Latest / Now and Then Podcast / Least sexy... yet most important supplement? What to do if low on b12? Low iron or anemic? | Ep.271

Transcript

Least sexy... yet most important supplement? What to do if low on b12? Low iron or anemic? | Ep.271 · Now and Then Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Health Made Simple show. I'm your host, Dr. Bart.
• 0:05
  And today, we're going to dive right into things, but first let me again just thank everyone for doing what you're doing. Continue to, uh, keep spreading love, keep sharing it out. We, we're reaching more people.
• 0:10
  We're having more impact and that's the whole goal of the Health Made Simple show, uh, our podcast here. So, um, I appreciate what you're doing, uh, keep doing it. With that being said, just a reminder, and this is going to be a perfect example today, today's topic is going to be, the title I'm going to use is The Least Sexy, Most Important Supplement, and the goal here is just to again simplify.
• 0:15
  There's so much for us to chase out there and, and I'll talk about my, my love-hate relationship with supplements in just a moment here, but there's so much for us to chase here, but hopefully as you guys are listening to this, every time you walk away, hopefully, my goal is that something I've said has just simplified it a little bit and understanding... And today we're going to talk a little bit about the one particular supplement, "supplement," that I believe is flat out, I'm not going to say probably, it is the least sexy but probably the most important supplement that we can be taking, and I'll get into those and I'll make my arguments for those in just a moments. So again, health is simple, folks.
• 0:20
  This is not rocket science. We are designed in the eyes of perfection from our creator, I call that God. Mm-hmm.
• 0:25
  Made us so we are self-healing, self-regulating mechanisms and our job is just to get out of the way, and this is a constant reminder. The only way that humans get sick comes down to two basic things; one, either you're deficient in nutrients for one reason or another, you're not eating them, you can't absorb them, you can't break them down, or you're toxic, or both. And most likely, we'll all experience a little bit of both and that's why I'll have a conversation today a little bit about, uh, supplementation.
• 0:30
  All right, with that being said, let's, let's dive right in. So let me give you some stats first and you guys will figure out where I'm going here. So there's about 25% up to about 40% of the adults in our country are utilizing a very particular type of medication and sometimes it's over-the-counter, sometimes it's prescribed, they're called proton pump inhibitors, and then also just regular antacid, Tums, Rolaids, et cetera.
• 0:35
  Now either one of those, and again just my disclaimer, I'm not telling anyone to get on and off medications, it's not what I do, that's not what I... Especially from this podcast et cetera. So this is just information for you to level up your health.
• 0:40
  All right, 25-40% of all adults in our country at some point throughout the course of a year are utilizing some type of proton pump inhibitor which inhibits the natural production of your acid in your stomach. Or people are using things like Tums and Rolaids, they do the same thing. They have little different mechanisms by which they do it, but they are suppressing our natural production of acid.
• 0:45
  So let me clear a couple things up because this is where sometimes people are confused. A lot of people think, "Oh, we're supposed to be alkaline." No, folks, your stomach is supposed to be super, super acidic. Very strong acid.
• 0:50
  Meaning that if you, I'm going to make an example here, if you, uh, you know, if you, if you took the acid out of your stomach and poured it on something like a piece of leather or your shoe or something like that, it should be able to burn a hole in it. That's how strong that acid should be. And yet when we take a proton pump inhibitor, we're inhibiting acid production, and then antacid reduces the effectiveness of that acid, it neutralizes it.
• 0:55
  So now we have less acid, so you might say, "No big deal. That helped me with my acid reflux, heartburn, indigestion." Unfortunately all of those, this is going to sound crazy, but many of those mean you actually have a lack of hydrochloric acid in your stomach. So before we go any farther, let me just, well, let me discuss about supplements for a moment here.
• 1:00
  So the reason I'm calling this The Least Sexy, Most Important, you're going to get to in just a moment, but let's just talk about the overall conversation about supplements. Right now, I think that there's this non-stop, especially if you're diving in, you're looking at Instagram and Facebook, you see all kinds of really sexy things. Man, this must be the one.
• 1:05
  If I could tell you or show you on my phone how many people, and I, I love this, I, I think it's great, I love the awareness. How many people though send me this, a particular supplement they saw on, usually it's Instagram or Facebook, maybe TikTok, and they send it to me, "Doc, what do you think of this one?" And it's got the promises that this is going to make you, uh, you know, like younger, stronger, faster, grow your hair back, whatever. It's going to do something that sounds miraculous and there is good marketing, there is good pitchmen and women, it's all looking good.
