YouTube Livestream Q&A Transcript, December 3rd, 2024

Question
“I am a 59-year-old female with an autoimmune condition, scleroderma, and currently under Hormone Replacement Therapy, including estrogen patches. My rheumatologist informed me that estrogen therapy has been shown to cause fibrosis. Interstitial Lung Disease is highly prevalent in scleroderma patients. Is there a natural way to supplement estrogen? HRT helps me with sleep, headaches, and energy.”  [0:02:18]

Answer
Well, I'm going to say I've handled many people with scleroderma. This autoimmune phenomenon, we believe, is generated by your leaky gut with perforations from the one-cell lining of your gut, from lectins, from genetically modified wheat, from pasteurized homogenized dairy, from eating the same thing marketed over and over, and that injures your gut lining, then your immune system is set into alarm and unfortunately you can get many autoimmune diseases. Now, we find that there is a type of fibrosis. Usually, it's associated or we see it in the skin that the fingers become very waxy-like, and the mouth can get scarring and stiff. Every time we have put our scleroderma patients on gut rehabilitation, a rich phospholipid diet, healthy fats, that would be more like a carnivore diet, putting them on time-restricted eating, adequate hydration, and then especially high dose vitamin C with EDTA chelation therapy. The microcirculation of the chelation improves the circulation to every part of the body, from the lungs to the fingers, to the skin, all over the body. And so, our scleroderma patients have done tremendously well and just don't seem to progress and need to go on to medications.

With regard to hormones, I've used those hormones on those patients, every single one of those scleroderma patients, and I found no ill side effect but rather an enhancement of their sense of metabolism, immune function, bone health, and mental well-being. Their sleep depth and repair at night while sleeping are very well established. That's my experience with natural human estradiol hormone replacement with EDTA chelation therapy, with high dose vitamin C, with a richer, healthy fat diet, on a more carnivore diet, reducing the inflammation of the gut, calming the body down. We'd be putting you on things like probiotics and enzymes as well, finding out your blood type, but I do not see nor have I found in my many decades of practice anything but a benefit from our use of these modalities, along with estradiol and progesterone, DHEA, testosterone for our scleroderma patients. 

Question

“What are your thoughts on infrared PEMF mats? Are they helpful?”  [0:06:45]

Answer

That's two different things. PEMF means Pulse Electromagnetic Frequency mats, and I have had that here in the clinic for decades. And then there is the infrared mat, and these are a variety of things. Some of the mats have infrared which is somewhere between, if I remember, 600 nanograms to maybe 700 nanograms. And then the higher frequencies, 700 to 880 range, are all about the frequency of the light wave photon. The 600 will penetrate down to the dermis, to the subcutaneous, whereas the 800 to 880 penetrate down into the muscle. And some of these mats have just one or the other. There are new mats that have them combined and they pulse them so that you get a deeper penetration. This energy, electromagnetic energy, infrared energy, red light therapy, is different than pulse electromagnetic frequency, which is kind of like an electromagnetic loop, and we have these loops and you can put it around and it'll stimulate through that magnetic energy field with the loop contraction of your muscles. They're both valuable. They're both helpful in enhancing circulation, enhancing cell detox circulation. Detoxing will promote nutrient delivery and waste removal, so they're both very valuable. One wonderful cheap way to do this is to get up in the morning with sunrise, the first hour of morning light, and stand with your feet for two to three minutes in the wet grass. You'll get the benefit of the earthing or grounding with the earth, you'll get an electric discharge of the negative ions, and then the infrared will be penetrating and going through you much more powerfully. It even goes through bone. But these mats are valuable. So yeah, I'm in favor of them all. 

Question

“When your prostrate PSA went from 3.5 to 8.1 in 6 months, then take another test a month later, and it's 8.2, what do you think?”  [0:09:29]

Answer

My thought is a rapid rise, in a 6-month period of time, it's taught in the standard of medicine to be concerned about cancer of the prostate from such a rise in the PSA from 3.5. to 8.1, and that degree of rise becomes suspicious. Now, that's why you have to repeat it. And if it hasn't continued to rise, this has some reassuring effect. But I'm not a specialist in urology or oncology. I think what should be asked of you is, have you had any trauma? Were you riding a bicycle before this? Did you have an infection? Did you get any prostatitis infection in the prostate? Various things can raise the prostate acutely like that. So, before you jump to say it's cancer, you certainly need to have these things screened. Very often, your urologist will encourage you not to have sex the day before and not to ride a bicycle, not to be on any long road trip or plane flight where you're sitting on your prostate, limiting its circulation. And so, there's validity to it. The other thing is the older you get, the more the prostate will become probably hypertrophied, and enlarged. So, an enlarged prostate can have a 6 to 8 range. I have several patients who have done that for many, many years. 

