View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. Jeffrey James discusses Hypothyroidism with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 3:17  Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is the most common form of low functioning thyroid or hypothyroidism.  Dr. James noted that he has seen hundreds of women suffering with hypothyroidism and most of these women don’t even get tested for Hashimoto’s, since from the perspective of conventional medicine, if the woman has low functioning thyroid/high TSH levels, they will be treated with Synthroid or levothyroxine, which is synthetic thyroid hormone.  If it has an autoimmune origin, it doesn’t change the pharmaceutical outcome.  But if you have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis you have an immune system problem rather than a primary thyroid problem. We need to try to understand what would cause your immune system to dysregulate and want to attack your own body tissues?  Unfortunately, once you have one autoimmune disorder, you’re 50% more likely to develop another one.  Dr. James explained that a lot of women complain that they’re exhausted, they’re putting on weight, they’ve got brain fog, they’re losing their hair, they’re constipated, their skin is dry, they’ve got brain fog, they have this constellation of symptoms, and they’re cold.  When they go to their doctor, out comes the prescription for Synthroid.  Unfortunately a majority of women end up back in their doctor’s office after a few months or a few years and they don’t feel any better.  Their primary MD or endocrinologist then tries to dial in their TSH.  If they are depressed, then they get prescribed an antidepressant like Effexor or Cymbalta. If they have headaches, they get prescribed Imitrex.  If their blood pressure goes up, they are prescribed antihypertensive medications like Lisinopril or Amlopidipine or hydrochlorothiazide.  Dr. James sees a lot of these women who feel like they are not being seen or their complaints are not being addressed by their physician.  9:10  Functional Medicine practitioners are not simply treating each symptom with a pharmaceutical drug to ameliorate that symptom but are looking at your underlying metabolism, physiology, endocrinology as well as the root causes of the autoimmunity that is often driving these imbalances that can often be corrected with diet and lifestyle changes.  The patient with hypothyroidism could have an underlying GI infection or a biotoxin illness. They could have a genetic susceptibility to not being able to process mycotoxins that are either in their environment or that are in their foods that they’re eating. They could have a Lyme infection. They could have a viral infection or a gut infection, a parasite or a bacterial infection in their gut that’s driving an immunological response.  Any of these things can create a low level inflammatory response that can affect thyroid production, conversion, or uptake, all of which create symptoms that are very similar.  From a Functional Medicine perspective we want to see which way the physiology is tilting and we want to see if their lab values are optimal and not just normal or not.  11:05  The medical system in our country where once per year you go in for a physical exam with very minimal testing only to look for a pharmaceutical intervention is a failed system. Just look at how poor the health of our country is.  We need to test more widely to see how well our bodies are functioning.                  Dr. Jeffrey James is a Doctor of Chiropractic, a Chiropractic Neurologist, and a Functional Medicine practitioner and his office is LA Functional Neurology.  He has been in private practice in West Los Angeles since 1989.  His website is DrJeffreyJames.com. His office phone is 310-396-3100. Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.

View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. Jeffrey Gross discusses Regenerative Medicine with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 1:02  Dr. Gross was a neurosurgeon offering his spinal patients anti-inflammatories and therapy and epidural injections and performing spinal surgeries for 25 years.  He realized that the surgeries that he was performing had not changed much in decades and there were a percentage of patients who did not want surgery and he wanted to find alternatives to surgery.  Dr. Gross looked into stem cells and regenerative medicine to see what alternatives could be offered to patients who did not want to get surgery.  3:58  Regenerative Medicine is the field of using your own body to tap into it's ability to heal itself using your own cells activities. When we are an embryo and we are a ball of cells and then we have organs and tissues and those cells have picked a job to do. Before these cells pick a job, they are stem cells.  Stem cells can be coached into different jobs, but once they pick a job, they're done as stem cells.  The placenta of a mother is very rich in stem cells and the placenta makes a lot of supportive proteins, which we call the matrix.  Stem cells like other cells make signaling particles to talk to neighboring cells called exosomes.  8:10  Exosomes.  If we take perinatal, amniotic fluid derived stem cell exosomes, we can provide a stem cell signal to a patient. If we use stem cells, each stem cell will also give off thousands of exosomes, sharing their signal with your own cells.  We don't know if exosomes are better than using stem cells, but exosomes are cheaper and easier to access and they are smaller and can cross the blood/brain barrier, unlike stem cells.  10:20  Stem cells when given to patients do not go in and form new cells in their body but stimulate their own cells to, for example, generate new cartilage proteins in their knee. Some people consume bone broth or bone marrow and they contain stem cells and exosomes and while cells get degraded when consumed, exosomes do not and can have positive effects on the body. 12:48  For therapeutic purposes, adult stem cells are less effective than perinatal stem cells derived from the placenta or from umbilical cord blood, which are probably less effective than embryonic stem cells.  But true embryonic stem cells derived from embryos are not currently available in the US for therapeutic purposes, though these embryonic stem cells can be induced to go backwards to become pluripotent stem cells and there is a lot of exciting research going on with these cells now.  14:39  The keys to making stem cells maximally effective include making sure the patient who receives them is maximally healthy to begin with with respect to diet and lifestyle and taking the proper supplements. Both the quality and the quantity of stem cells can play a role in the effectiveness of stem cells.  Adult stem cells are less likely to be effective than perinatal stem cells since they are likely to be damaged by living and exposure to factors that may have damaged them and adult stem cells from fat are less likely to be effective because fat often contains inflammatory signals.  When you take your car for an oil change, you don't put the old oil back in. 18:14  Intravenous stem cell benefits.  Intravenous stem cells provide a general anti-inflammatory signal to your cells and you switch the pathways from defense mode to improved operations mode.  You are slowing down degradation of tissues and focusing on regeneration of tissues.   Dr. Jeffrey Gross is a trained neurosurgeon who spent years performing spinal and nerve surgeries and who is now focused on regenerative and anti-aging medicine.  His clinic which has offices both in Henderson, Nevada and in Orange County California is called ReCELLebrate.  His clinic can be reached at 1-844-4RECELL. Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.  

