In today’s podcast, Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Ruja discuss why chiropractic care is important to the body’s overall wellbeing.
Why Chiropractic Care Is Important?
[00:00:01] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Mario, hi. We’re talking here to Dr. Mario Ruja. We are the power chiropractors; what are we calling ourselves, Mario? What are we going to say?
[00:00:12] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: You know, I’m going to tell you right now it’s called the Bad Boys of Chiropractic.
[00:00:16] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: The Bad Boys of Chiropractic. Yes. All right.
[00:00:19] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: So we’re going to get nasty up in here. We’re going to talk about stuff that people don’t want to bring up, Alex.
[00:00:26] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, we are live.
[00:00:27] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Well, we’re live. Good. I love it live. I hate dead.
[00:00:32] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Well, we’re going to discuss the power of chiropractic and why people have chosen around the world to choose chiropractic as a great option for treatment protocols and things beyond most people’s experiences. But in our new modern world, we understand what chiropractic is. Mario, I know this is an excellent topic for you, and then you and I have discussed this on many occasions. And tell me a bit of why chiropractic has been impactful in your life?
[00:01:07] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: I’ve gone through many experiences, especially in the area of sports. Again, I played high school, college soccer. I have always enjoyed being active, from CrossFit to marathons, biathlon, and other things. That chiropractic synergize is synergistic with the movement of life, and life, in general, is straightforward. Number one, it is simple. We don’t need technology. No batteries are required, no facilities are required. You can receive chiropractic anywhere at any time with our hands. These are the instruments. These are the power tools from ancient China to the Mayans to the Egyptians. They had chiropractic but by different names and different presentations. But in those ancient worlds, chiropractic was only for the upper class. The kings and queens and their families only because they knew that chiropractic opened up and optimized the body’s energy, the energy of life and movement. So it wasn’t for the everyday folks; it was for the elite only. And so that’s the beauty of it. So when we look at chiropractic, we look at the cycle that went through, and in the beginning, it was for the elite, and then it was lost. And then with Didi Palmer and BJ Palmer and the whole lineage of chiropractors, the founders, the pioneers, the warriors, you know, that went to jail. Yeah, they went to prison to stand for the art and science of the healing art of chiropractic. And that’s amazing. I mean, it is incredible how people don’t realize that. And then coming full swing 360 to now out of that, it is accepted by all insurances, all providers. The VA is covering chiropractic. 101 percent. All I would say is every pro team in the world. OK, maybe that’s taking a little far, but I know for sure the pro teams in the U.S., all of hockey, baseball, basketball, soccer, and such volleyball, every one of the high elite athletes, they all have chiropractic in their corner. They all have chiropractic in their toolkit. Armstrong had it all of the tops. I mean, Phelps had it. I can go on. Bolt had it. You name atop gold medalist, and I’m going to tell you that they had some hands put on them to calibrate their spine, their energy. And most of all, Alex, I’m going to tell you this is what I want to share with our viewers and listeners. Chiropractic is one of the most potent tools and instruments, not just for healing when you’re hurt, but it is for optimizing energy, function, and recovery. I can tell you, and I’ve worked with powerlifters with Olympic lifters, and after the adjustment, they could squat more and bench press more immediately. I have people coming off the table. Olympic athletes come off the table, and they jump up and down. They say I feel lighter, jump faster, and run faster. So that is unbelievable. We are here to empower everyone, and it is cost-effective. Like, let me tell you, we don’t need to high instrumentation. We don’t need $2 million worth of equipment and all of that. This is the power to the people, Alex. And you are an incredible athlete and both of our families. We have astonishing athletes for children. I want to ask you this because you dealt with bodybuilding, and we have so many chiropractors that are bodybuilders, former athletes. How has chiropractic impacted your performance and recovery in terms of sports?
How Chiropractic Influenced Dr. Jimenez?
[00:06:13] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Stepping back a little bit, Mario, one of the things when I first decided to become a chiropractor, when I first had to assess what type of profession was in line with what I believed, I was an athlete. I was a bodybuilder, was a powerlifter, and we’re talking about in the 80s. And yeah, I got to say that I had my buddy Jeff Goods, and we were like the strongest guys at 16. I played in South Florida, so it’s very competitive in football in South Florida, and I was a big boy. Now, I played against Bennie Blades, Brian Blades. I played with Michael Irving. I played at Piper High School, and we dealt with high-performance athletes. Every day. I got to see up close the Miami Dolphins. I got to see Andre Franklin, Lorenzo White, who worked out in my gym. This was an amazing kind of world I lived in. When I decided to look into a profession, I was looking for a profession focused on health, mobility, agility, and things to touch people. And that’s what I was. I was a health care provider. I had no idea that the day I decided to be a chiropractor and met a chiropractor, he told me what he did, and I had no idea what one was, what I did was I asked them, Hey, can I do this? Can I do nutrition? Can I do weightlifting? Can I do plyometrics? Which was the new thing back in the day. They didn’t call it CrossFit. It was a dynamic movement. It was agility training. In that process, what I did was I asked them a couple of questions, and he checked mark every one of my boxes. I go, I can I touch people? Can I work on people? Can I do things? Can I help people become better? I was passionate about the elderly. I loved that I came from a health care background, so I enjoyed that kind of stuff. But when I went into chiropractic college, believe it or not, I had not seen an inside of a chiropractic office other than the philosophies that I had read on what there was in books. I could say LAPD of Britannica career books on what chiropractic is, but there was no such thing as the internet in 1985 to find and reference stuff and search it as we can today. I think Prodigy began around the nineteen nineties. So this is where I got the idea. When I walked into the school, I was hit with a required class, the course on the history of chiropractic. I had no idea that I would go into a profession where the leader had been thrown in jail about 60 times. You know what we learned, and we can try to figure out why only 60 where did it stopped? Why not at the sixty-one time, 60 first time that he stopped getting arrested. The world changed when they figured out what we were doing, and the arts of mobility impacted the world. We understood the dynamics of the movements. We had not understood embryology to that level. Today, we’ve learned that the first notal cord of the neural groove becomes the spine. It is the central circuit. You drop the wires, cables, and infrastructure when you look at a formed city. That’s what we were designed, and our creator designed a system that starts at the spine. And from there, it builds in the dynamic movement of the cells as they develop and grow, creating a structure that is designed for motion. It is designed to move. It is not a surprise that many of the diseases and pathologies that you and I treat are in some way linked in co-mingled together with motion itself. Now the world’s waking up to this, and as they wake up, we’re going to be the bad boys of chiropractic, and we’re going to teach people about what we do and what it is that we articulate. Because every day I get the the the the privilege to touch people in an area where they’re not supposed to be touched, their neck, their spine, their joints. You and I do that every single day. We have the pleasure of assessing and treating the dynamics of human existence and understanding that the creator loves motion. He’s got a; I’d even say a fetish. Everything moves from planet spin; light moves, joint moves, roots grow, birds sing, and the wind blows. Motion is part of all existence. So the closer we get to motion, it becomes the most important thing that we associate with God’s intention. And that’s the huge thing. So when you asked me that question, where did I begin? We have to go back and step back and kind of begin at the beginning and ask ourselves, where did this freak come out from? Which is BJ Palmer, Didi Palmer comes up with the philosophies these crazy guys that came up with that, and we’re here to kind of tell the story, at least from about 50, some almost 60 years of chiropractic treatment between you and I. We can tell the story about that, but I hope that gives you an idea of what started my belief in motion in chiropractic because it’s a passion for who we are and what we do. Our children are athletes. We have given our children to the arts of motion. No child in our families is yours, and my family has not lived with motion as part of the thing that they wake up, and they got to do something. Whether it’s volleyball, tennis, baseball, whatever they do, soccer and judo.
[00:11:39] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yes. And you know, Alex, that is the reason why we are the bad boys of chiropractic because you know what, B.J. Palmer, Didi Palmer, and the whole crew. I mean the founders of National College in Chicago, St. Louis, Logan Chiropractic, all of those. They were the bad boys. They were considered outlaws. These are not real doctors. What are they doing? You know, they’re messing up the stuff, you know? And let me tell you, just like we talked about in the last conversation, you know, in the beginning, the people will look at innovative technologies and innovative thought and healing as being terrible and abusive. So if that’s bad, they try to put it out and criticize it. Then after a while, they see that it works in the results. Chiropractic is about results. The bottom line? It cannot lie. It can’t, Alex. This is the beauty of chiropractic. It either works, or it doesn’t. There’s nothing to cover it up. We cannot cover it up. We can’t give you a magic pill to make you feel better.
[00:13:02] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, you and I got to get out of its way. You got to get out of its way because it’s steam. It’s past me. I jumped on it as a young chiropractic student, and when it took me on for a ride that I didn’t know, we got to get out of this way because it’s an intense motion is what life’s about. And this is what you and I know, and I believe that you and I have experienced a love for this science, and we probably developed it more passionately. The more the years we had, huh?
[00:13:30] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Oh, absolutely. And we’ve gone through a lot of what I call the roller coaster of life, the ups and downs and sideways the rocket launches and the slamming on brakes and your story. I love your story, Alex. And mine is much different, and I think every chiropractor has their own story because this is not something you just pick up. After all, someone said, Oh, you know what? I think you should be a chiropractor. Like what? We hold on. We need to pray for you. Don’t do that.
[00:14:01] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: No, chiropractic chooses you.
How Chiropractic Chose Dr. Ruja?
[00:14:02] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: This is it. I got smacked head-on in a car collision. Yes, I was hit in a car, spun around, and went through six months of rehab and orthopedic and all of that. And at the end, I had residual pain. I had residual issues, and I did not want to accept those limitations. I was a college athlete, and there is no way that I’m going to go, “OK, well, let’s take a pill for the rest of my life.” It wasn’t going to happen, Alex. And somehow, my buddy said, “Hey, my grandmother will see this doctor, and she feels fantastic, and she’s moving. She’s walking every day.” I said, “OK, who is this guy?” Dr. Farense in Savannah, Georgia. If he’s around, give me a call now because I love you.
[00:14:53] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: How do you spell Dr. Farense?
[00:14:54] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: I don’t know how you spell it because I can’t remember, but I’ll look it up. But let me tell you that guy. I walked to his office and said, “Look, I’m banged up. I’m jacked up. I need some help because I’m not happy. I am just not happy. I want to get back to my performance, my biking.” I cycled, I ran. I did marathons, half marathons. I couldn’t sit still. I can’t sit still even today. I’m 54, and I’m just getting warmed up.
[00:15:22] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know what? I don’t know him, and I probably have never heard of his name. But you know what you did say that you referenced a chiropractor who influenced your life. This is correct. This is a profession that we were about the fifth generation, and we honor our leaders, our teachers. And it’s nice. I mean, Dr. Farense may not have ever realized that one day, 30 years later, a chiropractor was going to mention his name because we have to honor B.J. Palmer, Didi Palmer, the teachers, and the professors that made it an influence on your life. Amazingly, we were following through with this. We have a purpose that is beyond even time itself. It’s incredible what you’re doing.
[00:16:06] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: It’s growing, Alex. It’s building momentum. This is about momentum, and what is momentum? Movement. You can’t build momentum sitting down. You cannot build momentum, just accepting average, accepting mediocrity, and accepting, well, that’s just how it is now. So this is where the power of breaking barriers of crushing limits is all about chiropractic. I just want to bring in that thought is that movement, that calibration. And this is where I get passionate. You know, I’ve been doing this for 25 years plus, and everywhere I go, I just got back from Chihuahua. Yeah, I just got back from Chihuahua, and I was there for four days.
[00:16:55] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Oh, the commercial, says “Donde Jale?” “It’s a machine.” Chihuahua commercials are pretty badass.
[00:17:03] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yes, I love it. So let me tell you, wherever I go, I open my mouth, and they said, “Dr. Ruja, my neck hurts. Me duele me culo, ay si.” You know what? What can you do? And that’s it. That’s my intro, Alex. That is my intro, and I start to dance. I see myself as salsa. Merengue. Yeah, I see myself doing that, and they look at me like, “What is this guy doing?” And I’m going to tell you right now, I put my hands on them, and they’re never the same again. They will never forget that. And each one of them, they get up. I don’t care if it’s on the bed. I don’t care for it; it’s on a bench. Yeah, I said it.
[00:17:44] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Mario has an international license.
[00:17:48] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: That’s right.
[00:17:49] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: He is internationally known.
[00:17:51] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Absolutely. And let me tell you, the impact is clear. It’s about chiropractic. I don’t need it, and we do not need special equipment. The special equipment is care. It’s care. It’s called love. It’s honoring our brothers and sisters and wishing them the best. And it’s healing hands. And even in the Bible, it says, “Lay hands, lay hands to heal.” That’s what it’s about. We got to lay hands and don’t be afraid. And I’m not talking about laying some hands. You know, momma used to lay some hands on my butt when I misbehaved. I mean, even my dad, he used to lay some hands. He wasn’t a chiropractor, but he adjusted me. He adjusted my attitude. Do you know what I’m saying, right, Alex? Do you remember those hands?
[00:18:38] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Oh, I remember. I remember running, and it was whatever my mom had something near her, she would throw it.
[00:18:45]Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Oh, it was the chancla.
[00:18:46] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I was talking my mouth enough, and she had a fork in her. She stuck me with a fork on my butt when I misbehaved. Corporal punishment was the way.
[00:18:56] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah. It wasn’t abused, was it, Alex. Yeah. But we learned to move away from her quickly. That’s why you did so well in football, Alex. It’s called plyometrics, and that’s how you jump.
[00:19:06] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Oh, yeah, and it’s good as some of my counterparts, but they were very good. But I have to tell you, that’s it. You know what? When we look at it, I wonder about the science of chiropractic and how it’s evolved over and continues to evolve. It links so many other sciences, and there is no other word that describes what chiropractic is other than holistic. It is a holistic approach. It is a natural way of healing the body through motion. And like I indicated before, I think God’s got a fetish for it because he gives us so many damn joints, and this whole thing was our design. And in that process, we heal.
[00:19:51] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Now, Alex, I’m going to stop you right there, and I want you to grab this thought. Chiropractic has often been limited to back, you know, like the neck and mid-back and lower back, and that’s it. But let me tell you, I got news for you. Chiropractic for the whole body. Hands, wrists, elbow, shoulders, knees, ankles, feet. OK, chiropractic is about calibrating, balancing, aligning, and optimizing the whole body. Again, this is not something that I specialize in cranial adjustments, cranial for concussions. There are chiropractors, and we will have to talk more about this in the future. But the specialty of chiropractic goes all the way from pediatrics to geriatrics to sports chiropractic, cranial-sacral chiropractic, biomechanics. I mean, orthopedic, neurological.