• 1:10
  And the truth is not how it works. Like it just, it doesn't. If there was one magical thing we'd all be using it, and that's why we call it marketing, that's why we call it salesmanship, et cetera.
• 1:15
  But do I think that supplements can be beneficial? Absolutely. I have a pretty significant love-hate relationship with, supplementation.
• 1:20
  Here's my love part of it. I love them because they give us an opportunity to fix up deficiencies and toxicities. That's it, folks.
• 1:25
  And we have we have very specific ways we can look for deficiencies and very specific ways we can understand what's going on toxic in our bodies, so we might run a basic CBC panel and see that you have the signs and symptoms of fatty liver disease, high ALT and AST. I give you a beat product, have you take a high dose, like 10 pills for two weeks, and we'll often, often see that fatty liver start to decline. I love supplementation if we know what we're using it for very specifically.
• 1:30
  But to overcome, to use supplementation to overcome poor lifestyles, bad habits? No, it doesn't work that way. You know that, I know that.
• 1:35
  But there's marketing out there that just tries to lure us in. Listen, I watch some of the marketing sometimes and I'm like, "Holy moly, I need that," and then I take a pause and go like, well wait a minute, there's absolutely no way that can do that for the human body because health is a derivative of all of the things; how we move, how we eat, how we sleep, how we think, all of these things. We got to get them all dialed in and foundational.
• 1:40
  One of the reasons I don't like supplementation is for that very reason. Huge promises that are unkept.Huge promises about what they can or cannot do, huge promises that make us sometimes believe that all we need is to take a couple supplements and we can get back to all the health and vitality that you want. And, and you and I, you're listening to this, you know that's not true.
• 1:45
  I know that's not true. Unfortunately though, some people buy those things, that one pill that was supposed to correct everything in their lives, and it didn't, and now all of a sudden, they no longer have any faith, and therefore won't use them, which is unfortunate because, because of our food supply, our food chain, you need supplementation. There's, there's...
• 1:50
  I can make all the arguments, go back and listen to the, some of the podcasts I do about soil. We have a massive, a massive, uh, deficiency in our country, solely because of farming practices. So do we need supplementation?
• 1:55
  I'd say for the most part, yes. And then for anyone out there right now listening, "But ah, it's so hard, it's so difficult." I understand, but just the fact that you're listening to this tells me that you're still interested in doing what it takes to be the best version of yourself. So I'm gonna push back on you a little bit and say listen, this year is going to be easy relative to next year for you.
• 2:00
  Every one of us, every year that we get older, we have to do more and it's probably gonna be a little bit more inconvenient, a little bit more uncomfortable, and a little bit more unfamiliar to be healthy. And I don't think anyone that's listening to this is surrendering to that. They're going, "Okay, I got it.
• 2:05
  I guess I just need to hear it again. I have to put the work in." And the answer is yes. You, me, every one of us, nobody gets healthy by accident, nobody stays healthy by accident.
• 2:10
  Yeah, you can get away with it in your 20s and 30s and that kind of stuff, and even today though, that's, that's more and more difficult. All right. The other reasons I'm, uh, there's times that I'm not a fan of supplementation is when the products are crap, period.
• 2:15
  The best that we can, folks, we want to make sure that we are using products, we know where they come from, we know the reputation of the company, we know how they're being formulated, that they're not a whole bunch of synthetics. Uh, ideally they're coming from soil, from food, from animals, that kind of stuff. Um, and often you can just look on the back of the bottle and just look at the ingredients.
• 2:20
  You know, there's some companies better than others. Many of you are familiar with my podcast. I use, predominantly there's a company up in Wisconsin called Standard Process, and they have their big old farms, and you you look at the ingredients and it talks about foods.
• 2:25
  Look on the ingredients in the supplements you have at home right now, you look down to the ingredient part, not the assay where it shows how much vitamin B and C and all that stuff. But look down below it and you'll see that for the most part, there's no ingredients there. They just kind of tell you the, the binders and stuff like that.
• 2:30
  All right. Let's put all that aside and get back to business here. What's the least sexy, maybe the most important supplement you could possibly take?
• 2:35
  And it's something that contains hydrochloric acid. I know, not sexy. No, it's not going to grow your hair back or anything like that, although it's going to have an impact on pretty much everything that you do.
• 2:40
  Very specifically, just so we don't lose what I'm pointing to, there's a very specific product that I use called Zypan. But the, what that really is, is a hydrochloric acid product, and let me explain what hydrochloric acid is. So your stomach has this hydrochloric acid in It's very important for our health.
• 2:45
  It plays three major roles that I want you to understand here because these are critical to understand, because then hopefully you will also be very cautious about ever using things like proton pump inhibitors or antacids again. Three huge roles. Number one, and there's no one that's more important than the other, but we want to hear them all.
