Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. STRESS AND HAIR HEALTH, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 661 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH. *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed health care professionals …
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. TURN BACK THE CLOCK ON SKING AGING, INVITEⓇ HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 632 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our …
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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph.
*Intro Music*
InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed health care professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that Invite Health has to offer, at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code podcast at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started.† [00:00:34]
*Intro Music*
Jerry Hickey, Ph:[00:00:40] Hi, everybody, welcome to another episode. I’m going to be discussing testosterone in this episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Testosterone is our most common masculinity hormone. It’s extremely important for our health normal levels. We’ll discuss all this over the course of this episode. It affects our facial hair and our body hair and affects the strength of our jawline and affects our voice. How deep our voices it affects our muscles, our bone health, our brain health. It affects our energy, our metabolism. Low levels are an issue and are commonly declines in older men. But even younger men, if they do not live a healthy life, testosterone levels can drop and there are consequences. So how can you safely bring testosterone back to your normal, healthy level? That’s a more, in my episode, Natural Ways to Improve Your Testosterone Level. Hi, I’m Jerry Hickey, I’m a pharmacist, my specialty is nutrition. I’ve been studying nutrition for decades. You can find our podcast episodes everywhere where you listen to podcast for free. Please subscribe and review, but you can also just go to Invithealth.com/podcast. I can also find Invite at Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at InVite Health. So let’s get going.† [00:02:08]
[00:02:09] This is an important thing, now I’m an older guy. Doctor Landon Trust is a pretty famous urologist over at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. And he says as a man ages, testosterone tends to drop. This is a problem, but other things can cause testosterone levels to drop in any adult male. But I have to tell you, a drop in testosterone, it’s negative, it’s bad. It has a real role in male aging. As testosterone drops, so does our drive, yes, that’s right our drive and our initiative, our focus, our mental clarity, our bone health, which can lead of course, to an increased risk of a fracture like a hip fracture. Bad, bad, bad. Our muscle and our strength, our muscle mass is dependent on testosterone, so its strength. Now as muscle mass drops and fat accrues as fat builds, this can affect our blood sugar control, it can affect our heart health. In fact, a drop in testosterone is in many, many studies at many human trials connected with an increased risk of mortality and not just an increased risk of mortality in older men, an increased risk of dying in younger men as well. So what exactly is testosterone? Well, it’s a hormone. It’s the primary sex hormone in men. Now, women have a little bit and they’re very sensitive to it and they need it for like their sexual health, etc.. But it’s incredibly important to men. Our blood levels are much higher than in women. What’s our most important anabolic steroid? Meaning it builds us up. It’s a steroid, a hormone, it’s anabolic, it builds us up, and this is true.† [00:03:56]
[00:03:58] Now, most of it, I think over 95% is secreted by our testicles. The rest is mostly secreted by our adrenal glands. Our adrenal glands are often called our stress glands. They’re these little triangular shape glands on the top of each kidney. And they release other hormones also that are important for the immune system and controlling inflammation, etc., and waking up in the morning, etc. A pretty normal range depending on the lab could be anywhere from 300 to 1000, it really depends on the lab. They have different ways of testing, different sensitivity. So the amount that’s normal is different from lab to lab, but pretty much 350 to 650 is the normal range, which is nanograms per liter. So