Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #158: Oxalates Revisited: Separating Fact from Fiction with Dr. Sina

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Episode #158: Oxalates Revisited: Separating Fact from Fiction with Dr. Sina · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: You are your best experiment.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: You are so unique.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Your situation is so different than anybody else.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going to get into more of that today with oxalates in particular.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: But your entire situation is different.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot compare yourself to somebody else.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: You have a different microbiome than everybody else.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: You have different nutrient requirements.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: You have a different set of stressors that you undergo every day.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: You probably had a different type of birth experience than somebody else.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: What if you were C-section versus vaginal?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: What about your childhood traumas?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if you don't know how to forgive and you haven't forgiven yet?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if you live in the city versus out on a farm or near a um, you know, high-tension power line, a cell tower, right?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: All of these things are pieces of your puzzle.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the best way to actually help somebody is to figure out how to put the pieces of their puzzle together so that you can help them read their own story, right?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then once they see it, the body, the body has an ability to heal itself.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's when intuition comes into play, which comes from God, in my opinion.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: And God helps you see the answer.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: So you just sometimes need help putting the pieces together.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, everybody.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels with yours truly, Joel Salatin, the farmer, and our favorite researcher, Dr.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it looks like we stirred up a little bit of a hornet's nest a few episodes back with our interview with Sally Norton about oxalates, which, as you know, in dietetic circles, uh, oxalates are considered like you know, a uh a gold standard of nutrition.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in that podcast, Sally Sally uh uh broke it down and gave a little bit of a different story.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And some folks, our feedback, some folks have been freaked out, some are simply um uh non-plussed, may I say, by uh by Sally's uh position.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we've decided we need to back up and revisit this just so we don't irritate or lose or confuse.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so Cena, let's uh let's go back and revisit the oxalate topic and um maybe maybe encapsulate the the like two salient points that um got everybody uh stirred up, and then we'll then we'll go from there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: All right, that sounds great.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: So as Joel mentioned, we received many comments about that interview, and I'll have to say I've read every single comment, every email, and um I agree with all of them.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: So uh one thing that Joel and I, I think I can say this for both of us learned is that after we interview um a guest on our show, uh it's a good idea for us to do sort of an after-the-show episode, right, Joel, where we can kind of then express our own opinions on that subject matter, um, which is what we did with Dr.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: Kenobi, right?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that wasn't even planned.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: We had Dr.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Kenobi on talking about the industrial seed oils, and then we got back on and I was like, you know, I'm gonna push record.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it turned into an after-the-show episode, which I thought was great because when we have a guest on, we want to hear what the guest has to say.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I know we also need to chime in and have our own opinions as well.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we'll start doing after the show episodes.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I know when Sally was on, um, my my uh uh frustration at the end of it was you mean you mean I can't go out and pick blueberry, you know, uh blackberries in in the woods when I go, you know, and uh and and so so yeah, we did we did address that a little bit.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we did in the in the response from listeners, and I'll touch on some of these.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: We'll go we'll dive into the science that I have discovered because I have been doing a deep dive into oxalates for at least two months now because I'm writing an article about it for the Epoch Times.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna go into what I have found in the scientific literature.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go into why I think that there is some merit here behind oxalates for some people, not for all people, for some people, and why I think this, like a common theme on our show, is uh more of a man-made modern problem.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: So some of the comments that we received was that uh so Sally was very rigid, she's very frustrating to listen to.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think Joel and I can probably both agree on that, that we felt the same way.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, as you know, I even gave her an opportunity to soften her stance against oxalates and all plants in general, and she didn't bite, she got more rigid.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: When I mentioned that some people are sensitive, implying this is not a problem for everybody.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, she kind of snapped about that, that like it's toxic for everybody.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I even tried to, I knew this was going to happen.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: So when we introduced the show, I tried to set the energetic tone that basically um if you have unexplained health symptoms, then you might consider oxalates, right?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning for me, that's how I see oxalates.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: That I work with a lot of people who don't have um a diagnosis, which is a good thing in my opinion, but people who have symptoms that Western doctors can't figure out, and even some naturopathic doctors and functional medicine doctors can't help them to resolve.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so what I'm saying is that in my experience, what I have found is that for some people, lowering the oxalate burden, the total oxalate burden, has been helpful.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but it's not the answer for everybody, and we're gonna get into that.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I did want to say just up front, just so we can have a little more empathy, is that Sally's perception is very rigid, okay?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: But here's the thing if you could imagine being debilitated, right, by kind of a mysterious health condition, medical professionals can't figure out what's wrong.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them are telling you it's in your head.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: And meanwhile, your health is just deteriorating to a point where you can't even work any longer and you're in constant pain, right?