• 2:50
  Number one is that when your stomach is very acidic, you have something called parietal cells that will, will help produce, make hydrochloric acid, but also something else very significant called intrinsic factor. Intrinsic factor is a type of protein that it is only released when your stomach is significantly acidic, a level of a pH level of usually somewhere between zero and two. If it's in that level, your body will release intrinsic factor when you eat proteins that have B12 in it.
• 2:55
  If your pH is higher, for example, let's say you're taking a TUMS or a Rolaids or a proton pump inhibitor, most likely you no longer have an acidic stomach and your pH is at 4, 5, 6, maybe even 7. And as a result of that, you do not release intrinsic factor and you cannot and will not absorb B12. You might think, "Well, Doc, how about I just take a a B12 supplement?" Different mechanism, folks.
• 3:00
  But here's why this is so important. B12 is critical. It is a key player.
• 3:05
  It is one of the most important elements, nutrients that goes into the mitochondria, which is the powerhouse of the, of the human body. It is the powerhouse that produces ATP, energy. So people think that B12 is giving them energy.
• 3:10
  No. B12 is providing the mitochondria with one of the nutrients it needs so we can eventually produce ATP. And this oil all boils right back down to your stomach health.
• 3:15
  If we do not have a proper pH, good acid in your stomach, plenty of it, an abundance of it, if you don't have it, you can't... Even if you're eating the foods, you're eating some grass-fed steaks, you're eating some salmon, you won't be able to extract that B12 out of there. I'm gonna get to labs in a little bit and show you how easy it is to identify some of these things.
• 3:20
  All right. That's number one. So that's just number one.
• 3:25
  Just health, vitality, and energy, you need a good strong stomach acid for that. Number two is this, it is the first line of defense for our immune system. By now you've heard that 70% of your immune system lies in your gut.
• 3:30
  That is your microbes, that that is your, that is your, your, the buildup of all your good bacteria. Your microbiome is where your immune system most of it is being housed, and then it goes out and does other jobs. But your HCl in your stomach, the upper GI system, is the one that protects it.
• 3:35
  So not only does it ... protect your microbiome from letting pathogens in there and breaking them down. So what am I talking about?
• 3:40
  I'm talking about parasites, talking about bacteria. Your first line of defense, your stomach acid kills these things, kills off bacteria, kills off parasites the moment they enter the body. And for, and now imagine for a second, if you're taking a proton pump inhibitor on a daily basis, if you're taking an antacid frequently, you're chewing on these TUMS and Rolaids on a regular basis here and there.
• 3:45
  All those times, you're basically opening up the gate and saying, "Hey, bad guys, come on in, free pass." And then they go and have fistfights with your good microbiome. And they were, your microbiome, those little microbes in there were expecting you to already kill these guys at the first line, but you didn't. You gave them a free pass because your belly hurt and you started using an antacid.
• 3:50
  You did that long enough and you had to go to the doctor because that was an over-the-counter medication, and eventually they put you on a proton pump inhibitor. The crazy thing about that, and again, folks, I am not telling you to come on or off your medications. The crazy thing about those is, if my memory serves me right, I believe even looking the back of those packages, they're usually recommending anywhere from two days to two weeks maximum.
• 3:55
  And I have a lot of patients come in that have been on them for a decade plus. And is it going alter the way that that human body functions? Sure it is.
• 4:00
  It absolutely is. You're manipulating the way that the human body works. Unless you think you're smarter than our creator, uh, and sometimes we got to ask ourselves the question, do we really want to manipulate and override what the body is trying to do?
• 4:05
  All right. So that's number two. Number one, it plays a huge role in the ability to absorb B12.
• 4:10
  And again, if you don't have an acidic gut, stomach specifically. There's gut, we always think of like a little bit of everything, but upper GI system is your stomach and then below that we have a small intestine, eventually the large intestine. So B12 absorption, critical.
• 4:15
  And we need hydrochloric acid to do this. First line of defense happens from your hydrochloric acid. In fact, when people travel, I have a lot of people traveling from my office, uh, all around their country, all around the world, and they say, "Doc, what should I bring with me?
• 4:20
  I have a lot of supplements. I don't want to bring them all. What do I bring?" First one I tell them to bring, specially if you're leaving the country, is Zypan.
• 4:25
  It is hydrochloric acid. So when you're exposed to things that you're not used to, you got a first line of defense. Right in your mouth, you start to help break down things like bacterias, you start to kill off things like parasites.