So, you need to work this out with your urologist who's checking this, and decide whether or not you want to do a prostate biopsy. Maybe your urologist will ask for an MRI of your pelvis to look at the prostate structurally. And if it looks structurally just fine and there are no nodules or lesions, then I think watchful waiting is certainly something to be discussed with your urologist rather than going for a needle biopsy. They're usually benign, but I did have a patient die from a needle biopsy from a pelvic infection from the needle biopsy that was done. So there are risks there. So, I wouldn't get too excited, it needs to be followed up, and there are other reasons, and explore them. And many times a urologist will put a patient on some antibiotics for a couple of weeks and then retest the PSA. That very often will bring it down, especially if it's caused by some kind of a low-grade infection. 

Here, we do high-dose vitamin C with chelation to improve the circulation. We ask the patients not to eat a high-carb diet, that improves the circulation to the prostate. We ask our patients to exercise regularly to help their prostate. We ask our patients to use a high-dose systemic enzyme like Vascuzyme, Vitalzym, or ProteoXyme. These have proteolytic enzymes, serrapeptase, and nattokinase in them, and that will disinflame them. These things are all very, very helpful. That's where I would begin.

Question

“Hi Dr. Ellithorpe, what do you think about colostrum supplements to help the immune system? [0:13:47]

Answer

I'm in favor of them. SBI Protect is Serum Bovine Immunoglobulins that we get from the colostrum of New Zealand. I think it's A2A2 cows. So, I'm very much in favor of that immunoglobulin A that's in the colostrum. So, yes, that's very helpful, especially for gut health.

Question

“Are you going to bring back your protein bars?” [0:14:20]

Answer

Well, those protein bars look like they got caught up in a bureaucratic hole, and I don't know what to say. I feel very bad about that, and I don't know what to do. I have no answer. Bureaucracy is what is a problem. Too many fingers in the management, and too much bureaucracy ruin everything, even in our own government. It's too big. It ruins it. That's probably what happened to the bar. So, don't look for them right now. It is a bureaucratic mess. 

Question

“I was wondering about your thoughts on drinking celery juice every day and apple cider vinegar every day. Also, do you feel during the flu season it is important to take zinc? Finally, what is your take on vitamins and minerals in a gummy form?”  [0:15:16]

Answer

Well, let's go backward. Most gummies have high fructose corn syrup or some fructose concentrate from juice in them and that's extra fructose that is not helpful to the immune system. So, gummies are not a way, to take your supplements and vitamins. If you're a child or a toddler, I can see doing it, but as adults, we shouldn't.  

Is it important to take zinc? Well, there is zinc in the TLC Energy Core. I put it in there for the sake that we need an immune system all the days of the year. It is, I think, 6 mg if you use that daily. If you were to get a cold, like in the fall, we have the TLC Multi-Minerals that have 25 mg of zinc that you can take in 3 capsules per serving. And so, that can boost you, and you can certainly do that together with the TLC Energy Core. But I'm very much in favor of zinc on a multitude of levels. It acts as an anti-viral. It's important in vitamin A therapy and thyroid therapy. So many things. So yeah, I think it's very valuable. We could go through every element in the human body and there's great value in it. So, eating meat, fish, chicken, turkey, beef, and eggs, are such a high dense nutrient sources for your minerals, essential fats, B vitamins, vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin K2, and vitamin D. So, we feel very strongly that a richer protein diet with low carb vegetables is the way to go with limited fruits for that fructose. 

The apple cider vinegar and celery juice. Well, normally you wouldn't eat that much celery in a single sitting. You take so many stalks of celery to turn it into juice. That is like pre-digesting it. That's like mobilizing the sugar that would have been much more difficult to digest and be available. Now, all that starchy cellulose sugar compilation is much more available. And so, you're raising your glucose exposure with it. So, I am not in favor of juicing anything. I'm in favor of eating celery but not juicing celery. And as for apple cider vinegar, a lot of people are not digesting well. If you're nervous and fearful, that stress will diminish your secretion of stomach acids and digestive enzymes. So, more and more people are finding that a simple tablespoon or two or a shot or an ounce of apple cider vinegar with a meal greatly helps them digest their foods. So, I'm in favor of that.