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Then you stumble upon something that actually helps you reclaim your life.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: For Sally, that was oxalates.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: So if you put yourself in her shoes, you would probably feel an immense sense of gratitude.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you'd probably want to share that information with every anybody else who might be suffering.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's Sally's driving force behind this.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: But unfortunately, when you have been through a situation like that, which I can relate to because that was my situation, you tend to develop a fear-based, rigid perception, which doesn't allow you to remain objective.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it can be hard to let go of that fear, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Because she doesn't want to get sick again.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or or even or even very tolerant.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: You and in your in your situation, it actually wasn't oxalates, it was other things.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if your situation is oxalates, then uh then that's gonna be your that's gonna be your driving focus.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if you recall when we you and I recorded a couple podcasts about glutens, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: And gluten was a main trigger for me.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, when we did those podcasts, did I see seem angry?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, right?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like I wasn't angry, I wasn't like sitting there saying, um, glutens are poison, they're bad for everybody.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: You need to stop eating glutins.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: In contrast, I was like, I I'm going to eat glutens one day, like I'm determined, you know.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, but that's because I dealt with that fear, right?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: I let go of it.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I don't demonize any food.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I I just wanted to start out with that by saying that if you went through a situation like that, you might be able to understand a little bit about why she is so rigid.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is when you become rigid like that and you become fear-based, your message can get lost because people can't hear what you're having to say, right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, what I want to try to do is break down the message and tell you what we think we know in science and what we don't know.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: So let's start out with Sally saying that oxalates are a problem for everybody, but my research suggests that it's a more nuanced picture.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, for some people, oxalates can have a significant issue.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's a genetic predisposition, is what there's if you believe in, you know, the gene concept.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, that there's maybe somewhere between 10, 20, 30% of people who may have this genetic predisposition to be more sensitive to oxalates.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then even if you don't have that condition, there does seem to be a population of people who are more sensitive to oxalates.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: You've met one of them, Dr.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Kenobi.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, we had him on as the seeds, seed oil specialist.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Dr.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Kenobi actually had a severe case of arthritis.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: He switched to a low oxalate diet and basically had relief um from many of his symptoms.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: So these people do exist.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now, addressing one, I want to just address this off the top.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: There's questions that came in about how this sounds like um really reductionist thinking.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And this came from um Fernando, which I I really appreciated his email.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: He put a lot of thought into this, researched a lot of things.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I will agree, this all of this is reductionist thinking, right?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: That's science.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's what we do in science.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Is it's even the scientific method is reductionist thinking.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: So from the start, I do want to say that maybe it's not oxalates, maybe it's something else that's in those groupings of plants.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like it we have scientists have isolated oxalates in plants, and they have isolated oxalates as coming from the body, for instance, in the urine and in things like kidney stones and other in other crystal stone formations that can actually occur throughout the entire body.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: So oxalate crystals, or what we call like the oxalate stones, have actually been found throughout practically every single tissue in the body.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we do know that a structure that we're calling oxalate does exist in some kind of form in the human body as well as in plants.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now, it could be a coincidence that all of these plants that's on this low oxalate or high oxalate list, maybe they have something else in common.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's not the oxalates that's causing the problem.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's something else that we don't know of that's causing the maybe it's fiber, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like we don't know.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much that we don't know in science.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And the reductionist thinking is not the way that you're going to solve these problems, but that's what science does.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the problem is that science is limited to what we can see.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, we can measure.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a limitation of science.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, everybody, I mean, we our our culture, wow, seeing it, you know, you know, on a rant here.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Our our culture worships it as as this new religion of science, as if it's got a uh an answer for everything.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the and the um we just we'll we'll we'll do it in another podcast.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do some highlights from our Stopman Grass Farmer gathering that we just had.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: But man, the number of speakers who said what we don't see is actually more real and functional than what we do see.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they said it about the soil, they said it about uh um you know, plant communities, uh, microbes, all sorts of things.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so we need to go into these things.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we need to go beyond labels.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, science wants us to label everything, you know.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Put put it here, here's the shelf, here's the cat, here's the cubby hole, you know, stick it in here, stick it in here, stick it in here.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and the the way, the way life works, it's not a neat cubby hole.