Branding Podcast: Basal Metabolic Rate, BMI & BIA

by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | Basal Metabolic Index (BMI), Chiropractic, Fitness, Functional Medicine, Health, Nutrition, Treatments, Weight Loss, Wellness

[00:00:08] Welcome to the Dr. J. Hour with our crew here and our entire staff. We’re gonna be talking today about basal metabolic rate, BMI, and BIA. What does BIA stand for?

[00:00:33] BIA is a bioelectrical impedance analysis. Right. And we’re gonna be talking about weight analysis and figuring things out. We got a couple of guests online. We have Alexander Jimenez. Which is going to come in, pop him in, please. Let’s hear and as you can see him here on the line there. He’s on the corner side of the HDMI. So on the HDMI, you can actually see him. Hey, Alex, how are you doing? Where are you calling from? Where are we getting in with you?

[00:00:58] I’m doing good. I’m calling here from Lombard, Illinois. And what is it you do, Alexander? Right now I’m going to school for chiropractic and ND, which is naturopathic doctor, kind of doing a little bit of a dual degree program here up north.

[00:01:11] All right. That sounds good. We also have on the line here we have Kenna Vaughn, who is the senior health coach over at our domain. We also have two wonderful individuals. We have Truide who is basically the director and the patient flow analysis individual. And we have Astrid, who is the chief editor at Injury Medical Clinic, where she writes and documents everything according to that. Can everyone hear okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. We’re all live. All right. So what we’re gonna be discussing today is the basal metabolic index. Okay. And one of the things that we do here is we’re gonna be able to assess the findings. Ok, so our goal today is to determine exactly what the primary assessment is and the assessment. So stay on me. Stay on me. You know you got that. And what we want to do is we want to see what BMI is and why is it useful? Ok. The main topics are what we’ve used to assess body fat analysis and determine the indications and the reasons…

[00:02:11] We use BMI alongside BIA, along with we got waist circumference variables allows also with waist-hip circumference variables and what it means because what we’re finding today is that these are great analysis tools that can be used to determine nature’s kind of a healthy cadence. It’s like blood pressure. We can kind of assess it. Then as long as we have other assessments and other evaluations, we can come up with a plan to kind of comparative. Now, all of them have their issues and we’re gonna discuss each one of them in the costs and what’s the easiest and most cost-effective methods that we can use. But one of the things that we can do is to see, why would we do this and what are the purposes. Now, there are quite a few reasons for this now in terms of it, what I’ve noticed is I’d like for you to, let’s look at the HDMI, we have the assessments here and we can actually see on the live the origination of this. We can see that there are different types over the history of BMI. We’ve gone from calipers that were just a method of measuring behind the arm, behind the waist, along with kind of in the thigh region. We would come up with a measurement of which we were probably about five to 10 percent away from accuracy. But in that process, even using those as long as you did use it on a consistent basis, you had a comparative accuracy and a method of kind of determining a change in your body dynamics and composition. It may not be accurate, but it was accurately inaccurate if that makes sense. Right. So what we did here is we’ve looked at here on our graph here. We have one thing that’s called the underwater way. But that was the standard. It is a research method. It is one of the most important things. And to determine actually what your body metabolism is we have to use things of oxygen consumption because that’s what determines the great spot of metabolism. The metabolism is controlled by the amount of cellular activity that is happening in the body. So calculating how much oxygen debt and how much oxygen use is a great way of researchers finding it out. But we don’t always have a laboratory that has I’d say, you know, one hundred million dollars of stuff and like a university. So it’s pretty much used in a research setting, the DEXA test, you may have heard it because it’s used as the clinical standard to look at bone density specifically on the hip side and the lumbar spine. We use that to determine things such as osteoporosis, osteopenia. We get a variable number and based on that number we can calculate the changes in bone density. There are certain types of medications we use to determine a better outcome for those that have estrogen deficiency. Some people have radical hysterectomy where they do remove all of both ovaries at a young age for whatever the reason is and the estrogen level is changed at that point a DEXA test every few years is determinable. The standard of care for the DEXA is one every two to three years after the age of about 50 to determine the changes in bone density. Now the skin fold that we just looked at here and you can actually, as I kind of draw it out, forgive me that I’m not drawing this, but we can actually see that the BIA and the skin fold tests are other tests that are easy to find, but as we discussed, are inaccurate. The Body Pod test, as you see here, you can see the cost of it, it’s about thirty to forty thousand. It’s extremely accurate and it allows for your body to relax. Each one of these tests has certain standards. One of the things that we have to do is prep for a BIA test or a BMI test. Now, the BMI is something that calculates an easy way of figuring out just height versus weight. However, someone like Alexander, you are how tall Alex? I am 5′ 8″. So a 5’8″ individual. How much do you weigh when you were at your deep competition and you were at your healthiest. Probably around 195 to 197. If you have a person that is 5′ 8 and 187 and I’ve seen him range from 210 and he’s still shredded as can be, he would be having a very high and he would characteristically show as minimally obese. Now you can tell that he’s not obese. So in essence, the BMI has flaw issues and bone density issues. Also, there are other disorders that sometimes fool you like sarcopenia, which is muscle wasting, and you wouldn’t be able to see the differences between those on the BMI. So what clinical assessments have determined is that the BMI and the BIA can be used together. But we have led a new technological world where we actually measure impedance. Impedance is kind of like the filtering or the kind of slowing of electrons or how fast and how quickly they go through. If electrons travel faster or something, there is low impedance or if it goes slowly through it or takes a longer time, there’s higher impedance or actually a lower flow, which allows us to understand that fat is not good a good conductor.