View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. Robert Hedaya discusses Integrative Psychiatry with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 1:38  Dr. Hedaya noted that from his time in medical school he was always oriented towards getting to the root cause of things. After writing his first book, he was on the edge of chronic fatigue and he dove into the metabolic medicine approach of Dr. Jeffrey Bland, which later was changed to Functional Medicine. Dr. Hedaya was a neuropharmacologist trained in cognitive behavioral therapy and after bringing Functional Medicine into the mix he found that he was no longer doing this medication merry-go-round and most of his patients were now getting better. Dr. Hedaya explained that after writing his second book, he hired a statistician to assess the patients he had treated for treatment-resistant depression.  All 23 of these patients when they started had a mean Beck Depression inventory of 34, which is in the severe range, and by about 10 months everyone was normalized with only one change in medication but also adding the Functional Medicine approach.  4:18  Insights into a Functional Medicine approach to psychiatry.  The key to using a Functional Medicine approach is to be a medical detective and to also understand that psychiatric problems are not primarily psychological, but more related to physiology and infections and hormonal problems and genetics and epigenetics and gastrointestinal things, etc..  The mental realm is directly part of the physical realm.  If your physical health is lacking, if you're lacking in nutrients, if you're having toxins and infections and other things that are affecting your physiology, that's also going to affect your mind.  Dr. Hedaya recalled his first patient from 1984 who was a 50 yr old woman with panic disorders and she did not have a great marriage and had bunch of things going on, but she didn't get better despite psychotherapy and medications.  He determined that she had a vitamin B12 deficiency and after her first injection, her panic went away and that's when he realized how powerful the Functional Medicine model could be.  When assessing B12 status, if your serum B12 is low normal, you probably have a B12 deficiency. But you can also look at the size of the red blood cells, the MCV, on the CBC. If you are B12 deficient, your red blood cells will get larger because they hang around longer--macrocytic anemia.   If you are iron deficient, your red blood cells will be smaller--microcytic anemia.   But you could have normal size red blood cells if you have both iron and B12 deficiency, because they will offset the effects on the red blood cell size.  We should also look at methylmalonic acid (MMC) and homocysteine as measures of B12 status, though MMC only accounts for 17% of B12 status.  You also need to look at medications that interfere with B12 status and if they are older they tend not to absorb as much B12 because of reduced HCL production. 10:57  Iron.   11:29  Other nutrients, incl fish oil, vit D, zinc, and protein.   12:12  Thyroid adrenal axis.   15:30  Genetics, includeing NR3C1, FKBP5, CRH receptor 1 and 2, CRH binding protein, these control proteins that control the effective steroids inside your cell at the level of the nucleus.   18:18  Gut Health.   25:32  Ketogenic diet.   30:24  HYLANE technology.     Dr. Robert Hedaya is an MD/Psychiatrist who is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and he also teaches Functional Medicine approaches to psychiatric disorders with the Institute of Functional Medicine.  He is also a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical Center.  He wrote a number of books, including Understanding Biological Psychiatry, The Anti-depressant Survival Program, and Depression: Advancing the Treatment Paradigm.  He treats patients with psychiatric disorders with a Functional Medicine approach, pharmaceuticals when indicated, and he has now pioneered the use of the HYLANE program, which includes Hyperbaric Oxygen, EEG guided laser, and neural exercises.  His website is WholePsychiatry.com. Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.