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and and so that's why we're beyond labels.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I I love that.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: A little plug for us.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and and you're exactly right.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is another example of how you have to go beyond the labels.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: You actually have to go beyond the science here, modern science, the limitations of modern science.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: But but this is this is how we approach um compounds in science.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: This is how we approach these dilemmas.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, in large part, the uh society demands it.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: So when you go to a medical doctor and you're trying to get them to tell you what's wrong with you, you are demanding a label, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: You are demanding the reductionist thinking of the way that the science, the those medical doctors are trained.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I completely agree with you, Fernando.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: This all is totally reductionist thinking.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I feel like a better way to approach these things, and this comes from somebody who works with people who are who are sick with these mysterious illnesses, is the best experiment is an N of one, right?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: You are your best experiment.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: You are so unique, your situation is so different than anybody else.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna get into more of that today with oxalates in particular, but but your entire situation is different.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot compare yourself to somebody else.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: You have a different microbiome than everybody else, you have different nutrient requirements, you have a different set of stressors that you undergo every day.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: You probably had a different type of birth experience than somebody else.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: What if you were C-section versus vaginal?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: What about your childhood traumas?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if you don't know how to forgive and you haven't forgiven yet?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if you live in the city versus out on a farm or near a um, you know, high-tension power line, a cell tower, right?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: All of these things are pieces of your puzzle.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the best way to actually help somebody is to figure out how to put the pieces of their puzzle together so that you can help them read their own story, right?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then once they see it, the body, the body has an ability to heal itself.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's when intuition comes into play, which comes from God, in my opinion.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And God helps you see the answer.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: So you just sometimes need help putting the pieces together.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: So the N of One is the best experiment that you could ever do.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: So if you think you might have a problem with oxalates or you have, like I said, some kind of mystery illness and people can't figure it out.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: All you do is try to lower your oxalate oxalate level.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we'll include in this in this episode, we can include a document that has some swaps, like high oxalate plants to low oxalate plants.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: So if you wanted to try it, you could just try it.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's free.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: You could try it by yourself.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, I mean, it's really you need to experiment to see what works for you.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so having said that, yes, this is uh reductionist thinking.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, another question was about how Sally seems to believe all plants are poison.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, like, you know, basically, is that true?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: So Sally's not actually advocating that all plants are poison in a way, because she said she will say it, but then she there's a list of a swap from of high oxalate to low oxalate plants, right?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: So she still eats plants, but she's eating the ones that presumably have low oxalates in them based on limited scientific measures.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: So so I'm not sure.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure she would have to answer that for herself if she thinks that they're all poisonous, but I know she does eat plants.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: One thing this reminds me of, Joel, is there all kinds of diets that work for different people.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: So there's never one size fits all diet, okay?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we talk about this a lot on this show.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: This ties into because everybody's unique.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you think back to when we had Dr.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Natasha Campbell McBride on the show, you know, for the gaps.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember what she said?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Was she they are now instead of just having one gaps diet, they have created many different versions of the gaps diet.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And do you remember what she said?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of the kids have to eat.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can't remember.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Remind me.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just meat.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just meat.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: The kid, she's had so many kids now, they've had to create a kids protocol because they can't tolerate any plants, they are just eating meat.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, this is from Dr.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Camel McBride herself, you know, who's who's promoted this gaps diet.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: So there's something to this, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying it's oxalates, uh uh, maybe it's leptins, you know.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Who knows?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's too much fiber.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know, but there's something to this.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: The lion's diet, the carnivore diet, which you and I have talked about before, there's no plants on that one.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And some people are healing from it.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe part of it's the oxalates.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, but I frankly don't care what what compound it is specifically, because if you think of the person as an individual and they're an end of one, it actually doesn't matter what the specific compound is because you're just trying to figure out what that person's puzzle is.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: The person who's sick doesn't care if it's oxalates or if it's gluten, they just want an answer.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it doesn't matter what what the bottom line individual chemical is, because that may not even be a real chemical.