[00:21:01] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yes, there are so many branches that it does that today wasn’t present 20 years ago. No, it was present, but it was in its beginning. Today, the world wants it, demands it, demands specialization, even chiropractic for just a thing, a sport, a movement, a low back, a sacral technique, its cervical technique.
[00:21:25] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: And this is what we want to empower as the bad boys of chiropractic. It’s about getting in your face and getting real.
[00:21:35] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: In your face.
Holistic Approaches to Chiropractic Care
[00:21:38] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*:Yes, that’s right. We will grab your attention. OK? You’re not falling asleep tonight. So in chiropractic, we have specialists. Atlas Orthogonal. They only adjust to vertebrates, atlas, and axes. Very specific. And I love this. We will honor chiropractic, all the specialties and nuances, and all those excellent flows to segments, the atlas, and axes. These are right under your cranium with the Farina Magnum. This is where the whole area of the flow of energy from your brain is. It goes from the brain, brain stem into the spinal cord; that area is so empowering that chiropractic has gotten so specialized that they only adjust special X-rays. Very unique. It’s like high level. I don’t do that, but I tell you what, I love those chiropractors to do that, and I want them to do more of it, and we want to enlighten them. And we want to support every chiropractic in the world, not just the nation. The word chiropractic is all over the world, Alex, all over.
[00:23:09] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Everywhere you went, I went to school like yours. It was Palmer, and yours was Palmer. I was national, not too far from each other within a few three or four hundred miles apart from each other. We would do that there was a thirst for chiropractic from different countries and these countries, from Japan, from France. They would send their students to learn in our environments because the laws differed in those days. These were my Chinese, my Japanese cohorts that spent in the dorms just to learn what we were doing out in the world of the states. Our school was welcome. Our schools were very and always have been an international attraction to teach the students. And today, now those countries have their colleges. You know, France has its own college. England has its college. This didn’t exist. You cannot stop it. No, it is coming, and it is motion. And as you said, you know, chiropractic has always been about all joints. You cannot talk about an ankle, and then you cannot talk about the neck. You cannot deal with it. And if you want to see how well connected, well, I’d like you to walk in the middle of the night and step on a tack and see how it’s all connected, and you’ll see the body dance in its dynamics, the cerebellum, the way you mentioned it sits on the foramen magnum. That is a huge, important part. The sciences developed due to understanding the connectivity between the foramen magnum, midbrain, and medulla have been unbelievable over the last two or three decades. So we are in a world of awakening, OK? An awakening of what chiropractic is. So as we go out, as the bad boys, we’re going to go deep. We’re going to get intense. We’re going to go deep into the world of science because, in today’s world, we have nothing but confusion. Misunderstanding. Yes, today, one thing some vitamin talks about this, then in the next day, it causes this. So one supplement does this. One drug starts with a better outcome. But I’ve got to tell you the story of Bextra, Celebrex within months of each other, of all of us taking it, they were pulled. You know what? We come and go. So the bottom line is natural. Approaches of holistic dynamics are the things that heal people and prevent them before they become clinical, and that’s what we do.
[00:25:35] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: That’s the area that chiropractic is so powerful. I would say, in my opinion, I’m a little biased because, you know what? I’m going to get real with you. Yes. How is chiropractic the number one motion optimization, recovery, and maintenance system globally?
[00:25:59] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Repeat it. Chiropractic is the what? Yes, it is number one in line.
[00:26:06] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: That’s right. Listen carefully and replay this one. That’s right. You play it and put on your favorites. And you know, what do all this stuff? Whatever you’re going to do with this video, just put on rerun, baby. We are the number one optimization system for biomechanics from the world’s movement for maintenance and recovery. In the world, we do not wait for the pain to occur. We crush pain before it happens. This is like having your Bugatti. OK, you are the Bugatti, and there are no other parts; there’s nothing to do. There are no parts to buy and to take over. Again, there are no parts of you; whatever you’re born with is what you got. The most critical, most powerful thing you can do for yourself is to utilize chiropractic art. That means finding chiropractic in your area. And I mean find the real one and sit down and say, You know what? I want to talk to you. What are you up to?
[00:27:24] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: When you said real, Mario. Because there are some people out there that come on, come on, you know what, I’ve got to tell you…
[00:27:30] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: We are the bad boys of chiropractic.
[00:27:31] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know what? Come on; we’re going to go there. We’re going to go there, Mario, because you have got to find the right one.
[00:27:37] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: You got to find a real one, and you know what? This is what I’m saying. There’s deadwood in every forest. Yeah, that’s what Mama told me. Yeah, in every forest, I’m talking about chiropractic. There’s deadwood, orthopedic, everyone, teachers, and there’s deadwood. Some folks want to get some benefits, and let me tell you, get the real one. Sit down face to face, get real with them, ask them some fundamental questions, and look them up. And this is what we’re about. We’re about results.
[00:28:10] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, Mario, here’s the thing when you get it when you go to a chiropractor, and this is now I can say this because I am one. I would never disparage any other profession because there are significant physical medicine sciences. Physical therapists, you know, these people know what they’re doing. These people have unbelievable science. But again, physical therapists, massage therapists, orthopedics. We all wrap around the science of motion into it and embrace it. So when we look for somebody, it’s a most offensive thing for me to hear when you go to a chiropractor. Someone went to a chiropractor, and the guy pulled out a piece of paper and said, OK, do some exercises, and that guy didn’t touch. You see, we are chiropractors who touch people; we wrap around them like pythons. Suppose your chiropractor isn’t wrapping around you and working around and trying to recalibrate you, time for a new chiropractor structurally. It’s not the practice of chiropractic.
[00:29:07] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Why don’t we get real since we’re the bad boys of chiropractic and we’re going to get down and dirty, OK? Number one, Chiro means hand. Practic means this is practical. That’s right. Please don’t ask me to spell it.
[00:29:22] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Well, chiro means in atomic the carbon atoms, they’re equal mirror images.
How Does Chiropractic Compliments Other Professions?
[00:29:28] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yes. So, the point is this. Again, you go to a chiropractor; they better lay some hands on you. You know what? It is highly recommended to remove some bones. They do all of that unless it is a specialty. Now here it is, like atlas orthogonal. And some other specialties like these are like high-end stuff. They need to do that, and it’s not about rubbing your back. That’s a different conversation for a different day. It is about creating movement calibration within the whole body. And also, I would like to add this complementing all of the healing arts around us. We complement orthopedics. We complement physical therapies, surgeons, neurosurgeons, allottees, occupational therapy. We complement psychologists, psychiatrists. We compliment teachers. We compliment coaches
[00:30:30] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: We compliment endocrinologists.
[00:30:32] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yes, we compliment the world. We don’t interfere. We are the ones who break down the interference and create clarity in the energy flow of the body. That is that parasympathetic, sympathetic nervous system, autonomic nervous system that controls and creates harmonics, and 50 trillion-plus cells create who you are. Trillions with a T.
[00:31:09] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah. No, it’s amazing. You and I have been a part of a movement era. You know what I share with you that we’ve seen the attempts to limit the professions, whether it be physical therapists who have been determined by different forces out there. Each century had its limitations on other practices: the chiropractors, the optometrists, and the psychologists. But what we’ve learned is that you can’t hold it down. As you said initial results, you cannot stop the movement. But these chiropractors are working in Indonesia, Africa, Ethiopia, and special areas of all over Europe. They’re treating their patients in different ways. And one of the great things is the the the bringing in of other professions. The integration where the word integrative medicine has come in, integrative medicine is the form of sciences that brings all whatever it takes. All the dynamics and all the arts together to make it work. From there, we treat it in what’s the newest world of chiropractic is functional medicine. Our functional medicine is now the connector of many other holistic approaches, and it holistically looks at the body. How can we not take joints? How can we not have psychiatric issues, psychological issues, and traumas? Well, emotion is an important part of the therapy. If it’s endocrine, a metabolic disease, or metabolic syndrome, motion is in the treatment protocol. Neurological Parkinson’s neurodegenerative issues…
[00:32:48] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue…
[00:32:51] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Intestinal issues.
[00:32:52] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Depression. Yes, anxiety, I can tell you right now. And this is science talking to you. This is science. Number one, you don’t move. You will get depressed. You don’t move. Let me have someone let. Let’s do an excellent little test. Let me have you stay in bed for a month. Let me see what happens to you. Yeah. Let me know what happens to you. Let me have you sit down in that chair for a month, and then you tell me you’re not depressed. You tell me you don’t sleep and tell me you don’t have metabolic syndrome. If you don’t have one, you will. And this is where chiropractic compliments the power of life and movement, creating beautiful harmonies. So we can continue. The word continues to go and workout every athlete. I will say this. We don’t have enough chiropractors in the world. We don’t have enough chiropractors, period. Every human being should have a chiropractic visit at least four or five times a year, at least. Why? Because this is the problem. You know, we get into this chronic pain management. We get into all this disease care. This is the problem, Alex. We are reactive. Our society is focused on disease and managing the disease. I would like to share, empower, motivate, and challenge the world as the bad boys of chiropractic. It’s about challenging, folks. And the challenge is this. Why don’t we decrease the number of people with diabetes? Why don’t we reduce the number of people with depression anxiety? Why don’t we decrease that by movement? Movement cost? Yes. The cost is less.
Conclusion
[00:34:48] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, you know what? Welcome to our show. This is Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja. We are the bad boys of chiropractic, absolutely going to expose the realities of what we have learned and what we have understood in the physical sciences and how they correlate with different issues, diseases, and disorders. We’re going to develop protocols and advanced treatment dynamics that are esoteric, and we’re going to bring it in. And you know what? We’re going to use science. We’re going to use real science, and we as the bad boys because there will be a lot of thumbs down in terms of what we say. But there’s going to be a whole lot of thumbs up in terms of our dynamics. Because Mario, we have it. It is our legacy is; what do we have to do? You mentioned the other day that you know what this is, what you wanted to do. We need to teach people what we have learned. We not only need to teach people what we have to wake up those people that are willing to and want to teach and give of their lives for the future of chiropractic and physical medicine, physical therapies, orthopedic surgeons. We need a neurologist, anyone in the physical world. It seemed that even if we talk about the physical medicine doctors, we’re going to associate with all other professions. It doesn’t take you far drop in to throw here to realize that endocrinologists are linked to a rheumatologist. Rheumatologists are linked to chiropractic. Chiropractic is correlated to the orthopedist. Whether it’s neurology or the practicing of different dynamics, this whole thing of science will affect the future of what we have in health care. It will be a change, a movement, and we will be known as the bad boys of chiropractic, which we’re going to expose. We will do an exposé of many different topics, and I welcome you, Mario. We are brothers, and we have to teach the future people. So check-in; make sure you guys keep your ideas because we could talk forever, by the way. Yeah, Mario, I get to speak with them like we can sit here till four o’clock in the morning. Our families will not like that. We will come to you and teach you what we know and share with you. And I hope it matters. I know, Mario, you got a couple of thoughts.
[00:37:03] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah, and this is the thought. Chiropractic is about optimizing movement. Optimize and move in a body, creating recovery, optimal recovery, maintenance, and complementing all of the healing arts. We are here to compliment all of the healing arts. Orthopedic, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and psychiatric psychological counseling are all here to complement educators. We’re here to complement and optimize students in their performance in school. We’re here to complement and optimize coaches and athletes to their highest level of life. And most of all, I would like to say this to create closure for our next show. There’s plenty of room at the top, the bottoms crowded, so come on with us, you got bad boys at the top.
[00:38:10] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: With that said, we’re all closing up here, and we look forward to making sure this works well for all of us and ensures the knowledge for all the people we’re here to come and in the future.
A typical diet consists of consuming three meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks in between. However, this is not always the case, depending on individual eating patterns and habits. Getting started eating healthy and losing body fat does not require severe dietary restrictions, starvation, and constantly exercising. Although achieving rapid weight loss might sound appealing, individuals often end up feeling depressed, tired, and unmotivated after some time. This is the most common cause of not maintaining a healthy balance and achieving optimal health. Individuals can still eat the foods they love by making long-term improvements that include:
Understanding the body’s caloric needs
Making smart nutritional choices
Adopting healthy eating habits
Incorporating enough exercise
Having all of the necessary information to make educated and informative choices for the body is the most effective and valuable way to getting started eating healthy.
Contents
Getting Started
Healthy eating starts with learning and adopting new ways to eat. This means adding fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and cutting back on processed foods with added fat, salt, and sugar. Converting to healthier eating also includes learning about balance, variety, and moderation.
Healthy eating is not the same as going on a diet. It means making adjustments/changes that an individual can live with and enjoy. Diets are temporary, as they are intended to cut out certain types of foods to make the body readjust and lose fat. However, during a diet, individuals can become hungrier and think about food all the time. A common side effect is to overeat after the diet to make up for the foods that are missed. Eating a healthy, balanced variety of foods is more satisfying to the body. Combined with more physical activity can help the individual get to a healthy weight—and maintain the healthy weight.
Make Healthy Eating A Habit
Think about the reasons for healthier eating.
Improving overall health.
Increase energy.
Feel better.
Set an example for kids and family.
Think about small changes that can be made.
Choose the ones that can be maintained.
Don’t try to change everything at once.
Set manageable and achievable goals, like having a salad and a piece of fruit each day.
Make long-term goals as well, like having one vegetarian dinner a week.
Get Support
Having a support team can help make the adjustments easier. Family and friends can help make meals, share healthy recipes and cooking tips. For more help, consult a doctor, registered dietitian, or health coach. Get started today.
Body Composition
After Lunch Energy Dip
Most individuals have experienced the moment when after having a nice filling lunch then afterward feeling the need to take a nap. Having a sleepy feeling about one hour after lunch, known as the post-lunch dip, decreases:
Alertness
Memory
Vigilance
Mood
A study in the British Journal of Nutrition followed 80 participants over 12 weeks to find whether eating almonds impacted this post-lunch dip. The results found that an almond-enriched high-fat lunch helped reduce memory decline by 58% compared to a high-carbohydrate lunch.
References
American Dietetic Association (2009). Position of the American Dietetic Association: Functional foods. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(4): 735–746. Also available online: www.eatright.org/About/Content.aspx?id=8354.