under 250 is hypogonadism, you can pretty much count on that, which means severely low bad testosterone levels and over 800 or a thousand is considered high. And this kind of makes you into a NASCAR driver. So too high seems to be involved with thickening the blood and may be associated with aggressiveness, even criminality. But that’s a totally different conversation, and I think that totally has to be proven about the aggressiveness and criminality. So the level of free testosterone is also very important. And what does that mean? Testosterone can be attached to serum binding of hormone levels. It’s called serum hormone binding globulin. So that’s not really active. It can also be attached to the protein in our blood, which is called albumin, and that’s okay because it pretty easily detaches from albumin. But the amount of free testosterone is thought to be free testosterone thought to be more active than regular testosterone. So you do want a good range of free testosterone.† [00:05:54]
[00:05:57] So what do we know about testosterone for men? What does it do? I mean, besides, you know, growth and sexual characteristics and facial hair, etc.? Well, it’s involved with our energy. If you lack testosterone, you can feel less energy, inflammation. If testosterone is low, you have increasing levels of inflammation, which is bad because that could affect the heart and the brain. We’ll get into that. It’s involved with memory. Testosterone is involved with your memory, your attention span, your focus, your spatial ability, your motivation, your drive. And, you know, regular levels of testosterone gives you some drive and some focus and some ambition. It doesn’t make you aggressive. It’s involved with bone strength. So if you lack testosterone, you do have an increased risk of thinning bones. Weakened bones, which does increase the risk of a hip fracture. And hip fractures are desperately dangerous in men and also sexual function. So low testosterone, once again reduced energy, reduced drive, reduced libido. That’s not fun because there’s a feedback loop, there that we’ll go into in a minute. Increased inflammation, fat gain, muscle loss, increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. These are all connected. In fact, low testosterone is commonly and repeatedly connected with an increased risk of mortality, which I already discussed. But it’s important to put these things into perspective, increased risk of hip fracture, issues with the brain, even an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. So, you know, it’s very important to get testosterone back to normal.† [00:07:36]
[00:07:38] So how does the body make testosterone? Well, there’s a feedback loop to control the level of testosterone in the blood. With low testosterone, the hypothalamus, which is a regulating organ in our brain and a more primitive part of our brain, the lower back part of our brain, it releases gonadotrophic releasing factor. And I tell you this because later on we’re going to discuss things that reduce the level of gonadotrophic releasing factor. So why is gonadotrophic releasing factor important? Well, this triggers our anterior pituitary, another organ in our brain to release luteinizing hormone. And the luteinizing hormone causes the cells, the leydig cells in our testicles to synthesize testosterone. So there’s a healthy feedback loop between our testicles and our brain. No jokes, please, controlling our level of our testosterone. So but once again, the level of free testosterone is also important. We don’t know to what degree, it’s a much smaller amount in our blood. So how can we release, how can we improve the release of our testosterone safely and naturally? Well, there are drugs, but drugs, they can be too much. They can make you more into a NASCAR driver than a regular guy. The drugs are going to have too much of an effect. And plus, they’re expensive. And, you know, there’s all kinds of visits involved with that, the doctrine of pharmacy. But fortunately, a normal, healthy level of testosterone can be improved by natural, healthy things like, one, limit your alcohol intake, so one, limit your alcohol intake, especially beer. Beer contains phytoestrogens, a lot of them, especially IPAs and India Pale Ale, because they contain a lot of hops and too much alcohol can lower your testosterone level. Some doctors feel that it’s safer to have vodka than to have beer.† [00:09:47]
ICYMI: TALKING HORMONES WITH CARDIOLOGIST, DR.DAVIS>>LISTEN NOW!