Question

“Hi Dr Rita, I have a friend who is interested in Juice Plus. Juice Plus has folate in it. My friend has MTHFR and has to have a methylated version of folate in order to process and absorb it. Is the folate in its methylated version?”  [0:19:14]

Answer

The answer is yes, resounding, and they've done studies on this. In fact, these studies precede much of the excitement over nutrition from 30 years ago. So yeah, we have seen that the methylated format of the Juice Plus fruit, vegetable, and berry concentrate is associated with a nice reduction in homocysteine from all the B-methylated products. So, the answer is yes. 

Question

“Do you recommend a 73-year-old male switch to a carnivore diet? Overall, health is good. No diabetes. Some mild brain processing issues. On a statin for high LDL and lipoprotein (a). Has Hashimoto’s, as well as EOE - autoimmune issues. How would you approach making this determination?”  [0:20:06]

Answer

I don't know what EOE stands for. I would never put anyone on a statin. That's how I would approach it because that's associated with cell membrane damage. Every cell membrane has to have cholesterol. We're made up of fats and proteins. The research on statins is dismal as far as having any significant volume of life expectancy enhancement. I don't recall the exact study, but in my lectures that I've sat through on statin usage, we're talking about someone being on a statin may have increased their life by days projected in large studies, and yet they have memory issues and they have the nerve cell membrane damage issues. So, no, I am not in favor of statin therapy. A wonderful YouTube to watch is a review of these studies that picks up the one I'm referring to. It's called High Cholesterol is Healthy, and that is put out by Dr. Ken Barry and Dr. David Diamond who is a PhD in this. The two discussed all the studies up to last year, so it's a nice review. And you'll see, after watching it, it would be an extremely rare person who might value any statin therapy, but that's extremely rare. 

The other thing is LDL is good for you. It's not bad for you. LDL is important for being a transport medium to deliver around your CoQ10, your fat-soluble vitamins, the cholesterol, and other parts of fat transport because it's not water-soluble. So, it has to have these lipoprotein little boats that it travels through in your body. The problem that comes is when you eat such a high carbohydrate diet, starches and sugars and fruit sugars, your blood sugar goes up so high in insulin consistently and repeatedly that your body starts getting insulin resistance. And then these turn into fats. So, when you take a candy bar, take a teaspoon of sugar, it will immediately, if not burnt up by your activities, be converted into triglyceride fats. Those fats will flow through and be picked up and transported by this lipoprotein packaging LDL. And if you keep on feeding yourself all the sugar, starch, bread, pasta, crackers, beans, rice, popcorn, and everything, then you're going to have lots of little LDL particles. So, the size will be smaller and the number higher. That's when you get into clear-cut cardiovascular disease. But large, fluffy LDL particles are the way we were designed for our health and to help our bodies. 

The other thing about LDL cholesterol particles is it is a sink for bad toxins. For instance, in your stomach, you have tons, I mean, literally pounds of bacteria, a lot of them are bad bacteria, and they make endotoxins, and these lipopolysaccharide endotoxins can pass through and leak into our system, which will harm us, and the LDL will suck those up and help our immune system that way. So, it's not right to just say LDL is bad, it's not. We make it bad by our lifestyle, eating a high carbohydrate, sugar, high fructose diet. So yeah, I think a carnivore diet, the older you get is clearly in research the way to go, to switch to eating breakfasts and lunches, and to become a weightlifter. 