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: It may be a chemical precipitate from the process of you know, the laboratory benchwork that we do.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, my point is there's all kinds of diets.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: If you're trying to tease out the actual component of each diet that is reductionist thinking, I would just experiment on myself to see what works best for you.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, one of the problems is none of this is covered in medical and nutrition textbooks nowadays.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: So if, but if you look, so so the doctors and the nutritionists aren't being taught this.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the nephrologists, the kidney doctors, know about oxalates because of oxalate stones, right?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: About 80% of um all kidney stones are an oxalate stone.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: So they are aware of it.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: And nephrologists will often put their kidney stone patients or kidney disease patients on a low oxalate diet.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one specialized group in medicine that is aware of oxalates.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't really um bleed over into other areas.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was certainly never taught about oxalates in all of my nutrition training.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yet if you go to the scientific literature, there are a plethora of health conditions that have been connected with oxalates.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: Are any of these cause and effect?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: No, I would actually say you can't ever argue that because the human body is too complex, but these are all correlations, like correlatory data.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I just want to run through a few of the health conditions that in the scientific literature have been shown to be associated with oxalates.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: The first one is breast cancer.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, we'll give you this um what as soon as my article comes out, we'll send it to everybody so you can have these references for yourself.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: So breast cancer has been associated with it, um, even transforming normal breast tissue into tumor cells, cardiomyopathy.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: So there's been oxalate crystals that have been found to be deposited in the heart, which can cause arrhythmias, palpitations, syncope, um, dyspenia, and in some rare cases can cause chest pain.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thyroid dysfunction is huge.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: The thyroid seems to be very sensitive to these oxalate crystals.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I cite some studies in here where like women over 70 years of age, they were um they had like an 85% chance of having oxalate crystals in their thyroid gland.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: And there was an association between those crystals and loss of function of the thyroid.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oxalates are also associated with neurological symptoms.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Again, this is simply what's in the literature.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: So they can lead to peripheral neuropathy, including pain, weakness of the legs, diminished reflexes, um, and so forth, tremors, um, chronic pain.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: These crystals can actually deposit in the bone as well as muscle cells and nerve cells and cause pain.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's been crystals that have been detected in the eyes of people that have glaucoma, cataracts, retinal detachment.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: And also sometimes there's like white flakes or sometimes spots on the eyes.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes people might might see floaters.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: We call those visual disturbances.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: Those have been associated with these crystals.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just like the crystals can deposit in the muscles, they can deposit in the joints, causing pain and stiffness like arthritis.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's actually a um a term uh for hyper um hyperoxaluria that can lead to oxalate arthritis.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a specific type of arthritis that actually develops from too much oxalate in the body.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it has been connected with weakening bones, weakening the connective tissue, I said kidney stones, mineral deficiencies because it chelates or binds to compounds like calcium.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And magnesium, which can actually pull them out of your circulation, that can lead to things like muscle spasms, cramps, fatigue, or mood changes.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, magnesium's like the darling right now of the supplement industry, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like everybody should be taking magnesium.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: One possible reason why people, some people might be too low in magnesium for their own bodies is because the oxalate can bind the magnesium.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying it is, I'm saying in some people that could happen.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Digestive issues, oxidative stress is directly correlated with oxalate crystals, fibrosis, autoimmunity.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: So these oxalate crystals can trigger inflammation.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: And high levels of these crystals have been detected in people with celiac disease, for instance, and even children with um with the autism spectrum disorder.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: There was a study that showed those children had threefold higher levels of oxalate in their blood and two and a half fold higher oxalates in their urine compared with children who were not on the spectrum.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: The researchers concluded that high levels of oxalates, quote, may be involved in the pathogenesis of autism spectrum disorder in children.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: So this is kind of a quick summation of what's in the literature.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: As you can see, there's because somebody had mentioned here that in one of their comments that Sally's website seems very unscientific.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: I totally agree.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: Her website is not scientific, it is subpar.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Her book has 60 pages of references, like small font references.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: When I was doing the writing this article, I would actually email her and say, Hey, can you help me find a reference for such and such?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of this research goes back to the 1800s.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we've known about oxalates since the early 1800s.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when Sally was researching for her book, she actually spent like seven years in the library tracking down all these old textbooks and stuff.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so she has photocopies of all this information.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: So she would be sending me the photocopies so I can read these textbooks for myself.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And like I said, this started back in the in the 1800s.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: People knew you mean those articles are not on the are not on the internet yet?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with it?