Dhillon, Jaapna, et al. “Effects of Almond Consumption on the Post-Lunch Dip and Long-Term Cognitive Function in Energy-Restricted Overweight and Obese Adults.” British Journal of Nutrition, vol. 117, no. 3, 2017, pp. 395–402., doi:10.1017/S0007114516004463.
Gallagher ML (2012). Intake: The nutrients and their metabolism. In LK Mahan et al., eds., Krause’s Food and the Nutrition Care Process, 13th ed., pp. 32–128. St. Louis: Saunders.
Katz DL (2008). Dietary recommendations for health promotion and disease prevention. In Nutrition in Clinical Practice, 2nd ed., pp. 434–447. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture (2015). 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans 8th ed. health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/. Accessed January 12, 2016.
Spinal cord injuries or SCI’s don’t just happen from intense force/high-energy trauma like hard falls or auto accidents. Non-traumatic spinal cord injuries are more common. However, traumatic spinal cord injuries tend to get the most attention. This can cause problems as it can delay treatment for individuals with a non-traumatic injury. Awareness is vital because spinal cord disorders tend to not get recognized for their impact on overall health.
Contents
Non-traumatic Spinal Cord Injury
Non-traumatic spinal cord injuries is an umbrella term that includes several disorders, like:
Understanding these disorders helps determine a correct diagnosis. Degenerative cervical myelopathy or DCM is the most common form of a non-traumatic spinal cord injury. It is a slow progressive injury that causes continued compression usually brought on by spondylosis or osteoarthritis of the spine’s joints. DCM can have a devastating effect on the quality of life if not diagnosed and treated as it can have a ripple effect by raising the risk of falls, leading to a traumatic spinal cord injury. Being aware can help in preventing the damage.
Other Causes and Complications
Other causes for non-traumatic spinal cord injury include:
One of the most significant risk factors is age. This is due to an increased risk of conditions like osteoarthritis and hypertension as individuals get older, which is why individuals with a non-traumatic spinal cord injury are, on average, older than individuals that suffer a traumatic spinal cord injury. Weakness, instability, and loss of muscle control are common complications that can develop as the non-traumatic spinal cord injury progresses. Other complications that can present include:
Chronic pain
Sleep disturbance
Constipation
Urinary incontinence
Urinary tract infections
Impotence
Pressure ulcers/bed sores if immobilized
Possible blood clots that can lead to deep vein thrombosis
Depression and anxiety
Treatment
With a traumatic spinal cord injury, treatment depends on the severity of the injury. With non-traumatic spinal cord injuries, treatment depends on what type of condition is involved. The primary treatment for non-traumatic spinal cord injuries typically involves various forms of rehabilitation to minimize further damage to the spinal cord. Surgery may be necessary if the spine needs to be decompressed.
Body Composition
Extracellular Water and Intracellular Water
Extracellular Water – ECW
Extracellular is the water located outside the body’s cells.
Milligan, James et al. “Degenerative cervical myelopathy: Diagnosis and management in primary care.” Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien vol. 65,9 (2019): 619-624.
The ankles provide an essential role in total body function. They work as a complex system within the feet to carry the body’s weight and support movement. Any imbalance can cause ankle instability that can cause other areas of the body to go out of balance. This is most often caused by an injury, like an ankle sprain. If not properly addressed, it can lead to chronic instability and long-term health issues throughout the musculoskeletal system. Chiropractic treatment can rehabilitate ankle injuries, strengthen the muscles to prevent instability.
Contents
Ankle Instability
The entire body is an extensive, complicated, and interconnected system. Every part influences the next as individuals go about their everyday routines. Imbalances can occur in the spine, hips, legs, and knees, leading to limping, ankle pain, or injury. The most common causes of ankle instability include:
Poor foot or ankle mechanics
Knee or hip imbalances
Ankle sprains
Muscle strain
Tendonitis
Arthritis
Fractures
Chronic inflammation from illness or injury.
Finding The Imbalances
Understanding where the imbalances are and systematically addressing them is the recommended course of action. If an ankle injury is present, local symptoms and dysfunction need to be addressed. However, it is important to assess other body areas to ensure any other dysfunctions are also addressed. This prevents unnecessary re-injury, aggravation, and other problems.
Chiropractic
One or more treatment options will be utilized for proper recovery when dealing with ankle instability.
Joint adjustments of the lower body and spine to support nerve and blood circulation.
Chiropractic is recommended for determining any body imbalances that need to be addressed with high-quality research-based care and can expedite the recovery process.
Body Composition
Compression Garments and Socks
These were only used to treat individuals with circulatory problems but are now available to the public. Recovery is about giving the body a chance to relax, recuperate, and recover from swelling, with the objective to resume physical activity. Compression garments come in shirts, pants, sleeves, and socks. The garments and socks are used for quicker recovery time, improved circulation and oxygen delivery to the muscles, and to reduce lactic acid build-up.
References
Anguish, Ben, and Michelle A Sandrey. “Two 4-Week Balance-Training Programs for Chronic Ankle Instability.” Journal of athletic training vol. 53,7 (2018): 662-671. doi:10.4085/1062-6050-555-16
Czajka, Cory M et al. “Ankle sprains and instability.” The Medical clinics of North America vol. 98,2 (2014): 313-29. doi:10.1016/j.mcna.2013.11.003
Gribble, Phillip A. “Evaluating and Differentiating Ankle Instability.” Journal of athletic training vol. 54,6 (2019): 617-627. doi:10.4085/1062-6050-484-17
Lubbe, Danella et al. “Manipulative therapy and rehabilitation for recurrent ankle sprain with functional instability: a short-term, assessor-blind, parallel-group randomized trial.” Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics vol. 38,1 (2015): 22-34. doi:10.1016/j.jmpt.2014.10.001
Chiropractic Reset: Traveling is not an easy adjustment as it disrupts the body’s internal clock. When flying even just 3 hours, the body can start to experience symptoms like:
Fatigue
Confusion
Insomnia
Joint and muscle pain
Stiffness
Stomach problems
Nausea
Hunger
Bad mood
Not only is the flight a physical challenge, but so are the long lines, backed-up traffic, lost luggage, etc. All take a toll on the mind and body; a chiropractic reset can help restore the body’s balance and energy levels.
Contents
Jet Lag
Jet lag happens when the brain region known as the hypothalamus or center that controls sleep cycles, appetite, and temperature conflicts with travel changes. A survey from international flight attendants found that despite being used to long air travel:
90% had fatigue over the first five days.
94% had a lack of energy/motivation.
93% had broken sleep.
70% had ear, nose, or throat issues.
Scientists have estimated that it takes a full day to recover for every hour of time difference. The direction traveled can affect how intense the symptoms are since it’s easier for the body to delay its internal clock than speed it up. Traveling east is more difficult on the body compared to traveling west.
Ways To Limit The Effects
Workout
Get a thorough physical workout the day before you fly.
It doesn’t matter; it can be an hour on an elliptical machine, a mile jog, or a vigorous swim.
The objective is to get the lymph system moving to help prevent edema in the legs, hands and flush toxins from the body.
Take a Walk Every Hour
Try and get up at least once an hour for long trips and every half hour for shorter ones.
If possible, try to get a flight that gets to your destination in the evening.
Then, stay up until 10 pm local time.
If you have to take a nap, set the alarm not to surpass two hours.
Avoid caffeine and alcohol
You don’t have to go without alcohol or caffeine, but they should be cut out a few hours before sleeping.
Both can affect the ability to fall asleep, stay asleep, and the quality of sleep.
Change sleep patterns beforehand
In the week leading up to the trip, start adjusting sleep time and wake time to get closer to the new time zone.
This way, upon arrival, the body is basically adjusted.
Skip the big meal
To help the digestive system, try not to eat a massive meal upon arrival.
Allow body functions like sleep and digestion to adjust to the changes.
Bask in the sun
Daylight has a significant effect on the body’s clock.
Get outside to wake up the brain to help the body and mind adjust to the daytime hours.
Melatonin
This is a hormone in the body that helps control the circadian rhythm.
Melatonin is dependent on the amount of light the body is exposed to.
When there’s light, melatonin release is stopped.
When dark, melatonin release is stimulated.
It is recommended not to take melatonin before leaving, or it will make the jet lag worse.
Wait until landing in the new time zone to supplement one hour before regular sleep time at the new location.
Continue for three nights or until the body has adjusted.
Pycnogenol
Pycnogenol has been studied for its effect of reducing jet lag symptoms.
It reduces cerebral and joint swelling, which leads to fewer short-term memory problems, fatigue, and cardiac issues.
It has been shown to decrease deep vein thrombosis and superficial vein thrombosis, typical side effects of long flights.
Recommendations are to take three times a day for up to five days maximum of seven days after landing.
Chiropractic Reset
Chiropractic reset adjustments the day before and especially after the flight can restore balance to the nervous system and the body. This will help reset sleeping and waking patterns after the stress of flying.
Body Composition
Metabolic Syndrome
Metabolic syndrome is a name for a set of symptoms and conditions that revolve around cardiovascular health.
Obesity and a high amount of visceral fat are significant risk factors for being diagnosed with metabolic syndrome.
Body composition analysis can be thought of as a tool for understanding the approach to preventing the onset of metabolic syndrome. Knowing how to identify the risks can support individuals in making informed decisions on their healthcare journey.
References
Belcaro, G et al. “Jet-lag: prevention with Pycnogenol. Preliminary report: evaluation in healthy individuals and hypertensive patients.” Minerva cardioangiologica vol. 56,5 Suppl (2008): 3-9.
Janse van Rensburg, Dina C Christa et al. “How to manage travel fatigue and jet lag in athletes? A systematic review of interventions.” British journal of sports medicine vol. 54,16 (2020): 960-968. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2019-101635
Straub, WF et al. “The effect of chiropractic care on jet lag of Finnish junior elite athletes.” Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics vol. 24,3 (2001): 191-8.
Zerón-Rugerio, María Fernanda et al. “Eating Jet Lag: A Marker of the Variability in Meal Timing and Its Association with Body Mass Index.” Nutrients vol. 11,12 2980. 6 Dec. 2019, doi:10.3390/nu11122980
Changing positions and posture. Individuals who have to sit at a desk, workstation, or cubicle for most of the day increase their risk of back pain, contributing to other health issues. GetAmericaStanding.org reports the average adult sits for ten hours or more a day. Prolonged sitting at home and work without movement, physical activity, exercise can lead to issues like:
Pain
Irritability
Cardiovascular problems
Obesity
Diabetes
Long periods of inactivity are associated with increased mortality as sedentariness causes the same damage related to smoking and obesity. It can be challenging to find ways to remain active while sitting at work; this is where changing positions and posture, also known as dynamic sitting throughout the day, can help.
Contents
Changing Positions and Posture Throughout the Day
Constantly sitting in a chair means the body remains static, causing blood and energy circulation to slow down, stressing the body’s muscles. Changing the body’s positions regularly along with short periods of activity like standing up, walking around while on the phone, and stretching helps to work out the muscles and keep circulation at optimal levels.
The Importance of Changing Positions and Posture
The body was meant to move and requires movement to stay healthy.
Staying in one position for too long can lead to loss of core strength from the abdominal musculature becoming deconditioned. Muscle deconditioning leads to weakness and tightness. The imbalance affects the spinal support system leading to back, hip, and leg pain. Moving around and doing quick mini-workouts can help strengthen the body, increase core strength, improve posture, burn calories and prevent pain and injury.
The Basics
According to a 2018 study, researchers found improvements in cardiometabolic health among individuals that would stand up, sit less, and move more. Ways to adjust the work or home office to make changing positions and posture easier include.
Sit-stand desks can be raised and lowered throughout the day to change position regularly.
Treadmill desks are actual treadmills that are fitted with a desk so individuals can work and walk simultaneously.
These small changes and adjustments can make a big difference when experiencing body pain from too much sedentariness. However, it is crucial to know if other issues are causing the health problem/s. If back or any pain is associated with any of the following, consult a medical professional.
Trauma from an accident or injury.
Balance issues.
Weakness in the legs.
Infection.
Fever.
Unexplained weight loss.
Overflow urinary incontinence is when the bladder fills up and empties without feeling the need to urinate.
Severe constipation.
Body Composition
How to Read Blood Pressure Measurements
An individual’s blood pressure includes:
Systolic Blood Pressure
This is the first or top number listed on a blood pressure reading and is the measurement of the pressure that the blood exerts against the walls of the arteries.
A normal systolic reading should be less than 120 mm Hg.
Diastolic Blood Pressure
This is the second number that measures the force of the blood against the artery walls when the heart is resting between beats.
A normal diastolic reading is less than 80 mm Hg.
Pulse
The pulse is the number of beats per minute the heart is beating.
A normal adult pulse is between 60 to 100 beats per minute.
When checking blood pressure, a doctor will read out a vital sign in the normal range of 120/80 mmHg or below. Anything above that could be an indication of an underlying health condition.
“Workplace sitting is associated with self-reported general health and back/neck pain: a cross-sectional analysis in 44,978 employees.” BMC Public Health, London, UK. May 2021. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33957889/
“Cardiometabolic Impact of Changing Sitting, Standing, and Stepping in the Workplace.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Indianapolis, IN. March 2018. oce.ovid.com/article/00005768-201803000-00015/HTML
“Reducing occupational sitting time and improving worker health: the Take-a-Stand Project, 2011.” Preventing Chronic Disease, Atlanta, GA. 2012.
Trying to fit exercise into a busy day can be a struggle to find a 30–45-minute window. However, research has found that mini workouts and accumulated exercises over the day are as effective as one complete session. Studies show that short workout sessions take the place of one long workout by breaking up the routine into several small ones and are just as effective.
The benefits of short, multiple exercise sessions are that they provide increased flexibility in an individual’s daily schedule, allowing them to focus on their health while navigating family, work, and other obligations. Performing mini-workouts throughout the day makes it easier to stay committed to an exercise program, experience the benefits, and achieve their health goals.
Increase Brain Health and Mood
Shorter duration workouts save time, allow multiple forms of exercise into a single day, and improve neurological, physical, and psychological benefits.
Performing an exercise as short as 3–5 minutes throughout the day can benefit the brain and mood.
Lower Blood Pressure
A study compared the effects of short aerobic exercise sessions and continuous exercise on 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure.
The study found that doing three 10-minute walks during the day morning, midday, and late afternoon lowered blood pressure more than doing one 30-minute walk in prehypertensive individuals.
Easier to Exercise
Performing high-intensity workouts for a long time is not easy, even for seasoned athletes.
This is why mini workout sessions appeal to fitness fans of all levels.
Decreasing the time allows the individual to exercise at higher intensities.