[00:09:48] Limit soy foods. Now legumes are good, okay? Beans and lentils and peas are good. They’ve even been shown to lower the risk of heart disease and possibly prostate cancer. But soy, soy foods are very high and very powerful phytoestrogens such as genistein and dioxin. Now, some soy is fine, but, you know, don’t sit down and eat a lot of tofu. That seems to be an issue. Better sleep. You need sleep for testosterone manufacture. So you want a dark room. You want to avoid blue light before sleep, which stimulates the brain too much. Plus sleep increases cortisol levels and decreases the morning release of testosterone, which is very important. Now, that’s interesting. If you lack some sleep early in the night, it doesn’t seem to be as bad as lacking sleep in the morning. So waking up too early seems to be worse than getting to bed a little a little bit late. You have to handle stress. Stress reduces the risk of gonadotrophic releasing hormone. If you don’t release that, you don’t, you don’t create testosterone. You’re testosterone levels drop and stress also increases the level of cortisol. So if you’re constantly stressed, the cortisol will increase your body fat level, which decreases cortisol, I mean, which decreases testosterone. So it’s not a good thing. There are supplements to help with stress, but, you know, nice, relaxing, good music, moderate exercise. It seems that excessive exercise has some kind of negative effect on testosterone, but that’s yet to be elucidated. The supplements L-theanine safely reduces stress. So does a little bit of CBD.† [00:11:34]
[00:11:36] I personally, what do I do for stress? Well, I handle it well because I’ve always been exposed to a lot of stress. But I paint. I’m an artist to a degree, and I exercise things like tai chi and pickleball and lifting weights. That helps with it, but I don’t overdo it. That helps with stress. Fat loss. Fat contains an enzyme called aromatase and aromatase, breaks down testosterone and converts it to estrogen. So too much fat increases your estrogen and reduces your testosterone. But also, you know, too much fat affects your blood sugar and your heart health. So it’s not good, so the fat loss approach of testosterone helps you control your blood sugar. I mean, it’s all good. Avoid BPA. Some plastics have BPA, which is called bisphenol A, bisphenol A lowers androstenedione, which is another androgen, and it lowers your testosterone level. So you want to use BPA free plastics, anything that sounds like BPA, you don’t want. You need fat in your diet to create testosterone. Good fats like fish or fish oils, walnuts, avocados, olive oil, flaxseed oil or eating flaxseed is even better. You’ll like this, healthy sexual life, sex improves testosterone. A lower testosterone leads to a lower libido, which is bad because a lower libido further reduces your level of testosterone. When you have a healthy sexual life, it helps with your libido and it helps control your testosterone. Now there are nutrients needed, so this is actually the ninth thing that’s involved with your testosterone. Nutrients, like low vitamin A in studies, low beta carotene, natural beta carotene and low vitamin A is repeatedly connected with a drop in testosterone levels.† [00:13:35]
[00:13:36] Zinc, the mineral zinc is needed for many things. Your vision, protecting the brain, your immune system, healing, making thyroid hormone, so many things. Zinc is required to make testosterone. Now, zinc is also required for spermatogenesis, you know, healthy such, healthy levels of sperm, a zinc deficiency contributes to hypogonadism seriously, dangerously low levels of testosterone. So you can get some zinc in oysters and meat, even chicken and fish and legumes. But I don’t mess around with this. Zinc is so important. It’s so easy to be low in zinc. So I’m taking, I’m getting zinc every day as a supplement. There’s so many benefits to zinc. We’ve done practically everything I’m talking about in general, like zinc and bone health and men, and we have other podcast episodes on the show, you can look for that.† [00:14:33]
[00:14:33] Vitamin D, you need Vitamin D to control your testosterone level. You need vitamin D to make testosterone. Now, magnesium, the mineral, magnesium, magnesium is needed to activate vitamin D and you need vitamin D to control your testosterone. But magnesium is also needed to release melatonin at night, which is needed for healthy sleeping patterns. Vitamin E, vitamin E is needed to maintain your zinc level, and zinc is needed to make maintain testosterone. And Vitamin C. Vitamin C interacts with vitamin E to control your zinc level. And zinc is needed to make testosterone. Selenium, you need the mineral selenium, you only need small amounts to make testosterone. Now, also, get your diabetes under control. Diabetes can affect your testosterone level. And interestingly, magnesium, zinc and vitamin D, which are needed to make testosterone, are also needed to control the release of insulin and glucagon to control your blood sugar levels. So all of these are important.† [00:15:40]
SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION, PART 1 – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 504
[00:15:42] So I want to thank you for listening to today’s podcast episode. You can find all of the invite podcast wherever you listen to podcasts for free, it’s for free or just go to Invitehealth.com/podcast, and please leave a review and please subscribe. You can also find info on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter at InVite Health. I want to thank you for listening today. This is Jerry Hickey signing off and I hope to see you next time on another episode of InViteⓇ Health Podcast. †[00:16:13]
[00:16:15] There is one more option to raise your testosterone level, but it’s a supplement. There’s a group of things in nature called flavonoids, there’s thousands of them. They have many benefits. They’re contributing to lower your risk of heart disease and possibly diabetes. They’re good for your brain. They have antiviral effects, which is always good during the cold, bad weather. They’re connected with longevity. They have many other functions, possibly even anti-cancer effects. Not all flavonoids are equal. My favorite flower is the passion flower. Very beautiful, complex flower, I grow it all year long. And out of that comes a flavonoid called Chrysin, chrysin slows down the enzyme that breaks down testosterone and converts it into estrogen. It’s kind of like if you build a dam and it rains, the water builds up a little and it rains again the next day and it builds up a little bit more. Your testosterone is starting to build up back towards your normal levels. You’ll never get a high level with this. So it’s safe, but it can help bring it back to your more normal level. The problem is Chrysin is very poorly absorbed, so there’s a trick to that. There’s something called bioperine, that comes out of the pepper plant, and bioperine increases the absorption of several substances, one of them being Chrysin. So if you take Chrysin with little bit of bioperine in there, you will absorb the Chrysin and I have seen it restore men’s testosterone levels considerably, where some of them were actually hypogonadal, they had very low levels, like 150 or 200 and a bottom up to like a range of 400, which is like a nice healthy pattern, a nice healthy level. So Chrysin is an option and I have no issue with it because Chrysin has several other activities, it seems to reduce the risk of developing certain kidney stones. It’s a very relaxing supplement and right now it’s being studied for its anti-cancer potential.† [00:16:15]
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The summer months can be exciting for those who had a harsh winter season. Be careful with the sun exposure and learn more to help maintain healthy skin.
lungs
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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph.
*Intro music*
InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InViteⓇ Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
*Intro music*
Jerry Hickey, Ph.: [00:00:40] There are plenty of hazards that threaten our lung function, the health of our lungs: Inhaling dusts of all sorts; pollution, both indoor and outdoor. Now, indoor pollution can include smoke from wood burning and coal burning stoves and smoking, of course. Infections, even aging, affects our lung function. So many things can harm the tissues of our lungs, I’ll go into the anatomy of our lungs in a minute, and this can contribute to lung diseases, among them pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma. Many studies are pointing to the benefits of resveratrol for lung function. So hi, my name is Jerry Hickey. I’m a nutritional pharmacist. Welcome to my episode, Resveratrol and Lung Health. You can listen to all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. Also, you can listen to us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @invitehealth.† [00:01:50]
[00:01:51] So what exactly is resveratrol? It’s found in plants, it protects plants. For instance, red grapes under a lot of stress… So there’s a red grape growing in a part of Spain where it’s very dry and it’s very hot. The plant releases resveratrol to protect the grapes. And in fact, in red wine, you could get a tiny bit of resveratrol, maybe a milligram in a good red wine, but it dissipates very quickly. Once you open a red wine, the resveratrol evaporates in about a day, and even if you cork it really well, it only lasts about five days. And when you purchase a resveratrol supplement do not get a liquid, do not get a powder, because both light and oxygen cause resveratrol to decay. So you want to get resveratrol protected with something