Question

“My 19-year-old has had amenorrhea for 7 months. Her bloodwork shows low estrogen (16) and progesterone less than 0.5. The thyroid panel is off too. She has a low T3, high TSH, normal T4. She can't get in to see a doctor until February 2025. Is there anything we can do to help return menstruation? Is there OTC Progesterone? What can we do?”  [0:25:13]

Answer

The answer is yes. We carry Kokoro balance progesterone cream, and she can use two to four, even six pumps of this. And I would do this two weeks out of the month. So, if she doesn't have a period, and if I had a young woman without a period, otherwise no other findings, I would have her start using natural progesterone two weeks on, and then two weeks off. So, either decide to use the first two weeks of the month or the last two weeks of the month, but keep it the same. And I would just rub it on the arms and legs and tummy. That will absorb and that'll start speaking to the body that at least progesterone is normal. She has to have a healthy lifestyle with a good sleep cycle and no staying up, watching YouTube on your cell phone, or talking late at night. Try and get morning sunshine, infrared, and feet in the wet grass to the ground to get the circadian rhythm back. She has to be well-hydrated in order to menstruate, so half her weight in pounds as ounces of water a day. So, if she's 150 pounds, she would need 75 ounces of water every day. And then she should be on a low carbohydrate diet because you only make red blood cells and the membranes out of protein and fat. You don't make it out of fruits and vegetables. So, eating a hefty protein diet, healthy fats, meat, fish, chicken, turkey, beef, eating a good robust breakfast that has broken the fast with proteins, steak, chicken, fish, pork, eggs, and maybe some vegetables, and use progesterone-like that, and that's the first step that we would do. 

Question

“I take 10 grams of liposomal Vitamin C every morning on an empty stomach. I am persuaded that our bodies can benefit in so many ways from mega-dosing this vitamin. Any comments?”  [0:27:54]

Answer

Well, I agree, 100 percent. 10 grams is not a mega dose to me though. A mega dose would be something like 25, 50, 75, 100 grams intravenously. 10 grams orally is quite safe, and compared to the recommended daily allowance, I think it's something like 70 mg for a woman, and 90 mg for a man, which is ridiculously low. Many heart disease doctors are starting to argue the point that maybe a blood vessel wall injury from high glucose cytokine storms from a cold or virus, wouldn't happen if we had higher vitamin C levels because vitamin C helps to keep the membrane integrity stronger so it won't get a scratch or a blowout puncture in the cell membrane. There is a study on Dr. Thomas Levy. He is both a lawyer and a medical doctor. If you could put in ‘Vitamin C Thomas Levy’ and I think the title is a Heart Disease Is A Scurvy, which is low vitamin C, or subclinical scurvy, not to the point that you have bleeding gums and your teeth are falling out, but yeah, vitamin C is associated with losing your teeth and bleeding bruising and so forth. So yeah, I would totally embrace 10 grams orally of vitamin C. 

Question 

“YouTube served up a video on topical estriol to me yesterday for facial wrinkles. I use EstroGel, but I am tempted to put some of my leftover vaginal cream on my aging face. What do you think?”  [0:30:01]

Answer

It's a marketing ploy. Estriol, I've never ever seen it make a difference in skin wrinkling. Estriol is usually used on women who have breast cancer and the doctor feels safe that it won't get absorbed through the skin and the vaginal area in a woman will get some relief with a topical estriol in that moist area. But the skin on your face is different from the vagina. So, I would only stick with estradiol on my face to help it with as few wrinkles as possible. 

Question 

“Can you explain again how you use colloidal silver when coming down with a cold and what else you do?”  [0:31:10]

Answer

I use Argentyn silver. This is a nanoparticulate. Doctors only, I guess, get this. Argentyn 23 is a nanoparticulate of 23 parts per million. And when it's nanoparticulate, it means it's uniformly dispersed in the water. Colloidal implies a chemistry that is associated with clumps. So, you'll have empty zones and then you'll have clumps of the silver molecules. Silver, of course, is well-known to be virucidal, bactericidal, and fungicidal. So every night, after work, I squirt this up my nose in case I breathed in anything that was unprofitable to me. And then, of course, in the winter, the weather gets dry and the air gets dry, and so you can get a thinner membrane as you age, just like you can get thinner skin with aging. And so, moistening your skin in the nose, I squirt this up my nose at nighttime, will help not only cleanse but it'll help the moisturizing effect as well. 