• 4:30
  So that is one of my first line of defenses that I recommend for people, especially when they travel. Last but not least, this is the obvious one but we often forget it. It...
• 4:35
  Hydrochloric acid helps you digest your food so it becomes more bioavailable for the next part of your body, which is your small intestine. So to keep this real, if you chew a piece of red meat and you don't have adequate HCl, as you digest it, it's not being properly digested, so it gets into the upper GI system, the small intestine, and it's burdened there. It's not very bioavailable.
• 4:40
  It's not broken down quite the way it should, so feels heavy, it feels full. And you're not... And then you stop liking it because when you eat it, it doesn't make you feel good.
• 4:45
  If I could tell you how many times people told me that exact story, "Doc, I quit eating red meat, doesn't make me feel good." It is a red flag in clinic. All my functional medicine practitioners out there know, the moment we hear that you say, "I stopped eating red meat because it doesn't make me feel good," we know you have a GI issue. We know that you have a hydrochloric acid insufficiency.
• 4:50
  So we look at the rest of your history and find out, have you been on proton pump inhibitors? Have you been on, uh, antacids? Have you stopped teaching your body that it needs to produce hydrochloric acid?
• 4:55
  And this is what I run into with a lot of vegetarians. If you do not eat the foods that require a lot of acid, your body doesn't release it. It's like a muscle to some degree.
• 5:00
  If you stop using it, you lose it. And so you have to practice in the beginning. So in the event that you've stopped eating red meat and you're hearing this going, "Wow, that's me.
• 5:05
  I eat red meat and I don't feel good," what I encourage you is that you just start slow. And I'm talking like two bites of a burger once or twice a week. That's it.
• 5:10
  Just to start to reintroduce it. Just like fitness would be, lifting weights. You start slow and start reintroducing it to your body.
• 5:15
  And then ultimately, I'm gonna recommend that you start utilizing a supplement like Zypan pre-meal. Before you even eat, you get two, maybe even three of these these, little, little pills. You eat them before.
• 5:20
  A dig-... What it is, it's a digestive enzyme. And so what you mean, now that I'm using that phrase, digestive enzyme, you're gonna go, "Yeah, yeah.
• 5:25
  I think I take one," or, "I've heard that they're really good for us." I'm gonna tell you, I think they're the least sexy most important supplement we take because if we don't make our food bioavailable, if we don't protect ourselves, if we don't put selves in a position to properly make B12 bioavailable for our mitochondria, everything else you're seeking, energy, vitality, longevity, gut health, all of these things are going to be compromised. So this little supplement, sup-... And I'll put in the show notes where to get it and whatnot.
• 5:30
  Um, I use Zypan. There are other ones out there. There's a couple reasons in particular I like it.
• 5:35
  It also has a little what's called, this is just almost too much depth here. This isn't keeping it simple, but I'll, I'll share this. It has something called ammonium chloride in it.
• 5:40
  And the ammonium chloride is actually what helps acidify. Most of us have a gut that is, that is out of balance and it's actually too alkaline in the gut, and therefore we don't break our foods down. And what happens, what is the reality when you can't break your food down properly?
• 5:45
  You're just gonna lean into wanting more carbohydrates. They're going to make you feel better and that becomes problematic because in your mind you're saying, "Now listen, I'm listening to my body. Dr.
• 5:50
  Bart says listen to your body all the time." challenge is if you're not functioning properly, we have to be mindful about even listening to our bodies. We have to, first sometimes, just look at the data that we collect. Is it functioning properly?
• 5:55
  And the truth is, a good functioning body should be able to eat, especially the essential amino acids, the keyword essential, and essential fatty acids. So those are fats and proteins from animals. We should be able to eat those without any issues.
• 6:00
  And if we have an issue with those guys, then we got to look a little bit deeper and figure out what's going on. So let's, let's, let's shift gears here a little bit and talk about if you were to do labs, how would, like how would this show up? I don't recommend...
• 6:05
  There's an HCl test. It's a bit, uh, I don't do it, uh-But you could look at your standard labs and start to get some writing on the wall, how you're doing with hydrochloric acid. I'm gonna give a, I'm gonna share with you one that is very, very common everyone listen to this, especially if you have a young daughter and you're female out there that's still cycling.
• 6:10
  There's a high likelihood at some point in your life once your doctor did, told you you're anemic. And if that is the case, meaning that you have low one of two things, either B12 and/or iron, often both. And when we start to look at this, especially, you know, as someone who's practiced in functional nutrition, functional medicine, we always step back and go, "All right.
• 6:15
  Let's get to the root cause." The first question that needs to be asked, "Do you consume the foods that have B12 and iron in them?" And right away, we typically find out, not so much. If you think about a 15, 16-year-old girl, do they, are they eating red meat that much? Probably not.