Reduce the Stress of Working Out
Incorporating shorter workouts can reduce the stress or fear that individuals have towards working out.
When looking at fitness from this perspective, shortened workouts naturally become a part of the day that helps relieve stress.
Achieve Fitness Goals
Shorter workouts allow individuals with busy schedules to focus on what they can perform in controlled sessions throughout the day without feeling overwhelmed by committing to an entire workout session.
Mini workouts are easy to schedule, more sustainable to perform, and easier to commit to long-term.
They allow for more focused and intensive exercise, especially when easily distracted.
Plan Ahead and Follow Through
The recommended way to accumulate a balance of strength, cardio, and mobility exercises throughout the day is to set up a plan. Find a routine that is enjoyable and not a chore, then set up the office space, work area, home to accommodate the exercises. For cardiovascular and strengthening benefits, an example of Tabata or HIIT workout.
Five exercises.
Two minutes on each exercise with a work-rest ratio of 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
Depending on an individual’s fitness level, the work-rest ratio can be modified.
To improve mobility and strength, use weights or resistance bands.
Focus on proper form.
Try shorter workouts for a quick burst of exercise:
Pick two to three exercises like bicep curls, shoulder presses, bodyweight squats, calf raises, lunges, or planks.
How much physical activity do adults need? (2015, June 4) cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/adults/
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2014, October 10). Depression and anxiety: Exercise eases symptoms mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression-and-exercise/art-20046495
Mayo Clinic Staff. (2015, April 16). Exercise and stress: Get moving to manage stress mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/exercise-and-stress/art-20044469
Neuropathy is a painful condition that causes tingling, numbness, burning sensations in the hands and feet, and other symptoms throughout the body. Neuropathy can make life difficult. There is no cure for neuropathy, but symptoms can be managed with medications, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and pain relievers. Another treatment option to help relieve neuropathy symptoms is chiropractic.
Contents
Symptoms
Symptoms vary from individual to individual depending on their health condition and how the nerves have been impacted. Common symptoms include:
Pain
Numbness
Tingling
Pins-and-needles feeling when touching something hot or cold.
Some individuals lose the sense of feeling like clothing on their body, even though it’s rubbing against the skin but feel as if it is not there.
Other changes can be familiar objects looking different than usual.
Lessened or heightened sense of smell.
Negative impact on mood.
Protective Sheathing Of The Nerves
Neuropathic pain is caused by damage and degeneration to the nerves or the protective covering/sheathing of the nerves. Various causes include:
Diabetes.
Injury.
Infections.
Medication side effects.
Exposure to toxins.
Stages
The symptoms of neuropathy depend on the location and severity of the nerve damage. The stages include:
Numbness and Pain
Stage one consists of numbness and pain.
Some individuals describe a tingling or numbing sensation.
What feels like pinpricks in the hands and/or feet.
This stage can last for months, but most individuals recover within a year.
Constant Pain
Stage two is characterized by continuous pain.
Some individuals may experience shooting pains that come and go.
Intense burning sensations around the waistline.
Numbness on one side of the body with stabbing pain.
This stage can last for a year or more and worsen until the individual is incapacitated.
Loss of motor skills like walking and falling over.
Doctors treat the symptoms so they don’t get worse.
Loss Of Sensation
The final stage is the loss of sensation.
This occurs when the nerve endings are destroyed and can no longer send messages to the brain.
Treatments To Help Relieve Symptoms
Treatments usually involve:
Antidepressants.
Pain medications.
Anti-seizure medications.
Pain-relieving creams.
All can help manage pain and inflammation.
Chiropractic Can Also Help Relieve Symptoms
Chiropractors use hands-on methods to adjust and realign joints, muscles, spinal discs, and ligaments to function more efficiently and bring relief from pressure on the nerves. Neuropathies are often caused by nerve compression in body areas that have been altered by injury or disease that affects ligaments, discs, spinal muscles, sacroiliac joint dysfunction, hip adhesions, leg length discrepancies, etc. These can contribute to pain and numbness in the peripheral nerves that supply the legs, feet, arms, hands, and neck. While a chiropractor cannot cure neuropathy, they can help relieve symptoms, make it much more manageable, and improve quality of life.
Body Composition
Common Cold
The common cold, also known as upper respiratory tract inflammation, is the most common infectious respiratory disease because of its effect on the nose and throat. The average adult will catch 2–3 colds a year, according to the CDC. A virus that causes a cold can enter the respiratory tract directly when inhaling droplets expelled from an infected person or by direct skin contact, like touching the face with a hand that came in contact with the virus. Cold symptoms vary but usually include:
Runny or stuffy nose
Sneezing
Coughing
Headaches
Body aches
The duration of a cold differs; however, most individuals with a healthy immune system recover in 7–10 days. However, individuals with a compromised immune system, asthma, or COPD have an increased risk of developing more serious illnesses like bronchitis or pneumonia. Hundreds of viruses can cause colds. Human Rhinoviruses are common culprits and are constantly mutating, which is why there is no cure. Several medications or natural treatments help alleviate cold symptoms; it is recommended to combat the illness effectively through a healthy immune system response. Doctors recommend proper rest, eating a nutrient-rich diet, and maintaining proper H2O hydration to boost the immune system.
References
D’Angelo, Kevin et al. “The effectiveness of passive physical modalities for the management of soft tissue injuries and neuropathies of the wrist and hand: a systematic review by the Ontario Protocol for Traffic Injury Management (OPTIMa) collaboration.” Journal of manipulative and physiological therapeutics vol. 38,7 (2015): 493-506. doi:10.1016/j.jmpt.2015.06.006
Kissel, Jaclyn A, and Cristina Leonardelli. “Isolated musculocutaneous neuropathy: a case report.” The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association vol. 63,3 (2019): 162-170.
Passioti, Maria et al. “The common cold: potential for future prevention or cure.” Current Allergy and asthma reports vol. 14,2 (2014): 413. doi:10.1007/s11882-013-0413-5
T Francio, Vinicius. “Chiropractic care for foot drop due to peroneal nerve neuropathy.” Journal of bodywork and movement therapies vol. 18,2 (2014): 200-3. doi:10.1016/j.jbmt.2013.08.004
In today’s podcast, Dr. Alex Jimenez DC, Health Coach Kenna Vaughn, Truide Torres, Alexander Jimenez, and Astrid Ornelas discuss and focus on a deeper look at understanding metabolic syndrome.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: It is a special day, guys. Today we’re going to be talking about metabolic syndrome. We’re going to be focusing on the sciences and the understanding of what metabolic syndrome is. Today, we’re going to be bringing out some specialists and people from all over the globe in different directions to discuss the topics of metabolic disorders and how it affects people in our local communities. The particular issue that we’re going to be talking about today is metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome affects a whole lot of people now in terms of it to be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome; we have to have a couple of disorders situations that present them that are things such as blood sugar issues, high blood pressure, the ability to have triglycerides off high-density lipoproteins and also the measurements of belly fat in our diet. So today, one of the remarkable things that we’re going to be doing is bringing a panel to us to you guys to see what metabolic syndrome is now. Today is a special day because we’re going live on Facebook Live, and we’re presenting the information for the first time. So this is our first go at it, guys. So give us a thumbs up if you feel we did well. If not, let us also know because we’re learning and going through a process to get to our communities and teach them about metabolic disorders. Today, we have Astrid Ornelas, who will be talking about metabolic syndrome and specific dietary nutritional dynamics to help improve it. We also have Kenna Vaughn, which is our coach, that’s going to be discussing how we interact with patients. We also have our patient here, Trudy, a live individual who has had metabolic syndrome. And in the distance, we also have Alexander Jimenez, who’s out at the National Unity, Health Science, and Medical School, to discuss the associated and linked to metabolic disorders to give us detailed information. Detailed insights as to what metabolic syndrome is and how it affects our communities. Now what to be critical about it is, is this is a severe subject matter. It seems kind of that we chose this particular topic because that it’s affecting so many people. So many of my patients that we see today, even though I have a musculoskeletal practice, are directly related to inflammatory disorders. And when we’re dealing with inflammatory issues, we’re going to be dealing with insulin and how it affects the body. Now, as insulin goes in this process, every one of these particular dynamics that we’re going to be discussing and our future podcasts when we deal with metabolic syndrome is directly related to insulin and its effects on the body. So as we go through these dynamics, what we want to do is we want to bring out each point. I can present today Kenna Vaughn; who will be talking about what happens when we offer a patient and what we do when a patient has metabolic disorders? So we’re going to present it to Kenna. Kenna, can you tell us a bit about what happens when a patient presents with metabolic syndrome, what they look for, what we look for, how we assess it, and how we treat the issues?
Kenna Vaughn: I’d love to. So when the patient first comes in, and we see those signs of metabolic syndrome, the patient isn’t always aware because, on their own, these symptoms that make up metabolic syndrome are not necessarily a red flag. However, when we start to see them getting combined, we realize that we need to take control of this right now. So when that patient first comes in, and they’re telling us about the symptoms that they’re having, we start tracking it, and we make a detailed history on them to see if it’s something that has been going on for a long time, if it’s more recent, things like that. And then we’re going to take it from there. And we do more detailed lab work, and then we look at the kind of even their genetics. Genetics is a huge part of it. And we see what diet would best work for them and just make those realistic goals. But we also really want to make sure we give them that education they need to be successful. Education is tremendous, especially when it comes to something that can be as confusing as metabolic syndrome.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: We discuss how we can give our patients take home dynamics and things of value to change the metabolic syndrome once we determine that someone has metabolic issues. Now the whole idea is to create a direct path from the kitchen to genetics. And somehow someway we have to bring science to the kitchen to understand what we can eat and what we can do and how we can avoid certain foods to change the dynamics expressed at our genetic code level. So we’re going to try to give a little bit of broad, you know, expansive understanding of the processes that can take on each of these five particular issues. One at a time. So in terms of, let’s say, the kitchen, how do we help people help themselves in the kitchen, Kenna?
Kenna Vaughn: One thing that we love to do in the kitchen is smoothies. Smoothies are so beneficial because not only are you feeding your body the proper nutrients you need. You can also provide the right nutrients to your cells, which will make the difference inside your body. And you’ll still feel satisfied and full, not going to be something that’s, you know, you’re left hungry like you just ate a little bit of birdseed. So it’s something that I recommend everybody starts with. One great thing to add to those smoothies is going to be flax seeds. So flax seeds are very high in fiber, a good fiber. So if you put those flax seeds into the blender first and blend them up, opening them up, you start adding in your healthy fats like avocados to make your smoothie nice and smooth. And the almond milk, low calorie, and low carb fruits, things like that. It’s going to just unleash a powerhouse inside that gut. So one main thing that it’s going to do is the fiber is going to stick around. So it’s going to feed your prebiotics and your probiotics every single bug in that gut. And it’s also going to help take things out of your body system that usually gets reabsorbed, such as salt, and let it be able to get excreted the way that it should be, rather than sticking around, like I said, getting reabsorbed and just causing these underlying issues.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So these dynamics and mainly when dealing with flaxseed, I know Alexander knows a bit of the flax seed dynamics in terms of how it works with cholesterol. And that’s one of the issues, the HDL component. Tell me a bit of what you’re what you’ve seen in terms of the flaxseed, Alex, in terms of our experiences with flaxseed and diminishment of cholesterol and helping out with metabolic syndrome.
Alexander Isaiah: So, flaxseeds are suitable not only for nutrients but like Kenna said, they’re outstanding in dietary fiber. So we have to ask ourselves, why is dietary fiber essential? We can’t digest it, but it can bind to other things that are within our gut. And one of the main things that it does to lower cholesterol is it binds to bile. Now, bile from our gallbladder is around ninety-five percent cholesterol. And I’m sorry, 80 percent cholesterol and ninety-five percent of it gets recycled and reused most of the time. So why have a large amount of fiber within the gut? The fiber binds to the cholesterol. The body’s mechanism to compensate for that is to pull cholesterol from other parts of the body, specifically from the serum of the blood, and pull it back in to rejuvenate those levels of bile. So not only are you forcing your gut to work properly that it is meant to, but you’re also lowering your cholesterol within the inner side of the body.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So the component of cholesterol can be assisted by fiber. Now, I know that Astrid got some ideas about lowering the blood pressure and bringing a little bit of control in nutraceuticals. And in that respect, she’s been going over some particular topics, and she’s the resident scientist that helps us see the NCBI, which is the national research center that provides daily information about what’s happening with metabolic syndrome out there. So she will be presenting a little bit of some nutraceutical topics that we can touch upon at this present time. Astrid, hello.
Astrid Ornelas: Hello. So, first of all, for those people who are barely coming into the podcast who are barely coming in to listen to us. I want to bring up again what metabolic syndrome is. So metabolic syndrome, as many of you might know, it’s not a condition or disease in itself. It’s more so a cluster of a collection of, I guess, other health issues that can increase the risk of things like heart disease, stroke, and even diabetes. So with that being said, the metabolic syndrome doesn’t have any apparent symptoms, but probably one of the most visible, I guess. You know health issues that are obvious in people with metabolic syndrome is waist fat. So with that being said, some of the nutraceuticals I want to talk about today, as you can see, I’ve listed several nutraceuticals that I discussed the last time. And these nutraceuticals can help with metabolic syndrome in a variety of ways. But I added several on here that specifically target weight loss. Since, as I mentioned, one of the apparent signs of metabolic syndrome is excess waist fat. So I want to bring in one of the nutraceuticals that is that several research studies and I’ve written articles on it that can help promote weight loss in people with metabolic syndrome is niacin. Now niacin, it’s a vitamin B3, and you can usually find it when you buy those supplements that have a kind of B-complex. It has a collection of various of the different B vitamins. So niacin, several research studies have found that it can help reduce inflammation associated with obesity people that have excess weight, of course. Usually, these people have increased blood sugar and blood sugar levels, leading to inflammation. So taking B vitamins, specifically vitamin B3, or as it’s well known for niacin, can help reduce inflammation. It can also help promote metabolism, our body’s capacity to convert carbohydrates, proteins, and fats into energy. So when we take vitamin B and specifically niacin vitamin B3, I want to emphasize that research studies have found that it can help burn calories much more efficiently.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: When we’re dealing with niacin and the nutraceuticals, we are going. I know Alexander’s got some issues. Are you still with us, Alexander? Yeah, I’m here. It’s OK. It’s all good. I can see that we deal with and we’re learning about our technical issues as we go through them. I’m going to go back to Astrid, specifically about belly fat. Now she had mentioned the belly fat. Let’s be very specific when we’re dealing with belly fat. We’re dealing with issues where a male has a greater than 40-inch waist. OK. And for females, they have a greater than 35. Is that correct? Yes. So when we do the measurements, that’s one of the components. So as we discuss these particular issues, we want to make sure that when we’re talking about the belly fat and the weight gains and the BMI issues and the BIA issues, it’s the basal metabolic rate and impedance assessments that we do. We’re looking for those particular aspects. So she’s mentioning in the niacin and terms of niacin, what’s your experience with niacin, Alex with your dynamics that you have put in place?