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I know, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's well, lots of stuff gets whitewashed.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't actually have everything.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like we found something it doesn't have, you know.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, I mean, so all the studies that I just mentioned, those are all there.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: PubMed, you can find them yourself.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: You just type in and and like stuff just pops up, you know.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but those earlier, those earlier like textbooks, earlier articles, she got those from the libraries and photocopied them.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm telling you, there's a long history of this.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: People knew that oxalates were a problem for some people, especially like during rhubarb season.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: People would have oxalate um problems that showed up.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Even in the 1900s, they used like uh early 1900s, they were using xylitol infusions in hospitals.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: If you notice, we don't use xylitol infusions anymore.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because the body can convert xylitol into oxalate, and people were dying from having these xylitol infusions while being in the hospital.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where I want to go next, is my take on oxalates.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: And in order for you to understand how I view oxalates, I want to talk about, answer this question.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Does the body make the oxalates?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we know and Sally did a good job of explaining different foods that contain oxalates like chocolate, turmeric, spinach, some nuts, some grains, and so forth.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: But the body can also make oxalates.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now, when I'm researching, you know, people are people will tend to ask Joel, Joel and I, like, how do you like they want to know how we think, right?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: How do you think about these things?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: How do you come up with these things?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, as soon as I found out that the body makes oxalates, I knew intuitively that means that oxalates are not inherently toxic because our body makes them and God doesn't make mistakes with the body.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: So there has to be some purpose for oxalates in the body.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to circle around back to that, but first I want to tell you what you'll find in the literature.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: So your body can make oxalates.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: The foods that you choose to eat, they not only will have oxalates in them, a certain level of oxalate if you're eating plants, but those foods can influence the amount of oxalate your body produces.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's like a twofold here.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: So in the literature, I found this 2003 clinical trial in the Journal of Urology.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: People that took vitamin C supplements, it increased their oxalate production.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is thought vitamin C is thought to be a major source of oxalate production in the body.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: So what this means is that we're all taking all these vitamins, or many of us are taking a bunch of vitamin C, right?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Especially in more recent years.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: For some people, that's going to be fine.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: For other people, it may not be fine.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's going to depend on your total oxalate quote burden, which we'll get to in a minute.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: So vitamin C is a producer.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Also, this may uh this may upset some people, but um gelatin that contains hydroxyproline.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: So hydroxyproline is a component of collagen.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: In a study in 2006 in Kidney International, healthy people who consumed gelatin had higher levels of oxalate.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're consuming like a collagen-rich bone broth, it is possible that some of that collagen is going to be converted into oxalate.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: This may be one reason why some people don't do well on the gaps diet.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, remember, I didn't do well on the gaps diet.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I felt like I got better for a few days and then I got worse, and the bone broth was actually making me sick.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, one reason is because I developed a sensitivity to bay leaf because I drank so much bone broth.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: But it is possible that my body converted more of that um hydroxyproline into oxalate.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, because I I am somebody who is, I think, is sensitive to oxalates.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm figuring that out now.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that may partly explain why some people don't do well on the gaps and why some people do just great on the gaps.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this next thing that I found in the literature relates to another question that that a listener, um, Ann Seaton sent in about fermentation.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Does that change the oxalates in the food if you ferment them?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so there's a 2012 article in Advances in Urology.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: It talks about other sources of oxalates.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: And this this means when you eat these foods, you're converting some of this um a compound that it has in it called glyoxal.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: You're converting that into oxalate.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: These are foods like beer, wine, tea, coffee, yogurt, bread, rice, soy sauce, and fermented foods.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: And this is why.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, this will give you this is our current understanding.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: So when the seeds germinate, for instance, they need calcium.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: So when you soak and you sprout them and they start germinating, the calcium that was attached to the oxalate um detaches from it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And now you end up, instead of the plant having the calcium oxalate crystal in it, now you end up with a soluble oxalic acid.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, no longer is holding on to the calcium.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just this free oxalic acid and it's soluble, meaning you can absorb it into your bloodstream.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: The soluble oxalic acid is actually more toxic than the insoluble oxalate crystal, because the crystal is probably not going to get absorbed into your body.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: But once the soluble oxalic acid is absorbed into the blood, it can bind to calcium in your body, forming crystals and using up some of that uh calcium that's in your body, which could create a secondary deficiency.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if you're glossing over at this point.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: But but the main thing, the take-home here is first of all, we don't know.