• 6:20
  I just, you know, just, I'm not for no other bias other than just being in practice for 30 years, my observation is young girls don't eat a lot of red meat. Okay? So they're not eating the food sources to begin with.
• 6:25
  And so instead of just pumping up iron pills, that'll make you miserable fast, like so I, I'm not advocating big old fat iron pills when you see low iron on a lab test. No. We want to functionally correct this.
• 6:30
  We want to get to the root cause. So the root cause, how we fix these issues, these B12 deficiencies, how we fix these anemic situations, these iron deficiencies, first we make sure the food is available. Second most important, least sexy, maybe most important supplement, you make sure you have some hydrochloric acid.
• 6:35
  And I almost find across the board that this is a deficiency, but when we, and I have most likely I could say thousands of labs to prove this next statement to be correct, that when you put the right food in and you help your body digest it, the levels go up without supplementation, which is pretty cool. And that's often we can correct that if we have the correct behaviors, right, the, the food choices and we give our bodies the right tools. So supplementation, yes, hydrochloric acid, but not necessarily iron or B12.
• 6:40
  And the reason why you need hydrochloric acid... So why, why is this such an issue? So I used to...
• 6:45
  Well, the data would always tell us this, or if you want to call it the science, would say once you get past your 30s, the, the body produces less HCl. I'm not... I have never really been a big advocate of just saying blaming things on age.
• 6:50
  So really what we want to talk about is what happens during those 30 years that then slows down or inhibits the body from making the HCl, and it's really toxicities. It's stress and toxicities. And so people that are under prolonged periods of stress and/or prolonged periods of having toxins in their body happen to alter their stomach enough, beat it up, damage it.
• 6:55
  We're talking about birth control pills, we're talking about antibiotics, we're talking about alcohol, we're talking about processed foods, synthetic, uh, you know, glyphosate. All of these different things inhibit the body's ability to defend itself. First line of defense, remember, is hydrochloric acid, especially in the stomach.
• 7:00
  So now I, I don't even say 30 years old anymore. Now I basically say, well, let's look at some of the data. So we can look at things like B12.
• 7:05
  We can also look at homocysteine. So many of you out there, especially functional medicine practitioners, you look at homocysteine and look at it thinking maybe there's a methylation issue here, but you can also tag team that and look at it, if you see higher levels of homocysteine, anything above 10 quite frankly, at least a consideration is, are they eating the food and can they break that food down properly? Can they release...
• 7:10
  If you're eating grass-fed steak, are you releasing intrinsic factor to bind, break down, digest the proteins, and then bind up that B12 with the intrinsic factor and deliver it to the mitochondria? So that's another way we can look at homocysteine levels to help determine some of that. And then also iron levels or anything to do...
• 7:15
  And also we could probably look at ferritin as well. So if you're looking at your labs, you can look at some of those guys. So this is what I'm gonna suggest, guys.
• 7:20
  Listen. The most sexy, important things it's not even probably. I'm, I'm gonna continue to correct myself.
• 7:25
  I used to always say probably. But as I go here and I see what's going out in terms of trying to correct gut health, trying to correct, correct energy levels, trying to correct weight goals, I'm gonna do my next podcast and help you, uh, help us all understand the stomach's relationship to GLPs. Do not miss that one.
• 7:30
  Uh, it's gonna be a doozy, when we really understand what's going on with GLPs. We don't, folks, we don't have an obesity issue. We have an antibiotic issue in our country and that's just a little precursor into the next podcast.
• 7:35
  Anyways, so when it comes to these guys, no doubt your stomach acid that is upper GI system, we want to support it being very acidic even though so, for so long we've been told, "Oh, there's too much acid. That's why you have acid reflux and heartburn and all that stuff." Most likely it's different. If you have those issues or you've been on any of those over-the-counter meds or medications, get with your functional medicine provider and have the conversation with them and talk to them and how do you wean yourself maybe off of them that if that's your choice, but back into having a good, strong, healthy gut?
• 7:40
  It's a game change when you do it. All right, folks. Uh, and I'll put in the show notes today a link where you can get yourself some Zypan.
• 7:45
  For those of you who do utilize either our website or, you know, directly through us, I appreciate that. It's always helpful for us. Um, and then also I'll make sure that there's always an opportunity if you do want to run labs, I'll put a, a link in there as well.
• 7:50
  With that being said, keep doing your thing, keep sharing out, keep spreading the love, and of course, continue to level yourself up by taking deliberate action for your mind, your body, overall wellness. Y'all be awesome.