Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions
with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.
Now, here's Dr. Todd.
Good afternoon.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, practitioner of functional medicine and non-force doctor of chiropractic.
Functional medicine means using standard medical tests, mainly blood tests, but also hair tests,
urine tests, stool tests, any kind of test that's necessary to identify your body burden
of toxins.
We've been talking about heavy metals this past couple of episodes.
We're going to talk a little bit more about heavy metals today and some exciting cases
that we're able to help people by getting rid of those heavy metals.
So functional medicine means using tests to identify conditions that other doctors miss,
mainly because they don't do these tests.
Most doctors do not test for any kind of toxic exposure.
Most doctors don't do all of the tests that I do when I order a blood test.
I usually order a 55-point blood panel.
It's about $1,400.
It would cost your insurance company if your doctor ordered all of those tests.
That's why they don't order it routinely.
They're only going to order the tests that they suspect will identify or confirm a diagnosis
that they've made based on your physical exam and your case history.
If they suspect you have diabetes, they'll test your A1C.
They'll always check a few things, your electrolytes, your protein levels, some kidney and liver
function tests, and your cholesterol.
Usually that's about it.
They might do a CBC if they expect an infection or anemia.
They might do your thyroid test if they suspect that you have low thyroid.
But basically they're using tests to confirm a preliminary diagnosis they make based on
your case history and maybe a physical exam or some other data they gather when they see
you.
So they don't order all these tests because they're literally medically unnecessary.
Medical necessity means you need to do this test to confirm a diagnosis.
So they are.
The tests I order are most often medically unnecessary.
That doesn't mean they're not important.
They are necessary to identify how healthy you are.
The practice of medicine is to treat disease you already have.
It has nothing to do with identifying whether or not you're healthy.
When you go in to most doctors and they say you're fine, that doesn't mean you're healthy.
There's no way they can tell that if they haven't even looked to see most of the time.
If you're healthy, they haven't checked to see if all of your organs, your liver, your
kidneys, your immune system, your thyroid, your digestive system are working at 100%
peak function or at least peak expected function for your age and condition.
They never test for that.
So it's sad really that anyone thinks they're healthy if they go to some doctor who just
does standard medical tests, a few brief panel of blood work, and says you're fine.
Please never, never assume that that means you're healthy.
A workup like that does not check for health.
It's only checking to see if you have a disease that requires medical care that day.
Do you need a prescription for some medicine?
Do you need a further, a CAT scan or an MRI or referral to a specialist?
If not, then you're fine.
It doesn't mean you're healthy.
So I check to see if you're healthy by doing some more tests.
That $1,400, 55-point blood panel that I do on most of my patients, probably about 80%
of the time I'll order that panel.
I get that for $225, $225.
So you have to pay out of pocket.
Insurance will not pay for it if you order it through me.
I'll give you the list.
You can email me.
I'll send you the list right now.
If you can get your doctor to order those tests, then you don't have to pay for them
out of pocket.
You just have to pay me to interpret them and give you a plan of action to deal with
whatever shows up on the tests.
But the other problem is even if your, most doctors order all those tests, again, they're
only looking for signs of things that need medical care.
So they're using the standard lab ranges that have been established to diagnose and treat
certain conditions.
So if your fasting glucose is above 125 on two separate occasions or if your A1C, the
test that measures your average glucose over a three to four month period, is above 6.4,
then you have diabetes.
That is the diagnosis for diabetes.
And so there's similar ways to diagnose medical conditions based on blood tests and other
tests.
And, you know, so those are the ranges they use.
But in addition to that range, which I also use, it's important, in addition to that functional
practitioners test, is a narrower range, roughly the middle third, it varies, but a narrower
range of identifying issues on the same test.
So a narrower range to see if there's a problem with your kidneys or your liver or your digestive
tract or your immune system.
A narrower range, what's the acceptable amount of protein in your body?
You can be told your protein levels are fine, when they're not.
Most people are functionally deficient in protein.
You need protein to heal and repair every cell in your body.
You need protein to make immunoglobulins for your immune system to work, to build muscle
tissue, to make collagen, to maintain strong bones and skin and joints.
So everyone needs protein and a lot of people are told they have adequate amounts when they
do not.
So that's the difference between functional medicine and standard medical practice.
And again, another common example of something that functional practitioners do that most
doctors, most traditional practitioners do not do, is test for heavy metals and other
toxins.
So we talked a lot about heavy metals in the last two episodes, but as I was going through
my notes, I found some more things and actually some more information has come out in the
news recently that I didn't get to.
It was buried further down in my notes.
So anyway, here's a report that came out.
It was a new report.
It was a report done by Consumer Reports.
So heavy metals are bad for everyone, but they're really bad for children, infants especially.
So the younger you are, the younger your brain is, the more devastating it's going to be
on your health, on your brain, on your propensity to get an autoimmune condition of some kind
or a debilitating condition like fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue later in life.
So Consumer Reports tested 45 packaged fruit juices.