in the capsule. For instance, we use chlorophyll, the green stuff from vegetables and plants, to shield resveratrol from light and we use these capsules with a really tight weave that keep oxygen away from resveratrol. And if you could find a resveratrol supplement, by the way, with some other natural ingredients that are found in the same plants as resveratrol, science has proven that the resveratrol will be more beneficial. They amplify the benefits of resveratrol, namely, quercetin. Quercetin is found in good foods like garlic and onions and green tea and broccoli and spinach. And grape seed extract, any polyphenol similar to grape seed extract, which is an oligomeric proanthocyanidins, an OPC. So if you could find an OPC and quercetin in with your resveratrol and if it’s protected from light and oxygen, it’ll last longer. It’ll work better.† [00:03:41]
GETTING THE MAXIMUM OUT OF RESVERATROL – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 479. Listen Now>>
[00:03:43] Now, there’s a bunch of proven benefits for resveratrol. I’ll go into that at the end of the program, but it really has an impact on the lungs. In fact, there’s some evidence that it protects the lungs from viruses, which is really important during the time of COVID-19. Resveratrol has alkylamines in it. Certain plants have alkylamines, like green tea, turmeric, you know, the curcumin in turmeric, and resveratrol, and these signal the immune system to fight viruses. But resveratrol is also an anti-inflammatory antioxidant in the lungs, and it also triggers genes that protect the lungs and improve the health of the lungs. For the lungs, resveratrol helps reduce inflammation, helps protect the tissues of the lungs, works as a powerful antioxidant to reduce damage by free radicals. Free radicals are found in things like smoke, but that’s just part of daily life. When you eat food and create energy, you create free radicals. So you need to shield the lungs from this as you grow older. It’s been shown to reduce fibrosis in the lungs. Fibrosis is a buildup of kind of scar connective tissue that can stiffen the lungs with age. Like I said, it can help inhibit viruses.† [00:04:50]
[00:04:52] So let’s talk about the lungs. Your respiratory system, of course, you nose and your mouth are part of your respiratory system and you inhale. And then there’s this sort of curve at the end of the nasal pharynx. So you breathe in and the air has to start to go down to the lungs. So first it goes through the trachea, which is your windpipe. It’s a pipe from your, the back of your throat down to your lungs and that branches off to a left and a right bronchi. They connect the trachea to the lungs. So there’s two lungs, you need two bronchi. And the lungs are spongy tissue that exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen. And in the lungs, there’s these little sacs, they’re tiny air sacs called alveoli. We have millions and millions of them and they exchange the carbon dioxide for the oxygen. That’s where it takes place.† [00:05:46]
[00:05:48] So some of the common conditions that affect the lungs, there’s pneumonia. Now, there’s different types of pneumonia. If you got liquid in your lungs, that’s droplet pneumonia. But most pneumonias are caused by inflammation related to bacterial infections and viral infections, like viral pneumonia is fairly common. And what happens, you get cytokines, immune messengers, and fluids affecting the lining of the lungs and this reduces the surface area of the lungs that’s working, so it makes it harder to breathe. And of course, it could get dangerous. And then there’s bronchitis. I didn’t mention the bronchioles before when I was talking about the lung anatomy, but at the end of your bronchi, remember, there’s the windpipe, the trachea that splits into bronchi. And at the end of the bronchi, there’s these little branches that are called bronchioles. And in bronchitis, the bronchioles become inflamed and you get lots of mucus and it can really affect your breathing. Then there’s asthma. Asthma. Did I say asthma? Asthma. And once again, it’s the bronchioles. The bronchioles are narrowed and they spasm and this greatly reduces the airflow. And it’s a very scary, very, very dangerous situation. We’ve done some podcast episodes on nutrients that can aid, nutrients that can aid breathing in asthma. And if you have asthma, I would recommend listening to those. Of course, asthma is a very serious, dangerous situation and I’m sure it’s quite scary. You should always have, if you have asthma, a new inhaler, rescue inhaler, in case you have an attack with a good expiration date on it. Because you never know. Then there’s emphysema. I mentioned inside the lungs there’s these tiny sacs called alveoli, and in emphysema, something’s causing them to break down and they squash down on one another and makes it terribly hard to breathe. And of course, there’s COVID-19. COVID-19 can trigger acute respiratory distress syndrome, where the lining of the lungs filled with fluid, making it terribly hard to breathe and that’s when it’s really, truly dangerous. Vitamin D can help offset that. We’ve done several podcast episodes on Vitamin D lowering the risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome. There’s plenty of research on that at this point.† [00:08:02]