The other thing I do is stay well hydrated. I drink 96 ounces at least water every day. As you can see, I'm going to do my weightlifting and aerobic exercise, three times a week minimum. I eat a large carnivore diet with vegetables and some dairy, and I drink coffee. Rare, if ever, will I drink any alcohol. And then I try to get a good night's sleep so my immune system can recover. Then I take, of course, my supplements that have zinc in them. The TLC Multi Mineral, 25 mg of zinc is in there plus all the other wonderful minerals. I take my Juice Plus. That is so much research showing it builds up the immune system. And on the children's studies, so many families that use Juice Plus for their children, just don't get the colds and illnesses that their classmates have. So, I'm on Juice Plus, the zinc minerals, I take the D. If I'm coming down with a cold or feel ill, I'll stop eating immediately for 24 hours and just drink a little more water so that my entire body's attention is given over to fight whatever infection it has rather than trying to sort out a food chain going down my gut, because a third of your blood supply roughly rushes to your gut after eating. That's another reason why you feel tired after a meal. That blood rushes there to screen and circulate the blood with white blood cells to make sure it doesn't get irritated with any toxin or foreign parasite or bug coming in that the immune system can help care for it. So, that's pretty much what I do. The D, the zinc in the minerals, my Juice Plus, fasting if I get Argentyn silver. I have liquid Argentyn silver and I can take a sip of it and gargle and then I swallow it,’ but that's pretty much what I do. 

Question

“Do you support the use of sound frequencies while sleeping to heal the body? If so, do you have a trusted medical source for the sound frequencies, rather than randomly picking an app off the net? Concerned that with everything else that is not ethical in the medical and pharma world, could be unknowingly submitting to a foreign mind control source?”  [0:35:08] 

Answer

I am aware of the value of understanding frequency because everything is in vibration. There is nothing that is not vibrating. This desk is vibrating. And if nothing happened, if we sealed this room off, and a thousand years go by, and then you come back, you'll see that this desk will be a pile of dust in a thousand years because the desk is vibrating, it's slowly, slowly burning up, touching oxygen in the room. So it's very slowly cooking. So, we're all cooking, we're vibrating. That's why you have to put water in you, to slow the rate of the cooking. Kind of like our body's oil is water. So, you have to do that and drink plenty of it every single day and not lie to yourself saying, well, I had two, three glasses.

That's enough. No, it's not enough. You really do need to drink about half your weight as pounds as ounces every day. So, a 200-pound man, 100 ounces of water. A 150-pound woman, 75 ounces of water. So, sound frequencies. We’re vibrating. I too have that concern that I don't want any subliminal messages going into my soul, my mind at night. So, I don't trust any of these website music frequencies. I just don't. I do play the Bible, like Ephraim Zimbalist, Jr., with reading the Word of God, and then I do that. And I think sound also is associated with learned behavior. So, I grew up in a one-room home, so I could hear my father discussing politics and religion and stuff and science with his friends who came over because our bed was like just a mattress on cinder blocks on plywood, maybe 18 feet away in this big basement one-room area we were in. So, I sleep best when I'm listening to people talking. That's why I really enjoy and have the Bible playing at night softly. There are those who were blessed to have their own bedroom and quietness and they have to have a quiet area to sleep in because that's their learned experience. So, it's kind of interesting. 

I'm in favor of the concept that there are frequencies that are associated with amplifying metabolism and cell function and that there, in fact, are frequencies that are damaging to cell metabolism. For instance, I never went to a rock concert all my life. I abhor the thought of The Beatles and concerts. I've always been odd, a nerd, and dull. And I saw experiments where you could take an egg that's raw and put it in front of those speakers of those music concerts and the vibration in that egg would literally congeal all the proteins and literally cook the egg, as you might say. Now, that's happening to your brain and your cellular tissues, with music that's discordant like that, and that was enough for me to see. Chris, my father, showed it to me and he's the one who taught me to abhor rock and concerts and stuff. But then there's music that is associated or sound frequencies that are associated with enhancing metabolism, and it has, like the Fibonacci number, the circle within the circle, it's always a certain degree to angle, and those sound frequencies enhance the structure of the space and all functions in the space at the same time, so that includes cell function. And these are clear melodies as opposed to discordant sounds. So yeah, I'm all in favor of it, but I don't trust the internet to play something at night and then pass some stupid message to me through a frequency. 