[00:07:03] So the more fat you have, the indirect relationship is, the slower the electrical current goes, therefore it’s less healthy. So using these electronic methods and what we have used in recent technology, we’ve used different companies such as Tanita, also InBody has an awesome system. We will be discussing those that assess the BIA in a way that it’s the most accurate if the most accurate is underwater weighing. And let’s give that relative value of 1.0 the actual BIA test are so accurate they are at .98. OK, so once we see that ratio, we can see that we’re the closest with the BIA test, specifically with an eight-point contact. Now any point contact means with your fingers, your palm of your hand, that’s two, both hands before. And then you have two points of the foot that can actually hit on each foot and that would be four from the feet if you can send that electrical current through the body. In that way, the BIA assessments such as done by the InBody design, we can actually determine a much more accurate assessment. So as we look at these tests, we can actually see what’s actually going on. So one of the things is we’re going to start looking at different companies and we can actually look at what a BMI is looked at. So BMI is used so you can look at it from a relative number. And it’s measuring kilograms per meter squared. And it’s measuring basically the height of the body, base of the body weight. Right. So the higher the number, as you can see, 25 to 29, you’re going to notice that the person is pretty much overweight. OK. I would venture to say that Alex would just because he’s in a situation where he would actually rate because he’s a much more muscular guy. He would not be healthy. He would basically almost reach close to 30 just because he has a large size and weight. But it’s clearly measuring only height and weight. So in order to determine the true health, that’s where the BIA and its bioelectrical impedance analysis, okay. Right. I should remember the words. So this is very typical. So one of the things is I like to show you here on these things, what kind of, Astrid, show a copy of what a BIA, kind of machine would look like. Okay. We have like here, here we have bioelectrical impedance analysis and this is what it looks like. If you notice, you’ll be able to see. And I’ll kinda take you through here and we can kind of see the ability to look at this particular region. You can see that the palm of the hand has one and you’ll notice the two points on each foot. What we’re missing is the final contact, but it’s eight and it takes only 15 seconds to be .98 versus one. Accuracy is a pretty efficient way.

[00:09:48] It also takes seconds to do this and not 45 minutes to do something like the Body Pod. So one of the things that we have to do is ask ourselves, why would someone do these kinds of things? Why would we do this? There are more accurate, more powerful ones, such as the 550 model, which we do not have in our office. And the model that we have is the 770 in our office. So you can see it’s much more accurate and we’re gonna discuss exactly what goes on. But one of the things we want to do is how could someone do something at home that is logical? Kenna, you got some thoughts on how someone could check out their basic health by doing some measurements? What are those measurements?