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: What we think we know from some of this literature is that when a food is fermented, it releases a soluble form of the oxalic acid that can then get into your body.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: It makes it more bioavailable.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: So possibly you're absorbing more of this compound that then could form crystals in the body and also bind calcium that's in your body.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: So fermenting may not be a great thing if you happen to be sensitive to oxalates.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean nobody should eat fermented food.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Clearly, lots of people get benefits from fermented food.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you happen to be sensitive, it may be one thing that you look at.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and here Dr.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Kenobi is going to come in again because another way that oxalates can form in the body is by you consuming industrial seed or vegetable oils.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: We had a whole podcast on these soybean, safflower, sunflower oil, for instance.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a direct study in 2002 that showed that soybean oil consumption increased oxalate excretion in in rats.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we've seen in other studies that when these seed oils, um, so these these seed oils have a type of fatty acid called the polyunsaturated fatty acids, right?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: The pufas.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: Those are very vulnerable to oxidation.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so when they oxidize, they break apart into small pieces.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: And one of those small pieces, which is glyoxyl, which I already mentioned, that one can be converted into oxalate.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, if you're consuming these PUFAs and they become oxidized, which is lipid peroxidation, they can actually turn into oxalate.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is actually evidence toward the benefit of ancestral eating.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because what it means is that you for somebody who might have problems with oxalates, a better choice might be what we call the stable fats, which are saturated fats.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that would be like butter or coconut oil or the animal fats.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: So this is the same message that Dr.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Kenobi was delivering to us is eat eat like your ancestors did in terms of these types of fats.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: But this is a different angle.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: This is like these lipid peroxidation products are formed and they can actually not only cause oxidative damage in and of themselves, but they can turn into oxalates.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you you one thing we do know, or we think we know in our reductionist thinking, is that if you are deficient in vitamin B1 or B6, you're more likely to produce oxalates in the body.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's because they're cofactors for some of the some of these reactions that um, and if you don't have them, you're probably gonna shunt that reaction toward um creating oxalate in the body.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: So one thing I wanted to say is having said all that, I still think that there is a purpose for oxalates in the body.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it it reminds me of hormesis, right, where the high dose of anything is toxic, but there's a benefit at a low dose.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: So if you look in the scientific literature, it will say over and over and over again that there's no purpose, no function for oxalates in the body.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: And they'll call oxalates an anti-nutrient because they can bind onto calcium and magnesium, right?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm saying I don't think that's right.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: So even if you think of um this one example, I'll say this one example and then you know chime in.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think of oxalates as similar, somewhat analogous to ammonia, right?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: We've all heard of ammonia.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: You've probably smelled ammonia, it doesn't smell good.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Ammonia has a very important function in the body, and it is normal to have some ammonia, like free ammonia hanging around.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: So in the brain, for instance, ammonia will interconvert glutamate and glutamine.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: Glutamine is an important energy source, and glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: So you need both.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: But if your glutamate goes too high, you can actually have seizures.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: Now you stop that by having the ammonia attached to the glutamate and making it become glutamine, right?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: It shunts it into a different pathway, lowering the level of neuronal excitation back down to a supposed normal.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you need that ammonia.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you want you want to be you want to be excited, but not too excited.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's like I get too excited.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's like Donia calls me a golden retriever.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, you're too excitable, but but but I love life.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyhow, so you need that free ammonia to be able to regulate the flow in that pathway.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: But if your free ammonia rises above a certain level, it becomes a neurotoxic itself.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: It can make you throw up, it can cause fatigue, it can cause brain fog, and it can actually cause you to go into a coma.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you, but you need some of it.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit is good, too much is bad.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think oxalate probably has a similar role in the body.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: We know it has lots of roles in plants.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: Just because we haven't figured out the role yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I come back to I think it depends on if you are some, if you happen to be sensitive to oxalates, then you need to consider your total oxalate burden.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but it it doesn't mean everybody needs to consider that.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: This is an individual thing.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: But but I think Cena, yeah, and we're we're out of time here, but um, you know, what one of the one of the reasons I think that we have some of these whatever, some of these issues going on is because we live in a time where people actually have the option to swing violently to to special diets.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our ancestors, they ate what they could grow.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you couldn't you couldn't swing violently to an all all blueberry smoothie breakfast.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, if you had if you had eggs from the chickens, you ate eggs.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, and and so our our luxury has created the opportunity to actually become, may I say, more imbalanced, yeah, than our than our ancestors had the luxury to do.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you so you swing, you know, all meat.