View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. Jill Carnahan discusses her Unexpected Health Challenges with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 1:40  Breast cancer.  Dr. Carnahan has faced a number of personal health challenges in her life, including a battle with breast cancer while she was in medical school.  During her third year of medical school she was taught how to do a breast exam and she performed one on herself and she found a lump. At first she didn't think it was serious, but she had a mammogram and an ultrasound and she was getting suspicious looking at the images, but the radiologist blew her off and told her that since she was 24 years old that it was no big deal.  Jill went on to have surgery and the surgeon told her that it was very aggressive ductal carcinoma and that she was in the fight for her life.  6:41  Dr. Carnahan then went through a very aggressive, very toxic, 3 drug chemotherapy regimen. One of the drugs she was given is very toxic for the heart and she was given a dosage just slightly less than that amount.  She lost all of her hair, affected her skin, and she had massive  gut symptoms.  Dr. Carnahan admits that she did go against the recommendations of her oncologist not to take any antioxidants, but she knew intuitively that taking a few antioxidants was better for her body.  After the chemo she had radiation and then multiple surgeries. Eventually she was considered cured of cancer.  Then nine months later she started having cyclical fevers, diarrhea, abdominal pain and she was not allowed to call in sick, even working at the hospital.  She passed out one day while working in the emergency room and was taken to emergency surgery for a cyst in her intestines and she was diagnosed as having Crohn's disease.      Dr. Jill Carnahan is an MD who runs the Flatiron Functional Medicine clinic in Louisville, Colorado.  Dr. Carnahan is one of the first 100 doctors certified by the Institute of Functional Medicine.  Dr. Carnahan is a popular inspirational speaker and writer and she often teaches other health care practitioners the Functional Medicine approach.  Dr. Carnahan has written a new book, Unexpected, Finding Resilience through Functional Medicine, Science, and Faith.  She can be contacted through her website, JillCarnahan.com. Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.    

View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. Jesse Armine discusses Leaky Gut with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 6:50  Leaky gut is really all about the cell membrane which covers the cell and is supposed to keep things out of the cell that need to stay out and allow other things that should get in to get in.  All of the energy of the cell comes from the mitochondria and is run through the cell membrane through this particular organelle called ATP synthase. The cell membrane of the gut is the barrier to bacteria and antigens and medications and alcohol and inflammation from getting into the system.     Dr. Jesse Armine is a Doctor of Chiropractic and a registered nurse. He has specialized training in methylation, genetic research, Neuro-Endo Immunology, Functional Medicine, Nutrigenomics, Applied Kinesiology, and Nutritional Counseling.  He specializes in diagnosing and treating complex, multifactorial illnesses with a concentration in neuropsychiatric expressions/autism and chronic illnesses.  Dr. Jess lectures worldwide and continues to treat patients mostly remotely.  He co-authored a book with Elizma Lambert ND entitled, “Leaky Gut, Leaky Cells, Leaky Brain”.  His website is DrJessArmine.com. Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.

View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. Maggie Ney discusses Bioidentical Hormone Replacement with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 2:38  Perimenopause and Menopause....   8:46  The Women’s Health Initiative Study first published in 2002: Is Hormone Replacement Therapy Dangerous, Increasing the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke?  A lot of women are now afraid of taking hormones because they think that they will have an increased risk of breast cancer.  And a lot of doctors are still afraid of prescribing hormones because of this study. But this is a mistake because there were many flaws with this study.  To begin with, the average age of the women in this study who were starting to take hormones was age 63, which not when most women start to take hormones.  70% were overweight and 60% were obese and a lot of them were past smokers and had hypertension.  The estrogen used was an oral form of conjugated equine estrogen (Premarin) and synthetic form of progesterone known as a progestin (Provera).  There was a group of women who did not have a uterus, who were given only estrogen/not progestin and they actually had about 18% less breast cancer, so clearly estrogen does not cause breast cancer.  Dr. Ney feels that this study has done irreparable harm for a generation of women and 21 years later we’re still trying to educate women and doctors about bad hormone replacement therapy. (Risks and Benefits of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women: Principal Results From the Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA. 2002;288(3):321–333. doi:10.1001/jama.288.3.321)  16:24  Relative risk vs absolute risk....   19:30  Dr. Ney’s favorite recommended options for hormone replacement therapy includes the FDA-approved options for estrogen, including a patch, a gel, a spray, or the Femring.  Dr. Ney usually starts with estradiol in the patch form.  And then she usually recommends a bioidentical progesterone in an oral, micronized pill form, such as Prometrium....                               Dr. Maggie Ney is a licensed naturopathic doctor and a Menopause Society certified practitioner. She’s a director of the Women’s Clinic at the Akasha Center for Integrative Medicine in Santa Monica, California, where she has been supporting women through perimenopause and menopause since 2006. Dr. Ney is co-founder of HelloPeri, (TheHelloPeri.com) an online resource for women going through perimenopause, and she’s been featured on The Doctors show and Goop for expertise on women’s health and hormones.  Her website is DrMaggieNey.com. Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.