[00:10:25] Right. So one thing that’s really easy to do at home is gonna be to check your waist circumference, which is relatively cheap. You just need one of those flexible tape measurers you can get at the dollar store or it comes in almost all your basic sewing kits. And what you’re going to do is just gonna stand up nice and straight and you’re going to take that tape measurer, you’re going to want to make sure that you have no bulky clothes on. It’s best done just right on the skin. And you’re going to take it and you’re gonna fold it around where your belly button lies because that’s generally the largest part of your waist. So you’re just gonna wrap it around. You don’t want it to be too tight where it’s squeezing you or anything like that, because that’s going to give you inaccurate results. Take a deep breath in and on your exhale. That’s when you’re gonna get the best measurement and it’s best to do it about three times that way you make sure you’re really getting that accurate read.

[00:11:12] And what is that going to give us in terms of, what’s the circumference going to give us in terms of the assessment?

[00:11:18] What will we get from measuring our girth. That’s gonna help to see if you’re high risk for cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes. If you hold more of your fat around your abdomen, it shows that individuals are at higher risk for developing these later on in their life.

[00:11:34] Got it. Got it. There’s another one that we’ve used that most people can use at home.

[00:11:40] It’s a really simple one, which is that one? That one’s gonna be the waist to hip ratio. So you are going to start with that waist ratio that I just explained. But in addition to that measurement, you’re going to go ahead and also take your hip circumference.

[00:11:53] Alexander, one of the things that you did when you did your competition, when you were doing your stuff as a competitor, one of the things that you were doing is you were competing and weight was very important. Tell us what how that kind of stuff affected you and how could the BIA be useful in the world of, let’s say high-performance collegiate wrestling?

[00:12:15] So when it came to wrestling, there were a couple of different things that you just do to strategically approach the season, so the season is around six months. Most of the time wrestlers tend to gain weight in the offseason. So you do a couple of different things at the beginning of the season, they would have you use a caliper by a trained individual and they would measure your body fat and do a pretty much a calculation to see how much weight you could lose in a timely manner that was considered healthy for an average individual. And these individuals were allowed to cut a certain amount of weight within that time frame. So you kind of they pretty much gave you a plan of what you could and could not cut. I think the lowest I was ever allowed to cut was 184. And kind of just showing you kind of what’s going on here. So what they would do is kind of show you what your BMI is. I’m going to switch over to my screen here and you can kind of see just kind of just the reference ranges here. So below 18.5, they have underweight 18.5 to the rest of this kind of going into those reference ranges. And like Kenna was saying, they were doing an analysis depending on what type you had. So there’s a couple you have, your android, which is more of that apple-shaped and then your pear, which is gynoid. So they would measure for females and males completely different. So as your approach, you would either take a couple different dietary regimens and kind of approach to a different aspect of how you would go to cutting weight. So whether it was certain people did better just doing fats and protein. Some people did better just managing their carbs. Some people did better just lowering their caloric intake. So by having that BMI, you can see what your total calorie output for the day for living costs is a good way of saying it. So what’s the cost of living for every day for all your cells to function and what or how much exercise you would do. So most of us were burning between 1000 to 1800 calories between running in the morning or working out and then a two and a half hour to three-hour wrestling practice, which is all cardio intensive training. So as the month went on, we were allowed to cut weight and they would measure the weight that we were cutting at each tournament. So we were kind of scanned in, in a way to allow for us to cut weight correctly. One thing that they did start implementing when I joined, when I started wrestling in high school, was morning weigh-ins, which prevented people from really cutting weight the wrong way and not having a good benefit, because before you could cut all this amount of weight and you’d still have a 15, 16-hour window to replenish all those glycogen storages and gain 15 to 20 pounds depending on how dehydrated you are. So it was not a very healthy approach to cutting weight in that sense. So now with everything that’s going on, athletes are training smarter.

[00:15:01] They’re cutting weight better. They’re managing pretty much themselves a lot better in that aspect.