Alexander Isiah: Niacin, or vitamin B3, is an excellent vitamin B because it is a free product. It reacts to a specific response precisely where it takes hold during glycolysis and the citric acid cycle. It plays a significant role in the citric acid cycle because it is used as the pre-product to synthesize NADH. Now, if someone has metabolic syndrome, this can upregulate that citric acid cycle. So if they’re trying to burn fat or use their carbohydrates at a more efficient rate, it will help upregulate that cycle and allow them to use their mitochondrial metabolism a lot better.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: That’s awesome. Now, going back to Astrid, tell me a bit about what supplements we have here. We may not get through all of them, but little by little. We’ll break this thing down, so we’ll give you guys tidbits. So that useful information so that we can take on metabolic syndrome and change people’s lives. Go ahead.
Astrid Ornelas: OK, so the next nutraceuticals I’m going to talk about, I’m going to talk about these two together vitamin D and calcium, specifically vitamin D3. I want to emphasize that. But both of these nutraceuticals can also help promote fat mass loss. And several research studies have also found that this one, just like B vitamins, just like niacin, vitamin B3, could also help improve metabolism to make the body more efficiently burn calories. And then the next nutraceuticals I want to talk about is DHEA. Now I want to, I guess, one of the things that I want to highlight about the DHEA is that, first of all, this is a hormone. This is a hormone that is naturally produced in the body. But then, of course, you know, some people can supplement it if you talk to your health care professional. And they determined that you need more DHEA in your body because your body’s not naturally producing enough of it, then they can supplement that as well. So specifically about the DHEA, according to the Washington University School of Medicine, DHEA can also help metabolize fat much more efficiently. I guess one of the things that I wanted to discuss goes together with the DHEA. So when we consume excess calories, you know, the daily caloric intake on average, according to researchers, we need to take 2000 calories. But so what happens to the body when we eat excess calories now? These calories are stored in the body as fat. So when the body naturally produces, I guess, sufficient amounts of DHEA, our body can metabolize DHEA. I mean, metabolize fat. I’m sorry, much more efficiently so that our body gets rid of excess fat rather than storing it.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Got it! So let me ask you, DHEA is a hormone, and one of the things that I notice is that it is a hormone found over the counter. And one of the unique things with some passages of recent laws is that DHEA made it through the FDA to be used over the counter. So you’ll see the product is dispersed through all the stores and depending on the quality, you can see it more every day. And the reason you see it more common over the last couple of years is that the FDA found it, and then through a loophole, it was allowed to remain in the markets. Go ahead. Kenna wants to mention something regarding this particular component in the assessment of those specific issues.
Kenna Vaughn: I was going to add something when it comes to talking about body fat and how Astrid was saying that body fat gets stored. So what happens is when you have those excess calories, you create these things in your body called triglycerides. And triglycerides are composed of glycerol and fatty acids; and however, those in general triglycerides are too big to enter that cell membrane. So what happens is another hormone that controls almost everything, and it’s called insulin, and the insulin gets called in. And from here, we have the lipo…
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Lipoprotein lipase?
Kenna Vaughn: Yes, that one. It’s a tongue twister, so that gets called in and then kind of breaks those apart. The insulin is coming in again and activating something called the glut4transporter, which will open up that cell membrane. And now we’re going to see that fat cells get stored full of glucose, triglycerides, and fat. So that’s how those fat cells go from not having anything to then having those excess calories. Now they’re being converted through this process. Now they’re getting nice and full, and they’re hanging around your belly.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I’ve noticed that certain people have more efficient LPLs, which is lipoprotein lipase. Some people may say that you know what? I gain weight by just looking at food, and it may happen more as you get older. A whole different control system controls this particular issue. What kind of control systems are the ones that control lipoprotein lips and the glut4, along with hormone-sensitive lipase, that you have there?
Kenna Vaughn: Insulin controls everything else. And it’s like I said, it’s that hormone, and it’s going to come in. And also, on top of that, we have PH that affects enzymes, temperature, and things along that line.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, a lot of things that when we look at enzymes, we realize that the thing that determines the enzyme’s activity or sensitivity or ability to function is encoded in the genetics in terms of lipoprotein lipase and the breakdown of the fatty acids. I know, Alex, you have some points there in terms of the fat breakdown information. What do you have there that you can help the public understand a little bit more?
Alexander Isaiah: So, without going too much into the biochemical pathways, this is just showing the mitochondria’s inner mitochondrial matrix. So after I guess you’ve been well-fed and all your cells are satisfied with energy production through ATP synthesis, if you have overconsumption of caloric intake, specifically through glucose, you end up having a large amount of acetyl-CoA being produced or hanging around in the end here. So what the body does is buy high levels of insulin. This enzyme, called citrate synthase, is induced. So what citrate synthase does is use oxygen acetate and acetyl-CoA to make citrate. Now, citrate can then exit the mitochondrial matrix, and then significant accumulations of citrate will start accumulating in the sidewall of the cell. As that happens, ATP citrate lies will break them apart again and bring acetyl-CoA and auxtyl-acetate. Because auxtyl-acetate and acetyl-CoA don’t have specific membrane transporters, they can’t cross that mitochondrial membrane. Only specific ones like citrate do so as acetyl-CoA gets taken out into the cell; taking a look over here, we have acetyl-CoA, which gets turned into methylmalonyl-CoA. And it’s actually this enzyme acetyl-CoA carboxylic is induced by insulin. So usually, acetyl-CoA carboxylic has a phosphate group on it, which inhibits its activity. But when it interacts with insulin, insulin turns on a protein phosphatase. So phosphatase are enzymes that take phosphates off, and then it becomes acetyl-CoA carboxylic. So now acetyl-CoA carboxylic is active to make methylmalonyl-CoA. Now, why is this important? So methylmalonyl-CoA is like putting the boulder on top of the hill; you’re going to start a different chemical process. So methylmalonyl-CoA inhibits fatty acid breakdown and begins fatty acid synthesis. So when you start making methylmalonyl-CoA, you’re going to, without going too much into fatty acid synthesis. The end goal is palmitate, which is the type of fatty acid. Now, palmitate chains will combine with glucose to form triglycerides. So here, we can see how a large dietary intake of carbohydrates, glucose levels, proteins, and insulin activates triglycerides. And if you have diabetes, you pretty much get halted in specific pathways. And that’s why you end up with too much acetyl-CoA. You have too many ketone bodies floating around in the blood, so you are going through without going too much in-depth; we can see that having a large number of dietary triglycerides, large amounts of glucose will force more triglycerides or try sealed glycerol within these kinds of microns within the lumen of the blood vessels. And this is going to cause a chain of reactions. So without breaking down too much here, we’re showing where it’s all going, so we have acetyl-CoA going to methylmalonyl-CoA, going to palmitate, and then we have palmitate forming these triglycerides. So like Kenna said, these triglycerides can’t enter the adipocytes. The adipocytes are fat cells without lipoprotein lipase. So with the combination of lipoprotein lipids allows these cells to get in there. You allow for the storage of the fat, so the cool part to notice is that by doing so, the first one will use fatty acids to be your heart. The heart relies on around 80 percent of its energy from fatty acids. Then it’s going to be your muscle cells. But this is in conjunction if you’re exercising regularly. If you’re not doing that, the adipose cells will favor storing the triglycerides or triglycerol more often. And then you’re also going to use more LDL, which means you have the potential to have more oxidized LDL, causing a higher event of atherosclerosis formation.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, as you go through this process, it seems natural, but for a lot of us, it’s a deep, deep story, and it’s far, and it’s dynamic. And what I want to do is to bring the people back to Kenna as to the diets. In terms of getting this basic understanding. How is it that we assess an individual where these particular issues? I can assure you that when we first evaluate a metabolic syndrome patient. We do a lot of blood work, blood assessment, a lot of enzyme testing. We can even do DNA testing. So we got to go back to a patient and describe precisely how we can better improve their lives by our assessments. So, Kenna, you got some cool stuff in there for us. What do you have in front of you?
Kenna Vaughn: Yes, in front of me, I have a sample report from one of our patients on who we ran the DNA blood test. And one of those things that we can see is a gene pulled up right here, and it’s called TAS1R2. And what this gene does is it’s a tissue that can be found in the gastrointestinal tract, the hypothalamus, and the pancreas. And it’s known for regulating your metabolism and energy, and homeostasis. Also affects that food intake beyond the detection of your sweet taste on the tongue. What does that mean? So what that means is it is nicknamed the sweet gene. So, somebody with this gene is more likely to be drawn to sweet foods because it’s almost like their sweetness is enhanced. So when they taste ice cream, it’s a 10 out of 10, no matter the flavor, versus someone who doesn’t have this gene. Maybe it’s more of a seven out of 10. It hits them differently.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: That makes perfect sense. Or some people that, you know, they love that ice cream and that dynamics, I know that I want to take a little bit of a detour because a lot of patients will wonder, Well, what are we going to do to get into being assessed and what kind of things we can? How does someone get? Where do they go? And for that, we have our clinical liaison here, Trudy, who walks patients in and first determines that the patient is qualified because we do have questionnaires that assess the determination of if someone is a talented individual or does have presentations that are predisposing to metabolic syndrome that require further assessment. And once we do in the situation that a person does have it, they want to understand what to do. So actually, Trudy, you do us help people and guide them through the process. What do we do in the office to help guide an individual through the beginnings of metabolic assessment?
Trudy Torres: OK, well, basically, you know, when people call in, we go ahead and email them a questionnaire. It does take about 45 minutes because it’s a very in-depth questionnaire. We want to pinpoint and get to the bottom of their main concerns. The main issues that we’re going to target for the process to be successful. Once we get that questionnaire back, we set up an appointment with Dr. Jimenez and our health coach Kenna, and they will go in-depth as far as the target areas that we need to address for the process to be successful. And that’s one of the things that I wanted to ask Kenna because I know it can be a bit overwhelming as far as what is it that they get? And as far as what is the following process? So once we get the questionnaire, I know that’s when they’re going to go ahead and do the different types of lab work to determine what will be successful in the kitchen.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I know you see the patients when they walk in; how do they feel in terms of that Trudy? What is it that they typically will tell you before being further assessed?
Trudy Torres: Well, they’re tired of, you know, all the different changes that you go through as, unfortunately, as we age. You know, some of the DNA genes that we have, that they’re dormant, you know, they become active. And that’s when you start to experience a different type of bad syndromes, you know, like metabolic syndrome. And that’s one of the things that we address. You know that we go ahead and do the DNA testing and see what different genes are dormant that are not dormant.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I think that also, you know, whether you’ve noticed too and you’ve mentioned this to me, they’re just tired of feeling bad. They’re just tired of feeling like; I guess crap is a good word, right? So they’re tired of just they don’t recover. They don’t sleep well. They feel stressed. They feel like they’re being choked with high blood pressure. It’s not. Their lives are different. They’re in distress. They don’t sleep. So these are issues that the patients present to you, and I know you help them guide them. And then, Kenna, tell me a bit of the assessment you do to qualify an individual on the metabolic syndrome programs we have?
Kenna Vaughn: Like we were saying before, we go through that detailed history to look at that family history. And then we also decide, like Miss Trudy noted, the lab work gives us a lot of these underlying answers because the lab work we do is more detailed than the basic. So we get more numbers, more genetic codes, and more of all of these things. And from there, we’re able to take it and see what will be the most successful path for this patient. What supplements are they going to be able to intake better? What diet is best for them, whether it be the ketogenic diet or the Mediterranean diet? Everybody’s body is different because everybody’s insulin sensitivity is different, and everyone’s hormones change, especially for females. It’s different than male patients, and we create that individualized package for them because we want them to leave at the end of everything, not just that first visit. Still, we want them to leave feeling empowered and healthy and strong and not just they’re alive, but that they’re living. And that makes a massive difference to their families and their friends. And just everything gets impacted, all from the start of these questionnaires.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You touched on a subject matter there about being left alone. We go through a process, and we do keep connectivity with our patients. With today’s technology, there’s no reason we can’t have a person or an individual connected to our office and give us information such as BMI BIA information, which is basal metabolic stuff, the scale weight, the fat densities. We can have this information today. We have Fitbits that connect to us, and we can understand that that data is now available in a private way, and someone on the other side is reading that tell us what you do with individuals in terms of the coaching that we offer people; for specific metabolic syndrome?
Kenna Vaughn: Of course. For coaching, we have a scale. And like Dr. Jimenez was saying, this scale not only tells you your weight, but it also sends your weight, your water intake, how much of your weight is water weight, how much of your weight is lean muscle? And it also can track it and see the percentages of where you’re changing. So we can follow that maybe the number on the scale hasn’t moved. And some people might start to feel discouraged. But when we look at the numbers of what that scale tells us, we can see that you are losing body fat and being replaced by muscle. So even though that number is the same, your body inside is chemically changing. You’re making those differences you need to make to keep up with it and not to quit because, as I said, it can be discouraging for certain people.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So there’s a Mind-Body connection here. A mental component, teamwork dynamics, is essential when we’re working through metabolic syndrome. We can’t leave people here, here, take the football and run 80 plays. No, you have to huddle in each time to discuss and change the adaptive processes. Regarding the other areas with fat analysis, I know Alex has some additional areas and Astrid that will be discussing in a few minutes. But I’m going to focus on Alex right now to tell us a bit of what people can do with exercise or fitness that could stimulate or dynamically change their metabolic processes at the biochemical level.