View the Show Notes For This Episode  Dr. Jason Hawrelak discusses Probiotics and SIBO with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 4:30  Specific Strains of Probiotics for Specific Purposes....  9:27  Probiotics can be antimicrobial....   17:31  When Dr. Hawrelak treats patients with SIBO he will generally choose selectively acting antimicrobial herbals and a prebiotic like partially hydrolyzed guar gum. PHGG is better tolerated by SIBO patients than other prebiotic fibers like inulin, FOS or GOS from a gas production perspective. And then for methane, he might use the BioGaia and Lactobacillus reuteri as well.  Dr. Hawrelak finds using the PHGG to stimulate buyrate production works better than taking supplements of butyrate. 24:22  When Dr. Hawrelak orders SIBO breath testing he does not order the Trio Smart that tests hydrogen, methane, and hydrogen sulfide gases but he continues to do the 2 gas test, but often has patients repeat the test 3 times with lactulose, glucose, and fructose and each for 3 hours.  He doesn't yet trust the 3 gas SIBO breath test.              Dr. Jason Hawrelak is a researcher, lecturer, naturopath, and nutritionist with over 20 years of clinical experience with a focus on the treatment of gastrointestinal conditions.  Dr Hawrelak is the Head of Research at ProbioticAdvisor.com, which is an incredible database of information about probiotics. Dr. Hawrelak completed his PhD examining the capacity of probiotics, prebiotics, and herbal medicines to modify the gastrointestinal tract microbiota. He teaches and lectures on probiotics and the microbiome all over the world.  He has written many papers and over 20 textbook chapters.  Probiotic Advisor can be found here: https://www.probioticadvisor.com/.  Dr. Hawrelak continues to work with patients at Gould's Natural Medicine clinic in Hobart, Australia.  Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.

View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. Peter Bongiorno discusses An Integrative Approach to Depression and Anxiety at the Functional Medicine Discussion Group meeting on September 28, 2023 with moderator Dr. Weitz.   [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 9:27   The Neurotransmitter Theory of Depression and Anxiety....  16:02  SSRIs....  20:32  Dietary Factors....   23:35  Blood Sugar....    30:54  Coffee....   32:58  Alcohol....     36:17  Sleep....   38:19  Exercise....   47:04  Labs....   55:25  Nutritional Supplements....       Dr. Peter Bongiorno is a Naturopathic Doctor and Acupuncturist and he is the co-director of InnerSource Natural Health and Acupuncture, with offices in New York City and on Long Island.  He also works with clients around the world via phone and Skype.  He did research at the National Institutes of Health in the department of Neuroimmunology and then went to Bastyr University to study naturopathic medicine and acupuncture.  He wrote a number of books, including Healing Depression in 2010 and Holistic Solutions for Anxiety and Depression in Therapy: Combining Natural Therapies with Conventional Care in 2015, both targeted for physicians, as well as How Come They’re Happy and I’m Not, and Put Anxiety Behind You: The Complete Drug Free Program.  Dr. Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.

View the Show Notes For This Episode Dr. John Lewis discusses The Benefits of Polysaccharides with Dr. Ben Weitz. [If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]    Podcast Highlights 13:26  Polysaccharides....   20:25  Polymannose....   25:51  Aloe polymannose multinutrient complex....   35:06  Alzheimer’s study lab results....  44:45  MS study. These patients with relapsing remitting MS were placed on a similar aloe polymannose multinutrient complex four times per day for 12 months.  The FAMS (Functional Assessment for MS) questionaire was used for functional assessment and results showed very significant improvements in every scale.  MS patients frequently get infections and these patients who took the nutritional intervention had much fewer infections.  Serum biomarkers, quality of life, symptom severity, and functioning also improved. [The Effect of a Polysaccharide-Based Multinutrient Dietary Supplementation Regimen on Infections and Immune Functioning in Multiple Sclerosis]  and  [The Effect of Broad-Spectrum Dietary Supplementation on Quality of Life, Symptom Severity, and Functioning in Multiple Sclerosis]                             Dr. John Lewis is the founder and President of Dr. Lewis Nutrition and the website is DrLewisNutrition.com. Dr. Lewis was a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami School of Medicine and he was the principal investigator of over 30 different studies in his research career.  Much of his research has focused on the effects of nutrition, dietary supplementation, exercise, and medical devices on various aspects of human health and disease.  One study that he was involved with that we will discuss is The Effect of an Aloe Polymannose Multinutrient Complex on Cognitive and Immune Functioning in Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.