[00:15:07] So this is a great example of when you use these assessments. I remember as we’ve done a lot with the wrestling, one of the way that the university got involved and they do BIAs for people, but for the athletes, they start them out with the standard specific gravity test and that’s a urine test to determine which protein is within their urine. Also, there are electrolytes such as potassium, sodium, calcium. If the person is highly dehydrated, what happens is the specific gravity rises and they also measure specific gravity. In the beginning, it’s something to be able to measure. And we can say that the kid who weighs 200 pounds, his specific gravity is a certain amount. Right. So we don’t want a kid cutting down with the specific gravity of their body concentration. Blood constriction is too high because that means they’re dehydrated. Those individuals can, once we got that number, we can assess the person, not just with body weight, but we can use BIA to follow them through the season in a much more accurate way. So that allows a very expensive test, which is a specific gravity to go through the BIAs. We also have issues and we’re going to touch upon these. But there are other special dynamics that parents can be involved and parents like Truide, you’re a parent of an athlete. What would you want to know in a BIA?

[00:16:22] Well, I have two athletes. Well, basically, I guess at what point is it safe with children to start watching, you know, and being concerned about, you know, BIA? Because certainly as young adolescents, you don’t want them prone to having eating disorders or being so self-conscious about their body composition that then you have other types of side effects of psychological approaches. So that will be one of my concerns. When is it safe from a parental stand to be watching about BIA and BMI?

[00:16:59] You know, that’s a very good question. And I guess what we would want to know is that we know that our kids are healthy when they’re with us, but when they’re going through certain dynamic changes. We want to follow up. We want to see when is it getting too concentrated? When is the kid losing too much protein? When is the child running the risk of hurt because we do have the stories of the 180 pounder cutting down to 135. That individual is not only running themselves at risk. But in the world that they’re wrestling someone, their own body weight, they’re running the risk of being injured. So as a parent, I see that very important. The BIA offers us the ability to be able to quantify and to see the measurable changes as the child goes through the process. Now, if you can look at these areas, now there are other areas. And one of the things that we have here, our chief editor has found out some really interesting dynamics, specifically how assessing BMI actually has other consequences and things that we can assess for those things. Astrid, one of the things that you’ve seen in the process when you have gone through the process, tell us a little bit about what you’ve found out about the BMI and BIA in terms of brain health.

[00:18:09] OK. So there are actually quite a few research studies that have been conducted on pretty much the importance of BMI and BIA and why it’s, you know, we all want to know these, I guess, these values so that, you know, because obesity or having excess weight, you know, which you use BMI and BIA to determine, you know, it can affect a variety of functions. And like you said, research studies have actually found that obesity can actually affect your brain health. And there’s actually like probably one of the biggest things like there are several things that obesity, can affect brain health because it increases inflammation in your body and it could even speed up the neurodegeneration process like your brain ages a lot faster.

[00:19:09] Wait a second. Wait a second. So, it actually makes your brain kind of lose its intelligence.

[00:19:15] I wouldn’t say it makes you lose your intelligence. It just makes it work slower. Slower. Yes. Ok.

[00:19:21] So brains that get smaller. Or let’s say dementia. Well, let’s say the brain becomes, loses its size and dimension.

[00:19:29] So those things we could, are correlated to BMI as well.

[00:19:34] Well, you want to know your, it’s important to know your BMI or your BIA.

[00:19:39] You know, interchangeably like depending on what would it be more important to know or the person? Because like research studies have found that if you have excess weight or if you have obesity, that it can actually change the size of your brain and it can decrease or just alter the gray matter and the white matter of the brain and that can age your brain a lot faster and it can slow down your cognitive functions and it can even affect your memory. And you’ll have a harder time remembering things simply by having excess weight.

[00:20:25] I read something today that said even dopamine is affected by, the production of dopamine potentially is correlatable or associated with BMI values.

[00:20:36] Ok. So what scientists have found is that if you have a lot of excess weight, you know, if you’re overweight or if you have, you’re a person with obesity.

[00:20:49] The thing is that.

[00:20:52] Excess weight or obesity, it can go as far as affecting what’s known as your pleasure and reward center of the brain. And that is, it’s pretty much the region of the brain that controls the release of dopamine. Just being like having obesity in itself could even cause your brain to release less amount of dopamine. And that can cause a variety of mental health issues. And it could even lead to depression just by having excess weight.

