What Natural Supplements you Should Take

Lyle Hurd: Great pleasure to welcome back Dr. Jim LaValle, who is the author of Cracking the Metabolic Code. We’ve talked about a number of things over the last six or seven interviews. I’d like for you to give us some recommendations on how to really build a basic nutrition program. And then, we’d like to talk about some specific additions that you think are imperative to virtually everyone’s program. How would a person go about building a basic program? Jim LaValle: Well, what I do is obviously, it’s all within the person I’m consulting withs hands. They have to make the choices of what they’re going to eat. It’s very important in our clinic that they sit down with our dietitians. Then our dietitians teach them, what the right food selections for them [are]. The basis for that for everybody is this, we all know we need to eat more plant food. We have a standard rule; eat three vegetables for every fruit. You don’t want to overload on the sugars from fruit and there’s so many antioxidants and rich nutrients in vegetables, you’ve got to get that in. And that’s important. So that’s everybody’s. Lean protein [is] absolutely important. We love to get people getting in legumes and beans into their diet because it helps regulate their glucose. The other thing is that grain intake is really specific. There’s some people that can tolerate more grain intake, meaning breads, cereals, rice, those kinds of things, than others. It’s not a universal situation…. let’s face it, people were eating Wonder bread in the 1940s and we didn’t have the obesity epidemic. So it’s not like – Lyle Hurd: I ate that. Jim LaValle: So, it’s not like—well, no way—oh my god… Honestly, you can’t just blame it on, oh, it’s bread. We have to look back and go, why is bread a problem now. What are the reasons that now when people eat grains, they’re gaining weight? And not everybody has the same issues. So we try and create a sliding scale of that. Once we get passed that, and then we realize these people may have food allergies, they may have gluten intolerance; we have to deal with those things. Then we have to look at nutrients, what did you take? I am a big believer in people taking a multi-vitamin, because… it’s so important. We all know the quality of food today. Get a multivitamin in, it’ll help you if you’re on any prescription medications, you’re probably depleting nutrients from the drug that you’re on… one of the books that I wrote related to that. Then in addition to that, get a fish oil in. There’s so much evidence that getting in a fish oil is going to help you reduce your risk of stroke, going to help protect against Alzheimer’s, help with heart health. There’s so many benefits related to getting in a good fish oil everyday. From there, there [are] some super-foods that I really like and I think the literature is just replete. I think that aged garlic extract is incredibly important and the company that makes that, the brand’s Kyolic, and it’s the only one that’s out there, so I’m pretty comfortable mentioning that. It had so many impacts on people’s chemistry. It reduces oxidized LDL, so that means you’re not going to plaque as easily. There’s actually a study that shows that… it reduces plaque formation. So that’s important. It has a moderate effect on lowering blood pressure. That’s important. A lot of people end up in their forties, fifties, and sixties, beginning to plaque, blood pressure’s going up, now they’re at risk for heart disease. Aged garlic [is] important in those categories. It helps to improve your circulation. [It] helps with immune functions, now to keep building their antioxidant base so that you’re able to scavenge those free radicals that all of us are faced with everyday. Because of the environment, we’re faced with an ever- growing burden of free radicals. The bottom line on free radicals is they accelerate your rate of aging. So you’ve got to do something to dampen those free radicals. I really like to use garlic. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg on the benefits of age-garlic extract, or Kyolic. There’s many, many other things that it does that I believe are beneficial for people’s chemistry. Lyle Hurd: Let me interrupt you for a second. I had a dog at one point in time that they had asked us, told us to put down and I called a friend of yours named Charlie Fox. Jim LaValle: Oh, yes. Lyle Hurd: And Charlie Fox said “are you giving your dog aged garlic extract?” And I said, “Well, no, Charlie, I’m taking it.” He says, “Give it to your dog”. [He] made a couple of other recommendations. That dog came back and lived another three years. Unbelievable! And then we used fox tail serum to bring him back from dementia. And he was an entirely different dog. Jim LaValle: Absolutely… there’s evidence out there. There [are] studies that support why we should be using these natural products. To me, it just makes sense. The other thing about aged garlic, [it] helps with regulation of blood glucose, helps with detoxification of heavy metals. There are very few of us that don’t get exposed to heavy metals these days and in significant amounts. So we have to be on a regular regimen of helping our body to detoxify from the environment that we’re currently living in. I think that’s an important nutrient for virtually for everyone. It also has some immune benefits. The other part of chemistry that I don’t think people get: how important it is that they have to take good, beneficial flora on a regular basis. Meaning that probiotics are the friendly bacteria that you need in your intestine are vital to regulating literally all of your immunologic functions in your body and they’re actually linking leaky gut or your mucosal barrier disruptions and poor probiotic flora in the gut to the development of autoimmunity now. That’s a huge leap that occurred in medicine over the last five years—that something that can happen in my belly is having an effect systemically on my chemistry. Now,us old-timers in natural medicine, we’ve known this for awhile, right? I mean, ever since the days of Bernard Jensen; death begins in the colon, right? But, to finally be proving it and understanding the mechanisms of when we don’t have the good flora in the gut, our body can’t regulate immunologic signaling. We get more allergic to the environment; we become more allergic to foods—very important point. Now the problem is you’ve got to get probiotics that are going to feed in your intestine and that are going to work. I’m a big believer of probiotics because they do the studies to show they have the stability at the shelf seven years out. That’s the biggest issue when you go and buy a probiotic. It’s erratic on how many colony-forming units are in that product when you take it. [I’m a] big fan of Kyo-dophilus because of that. Lyle Hurd: You know, I think that’s a very important point. I think it’s also important, even imperative to people to learn and understand about that supplements that they take, the duration of life that that supplement has, how fast it deteriorates, how fast it digests in the body or deteriorates in the body. Jim LaValle: That’s right. Lyle Hurd: I want to ask you one last question and that is, is a multi a multi a multi? Do you really have to be careful about the multi you take? Or do you really have to be careful about the multi you take? Does it make any difference if you’re a man or a woman, what if you’re a senior? What about kids? Jim LaValle: Wow. It absolutely makes a difference. A multi isn’t a multi, isn’t a multi. There’s obviously different forms of B vitamins, different forms of minerals so you could get a lower grade mineral that may not be as absorbable. Or you could get a higher grade mineral for one. Man or woman? Absolutely, a woman who is menstruating absolutely needs iron, unless a man or postmenopausal woman is diagnosed with anemia – an iron deficiency anemia, they should not take iron because it could actually increase oxidative stress, lead to cardiovascular disease, and even, with high iron levels in your body, even then link to a potentiation for Alzheimer’s. You definitely don’t want to use iron if you’re an adult male or a post-menopausal female, but the cop-out on the adult make is if you’re exercising a lot, if you’re an exercise demon, get your iron levels checked regularly. You may need iron if you’re working out an hour or two hours or even more a day. Children [are the] same way. A children’s vitamin, completely different from what the adult needs are. Make sure that you look into it, before you give your child a vitamin. Lyle Hurd: Great, well, what we’d like to do is come back and talk to you a little bit about something that you’re very hot on, high on and that’s the health care scene. So we look forward to doing that next time. And thanks very much. Jim LaValle: Great being here, as always.