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, in the spring when all the the berries and strawberries and everything are hanging out and juicy.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love berries, you know, and so I go to the field and I eat blackberries and dewberries and raspberries, and few things are more enjoyable for me than you know a couple weeks a year in the spring grazing raspberries on the edge of a pasture field.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've moved the cows, look over there.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Man, there's some beautiful, you know, black raspberries.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nothing is like, but it's like a two-week period in a year and it's gone, you know, and you just and you just go through this.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: We now we can go to the store and buy gallons of raspberries, probably hydroponically raised in a some, you know, uh uh IV concoction in a Driscoll's in Mexico and slapped on with organic certified.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and and you know, and we and we and we can and we can eat that um every morning.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, it's good, you know, and we we like it.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we anyway, I just I just wonder how much of our own our own uh whatever uh imbalance problems are now caused by the luxurious capacity to um um you know to be able to swing wildly in our in our uh eating choices.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I love that you said that.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it, you know, if you if you'll entertain me, I would love to close out with some of my thoughts as to why I think this is a modern problem.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and you what you just brought up, I think is the main reason that this is a modern problem, is because of the year-round availability of all these different foods, right?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we demand that convenience, right?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: By just even with our purchasing power in the grocery store, what we're buying.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it it is true.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: So even if even so let's say you bought into the reductionist thinking that there's these high oxalate foods, okay, like you just laid out so beautiful, be beautifully, they were only available seasonally.
• 40:07
  unknown: Okay.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so what does that mean?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: Even if you consumed them and your body got a little too much and it's stored at some place, then you weren't consuming it for quite some time.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so the body has the ability to offload it during that time.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same way that we've talked about food sensitivities on this program before.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: In large part, that's become that's because of year-round availability.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: You're not giving the immune system a break from those foods.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so it develops a sensitivity.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's for me, it's a very similar concept here.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if we all just ate like the ancestors and ate seasonally, this probably would not be a problem.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now that, and so some of these, some of it is also the promotion of superfoods that this goes into our perception of food that we've been taught that like things like the spinach and the high oxalate greens, like we need to get more of them, like constantly, get more in your diet, even when they're not growing out in nature, consume more of them, you know?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so that feeds into the same thing you're talking about, but on the psychological level.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: And almost like if I'm choosing, I don't know, that red meat instead of this green smoothie, you know, for instance, I made a bad choice, right?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and this is the polarity in in which we assign foods it's good or bad.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like oxalates.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Are they good?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: Are they bad?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're neither.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Tina, who knows?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows what eating, eating with a guilt complex does to your, does to the to the all the exchanges and interchanges in your body.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I was not even gonna talk about this today, but I just ran across this article.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: It says anti-inflammatory diet may reduce dementia risk by up to a third.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, oh, what's this anti-inflammatory diet, right?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm looking at it, I kid you not.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: And this was a study done on humans.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: So you think maybe they would have fed them the foods and then measured their inflammatory levels.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Still reductionist thinking, but at least that's a little more personalized.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: They did not.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know what they did?
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: They just created a list of foods and they assigned them to whether or not they thought those foods were inflammatory or not.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then they looked at what the people were eating and they were like, oh, you ate more inflammatory foods.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: So let's see what markers you have.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's not how the body works.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, I mean, everyone is gonna have a different response to all foods.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: And what if they ate it when they were stressed out?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna have more likely an inflammatory response.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: But okay, so the other thing is um feeling pressure to eat um largely a plant-based diet.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is so this is another perception change that, and Joel, you've talked about this too, that the society is swinging toward, you know, you need to eat more plants and stuff.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's fine if your intuition is telling you that's what you need to eat.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: But if it's not, then you're not eating what your body wants.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: And you set up an internal conflict, which is how one way disease arises.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: The other one is the high seed oil consumptions.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: Dr.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: Kenobi talked about this.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: Some of us are consuming a fourth or even a third of our calories from these seed oils.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I just walked you through how they can lead to more oxalate production in the body.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not just, oh, you know, like how Sally was saying you're eating these super foods that can that are higher in oxalates.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: For some people, maybe they're not.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they're eating a bunch of seed oils now because they're so prominent in the processed foods, and they're not even aware that that is driving an oxalate overload in their body if they're sensitive.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Grains are another one.