[00:21:26] So BMI, you know, let’s pop it up first to Alexander, make his screen bigger, let’s go to the HDMI. He’s noticed some things here. Alex, can you tell us a bit about what you’re actually putting up on there?

[00:21:36] Perfect. So you guys can see my screen right there? Yes, we sure can. Awesome. So like Astrid was saying that adipose tissue does have an effect on certain things.

[00:21:46] We have to take a look at adipose tissue at the cellular level. Normally, adipose tissue, large amounts in certain areas were meant for producing hormones and not all adipose tissue is created equally. So we could see that, here’s the average individual that would have what people call a beer gut. And here’s the pear-shaped as what a normal individual would have as well, for most females. So we could see that we have pear, which would be gynoid, and android, which would be apple. But we could see that males who tend to have these tend to produce a little bit more estrogen, affects the males differently. We can also see the ratio of significant health risks. So males have a 95 percent increase in percentage for developing other health risks while females are different. Now, when it comes to losing this type of way, we have to keep in mind that not all adipose tissue is created equally, as my professor likes to say. So we can see that even though we have the same amount of adipose tissue in both areas, they’re in completely different areas.

[00:22:48] So most of the time you’ll hear the saying that some women have trouble losing weight, which is correct because of their adipose tissue located in different areas. It’s not as metabolically active, which is good for them because they don’t produce as much hormones from it. They don’t get much stress from it. Now, on the other hand, the visceral fat releases hormones and this is the one that is problematic to individuals but can also be reduced a lot quicker. So when you’re kind of coming down to the breakdown of the main macromolecules of the bodies, we could see there were 5 percent minerals, calcium, 15 percent fat, 1 percent carbs, and 60 percent water mostly. So we can kind of see what the reference ranges are here for the reference man aged 20 to 24 years and the reference woman 20 to 24. And coming back to Mrs. Truide when she was mentioning what is the safe and recommended way? Well, it’s hit and miss. It’s different from males and females. For males you want to keep anywhere between always stay above 3 percent body fat, anything below that becomes detrimental and your body starts to break down. But for females, on the other hand, we can see that once they start dropping below 15 percentage, they actually will miss their period if it drops below that. So if a female athlete or a tri triathlete does this, it will, honestly. So there’s been cases where female athletes develop osteoporosis just because they produce less estrogen, only because they drop below that 15 percent body weight. And females need more adipose tissue than men. It’s just the way we came through evolution and we were designed and it’s just the way it is and needs to be. So for females, as long as they’re above 15 percent body fat, they’re always gonna be healthy. For males, it’s a long as long as it’s above 3 percent, they’re always going to be healthy. It’s very hard to attain 3 percent for males, but as long as they usually stay between this, you can kind of see what body masses, lean body masses muscle on kind of the breakdown of everything from there.