Alexander Isaiah: Well, I would first, in all honesty, be honest with yourself; you will probably be the best observer of your situation. We all know what foods we do well with. We all know what foods we don’t do well with. We’ve always had some intuition as we’ve grown into the people we are today, knowing what foods work well for us and what foods don’t work well for us. For example, I know that if I consume a large carbohydrate consumption, I tend to put on weight pretty quickly. But I am pretty active. So the days that I have strenuous activity, I make sure that I have a balanced meal with proteins, fats, and a decent amount of carbohydrates. But the days that I’m not very active or haven’t gone to the gym. I make sure that most of my caloric intake sometimes comes from good fats or proteins. And that’s going to be the best thing is just be honest with yourself. See how you’re doing, find your BMI, find your basal metabolic rate, and then put numbers on paper. Because if you keep track of things. Odds are you’re going to do better and control the way your body’s responding. The next thing is I would find a health coach like Kenna, to stay on track and find any recommendations. The good part is that we have the internet out there and sources like yourself, Dr. Jimenez, that can provide information to the public on a new level and be able to understand and grasp the concept from a different perspective and give people more information that they didn’t know that they had at their fingertips.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I’m going to take it back to Astrid. Thank you, Alex. But one of the things is I want people to understand we’re going to assault. We’re going to assault on metabolic syndrome because this is a big problem and affects many in all communities around the United States. And we have to have an open forum to be able to open up. And sometimes, we don’t have 10 seconds, and this is not a 10 second, two-minute thing. We must understand that there needs to be a teamwork integrative medicine approach that helps the patients. So I know we’re going to go with a couple, I don’t think we make it through all of them, but we’re going to get through as best as we can because this is all recorded and can be dynamic and time purposes used later. Tell us a bit of the omega, berberine, and all the other supplements you had planned to talk about.
Astrid Ornelas: OK. Well, first of all, for those of you who are barely coming into the podcast right now, the nutraceuticals that are currently listed up there can all help improve metabolic syndrome in one way or another. The majority of these specifically target they specifically lower help lower the risk factors that can cause that could increase the risk of developing issues like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. But I want to emphasize several of these because they do they’re more efficient at promoting weight loss associated with metabolic syndrome. You know, if you’re going to improve metabolic syndrome, you want to promote weight loss, so that the last nutraceutical we talked about that’s up there was DHEA. The next nutraceutical I want to talk about is NRF2. So just like DHEA, it is a naturally produced hormone in our body. Well, NRF2 is also found in our body naturally. But unlike DHEA, which is a hormone, NRF2’s actual name, I guess the full name is the NRF2 pathway. It’s what’s known as a transcription factor, or it’s an element that regulates several cell processes if you will. And so I’ve done quite a few articles on this myself, and there are several research studies out there, quite a few to be exact, but NFR2 can also help improve metabolism. So if you improve your metabolism, especially in people who have metabolic syndrome, your metabolism can make it much more efficient for you to burn calories and therefore burn fat more efficiently.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: The Omegas and NRF2, what we’re dealing with here, along with berberine, is inflammatory issues, OK? So what we want to deal with is when someone has metabolic syndrome, we suffer from inflammation, and inflammation is rampant. And that’s what’s causing the discomfort, the joint pain, the overall swelling, the bloating. Those are the kind of things that help, and they affect the blood pressure in insulin does happen, and we haven’t talked about that yet. But we’re going to be discussing that. I know Alex has got some ideas about Nrf2 factors and Omegas and berberine, and tell me a bit of what you’ve seen in terms of the nutraceuticals, and you read in terms of its effect on metabolic syndrome.
Alexander Isaiah: So the way we need to look at the different types of fatty acids is that most of the surface of each cell is composed of a fatty acid. It depends on what type gets incorporated based on the consumption or dietary intake that you have daily. So the main two components that your body’s going to use is cholesterol. That’s why we still need cholesterol and healthy fats that we get. But at the same time, if you’re taking in a lot of red meats, you’re also going to use arachidonic acid, which makes different types of fatty acids. And it also makes a transcription factor called PGE two, which is known for its very informative process or aspects. So what fish oils do, specifically EPA and DHEA, are by incorporating these into the cell membrane. You upregulate NRF2 and downregulate NF Kappa B, which is the inflammatory response. And not only by doing that, but as we talked about before with green tea extract and turmeric, otherwise known as curcumin. These also inhibit the pathways for inflammation. Now there could be the argument Well, do these pathways inhibit the inflammation? So let’s say I get sick or something, right? Well, the cool part is that two different pathways are stimulating the same response. By doing the dietary regimen of curcumin, fish oils, or even green tea, you’re inhibiting it from the body overexpressing these genes. Now, suppose you still get sick in a sense, right. In that case, you could still allow these cells to proliferate, specifically your macrophages, to do their job correctly, so you’re not inhibiting them by overstimulating them. You’re allowing them to be more proficient in their job. And suppose you are virally infected or with some unknown pathogen or let’s say. In that case, a cell decides to go rogue and start producing cancer cells, allowing the body to be more proficient in extracting these pathogens.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: In essence, we’ve learned that if we try to suppress inflammation, we create a huge problem. The question is, let’s stop inflammation from progressing to be too extreme. So, in essence, to keep it at a workable dynamics, and that’s what these curcumins and the green teas do. I know Astrid has something to mention in terms of this particular concept. Tell me a bit about what you’re thinking.
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah. So as Alex mentioned, green tea is a fantastic drink. It’s actually in my nutraceutical list that’s up there, and I wanted to talk about green tea because it’s a very easily accessible drink, you know, for those of you who like tea. Green tea is delicious as well. And green tea has a variety of research studies demonstrated to be super beneficial for people with metabolic syndrome. So as many of you know, green tea contains caffeine. Of course, it has much less caffeine than a cup of coffee, for example, but it still does have caffeine, and green tea is also a powerful antioxidant. That’s another of the things that it’s very well known for. But just like NF2, you know that the interruptive pathway, green tea, has been demonstrated to help improve metabolism tremendously. You see, it promotes the body’s ability to burn calories, to burn fat. And because of its caffeine, I guess amount because even though it is less than a cup of coffee, but it’s just enough, it can help improve exercise performance. And you know, for those people who are looking to lose weight because of the, you know, the issues that they have associated with metabolic syndrome. Drinking green tea can help promote and improve their exercise performance so that they’re more able to engage and participate more efficiently in their exercise and physical activity to burn fat.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So basically, you’re indicating that as a good option instead of, let’s say, a whatever kind of drink or a juicy drink, it’s wise to keep sort of in the background green tea throughout the day. Is that correct? Or how much the water is good? The green tea’s good; a little bit of coffee and a little bit of this fluid is essential to keep our bodies hydrated through the process. Since it’s already available, green tea is a great option not only for metabolic processes to stop inflammation but also to help with the burning of the fat too?
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah, definitely. Green tea is a great drink. You can pretty much have it throughout your day. You know it has less caffeine than, say, you know, coffee, as I mentioned. And it will, you know, for those who have green tea, I love green tea, and I will have it. And you do get that little, that extra amount of energy. You feel it when you have green tea. But, yeah, you can have it throughout your day. And you know, it’s essential to stay hydrated, drink plenty of water. And you just want to make sure that if you do exercise enough, you don’t want to lose your electrolytes. So, you know, drink plenty of water and just stay hydrated.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I know that we’re going over there. I know that Kenna wants to speak something, and we’re going to go in that direction right now because Kenna wants to talk about specific dietary changes and things that we can do from a health coach’s point of view.
Kenna Vaughn: I just wanted to say that green tea is super beneficial from Astrid’s point. But I don’t particularly appreciate drinking green tea, which means that all hope is lost. They do have green tea and capsules as well, so you can still get all of those great benefits without actually drinking it because, for some people, it’s, you know, their coffee over tea. So you don’t have to drink the tea. You can still get all those great benefits that attitude was talking about but through capsules.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: yeah, we got exciting, sneaky ways to help people. To help people understand and to come into our office. What can they do, Trudy, in terms of being facilitated in the office if they want to make, if they’re going to have questions or for any doctor, they have out wherever they may be because this is reaching far.
Trudy Torres: I know this can be very overwhelming to just the regular population. You see, we went in too deep, you know, as far as all the physiology behind it and everything else. One of the things that I can tell you is that when you call our office, we’re going to walk you step by step. You’re not going to be alone. You’re going to walk out with a lot of information and know what works for you. Like Kenna was saying, everybody’s different. This is not a cookie-cutter program. We take the time and talk one on one with everybody who walks in and make sure that when they walk out and have a lot of information with them, they also walk out with just the lab work; they will walk out with recipes. Kenna is going to be constantly following up with you. It’s a highly successful approach when you have accountability from a health coach. So you’re not going to be by yourself.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know again where our goal is to make the kitchen to the genes and from the genes to the kitchen, we got to give the understanding maybe not of the deep biochemistry as Alex has taken us into or the nutraceutical dynamics, just know that there are ways that we can monitor. We can assess; we can periodically evaluate. We have diagnostic tools to determine blood assessments that are way beyond what was done ten years ago. We have dynamic metabolic testing in our office to determine fundamental critical aspects of weight density, the limb way to the body, and how much water you have. We use things like phase angle to assess the health of the cells and how they’re functioning. So there’s a lot that goes on in this process. So I want to take the opportunity to thank my guests today because from Alexander, all the way far on the north side of the United States, to Astrid, who assesses things at the NCBI because we need to have our finger right on the research that has been done. To our clinical liaison, which is Trudy, and one of our dynamic health coaches. I can be a health coach, but sometimes I’m with a patient, but she’s really with you all the time, and she can connect with you via email, which is Kenna. So together, we have come with an intention, and our purpose is to understand what the process is. A metabolic syndrome to break it down to deep levels will get down to them as you can see, to the genes, to the kitchen. And that’s what our goal is to educate people on how to feed our children. We intuitively know how to feed our families. Moms know what to do. However, today’s technology and research offer us the ability to break it down and specific to the sciences. And sometimes, when we get a little older, we realize that our bodies change and our genetics change, and that’s preordained based on our past, our peoples, our ontogeny, which is the generations in the past. But we have to realize that we can make a change and we can stimulate. We can activate genetic codes. We can suppress genes that want to get active if you improperly diet or do a proper diet. So our goal today is to bring this awareness, and I want to thank you guys for allowing us to listen in. We look forward to getting different subjects, maybe not as intense or dynamic, but this was our first run at the process. And we’re going to learn, and please ask questions so that we can kind of make it better for you and give you the information you need. So we thank you very much, and I want to tell you from all of us out here in El Paso that we look forward to offering the world information into metabolic syndrome that affects so many people. So thank you, guys. Thank you for everything.
In today’s podcast, Dr. Alex Jimenez, health coach Kenna Vaughn, chief editor Astrid Ornelas discuss about metabolic syndrome from a different point of view as well as, different nutraceuticals to combat inflammation.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Welcome, guys, welcome to the podcast for Dr. Jimenez and crew. We’re discussing today’s metabolic syndrome, and we’re going to be discussing it from a different point of view. We will give you excellent, useful tips that can make sense and are easily doable at home. Metabolic syndrome is a very vast concept. It contains five major issues. It has high blood glucose, it has belly fat measurements, it has triglycerides, it has HDL issues, and it pretty much has a whole conglomeration of dynamics that have to be measured in the whole reason we discuss metabolic syndrome because it affects our community very much. So, we’re going to be discussing these particular issues and how we can fix them. And give you the ability to adapt your lifestyle so that you don’t end up having. It’s one of the most important disorders affecting modern medicine today, let alone once we understand it. Everywhere you go, you’re going to see a lot of people having metabolic syndrome. And it’s part of a society, and that’s something you see in Europe as much. But in America, because we do have a lot of foods and our plates are usually bigger, we have the ability to adapt our bodies differently by just what we eat. No disorder will change so quickly and fast as a good mechanism and a good protocol to help you with metabolic disorders and metabolic syndrome. So having said that, today, we have a group of individuals. We have Astrid Ornelas and Kenna Vaughn, who will discuss and add information to help us through the process. Now, Kenna Vaughn is our health coach. She’s the one who works in our office; when I’m a practicing physician on physical medicine and when I’m working with people one on one, we have other people working with dietary issues and dietary needs. My team here is very, very good. We also have our top clinical researcher and the individual who curates much of our technology and is at the cutting edge of what we do and our sciences. It’s Mrs. Ornelas. Mrs. Ornelas or Astrid, as we call her, she’s ghetto with the knowledge. She gets nasty with science. And it’s really, really where we are. Today, we live in a world where research is coming and spitting out of the NCBI, which is the repository or PubMed, which people can see we use this information and we use what works and what does it. Not all information is accurate in PubMed because you have different points of view, but it’s almost like a finger on a pulse when we have our finger in. We can see the things that affect it. With certain keywords and certain alerts, we get notified of changes for, let’s say, dietary sugar issues or triglyceride issues with fat issues, anything about metabolic disorders. We can kind of come up with a treatment protocol that is live adapted from doctors and researchers and PhDs around the world almost instantaneously, literally even before they’re published. For example, today happens to be February 1st. It’s not, but we’ll be getting results and studies presented by the National Journal of Cardiology that will come out in March if that makes sense. So that information is early hot off the press, and Astrid helps us figure these things out and sees, “Hey, you know, we found something really hot and something to help our patients” and brings the N equals one, which is patient-doctor equals one. A patient and therapist equal one that we don’t do specific protocols for everyone in general. We do specific protocols for each person as we go through the process. So as we do this, the journey of understanding metabolic syndrome is very dynamic and very deep. We can start from just looking at someone to the bloodwork, all the way to dietary changes, to metabolic changes, all the way down to the cellular activity that it’s actively working. We measure issues with BIAs and BMI, which we have done with previous podcasts. But we can also get into the level, the genomics and the changing of the chromosomes and the telomeres in the chromosomes, which we can affect by our diet. OK. All roads lead to diets. And what I say in some weird way, all roads lead to smoothies, OK, smoothies. Because when we look at smoothies, we look at the components of smoothies and come up with dynamics that are abilities to change now. What I look for is when I look for treatments, I look at things that make people’s lives better, and how can we do this? And for all those mothers, they understand that they may not realize that they do this, but a mom doesn’t wake up saying, I’m going to give my kid food. No, she’s kind of doing a mental lavage of bringing the whole kitchen because she wants to infuse the best nutrition for their child and offer their best kind of options for their baby to go through the world or daycare or elementary school, through middle school, through high school so that the child can develop well. Nobody goes out thinking that I’m going to give my kid just junk and. And if that’s the case, well, that’s probably not good parenting. But we won’t talk about that well; we will talk about good nutrition and adapting those things. So I’d like to introduce Kenna right now. And she’s going to be discussing a little bit of what we do when we see someone with metabolic disorders and our approach to it. So as she goes through that, she’s going to be able to understand how we evaluate and assess a patient and bring it in so that we can start getting a little bit of control for that individual. Kenna, it’s all yours.