Question

“I'm age 41 and this is the first time that I need reading glasses. What are your suggestions to prolong good vision?”  [0:40:10]

Answer

Drink water. Basically, your muscles, you have the little muscles in your eyes, ciliary muscles on the inside and the outside, and what they do is they pull and squeeze and pull and squeeze. Your lens gets thicker and shorter and thicker and shorter. And so, by doing that, when you look close, your muscles relax, and when you look far, it pulls the lens taut, and so you can see in the distance. Those muscles need protein. Those muscles are extremely delicate. They need water and they need you to try and live a clean life. Having Juice Plus is probably the number one antioxidant. Oxidation cooks your eyeballs. Cataracts are just cooked cornea. And so, if you take antioxidants, I'm fortunate in my 70s I don't have any. Cataract formation. My eye doctor is very pleased with how I'm aging. But I do have eyeball structure, nearsightedness, and farsightedness, and I do need my glasses for that. But don't cook up too quickly. Drink your water. Remember, water is your basting material. And then, I take Juice Plus. It's the most proven through research antioxidant that you could take. 

Question

“I have been prescribed by a TLC doctor a nasal spray to kill off any mold in my sinuses. I'm not sure what these initials stand for, but it is a blend of "MUP 0.2%, EDTA 1%, GENT 0.5%". When I use it, it feels like my sinuses (and eyes a little too) are burning. I'm afraid it will burn my tissue. Is it working or harming me? Thanks!!”  [0:41:52]

Answer

MUP, that’s mupirocin. EDTA, that’s a preservative. GENT is gentamicin. These are antibiotics, gentamicin, and mupirocin, and these are antibiotics that you’re squirting into your nasal mucosa. Well, I use the Argentyn, so I know it won't burn or harm anybody. I don't know what your blood type is. I don't know what your blood sugar is. I don't know what your hydration of water is. All these things make a difference. I would get the Argentyn silver over at the shop and use this if you have any concerns or if the other one's bugging you. But there are two kinds of antibiotics because mupirocin really is designed to kill off staph. Aureus, which is very prevalent in our tissues and our nasal mucosa, gentamicin will kill that and other types of bacteria. That's why they use the two together. It's a very tiny amount though. 

Question

“I've had a persistent eyelid twitch for the past 2 months and it appears to be my eyelid at least. I am a patient of yours and my bloodwork was normal at our last visit in June, age 53. What might be the cause of it and who should I see to evaluate? I have an appointment with the optometrist next week. Would love to have any feedback. Thank you.”  [0:43:32] 

Answer

Eye twitching is usually from a B vitamin deficiency, and the nerve is more easily irritated. Stress is associated with the manifestation of having more eye twitching. Mineral deficiencies are associated with it, lack of hydration. I occasionally have that happen to my eyelid, and I would just make sure that I didn't skip or miss any of my methylated B complexes. So, I would take methylated B complex two or three capsules a day and see if suddenly it stops after a week of using it because it really should stop in a day or two. Add in the TLC Multi Mineral, which will help relax it, the magnesium in there especially and the potassium in it. And thirdly, please drink your water. If you do all those three things and you're still having this eye twitching all the time, please tell me what the feedback is from your eye doctor. 

Question

“From what I researched, Parkinson’s is not an inherited disease. A doctor diagnosed my brother with this without asking him about alcohol use, diet, exercise, and other lifestyle choices. But they put him on strong medications, which he is now dependent on. Any suggestions?”  [0:45:13]

Answer

I would find a good functional doctor to look at his personal situation, his blood type, what he's willing to improve, whether will he come off the alcohol, whether will he bring in exercise, will he take any nutrients to help his antioxidant status to stop the substantia nigra, which is the brain stem that is losing the melanin in that area, that is the dark area that helps generate dopamine. I mean, he has to be willing to want to do things, and we have seen many people with a very prolonged life, even though they were diagnosed with Parkinson's. So, that is the direction that you have to go, is working and finding a good functional doctor who can help him. 

Question

“What do you feel is a safe blood pressure for a middle-aged woman (at the end of middle age)? Does the medical profession become overly concerned about blood pressure, in your perspective? What should be done if diet and exercise and weight loss aren't lowering the blood pressure?”  [0:46:29]