[00:08:04] Aging. Oh, aging affects your lungs. Lung, lung capacity declines with age, and resveratrol can help make up for all these situations, by the way. It’s not the total answer. It’s part of the equation. It’s part of the answer. It’s helpful. I wouldn’t just depend on resveratrol, but resveratrol is very good for the lungs. I’ll go into some other nutrients that are good for the lungs at the end of the episode. So aging affects lung capacity. A bunch of things happen. The diaphragm muscle, there’s no muscles in the lungs. You have a muscle called the diaphragm that helps you breathe. It pushes your lungs up and helps you breathe, helps you exhale, and then the lungs drop and you inhale again. The diaphragm weakens, nerves weaken, the tissues in the lungs weaken. It’s all not good. So I take resveratrol every day to actually counter a lot of things that go wrong with aging in the brain, believe it or not, in the back of the eyes, in the heart and in the lungs. But it’s also good for your bones. We’ll go into it. Exercise is always good for your breathing capacity, maintaining a good body weight. If you’re overweight, it makes it harder to breathe. Avoiding smoking. Obviously, smoking is terrible for the lungs. Try to avoid pollution if it’s possible. Both indoor and outdoor pollution are terrible for the lungs. And I would take resveratrol. I would definitely add some resveratrol about 200 milligrams a day because that’s the dosage that’s great for the brain and memory also.† [00:09:34]
[00:09:35] So the Department of Infectious Diseases, the University of Rome, Sapienza, they do a lot of great research. They’re coming out with research all the time. They said resveratrol is a promising antiviral agent. Well, that’s true. I mean, plants release resveratrol to help protect them from infections as well as help protect them from stress, environmental stress. So resveratrol has some antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal activities. So they said that the University of Rome and Sapienza resveratrol has activities that can affect viruses that are bad for the lungs, like SARS-CoV-2, you know, the COVID-19 infection, influenza, the flu, respiratory syncytial virus. It can help prevent lung damage. I mean, it really is terribly, terribly important. So the University of Rome at Sapienza, they published a study in the journal Antiviral Research from the Department of Infectious Diseases. The rhinovirus. It often triggers asthma attacks and it creates attacks on people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. And there’s no, there’s no immunization against the rhinovirus. That’s a common cold virus. Well, resveratrol inhibits many viruses, including the rhinovirus and to a degree, coronaviruses. It weakens them. But in human rhinoviruses, resveratrol seems to have a pretty powerful activity. It reduces the inflammation triggered by the common cold virus. So that’s not a bad thing. I mean, it’s not the answer, but it’s helpful.† [00:11:15]
[00:11:18] So the University of Catania is also in Italy. I’ve read many studies from the University of Catania, just like I’ve read many studies from the University of Rome in Sapienza. Very good quality studies, non-biased, very, very legitimate studies. And the doctors reviewed the research pertaining to resveratrol, lung health and lung disease, including chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases like emphysema, asthma, lung fibrosis. Lung fibrosis is scar tissue build up in the lungs and it’s terrible and it can happen to anybody as we age. And they said resveratrol has benefits as a therapeutic agent. So we’re not just talking about prevention here, we’re talking about treatment. And that’s because it’s a great anti-inflammatory in the lungs.† [00:12:01]