[00:24:48] Answering the question regarding Truide’s particular question, cause that’s the bottom line is, what is the 25-year-old mom? What is the mom that’s 27, 28 years old with a five year old little boy, with a 10 year old little boy. What is she got to do? Go ahead and put up the 550 up there for me. What we’re looking at here is we want to be able to quantify these things. And one of the things I’d like to show you that is available in today’s research is the ability to determine certain things. Body composition analysis takes a lot of different studies and a lot of different dynamics in its research. We’ve been able to look at questions that are more specific for someone like Truide and her child to be able to assess the variable changes, body composition. And we’re going to follow up with the follow up videos discussing this particular issue. But the studies today, we can actually see in this particular area that we can assess muscle body fat analysis and the ranges versus the total body fat. We can look at obesity analysis and we can measure the ranges, Ok? We can look at percent body fat. We can look at extremity segmental lean body analysis versus one arm versus the other. This particularly comes in and true because let’s assume someone has an ACL injury on the right leg or left leg. You’ll notice that there will be a variation of body mass changes and to be able to determine if the body protein in that leg is getting more developed, in a leg that has noted atrophy there will be obvious changes in terms of the amount of protein or the amount of difference in percent body fat as well as water retention in that area. If someone has a swollen knee, you can also see the difference. Now the total area and the body weight, we can start measuring and just start noticing this. This is what helps mother Truide’s around the world understand the continuous. You’ll notice down here on the bottom that there are reference dates here where we can actually see the changes as time goes by. And once you see the changes as time goes by, it gives you a lot better tools. Now, the other thing that we’ve noticed here in terms of this particular area is the awareness that we can actually do visceral body fat that Alexander referred to. We want to be able to see what is inside the body. Now, visceral body fat is if you open a body up, there’s fat that surrounds each area, like the liver, the intestines. We call it the peritoneal area, Pernille, area that basically holds the body fat and holds the amount of tissue to protect it. And that’s how nature has done it. But we want to know how much it is. And if it does produce hormones that are bad like cortisol or produces hormones, that we know about that for a different video, we can see that that would mean not good. So the person with fat that’s around the viscera is at higher risk. So that analysis and to be able to give a point and see the changes is very important. So one of the things is that we can do. And as we talked about here, you can actually see the impedance by the individual depending on which extremity it is. So the tests on a regular basis, those simple as that may be standing on a thing. They’re very complex and very accurate. So it does bode well for someone that really needs it, that has a family that is going through these kinds of techniques so that we can reassess. Initially, you can start someone with a, to be real detailed and to be accountable to the individual by specific gravity to determine the concentration of body, metabolites in the body, and the proteins, and the level of dehydration the person may have. Then you can follow up with a BIA repetitively through the history of a season and you can really get a lot of information as to how your child is going if it’s a healthy form of weight loss. So, Alex, I notice that you put up some things up there. Can you open that up? And you’re putting up some interesting dynamics there. What is it that you’re noticing there? What did you put there?

[00:28:32] So we can see that these are some of the graphs that I just got from classes here so we can see that correlation is not cause for causation, but it does correlate to the data of many individuals. This was taken from a study. And what they found is that people with a higher body mass index tend to have a higher risk for certain diseases, such as cardiovascular disease or cancer or all other causes, just illnesses in general. And we also have to keep in mind that women do have more receptors for those hormones produced by adipose tissue. So they are more susceptible to cancers. So we have to ask ourselves, what is the point of, you know, losing weight besides just the cancer thing? So we come down here, we can just see the correlation of the lifestyle of individuals just if they lose 10 percent body weight. So if their obesity is decreased, their life expectancy increases for about seven years. But not only that, but you can see where the circle of lifestyle changes for this individual who not only begins to change their lifestyle but also operates those healthy choices into their daily environment.

[00:29:42] Makes sense. So these are very, very important things to assess on a regular basis. So what I’ve learned is the BIA, BMI, in general, is a very important method to be able to assess the overall health and the progression of health. So we want to get a better BMI and we want to get a better, be able to assess the regions of the body and to assess the dynamics of what someone can do to monitor their true health. We’re going to be following through with follow-up studies and the follow-up information and on these follow-up programs to teach about what we use here in our little town of El Paso, which is a big town. But we’re gonna be bringing families. We’re gonna be bringing athletes to discuss those things. We’re gonna get real technical right on the screen right now. We have a real interesting dynamics to the level that we’re gonna be pushing the knowledge of. Can you pull back to the screen? You actually can see it right there. You can actually see biochemistry. And we have our resident and biochemistry expert right there. Alexander, tell us what we’re looking at there.

[00:30:46] So here we’re kind of going through the synthesis of cholesterol and what it takes to actually produce cholesterol. So it’s kind of a very complex pathway. But we can also see that it takes your body a lot of stress to really produce high cholesterol levels as well as cortisol levels. So kind of coming into the main breakdown of what kind of goes down, if you have a very increased dietary cholesterol intake, not only are you putting more stress on the liver, but you’re also increasing more LDL. LDL just tends to be bad in general because the LDL is…

[00:31:23] I’m sorry, Alex was is LDL?