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, many great 23% of the average American's diet comes from grains.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, many of them are high in oxalates, and actually, this is.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing that might upset some people, whole grains are generally higher in oxalates compared to the refined grain.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like white flour or white rice because the oxalates concentrate mostly in the bran.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: So so this is another, and that's what I'm saying.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying do not eat your whole grain.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I'm not not I'm not saying don't ferment your foods.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what I'm saying.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm saying for those people who have some kind of mystery symptom or who can't figure out what's going on with them, maybe you have unexplained pain.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: For those people, these are some hidden gems that I have found that may help guide them to being able to reduce their toxic burden of oxalates.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: And for them, it would be a toxic burden, but not for everyone.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, vitamin C supplementation, we covered that.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is this is the one I really want to end on, and then you can take it away.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: It is this concept of gut health issues.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we know that loss of microbial diversity, we've talked about this a lot, leaves to dysbiosis, leaky gut, which also can lead to basically any chronic or autoimmune disease you can think of.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, oxalate absorption has been shown to increase in in situations where you have candida overgrowth or yeast overgrowth, which is very common in our society today, also under conditions where you have fat malabsorption, because fat can bind to the calcium, and that prevents the calcium from binding up the oxalate and allowing it to be eliminated in the bowels.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: So um many different inflammatory bowel conditions have been linked to increased oxalate absorption, celiac disease, um, inflammatory bowel disease, you know, IBS, um short bowel syndrome, just to name a few.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then the one that I think is key as to also why this is becoming more of a problem in modern day is because there actually are oxalate-degrading bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: So there's one called Axalobacter, bifidobacter.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: We've all heard of that one, right?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh lactobacillus.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: These, all of these bacteria can help break down oxalates in your gastrointestinal tract.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we know that we're actually losing these microbes specifically in our gastrointestinal tract.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I reached out to our good friend Dr.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Hazan, and she said we're losing microbes that possibly degrade oxalate.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Loss of microbes is the culprit of disease.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we are losing these things.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so that could make somebody more susceptible to oxidate-related problems.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it doesn't have to be some genetic thing.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't really buy into the genetic thing, but it could seriously just even be that you don't have the right microbes in your gastrointestinal tract to properly either, you know, digest it or to hold on to it in the colon so that it can be let go, you know, because there's that whole recirculation that happens with the liver.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, we don't need to get into the all the details of it, but if you can't bind it and let it go in the feces, there are some compounds like um hydrophobic xenobiotics that will be reabsorbed, like dioxins.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: Dioxins will be filtered out, put into the colon.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you can't bind it then and excrete it through the feces, it can be reabsorbed and taken back to the liver.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that cycle causes liver dam or can cause liver damage.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's possible that oxalates could do the same thing if you don't have the ability to bind them, you know, and get them out of the system.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyhow, as you can see, oxalates are very complex subjects.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like we do have a lot of research on them.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it dates way back into the 1800s.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: We have anecdotal research research as well as research in animals and research in humans, but there's still a lot we don't know.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not a one-size-fits-all approach.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: So the take-home is if this doesn't resonate with you and you don't think you have a problem with oxalates, well, then you just spent 45 minutes with us hanging out, having a good time, right?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: But but if they if it could be a problem for you, there's easy swaps that you can try and just experiment and see if you feel better.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that's the that's the great takeaway.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is increase your increase your microbiome.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh get your hands in the dirt, drink out of the water tank with the cows.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, don't don't chlorinate all your you know, your carrots, uh, let a little bit of dirt hang on them and eat them.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm serious.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we are just too sterile.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's one.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: And number two is experiment on yourself.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's not there's nothing to be gained or lost, or nothing to be lost by trying a two-week experiment on something.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, your body's pretty responsive to things, I think.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and when you when you make a change, uh, it can respond very quickly, whether it's a change in diet, a change in attitude, a change in spirit.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those things can make big changes really quick.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: So hope we've um not muddied the waters more and stirred any more the hornet's nest, but created a little bit of a of a balm here on uh on the oxalate uh issue.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Zina, for uh always bringing your perspective and and uh and research to the so everybody.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: The question of the day for our listener community is do you take balance of nature, super beats, these you know, super foods and a pill?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, do you take them?
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, have you have you felt better?
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: Has it has it actually um uh uh been do you feel like it's been a benefit to you?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Conversely, have you tried them and felt nothing or felt worse?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Love to hear your take on that.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we thank all of you for joining us on another Beyond Labels episode, and we look forward to visiting with you again next week.