[00:12:05] Now patients with asthma and patients with respiratory tract problems, they have cells called eosinophils that are extremely active in a bad way, which attack the lungs and cause inflammation and all kinds of symptoms and damage. So these are researchers from China. It’s the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Xinjiang Medical University in China, and they’re looking at eosinophils from asthmatic patients. Eosinophils are dominant immune cells, white blood cells that are strongly involved with the symptoms you suffer with an allergy. So you find them in your nose and in your throat and by your lungs or by your skin and by your eyes. And but they’re also involved with asthma attacks and the symptoms of an asthma attack and danger of an asthma attack. So they express the eosinophils from patients with asthma and they treated it with resveratrol and other things. And resveratrol is preventing the eosinophils from multiplying. That’s really important because that’s what happens in like an asthma attack or an allergy. The number of eosinophils proliferate, grow in number. And that’s dangerous because they keep on whipping up all the turmoil in your lungs and your respiratory tract. So the resveratrol effectively suppressed the proliferation of these eosinophils for these asthmatic patients. And the longer the exposure of the cells and the greater the exposure of the cells, the better the resveratrol worked.† [00:13:34]
[00:13:35] So let’s go to people now. Evidence inside people, not just in a test tube. This is the journal Allergy and Asthma Proceedings. And once again, it’s Italian researchers. It’s the University of Verona, their pediatric department, and it’s almost 50 kids with moderate to severe asthma. And all of these kids had attacks bad enough that they were admitted to the hospital. It’s Misurina Hospital up in the Italian Alps. They were given corticosteroids. These are the inhalers that block the inflammation, but they gradually were able to reduce the dosage of the corticosteroid inhaler. Corticosteroids are commonly used to treat asthma because they’re such powerful anti-inflammatory agents. Now, a group of these children also received a nutraceutical, a combination of herbs and nutrients: curcumin, which is from the turmeric plant, you know, the curry plant; zinc, which is great for the lungs; selenium, which is great for the lungs; Vitamin D, which is magnificent for the lungs; but of course, resveratrol was the key component in there. And when they gave these children these these pills, the inflammation in their lungs was greatly reduced. So, for instance, you would measure that inflammation by an exhalation. And they found that the products of inflammation in the exhaled air was greatly reduced in the children on the supplements. So the combination strongly reduced lung inflammation. It’s pretty common to combine nutrients that affect similar pathways. For instance, you’d want to combine fish oils with other nutrients for brain health, like B-vitamins and Vitamin C or Vitamin E, they’re all important for the brain. So there are certain combinations that work well together, so they hit on a combination that was pretty darn good.† [00:15:34]
HOW AIR POLLUTION IS HARMING YOUR HEALTH – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 277. Listen Now>>
[00:15:37] Okay, so this is the European Respiratory Journal. It’s University Medical Center Groningen. Groningen would be in the Netherlands. And they’re looking at how come… Does red wine and white wine really support lung function? There’s been some evidence that red and white wines support lung function, but I wouldn’t go down that route because they’re clearly not healthy for your liver or your intestines. The wine, any alcohol tends to kill off your good bacteria, so it’s not the best way to treat something. But inside the red wine is resveratrol. So the doctors gave these people resveratrol or placebo. Now, this is a pretty big study, it’s 3224 people of all different ages, 3224 people. And they found that the resveratrol improved forced expiratory volume. That’s the amount of air you can quickly exhale after taking your deepest breath. And it also improved forced vital capacity. That’s the amount of air you expel after taking your deepest breath. Oh, that one’s not timed. So, resveratrol improved breathing. These people were able to inhale better and exhale more air, a stronger exhalation. I mean, this is just the opposite of what happens with aging. So just to go back and explain a little better, the forced expiratory volume is measured with time. It’s you know, you take your biggest gulp of air and you exhale, but you have to do it within like a second, where the first vital capacity, it’s just how much can you exhale after a deep breath? But they both improved with resveratrol. That’s what we’re looking for.† [00:17:30]