Kenna Vaughn: All right. So first, I just want to talk about the smoothies a little bit more. I am a mom, so in the morning time, things get crazy. You never have as much time as you think you do, but you need those nutrient nutrients and so do your kids. So I love smoothies. They’re super fast. You get everything you need. And most people think that when you’re eating, you’re eating to fill your stomach, but you’re eating to fill your cells. Your cells are what need those nutrients. That’s what carries you on with the energy, the metabolism, all of that. So those smoothies are a super great option, which we give our patients. We even have a book with 150 smoothie recipes that are great for anti-aging, helping diabetes, lowering cholesterol, controlling inflammation, and things like that. So it’s one resource we give to our patients. But we do have multiple other options for the patients who come in with metabolic disease.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Before you go in there, Kenna. Let me just kind of add that what I’ve learned is that we have to make it simple. We got to take homes or takeaways. And what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to give you the tools that can help you in that process. And we’re going to take you to the kitchen. We’re going to grab you by the ear, so to speak, and we’re going to show you the areas where we need to look at. So Kenna is about to give us the information in terms of smoothies that will assist us with dietary changes that we can provide our families and change its metabolic disaster that affects so many people called metabolic syndrome. Go ahead.
Kenna Vaughn: OK, so like he was saying with those smoothies. One thing that you should add to your smoothie is, which what I love to add in mine is spinach. Spinach is an excellent choice because it gives your body more nutrients. You are getting an extra serving of vegetables, but you can’t taste it, especially when it gets covered up by the natural sweetness that you find in fruits. So that’s a great option when it comes to the smoothies. But another thing that Dr. Jiménez was mentioning is other things in the kitchen. So there are other substitutes that we’re kind of wanting our patients to use and implement. You can start small, and it’ll make a huge difference just by switching out the oils you’re cooking with. And you’ll begin to see an improvement in your joints, your kids, and everyone will just improve immensely. So one thing we want to get our patients into using is those oils, such as avocado oil, coconut oil, and… Olive oil? Olive oil. Yes, thank you, Astrid.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: That was olive oil. That was Astrid in the background. We’re getting the facts out excellent and continue.
Kenna Vaughn: When you switch those out, your body breaks things down differently with those unsaturated fats. So that’s just another option that you have in that kitchen besides making those smoothies. But like I said before, I’m all about quick, easy, simple. It’s way easier to change your lifestyle when you have a whole team around you. And when it’s easy, you don’t. You don’t want to go out and make everything super difficult because the chances of you sticking to it aren’t very high. So one thing we want to do is make sure that everything that we’re giving our patients is easy to do and it’s attainable for everyday life.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I’m very visual. So when I go to the kitchen, I like making my kitchen look like the cocina or whatever they call it in Italy, the cucina and I have three bottles there, and I have an avocado oil one. I have the coconut oil one, and I have the olive oil right there. There are big bottles there. They make them pretty, and they look Tuscan. And, you know, I don’t care if it’s an egg, I don’t care. Sometimes, even when I’m having my coffee, I grab the coconut oil one, and I pour that one in and make myself a java with coconut oil in it. So, yeah, go ahead.
Kenna Vaughn: I was going to say that’s a great option too. So I drink green tea, and I also add coconut oil in that green tea to help boost everything and give my body another dose of those fatty acids that we want.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I got a question for you when you have your coffee like that; when you have the oil in it, does it kind of lubricate your lips.
Kenna Vaughn: It does a little bit. So it’s also like chapstick.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, it does. It’s like, Oh, I love it. OK, go ahead.
Kenna Vaughn: Yeah, I also have to stir a little bit more just to make sure everything gets it right. Yeah. And then another thing just talking about something our patients can do when it comes to at home, there are tons of different options with eating fish. Increasing your good fish intake throughout the week, that’s going to help also. And just because fish provides so many great things like omegas, I know Astrid also has some more information on omegas.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I got a question before Astrid gets in there. You know, look, when we talk about carbohydrates, people, is it what a carbohydrate is? Oh, people say an apple, banana, candy bars, and all kinds of stuff people can rattle off carbohydrates or proteins. Chicken, beef, whatever they can rile up. But one of the things I found that people have a difficult time with is what good fats are? I want five. Give me ten good fats for a million dollars. Give me ten good fats like lard, like meat. No, this is what we’re talking about. Because the simple fact that we use and we’re going to add more to it relative bad is going to be avocado oil. Olive oil. Is it coconut oil? We can use things like butter oils, different types of margins, and not margins, but kinds of butter that are from, you know, grass-fed cows. We basically can run out of creamers, you know, non-nondairy creams, very specific creamers, those we run out of it, right? Real fast. So it’s like, what else is fat, right? And then we search for it. So one of the best ways to do it is that we’re not going to always put creamer on top or our butter on top, which by the way, some coffees they have, they put butter in it and blend it, and they make a fantastic little java hit. And everyone comes with their little ginger and oils and their coffee and makes espresso from heaven, right? So what else can we do?
Kenna Vaughn: We can, like I said, adding those fish in, which is going to help to give our bodies more of those omegas. And then we can also do more purple vegetables, and those are going to provide your body with more antioxidants. So that’s a good option when it comes to the grocery store. A rule of thumb that I love and heard a long time ago is to not shop in the aisles is to try to shop on the edges because the edges are where you’re going to find all that fresh produce and all those lean meats. It’s when you start to get into those aisles, and that’s where you’re going to start finding, you know, the cereal, those bad carbohydrates, those simple carbohydrates that the American diet has come to love but does not necessarily need. The Oreos?
Kenna Vaughn: Yes.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: The candy aisle that every kid knows. OK, yes.
Kenna Vaughn: So that’s just another great point there. So when you come into our office, if you’re suffering from metabolic syndrome or just anything in general, we make your plans super personalized and give you so many tips. We listen to your lifestyle because what works for one person might not work for another. So we make sure that we provide you with information that we know you’ll be successful with and provide education because that’s another huge part of it.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: All roads lead to the kitchen, huh? Right? Yes, they do. OK, so let’s zoom on precisely for the fat and the nutraceuticals. I want to give you an idea as to what type of nutraceuticals are appropriate for us because we want to bust down these five issues affecting metabolic syndrome that we discussed. What are the five guys? Let’s go ahead and start them up. It’s high blood sugar, right?
Kenna Vaughn: High blood glucose, low HDLs, which will be that good cholesterol everyone needs. Yes. And it’s going to be the high blood pressure, which is not considered high from a doctor’s standard, but it is deemed to be elevated. So that’s another thing; we want to ensure that this is metabolic syndrome, not a metabolic disease. So if you go to the doctor and your blood pressure is 130 over eighty-five, that’s an indicator. But yet your provider might not necessarily say your blood pressure is super high.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: None of these disorders here by themselves are clinical states, and, individually, they’re pretty much just things. But if you combine all these five, you have metabolic syndrome and feel like not too good, right?
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah, yeah.
Kenna Vaughn: Another one is going to be the excess weight around the belly and the higher triglycerides.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Easy to see. You can see when someone has a belly that’s hanging over like a fountain, right? So we can see that you can go to it sometimes Italian restaurants and see the great cook. And he sometimes I got to tell you, sometimes it’s just, you know, we talked to Chef Boyardee wasn’t a thin guy. I think that Chef Boyardee, you know what? And the Pillsbury guy, right? Well, it wasn’t very healthy, right? Both of them suffer from metabolic syndrome just from the outset. So that’s an easy one to see. So these are the things we’re going to be reflecting on. Astrid will go over some nutraceuticals, vitamins, and some foods that we can improve things. So here’s Astrid, and here’s our science curator. But here’s Astrid, go ahead.
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah, I guess before we get into the nutraceuticals, I want to make something clear. Like we were talking about metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is not a, and I guess per se, a disease or a health issue itself. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that can increase the risk of developing other health issues like diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. Because metabolic syndrome is not, you know, an actual health issue itself, it’s more so this group, this collection of other conditions, of other problems that can develop into much worse health issues. Just because of that fact, metabolic syndrome has no apparent symptoms itself. But of course, like we were talking about, five risk factors are pretty much the ones we discussed: excess waist fat, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides, low HDL, and according to health care professionals. To doctors and researchers, you know you have metabolic syndrome if you have three out of these five risk factors.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yes. Three. Now, that doesn’t mean that if you have it, you have symptoms. As I see it was evident on. But I got to tell you in my experience when someone has more than three or three. They’re starting to feel crummy. They don’t feel right. They just feel like, you know, life’s not good. They have just an overall. They don’t look it right. So and I don’t know them, maybe. But their family knows that they don’t look good. Like mom doesn’t look good. Dad does look good.
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah, yeah. And metabolic syndrome, as I said, it has no apparent symptoms. But you know, I was kind of going with one of the risk factors with waist fat, and this is where you will see people with what you call the apple or pear-shaped body, so they have excess fat around their abdomen. And although that’s not technically considered a symptom, it is a factor that can; I guess it can give an idea to doctors or other health care professionals that this person who is, you know, they have prediabetes or have diabetes. And, you know, they have excess weight and obesity. They could have an increased risk of metabolic syndrome and therefore developing, you know, if it’s left untreated, developing other health issues like heart disease and stroke. I guess with that being said; then we’ll get into the nutraceutical.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I love this, I love this. We’re getting some good stuff, and we’re getting some information.
Astrid Ornelas: And I guess with that being said, we’ll get into the nutraceuticals. Kind of like, how Kenna was talking about what’s the takeaway? You know, we’re here talking about these health issues, and we’re here talking about metabolic syndrome today. But what’s the takeaway? What can we tell people? What can they take home about our talk? What can they do at home? So here we have several nutraceuticals, which I’ve written several articles in our blog and looked at.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You think, Astrid? If you look at 100 articles written in El Paso, at least in our area, they were all curated by somebody. Yes. All right.
Astrid Ornelas: Yes. So we have several nutraceuticals here that have been researched. Researchers have read all these research studies and found that they can help in some way and some form improve, you know, metabolic syndrome and these associated diseases. So the first one I want to discuss is the B vitamins. So what are the B vitamins? These are the ones that you can usually find them together. You can find them in the store. You’ll see them as B-complex vitamins. You’ll see like a little jar, and then it comes with several of the B vitamins. Now, why do I bring up B vitamins for metabolic syndrome? So one of the reasons like researchers has found that one of them, I guess, one of the causes of metabolic syndrome could be stress. So with that being said, we need to have B vitamins because when we get stressed when we have a hard day at work when we have, I guess a lot of you know, a lot of stressful things at home or with family, our nervous system will use these B vitamins to support our nerve function. So when we have a lot of stress, we will use up these vitamins, which increases stress; you know, our body will produce cortisol. You know, which serves a function. But we all know that too much cortisol, too much stress can actually. It can be harmful to us. It can increase our risk of heart disease.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, as I remember when we did this, all roads lead to the kitchen in terms of getting the food back in your body. All roads lead to the mitochondria when it comes to the area of the breakdown. The world of ATP energy production is surrounded and wrapped around with nicotinamide, NADH, HDP, ATPS, ADP. All these things have a connection with vitamin B of all sorts. So the vitamin B’s are at the engine in the turbine of the things that help us. So it makes sense that this was the top of the vitamin and the most important one. And then she’s got some other endpoints here on niacin. What is with niacin? What have you noticed there?
Astrid Ornelas: Well, niacin is another B vitamin, you know, there are several B vitamins. That’s why I have it there under its plural and niacin or vitamin B3, as it’s more well known. A lot of several are so clever. Many research studies have found that taking vitamin B3 can help lower LDL or bad cholesterol, help lower triglycerides, and increase HDL. And several research studies have found that niacin, specifically vitamin B3, can help increase HDL by 30 percent.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Incredible. When you look at NADP and NADH, These are the N is the niacin, the nicotinamide. So in the biochemical compound, niacin is the one that people have known that when you take it the good one or the one that’s supposed to be, you get this flushing feeling and it makes you scratch all your part of your body, and it feels good when you scratch because it makes you feel that way. Right, so lovely. And this huge.
Astrid Ornelas: Yes. Yes, and also, I just want to highlight a point about B vitamins. B vitamins are essential because they can help support our metabolism when we eat, you know, carbohydrates and fats, good fats, of course, and proteins. When the body goes through the metabolism process, it converts these carbohydrates, fats, and protein. The proteins turn into energy, and B vitamins are the main components in charge of doing that.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Latinos, in our general population, know that we have always heard of the nurse or the person who gives vitamin B injection. So you heard of those things. Right. Because you’re depressed, you’re sad, what would they do? Well, you know what would inject them with B12, right? Which are the B vitamins, right? And the person would come out like, Yeah, and they’d be excited, right? So we’ve known this, and this is the elixir of the past. Those traveling salesmen, who had the potions and lotions, made a living off of giving B vitamin complex. The first energy drinks were first designed with a B complex, you know, packing of them. Now here’s the deal. Now that we’ve learned that energy drinks cause so many issues, that we’re heading back to the B complexes to help people better. So the following vitamin we have there is that one that we have the D, we have the vitamin D.
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah, the next one I wanted to talk about is vitamin D. So there are several research studies on vitamin D and the benefits, the benefits of vitamin D for metabolic syndrome, and just how I discussed how B vitamins are beneficial for our metabolism. Vitamin D is also helpful for our metabolism, and it can help regulate our blood sugar, essentially our glucose. And that in itself is very important because, like one of the predisposing factors of metabolic syndrome, high blood sugar. And you know, if you have uncontrolled high blood sugar, it can lead to, you know, it can lead to prediabetes. And if that is left untreated, it can lead to diabetes. So research studies have also found that vitamin D itself can also improve insulin resistance, which is pretty much one that can lead to diabetes.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, I just wanted to put out the vitamin D is not even a vitamin; it’s a hormone. It was discovered after C by Linus Pauling. When they found it, they just kept on naming the following letter. OK, so since it is a hormone, you just have to look at it. This particular vitamin D or this hormone tocopherol. It basically can change so many metabolism issues in your body. I’m talking about literally four to five hundred different processes that we’re finding. Last year was 400. We’re now almost 500 other biochemical processes that are affected directly. Well, it makes kind of sense. Look, our most significant organ in the body is our skin, and most of the time, we ran around in some sort of skimpy clothes, and we were in the sun a lot. Well, we didn’t stand to reason that that particular organ can produce a tremendous amount of healing energies, and vitamin D does that. It is produced by the sunlight and activated. But today’s world, whether we’re Armenian, Iranian, different cultures in the north, like Chicago, people don’t get as much light. So depending on cultural changes and closed people living and working in these fluorescent lights, we lose the essence of vitamin D and get very sick. The person who takes vitamin D is much healthier, and our goal is to raise the vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin and one that embeds itself by it and is saved in the liver along with the fat in the body. So you can raise it slowly as you take it, and it’s tough to get toxic levels, but those are at about one hundred twenty-five nanograms per deciliter that are too high. But most of us run around with 10 to 20, which is low. So, in essence, by raising that, you’re going to see that the blood sugar changes are going to happen that Astrid is speaking about. What are some of the things that we notice about, particularly vitamin D? Anything?
