s not just about what you eat and how you treat; it’s about how you live your life. A whole lot of factors influence your digestive health. For example, the state of your autonomic nervous system. Do you feel stressed? Do you feel relaxed? Do you spend enough time relaxing and exercising, doing things apart from work, especially if you are a computer-based person?

Does fluoride in toothpaste kill good bacteria? I don’t know about that. I know many people who use toothpaste with fluoride in it, and they don’t have any problems at all.

I would tend to use natural toothpaste made with baking soda instead of a commercial one. I wouldn’t recommend that you buy commercial toothpaste. I don’t like all the ingredients with names you can’t even pronounce.

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I prefer to drink water without chlorine or fluoride in it with a water filter, and I recommend everybody do that. But to each their own.

I know many people who do drink water with chlorine and fluoride in it who don’t have any health problems. I know many other people who say they do get health problems from drinking unfiltered water, so that’s up to the individual.

I’d also ask, what are you doing in terms of cultured and fermented foods? Are you putting any of these in your diet? Such as yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut?

Are you eating foods that promote building good bacterial health in the gut? Are you eating the prebiotic foods that I recommend? Are you chewing foods properly? Have you got good dental health? What are your cortisol levels?

How is your immune system functioning? Do you get sore throats? Do you have any other health issues?

It’s not just about oral yeast. It’s about your overall health.

I genuinely believe that by taking an in-depth look at the many facets of your health and lifestyle, you’ll find the answer to getting rid of the thrush.

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