[00:17:32] Now, there’s a lot of evidence that resveratrol lowers the risk of lung cancer. So that’s important if you’re exposed to a lot of pollution, that’s important if you’re exposed to secondhand smoke. So this is University of California at Merced. It’s a team of researchers from California. And they’re looking into, is there truly evidence that resveratrol helps prevent lung cancer? So they said before tumors grow in the lungs, there’s a buildup of toxic free radicals. Free, free radicals are generated in abundance. And they found that, yes, resveratrol is an antioxidant that quenches free radicals, but it does something else. They found out that the resveratrol protected caspases in the lungs. So what’s a caspase? Because this was not something they expected. This was an unexpected finding in the study. Caspases are cellular executioners, and one of the things they execute are cancer cells. So what they found is things like cigarette smoke and pollution, etc. destroyed the caspases and then the caspases can’t control the growth of evil, bad, dangerous cells like cancer cells. And if they gave people resveratrol that you swallow, it protected the caspases in the lining of the lungs. That helps get rid of bad cells and it keeps the lungs healthy. Every time a smoker takes a puff from a cigarette, millions of these bronchial cells in the lungs become inflamed. And this causes white blood cells to flood into the region. These white blood cells, they do not have the ability to discriminate between a damaged lung cell and a healthy cell. So the caspases help prevent the damage by the white blood cells by breaking down the damaged lung cells. This reduces the level of the immune response, therefore protecting the lung tissue. So it’s all a bit complex. The problem is that smoking also destroys the caspases. See? So when you smoke, you’re inflaming the lungs, you’re causing white blood cells to rush in there. The white blood cells will destroy the good cells and the bad cells. But the smoking destroys the caspases, so you can’t protect the lungs. So when you take resveratrol, the resveratrol protects the caspases, it prevents the inflammation of the lungs, it gets rid of damaged cells. It’s all really good. So the University of California team in the Journal of Biochemistry and Cellular Biology said resveratrol protects the caspases from cigarette smoke and other things that could be inhaled and this in turn protects the lung. So there really is some evidence that resveratrol protects the lungs. Like I said, it’s not the total answer. It’s part of the equation for the answer, for the correct answer.† [00:20:31]
[00:20:31] Now what? And 200 milligrams a day is sufficient. When they did studies on brain health… Let me give you some other benefits of resveratrol and then I’ll tell you some other supplements that are good for the lungs. When they did studies on elderly people and resveratrol, 200 milligrams was like a perfect dosage. It improves circulation to the aging brain, circulation to the brain declines with age and their memory improved. So I said, why not make 200 milligrams? But they also found that resveratrol improves bone strength like even an elderly women, postmenopausal women. It helps prevent a hip fracture. Resveratrol is good for heart and circulatory health and people with elevated blood sugar, resveratrol helps normalize blood sugar. It’s part of the benefit you can give. It’s part of things you can give to benefit people with pre-diabetes or diabetes. It doesn’t affect blood sugar and people with normal blood sugar levels. It only seems to help people with elevated blood sugar levels. So that’s a good thing. So there’s other benefits for resveratrol: memory, bone strength, heart health and circulation, improving blood sugar. There are other benefits too. Now, so I take 200 milligrams a day. It’s good for my aging lungs. It’s good for my brain and my memory. It’s good for my heart, it’s good for my pancreas. I didn’t even discuss that. It’s good for my kidneys and my liver, so, and it’s good for my bones.† [00:21:48]
[00:21:49] Other supplements that are good for the lungs: NAC. NAC is a stabilized version of the amino acid cysteine and cysteine’s unstable, so when you add an acetyl group to the cysteine, it becomes N-acetyl-cysteine, it’s stable and it creates a master antioxidant all over the body, including in the lungs that shield the lungs from damage. So NAC’s great for the lungs. People come in and see me with bronchiectasis and chronic bronchitis and emphysema and asthma. I always put them on NAC. Once again, it’s part of the answer. Black seed. Black cumin seed. Black cumin seed is used in those flatbreads in the Middle East and Northern Africa and because it protects the bread and keeps it fresh. Black seed, black cumin seed has many benefits, but it’s great for the lungs. It’s great. It’s helpful for asthma. It’s helpful for allergies. Vitamin C and Vitamin E. There’s a surface liquid in the lungs. And this surface liquid has to be loaded with glutathione, Vitamin C and Vitamin E to protect the lungs. So getting some Vitamin C and Vitamin E every day, you don’t need a lot of Vitamin E, helps protect your lungs.† [00:23:00]
[00:23:02] I want to thank you for listening to this edition of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or go to invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also listen to us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I want to thank you for listening to this episode and this is Jerry Hickey signing off.† [00:23:02]
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