Astrid Ornelas: I mean, I’ll get back to vitamin D in a bit; I want to discuss some of the other nutraceuticals first. OK. But pretty much vitamin D is beneficial because it helps improve your metabolism, and it helps improve your insulin resistance, at least towards metabolic syndrome.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: How about calcium?
Astrid Ornelas: So calcium goes hand-in-hand with vitamin D, and the thing that I wanted to talk about with vitamin D and calcium together. We often think about these five factors that we mentioned before that could cause a metabolic syndrome. Still, there’s, you know, if you want to think about it, like what are the underlying causes for a lot of these risk factors? And like, you know, obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, people who don’t engage in an exercise or physical activity. One of the things that can predispose a person or increase their risk of metabolic syndrome. Let me put the scenario. What if a person has a chronic pain disease? What if they have something like fibromyalgia? They’re constantly in pain. They don’t want to move, so they don’t want to exercise. They don’t want to aggravate these symptoms. Sometimes, some people have chronic pain or things like fibromyalgia. Let’s go a little bit more basic. Some people just have chronic back pain, and you don’t want to work out. So just you’re not choosing like some of these people aren’t choosing to be inactive because they want to. Some of these people are legitimately in pain, and there are several research studies, and this is what I was going to tie in vitamin D and calcium with that vitamin D and calcium. You know, we can you can take them together. They can help improve chronic pain in some people.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Incredible. And we all know that calcium is one of the causes of muscle spasms and relaxers. Tons of reasons. We’re going to go into each one of these. We’re going to have a podcast on just vitamin D and the issues in calcium because we can go deep. We’re going to go deep, and we’re going to go all the way to the genome. The genome is genomics, which is the science of understanding how nutrition and the genes dance together. So we’re going to go there, but we’re kind of like we’re penetrating slowly in this process because we have to take the story slowly. What’s up next?
Astrid Ornelas: So next, we have omega 3s, and I want to specifically highlight that we’re talking about omega 3s with EPA, not DHA. So these are EPA, which is the one that’s listed up there, and DHA. They are two essential types of omega 3s. Essentially, they’re both very important, but several research studies and I’ve done articles on this as well have found that I guess taking omega 3s specifically with EPA, it’s just more superior in its benefits than DHA. And when we talk about the omega 3s, these can be found in fish. Most of the time, you want to take omega 3s; you see them in the form of fish oils. And this is going back to what Kenna discussed before, like following a Mediterranean diet, which mainly focuses on eating a lot of fish. This is where you get your intake of omega 3s, and research studies have found that omega 3s themselves can help promote heart health, and they can help lower bad cholesterol to your LDL. And these can also improve our metabolism, just like vitamin D.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Want to go ahead and blanket all these things under the fact that we’re also looking, and when we’re dealing with metabolic syndrome, we’re dealing with inflammation. Inflammation and omegas have been known. So what we need to do is to bring out the fact that omegas have been in the American diet, even in a grandma’s diet. And then, like again, we hear back in the day when grandma or great-grandma would give you cod liver oil. Well, the highest omega-carrying fish is the herring, which is at about 800 milligrams per serving. The cod is next when it’s around 600. But because of the availability, the card’s much more available in certain cultures. So everybody would have cod liver oil, and they’d make you close your nose and drink it, and they knew that it correlated. They would think it’s a good lubricant. Still, it was an anti-inflammatory specifically with people, and usually, grandmothers who knew about this right helps with the intestines, helps the inflammation, helps with the joints. They knew the whole story behind that. So we’ll go deep into the Omegas in our later podcast. We have another one that’s here. It’s called berberine, right? What’s the story on berberine?
Astrid Ornelas: Well, pretty much the next set of nutraceuticals that are listed here, berberine, glucosamine, chondroitin, acetyl L-carnitine, alpha-lipoic acid, ashwagandha, pretty much all of these have been tied into what I talked before about chronic pain and all of these health issues. I listed them up here because I’ve done several articles. I’ve read various research studies that have covered these in different trials and across multiple research studies with numerous participants. And these have pretty much found, you know, this group of nutraceuticals here that are listed; these have also been tied in to help reduce chronic pain. You know, and as I discussed before, like chronic pain, you know, people who have fibromyalgia or even like, you know, let’s go a little bit simpler people who have back pain, you know, these inactive people who have sedentary lifestyles simply because of their pain and they can be at risk of metabolic syndrome. A lot of these research studies have found these nutraceuticals themselves can also help reduce chronic pain.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: I think the new one is called alpha-lipoic acid. I see acetyl L-carnitine. We’re going to have our resident biochemist on the following podcast to go deep into these. Ashwagandha is a fascinating name. Ashwagandha. Say it. Repeat it. Kenna, can you tell me a bit about ashwagandha and what we’ve been able to discover about ashwagandha? Because it is a unique name and a component that we look at, we will talk about it more. We’re going to get back to Astrid in a second, but I’m going to give her a little break and kind of like, let Kenna tell me a bit of ashwagandha.
Kenna Vaughn: I was going to add in something about that berberine.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Oh, well, let’s go back to berberine. These are berberine and ashwagandha.
Kenna Vaughn: OK, so that berberine has also been shown to help decrease the HB A1C in patients with blood sugar dysregulation, which will come back to the whole prediabetes and type two diabetes situations that can occur in the body. So that one is also has been shown to decrease that number to stabilize the blood sugar.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: There’s a whole thing we’re going to have on berberine. But one of the things that we did in terms of metabolic syndrome definitely made the top list here for the process. So there’s ashwagandha and berberine. So tell us all about ashwagandha. Also, ashwagandha is the one. So in terms of blood sugar, the A1C is the blood sugar calculation that tells you exactly what the blood sugar does over about three months. The glycosylation of the hemoglobin can be measured by the molecular changes that happen within the hemoglobin. That’s why the Hemoglobin A1C is our marker to determine. So when ashwagandha and berberine come together and use those things, we can alter the A1C, which is the three-month kind of like the historical background of what is going on. We’ve seen changes on that. And that’s one of the things that we do now in terms of the dosages and what we do. We’re going to go over that, but not today because that’s a little bit more complex. Soluble fibers have also been a component of things. So now, when we deal with soluble fibers, why are we talking about soluble fibers? First of all, it is food for our bugs, so we have to remember that the probiotic world is something we cannot forget. People need to understand that, though, that probiotics, whether it’s the Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium strains, whether it’s a small intestine, large intestine, early on the small intestine, there are different bacteria to the very end to see come to the back end. So let’s call that the place that things come out. There are bacteria everywhere at different levels, and each one has a purpose of discovering that. There’s vitamin E and green tea. So tell me, Astrid, about these dynamics in terms of green tea. What do we notice as it pertains to metabolic syndrome?
Astrid Ornelas: OK. So green tea has a lot of benefits, you know? But, you know, some people don’t like tea, and some are more into coffee, you know? But if you want to get into drinking tea, you know, definitely because of its health benefits. Green tea is an excellent place to start and in terms of metabolic syndrome. Green tea has been demonstrated to help improve heart health, and it can help lower these risk factors that pertain to metabolic syndrome. It can help, you know, several research studies that have found that green tea can help lower cholesterol, bad cholesterol, LDLs.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Does green tea help us with our belly fat?
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah. There’s one of the benefits of green tea that I’ve read about. Pretty much one of the ones that probably that it’s most well known for is that green tea can help with weight loss.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Oh my gosh. So basically water and green tea. That’s it, guys. That’s all. We limit our lives that are also, I mean, we forgot even the most powerful thing. It takes care of those ROSs, which are reactive oxygen species, our antioxidants, or oxidants in our blood. So it just basically squelch them and takes them out and cools their cool and prevents even the normal deterioration that happens or the excessive deterioration that occurs in the breakdown of normal metabolism, which is a byproduct which is ROS, reactive oxygen species are wild, crazy oxidants, which we have a neat name for the things that squashes them and calms them and puts them in the order they call antioxidants. So the vitamins that are antioxidants are A, E, and C are antioxidants, too. So those are potent tools that we deal with as we lower body weight. We free up a lot of toxins. And as the green tea goes into squirt, squelch them, cools them, and gets them out of gear. Guess where the other organ that helps with the whole insulin production is, which is the kidneys. The kidneys are flushed out with green tea and then also helps. I notice that one thing that you haven’t done, Astrid, is done articles on turmeric, right?
Astrid Ornelas: Oh, I’ve done a lot of articles on turmeric. I know because, from the list that’s up there, turmeric and curcumin are probably like one of my favorite nutraceuticals to talk about.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, she’s like gnawing on a root and a couple of times.
Astrid Ornelas: Yeah, I have some in my fridge right now.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, you touch that turmeric, and you can lose a finger. What happened to my finger? Did you get near my turmeric? The root, right? So. So tell us a bit about the properties of turmeric and curcumin in terms of metabolic syndrome.
Astrid Ornelas: OK. I’ve done several, you know, a lot of articles on turmeric and curcumin. And we’ve also discussed that before, and several of our past podcasts and turmeric is that it’s that yellow yellowish could look orange to some people, but it’s usually referred to as a yellow root. And it’s very popular in Indian cuisine. It’s what it’s one of the main ingredients that you’ll find in curry. And curcumin, pretty sure some of you people have heard of curcumin or turmeric, you know? What’s the difference? Well, turmeric is the flowering plant, and it’s the root. We eat the root of turmeric, and curcumin is just the active ingredient in turmeric that gives it a yellow color.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Guys, I will not let anything but the top type of curcumin and turmeric products be available to their patients because there’s a difference. Certain ones are produced with literally, I mean, we got solvents, and with the way we get things out and of curcumin and turmeric or even stuff like cocaine, you have to use a distillate. OK? And whether it’s water, acetone, benzene, OK, or some sort of a byproduct, we know today that benzene is used to process many types of supplements, and certain companies use benzene to get the best out of turmeric. The problem is benzene is cancer-producing. So we’ve got to be very careful which companies we use. Acetone, imagine that. So there are processes that are in place to extract the turmeric properly and that are beneficial. So finding suitable turmeric, all turmerics are not the same. And that’s one of the things that we have to assess since it has so many products in the world is running real crazy to try to process turmeric and precisely, even if it’s the last thing that we’re discussing today on our subject matter. But it’s one of the most important things today. We don’t even understand aspirin. We know it works, but the total magnitude of it is yet to be told. However, turmeric is in the same boat. We’re learning so much about it that every day, every month, studies are being produced on the value of turmeric into the natural diet, so Astris is in tune in on the target on that. So I’m sure she’s going to bring more of that to us, right?
Astrid Ornelas: Yes, of course.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So I think what we can do today is when we look at this, I’d like to ask Kenna, when we look at a metabolic syndrome from the presentations of symptoms or even from laboratory studies. The confidence of knowing that N equals one is one of the essential components that we have now in functional medicine and functional wellness practices that a lot of physical medicine doctors are doing in their scope of practice. Because in metabolic issues, you can’t take metabolic away from the body. Does the metabolism happen in a back problem? We notice a correlation with back injuries, back pain, back issues, chronic knee disorders, chronic joint musculoskeletal disorders, and metabolic syndrome. So we can’t tease it. So tell us a bit, Kenna, as we close out today a bit of what a patient can expect when they come to our office, and they get kind of put in the “Oops, you got metabolic syndrome.” So boom, how do we handle it?
Kenna Vaughn: We want to know their background because, as you said, everything is connected; everything is in-depth. There are details we want to get to know all so we can make that personalized plan. So one of the first things we do is a very lengthy questionnaire by Living Matrix, and it’s a great tool. It does take a little while, but it gives us so much insight into the patient, which is great because it allows us to, like I said, dig deep and figure out, you know, traumas that might have happened that are leading to inflammation, which how Astrid was saying then leads that sedentary lifestyle, which then leads to this metabolic syndrome or just kind of down that road. So one of the first things we do is do that lengthy questionnaire, and then we sit down and talk to you one on one. We build a team and make you part of our family because this stuff isn’t easy to go through alone, so the most success is when you have that close-knit family, and you have that support, and we try to be that for you.
Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: We have taken this information and realized it was very complex five years ago. It was challenging. 300 300-page questionnaire. Today we have software that we can figure out. It is backed by the IFM, the Institute of Functional Medicine. The Institute of Functional Medicine had its origin over the last decade and became very popular, understanding the whole person as an individual. You can’t separate an eyeball from kind of the body as you can’t separate the metabolism from all effects that it has. Once that that body and that food, that nutraceutical that nutrient enters our body. On the other side of our mouth is these little weighting things called chromosomes. They’re spinning, and they’re churning, and they’re creating enzymes and proteins based on what we feed them. To find out what’s going on, we have to do an elaborate questionnaire about mental body spirituality. It brings in the mechanics of normal digestion, how the entanglement works, and how the overall living experience happens in the individual. So when we take into consideration Astrid and Kenna together, we kind of figure out the best approach, and we have a tailor-made process for each person. We call it the IFM one, two, and three, which are complex questions that allow us to give you a detailed assessment and an accurate breakdown of where the cause can be and the nutraceuticals the nutrient nutrients that we focus on. We push you right direction to the place where it matters into the kitchen. We end up teaching you and your family members how to feed so that you can be good to those genetic genomes, which you’re, as I always say, ontogeny, recapitulates phylogeny. We are who we are from the past to the people, and those people have a thread between us and my past, and everyone here’s past. And that is our genetics, and our genetics responds to the environment. So whether it goes in the south fast or exposed or predisposed, we’re going to discuss those, and we’re going to enter the world of genomics soon in this process as we go deeper into the metabolic syndrome process. So I thank you all for listening in on us and know that we can be contacted here, and they’re going to leave you the number. But we have Astrid here that’s doing research. We have a team established by many individuals who can give you the best information that applies to you; N equals one. We got Kenna here that there’s always available and we’re here taking care of people in our beautiful little town of El Paso. So thank you again, and look forward to the following podcast, which will probably be within the next couple of hours. Just kidding. All right, bye, guys.
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