Answer

The answer is yes. Well, the thing is most doctors don't take the time to say how many ounces of water are you drinking every day, what time you go to bed, what time you get up, are exercising, what your diet consists of, are you eating late at night, and what is your blood type. These various things are foundational. How often are you moving your bowels, what is your work situation, are you tensed at work, what's your home life situation, are you stressed there, are you married, do you have Children, are you a caregiver, what's the pile of stress in your life. And then working on each of these things from a functional point of view, we would start working on your hydration clearly. We would talk about EDTA chelation for microcirculation IVs and high-dose vitamin C with that. The B vitamins would be given with the IV chelation. Oral supplementation of minerals. The multimineral would be given. And then we would ask the person to consider natural hormones, which are very stamina, kind of energy enhancing which helps promote exercise and well-being at the same time. If after all those things are worked on over a period of months, then a medication could be considered, and that would be between you and your doctor. My choice is to try and be happy with blood pressures that are hand-read, not machine-read because the machines tend to overread the reading. So, even your home machine at night, when you check it in your own home, is going to probably be reading on the high end. So, I would bring my machine into your appointment with your doctors to take a blood pressure reading with your machine, and then have it hand-read because typically the machines are overreading it. But what number am I happy with? I'd like to be under 140 systolically and under 90. And then, of course, with the history and family history and other stress assessments, if all those things are well, I'm not going to worry about it. I would try and use the least amount of medication, if at all possible, and the one I would choose depends on the personal history of the person. You know, some I would start with a beta-blocker, some I use a calcium channel blocker, but it really has been found to be dependent on their home life. Blood type situations are all unique, and I see tendencies for improvements based on your blood type as well.  

Question

“As you know, androgen deprivation therapy helps some patients keep prostate cancer in check. Do you see anything negative about decreasing testosterone so low, albeit only temporarily?”  [0:50:06]

Answer

I would suppose a temporary drop in your testosterone wouldn't be bad. But when men have low testosterone continuously, their mood, their affect, their muscle mass, their immune system, and their bone health all go into decline. So, I am not in favor of reducing testosterone or hormones whenever I possibly can avoid doing that.

Question

“Hi Dr. E! With all the hype of taking salts/electrolytes, which do you consider the best? Some take the iodine out (Baja salt endorsed by Becka). Celtic now shows heavy metals. And if may ask, how much should a human take? And if we take salt daily, do we still need half our weight in water, or is 64 oz enough, and adding what we lose in perspiration?”  [0:50:50] 

Answer

In general, I am in favor of 2 grams to 3 grams of sodium per day, especially because I ask my patients to drink half their weight as pounds as ounces of water every day. And the salt type, at some point, we have to walk in faith. You get on the highway and you're going to drive and you pray that a tree won't fall into the road, or someone texting on their phone won't cross the center line and hit your head on.

So, life is like that. The same with the salts, you've got to just try and pick a salt that is mined from deep within the earth, so that particulate contaminants on the top surface of the soil aren't landing on it from pollution. So, I like salts that are mined and you can go on the internet and look for salt that is mined. These are usually colored salts because of the minerals deep in the earth, mining for them. 

Is Celtic salt mined? I don't know. What did I last buy? You know, I was in a compromised situation, busy, and I went to Sprouts and I bought their Himalayan salt, pink salt. So, I bought the big grinder where you grind it. I didn't look into it. I didn't study the manufacturer. I can't stress over everything. So, I think it's better to try and get something like a Himalayan salt than something from Morton's production that is going to be just that granular without iodine. I like it with the iodine, but I don't worry about it because I take iodine tablets separately, 12.5 mg every day. I am not an expert in that, but I do know that I don't want it from the top surface of the earth where all the contaminants fall. I want deep-earth-mined salt.  

Question

“I'm reading Dr. Ornish's book (big proponent of plant-based diet), and he says, diets high in animal protein increase interleukins and IGF-1 that promote chronic inflammation. As you promote the carnivore diet, what are your thoughts about this?”  [0:53:41]

Answer

Well, I could show you the same science that says a high plant-based diet is also showing increased interleukins and IGF 1. It all depends on what the person is really doing. If someone is on the Dean Ornish diet, and they are in fact truly just having cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, green beans, Brussels sprouts, berries, tangerines, olives, and avocados, the likelihood of them building up enough carbohydrates to generate the inflammation is going to be lower. That would also be associated with the type of diets that he promoted that did show the cardiovascular benefits. But most people will fudge and excuse themselves, we aren't honest with ourselves, and these people will say, well, I'm not eating meat as they eat their tortilla chips, or I'm not eating chicken or pork as they eat their oatmeal with sugar and cinnamon on it. So, you see, everything is very difficult in food studies to get down to the tee because we lie on these forms about what we ate, we can't really remember. So, epidemiological food studies and outcome studies are really grade C level science, and there's as much inflammation in the high starch, carbohydrate, fruit, sugar diet as you'll find in someone who says they're a carnivore but they're eating a cow that was fed on a bunch of grain to fatten them up quickly because carbs make you fat through inflammation, then that meat is less ideal, and they may also eat potatoes with it and have pie. 