[00:31:25] Low-density lipoprotein. Got it. So the problem with the low-density lipoproteins is that their main job is to drop off the correct cholesterol to the proper levels. Now if they turn into LDLs, the problem is that if they don’t get reabsorbed by the liver or a good way, I think of it as, they are thought of as a suicide bomber. Pretty much so. What they do is they deposit. If they don’t deposit and don’t get absorbed by the liver because the liver is being bombarded by too much cholesterol, they will actually deposit themselves into other tissues, specifically the epithelial lining of the extracellular part of capillaries. Then at that point macrophages will actually try to eat them up and create these things called foam cells. Foam cells tend to aggregate and they’re really large cells that have no purpose other than to aggregate within the layers of the capillaries.

[00:32:24] Is that what the protective mechanism, is that what the body does?

[00:32:27] It pretty much just tries to seal it off so it can’t affect anything else. But in doing so, it clogs arteries.

[00:32:33] Okay. So BMI would be able to determine the overall health of the body and fat. So it would tend to, we would tend to say that a person with a, let’s say a high BMI, extremely high BMI and the obese level would have more of this action happening. Right?

[00:32:49] Exactly. But we also have to take a look at a different thing. So let’s say this person is already morbidly obese and their cholesterol is high. So they go to an M.D., their M.D. gives them a statin. So statins are good to an extent. So, yes, they’re going to decrease the level of cholesterol, but they’re also going to decrease. See if I can find it here. The levels of all these other hormones being produced because cholesterol is the driving force for all these hormones. So if you are decreasing your cholesterol, you are decreasing for women their progesterone for men, their testosterone, their dihydrotestosterone was kind of what people describe as the old man’s strength. As you get older, you produce more DHT, but you’re also decreasing these. Not only are you decreasing cholesterol, but you’re also decreasing by 50 percent coenzyme-Q. Coenzyme-Q it was the main electron transporter for the electron transport chain and it transports electrons that certain parts in the pathway which we won’t go into. But if you decrease that by 50 percent, most of these people feel tired all the time. And what’s the tissue that has the most mitochondria in the entire body? Muscle. The heart. Oh, okay. So the heart. So not only are they decreasing their energy levels, they’re decreasing the ability of their actual lifeline, pretty much, their heart to produce and pump blood and get energy. So by just decreasing body weight, decreasing cholesterol intake in a moderate amount because cholesterol is good, we need it for everything. Too much of one thing can kill you, though. So within moderate amounts, exercise, dietary regimens, you won’t need to be put on statins and you can be weaned off of those in time as your cholesterol levels get to an appropriate level.

[00:34:37] That’s amazing, Alex. So that’s at the microscopic level. At the macroscopic level, we can assess that by visceral fat. So the more visceral fat you got, the more hormones you got going haywire. And it’s fair to say that we have a situation where you’re less healthy with visceral fat. Ok. So does anyone else have any input in here? Any other questions that you would want to know about Mrs. Truide as a mom of athletes?

[00:35:02] No, I guess just the woman on a side note, if all of this is very complex. The bottom line is if you’re having to lay down in your bed to tie your jeans, you’re not having a healthy BMI.

[00:35:14] That’s very true. Right. So basically, if your gut hangs over, you’re in trouble, right? So that’s where you can use the simple tests of the waist circumference or the waist-hip balance. And if pretty much the belly is three inches bigger than the hips, you are probably at a BMI that you shouldn’t have. So I hope. OK, go ahead. Astrid, you want to say something.

[00:35:36] So essentially, it’s just super important to find out your, I guess, your BMI or your BIA interchangeably pretty much for overall health, because just having excess weight, as we’ve found out here, it can affect a whole variety of functions. Brain health, cardiovascular, health, and finding your BMI and your BIA seems like such an easy, you know, like an easy way to kind of find out if your weight is like at a healthier range. And it all kind of goes like hand-in-hand with all these things, as you’ve explained and as Alex explained. Pretty much like being, having obesity or excess weight, it can just disrupt our entire body, our entire system.

[00:36:37] Exactly. Kenna. Any other comments in terms of specifics on questions?

[00:36:43] Not for questions, just for that waist to hip ratio. We’re gonna want to make sure that for women, they’re under one. And the same thing for males. So you’re gonna divide your waist by your hip ratio to get that number. Right.