So, diet is a revealer of truth. So if you get your lab done and your insulin isn't fasting around a 4, if your blood sugar isn't about 85 fasting, if your hemoglobin A1C isn't about a 5.3 or less if your triglycerides don't equal to your high-density lipoprotein HDL, so that'd be roughly in the 50 range, then you're going to have inflammation and you're eating either food reactive materials, too many carbs, you're not exercising enough, your muscle mass is wasting away, you can't keep up with what good carbs you do eat. I mean, life is a motion picture. It's hard to take a snapshot and apply it to every human being. So, please understand that the Dean Ornish's book, the carbohydrates and starches complex, if you do an absolute pure complex, which I really don't think anybody does, they're going to get high inflammatory markers just from the carbohydrate level. And then you'll say the same with animal products, if they are fed the grains and they're excusing their cooked yam, cooked peas, corn, and carrots, they're cooked potatoes and thinking that they're doing themselves a service. 

Question

“Hi, Dr. E. Anything I can do for sciatica nerve pain? My right leg is hurting from the lower back all the way down to my foot. I'm 61. I do not have any other medical issues and am not overweight.” [0:58:12] 

Answer

First of all, hydrate. Try and drink half your weight as pounds as ounces every single day. Then get some systemic enzymes, that's what I give to all my sciatica patients. A high enzyme twice, maybe three times a day, like Vitalzym, five in the morning, five an hour before lunch or two, and then five before bedtime, and then that will disinflame your body and give relief. Then you have to do the weight training muscle for your posture, then you have to do the stretching and find a good functional doctor who will help you do that physical therapy, and then exercise the rest of your life. Stay hydrated, stay on enzymes, and eat the protein so you can build up your muscle mass to hold your skeleton up. And if necessary, you'll have to see, if that doesn't help, an orthopedic doctor and get some X-rays and physical therapy. Hopefully that helps. 

Question

“My mom is 94. She had a mild heart attack years ago and has a stent and pacemaker. She has diabetes controlled with diet, on two blood pressure meds and atorvastatin. I'm concerned with her memory. Should I take her off the statin?”  [0:59:40]

Answer

Well, I'm not her doctor and I'm not going to say for you to treat your mom over YouTube. I would never have my mother on statins, especially thinking that that's going to make any difference in her longevity at this point in our life at age 94, but it may have a difference on her memory and her enjoyment of the time that she has left. So, find a good functional doctor. Watch the YouTube ‘High Cholesterol is Healthy’. Keep her on a healthy low-carb diet, get her exercising as much as possible, and drink her water. If your functional doctor has chelation therapy, help her get some chelation IVs, and go from there. And then watch the video ‘High Cholesterol is Healthy’ and make your own decision, and take responsibility for it by just stopping the statin. Discuss with her doctor your reasons for your concerns and why you plan to stop it or not.

Question

“Hello, Dr. Ellithorpe. What is the best way to improve iron levels associated with anemia? How do you know if you need to focus on ferritin or another process?”  [1:01:10]

Answer

I would need to know your blood type. A’s are notoriously the worst with digestion and absorbing minerals, they don't make enough stomach acid. The best way is to find a good functional doctor who will find out what your blood type is. If you're an A, you need digestive enzymes with betaine hydrochloric acid with every meal you eat, and that'll help you tolerate digesting meats and pork and chicken and ham and eggs better because often people don't like eating these meats and things because they can't digest them well. But if you take them with a digestive enzyme, that should help with your protein and your mineral absorption because proteins, meat, fish, chicken, turkey, beef, and eggs, they’re also rich in minerals. They are the best way to absorb your iron, not through taking a tablet. But we have the HemeVite here and that is a mineral chelated iron that is usually very helpful, but that’s where I would start. 

Question

“Is the CRP of bloodwork the best one to test for inflammation level in your body?”  [1:02:38]

Answer

Well, it is more reflective of your cardiovascular blood vessels, it is more specific to your blood vessels. Whereas, the sedimentation rate, the erythrocyte or ESR, is for general inflammation. So, it really depends. I do both with my patients. They’re both unique. So, whether it’s CRP or sedimentation rate, they’re both valuable.