[00:36:58] So the numerator hopefully won’t be too bigger than the denominator, right? Yeah. So that would be the numerator would be the waist and the denominator would be the hip. Right. So we want to keep those in line. So all those kinds of things are very important. We’ve learned a lot today. We’re going to come back with a much more elaborate and we’re gonna splice this up in many ways. I want to thank Alexander for coming in from Illinois at the National University of Health Sciences way out there. This probably about 2000 miles away. We have Truide, Mrs. Truide who’s giving us a point of view. We have Astrid who’s given us the scientific approach of the brain and dopamine connection. But we also need to know that there’s a lot of reasons why the BMI. As we learn every day through the NCBI research institutes of information, that there are lots of reasons why to keep a BMI low and also to make sure you watch your BIAs in time. So we look forward to bringing it to you. And we thank you for watching us and we look forward to giving more information. Alexander, thank you so much for coming from a distance and making it real cool for us all.

[00:38:01] Ok, thank you. Thank you for having me. You’re welcome. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Additional Topic Discussion: Chronic Pain

Sudden pain is a natural response of the nervous system which helps to demonstrate possible injury. By way of instance, pain signals travel from an injured region through the nerves and spinal cord to the brain. Pain is generally less severe as the injury heals, however, chronic pain is different than the average type of pain. With chronic pain, the human body will continue sending pain signals to the brain, regardless if the injury has healed. Chronic pain can last for several weeks to even several years. Chronic pain can tremendously affect a patient’s mobility and it can reduce flexibility, strength, and endurance.

Neural Zoomer Plus for Neurological Disease

Dr. Alex Jimenez utilizes a series of tests to help evaluate neurological diseases. The Neural Zoomer^TM Plus is an array of neurological autoantibodies which offers specific antibody-to-antigen recognition. The Vibrant Neural Zoomer^TM Plus is designed to assess an individual�s reactivity to 48 neurological antigens with connections to a variety of neurologically related diseases. The Vibrant Neural Zoomer^TM Plus aims to reduce neurological conditions by empowering patients and physicians with a vital resource for early risk detection and an enhanced focus on personalized primary prevention.

Food Sensitivity for the IgG & IgA Immune Response

Dr. Alex Jimenez utilizes a series of tests to help evaluate health issues associated with a variety of food sensitivities and intolerances. The Food Sensitivity Zoomer^TM is an array of 180 commonly consumed food antigens that offers very specific antibody-to-antigen recognition. This panel measures an individual�s IgG and IgA sensitivity to food antigens. Being able to test IgA antibodies provides additional information to foods that may be causing mucosal damage. Additionally, this test is ideal for patients who might be suffering from delayed reactions to certain foods. Utilizing an antibody-based food sensitivity test can help prioritize the necessary foods to eliminate and create a customized diet plan around the patient�s specific needs.

Gut Zoomer for Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)

Dr. Alex Jimenez utilizes a series of tests to help evaluate gut health associated with small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). The Vibrant Gut Zoomer^TM offers a report that includes dietary recommendations and other natural supplementation like prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols. The gut microbiome is mainly found in the large intestine and it has more than 1000 species of bacteria that play a fundamental role in the human body, from shaping the immune system and affecting the metabolism of nutrients to strengthening the intestinal mucosal barrier (gut-barrier). It is essential to understand how the number of bacteria that symbiotically live in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract influences gut health because imbalances in the gut microbiome may ultimately lead to gastrointestinal (GI) tract symptoms, skin conditions, autoimmune disorders, immune system imbalances, and multiple inflammatory disorders.

Formulas for Methylation Support

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Modern Integrated Medicine

The National University of Health Sciences is an institution that offers a variety of rewarding professions to attendees. Students can practice their passion for helping other people achieve overall health and wellness through the institution’s mission. The National University of Health Sciences prepares students to become leaders in the forefront of modern integrated medicine, including chiropractic care. Students have an opportunity to gain unparalleled experience at the National University of Health Sciences to help restore the natural integrity of the patient and define the future of modern integrated medicine.