So fruit juices, right?
Most parents give, many, many parents, you see it all the time, it's a common thing to
give kids fruit juice.
Fruit juice is not good for anybody.
No one should drink fruit juice.
Fruit juice is mostly sugar.
Kids, I mean, you know, it's hard to get kids just to drink water.
But tomato juice, vegetable juice would be better.
I don't know what the solution to that is.
You know, you can make drinks with water and alternative sweeteners that actually taste
good.
If you think there's no alternative sweeteners that actually taste good, then email me and
I'll tell you about the ones that I have found because most alternative sweeteners taste
terrible.
But there are some good ones.
Anyway, I don't know what the solution is, a good replacement is for fruit juice for
kids.
But here's a reason not to give it to kids.
So Consumer Reports tested 45 packaged fruit juices, all the common brands that you see
on store shelves.
And 21 of them had unsafe levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.
Every product they tested had a measurable amount of at least one heavy metal.
And 21 of the samples, 47%, had a combination of heavy metals that researchers deemed concerning
for daily consumption.
The metals found in seven of the 21 samples had the potential to harm children who only
drank a half a cup per day.
So these are the common brands of fruit juices that you see in your grocery store that parents
give their kids all the time and out of the test of 47, 45 packaged fruit juices and seven
of them had the potential to harm children by only drinking a half a cup a day.
Well, how many kids, how many families do you know, the kids are drinking this stuff
more than half a cup and drinking it almost every day.
So look that up, just Google heavy metals in fruit juice and you'll see that you can
find the consumer report, see the brands they were testing.
And you know, the companies of course say, oh, this is ridiculous.
These things aren't safe.
There's no proof that they're not safe.
Well, the way most companies decide whether or not something is safe does not include
testing people who are taking these things every day and the long term effects, especially.
So all of these, whenever you hear some company that's making some toxic products says, oh,
it's never been proven to be toxic.
Well, not proving that it's toxic isn't proving that it's safe, number one.
And when they do test to see that they're safe, it's usually really poorly designed
tests that only tests, you know, insufficient amounts, amounts different to what people
are actually consuming.
And it never measures over long periods of time.
They test it, you know, if you don't drop dead after consuming a standard serving of
their product after three months or a week or whatever short period of time they test
and they say it's safe.
But people are having these things every day for years or frequently over periods of years.
And that's when the problems start to show up.
So yeah, that's a sad thing to hear.
Fruit juices are dangerous, loaded, but often laced with dangerous amounts of heavy metals.
So look up, look that up for more information or send me an email to help you figure out,
you know, maybe an alternative, but that's important to understand.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.
You're listening to Safe, Effective, and Natural Solutions to almost any health challenge.
I'm talking a little bit more about heavy metals again, but I want to get to something
that I keep moving forward on my list here.
And it doesn't deal with heavy metals, but it was in the news recently.
It's important to understand.
And the headline is, Do Gas Stoves Worsen Lung Disease?
The debate continues.
So there's some studies that came out that using a gas stove, cooking with gas in your
kitchen at home can worsen.
So they did basically prove that if you have asthma already, if you have basically any
lung condition, emphysema, any difficulty breathing, bronchitis, any condition with
your lungs or your bronchioles, breathing difficulty, then breathing the toxic fumes
from the regular natural gas that you burn on a stove in your kitchen can make that condition
worse.
Well, natural gas is toxic.
You know, it's dangerous because it can catch on fire and explode too.
But breathing even small amounts of it over and over and over again is toxic.
It is dangerous.
So it's a frustrating thing because I cook with gas.
I would never want an electric stove.
It's better.
You say everyone should get electric stoves if you want to just do something else to eliminate
your exposure to something that's toxic, especially for your lungs and your brain because anything
you breathe in is going to hit your brain very quickly.
And the natural gas is toxic.
You don't want to breathe that stuff.
Well, under normal circumstances, when you're burning it, it's breaking it down into things
that are at least much, much, much less toxic.
But the real solution, if you have a gas stove in your house, is ventilation.
So anytime I start, you know, the worst exposure is when you're starting, when you're turning
the gas stove on, when you turn the gas on in that couple of seconds before it's lit.
And even while it's lighting, there's gas that's just coming up into the air and you're
standing right in front of it.
You're going to be breathing that stuff.
So what I do is I turn on the fan.
If you've got a good fan, here's not a good fan.
If you've got a microwave or a hood above your stove, above your gas stove, and it's
got a fan with a little vent on the top of it, and it's just blowing the air from the
stove, kind of sucking it away from the stove, but blowing it up towards the ceiling in the
room, then don't waste your time.
That's not doing anything.
If you have a good hood above your stove or even a microwave, can be vented with a pipe,
with a duct that goes through the roof, then that is sucking the whatever's coming from
the gas out through you.
That's what you want.
You want to ventilate.
You want it to, when you're starting the gas stove, just turn on the fan above the stove
to suck that gas out so you're not breathing it on high.
And then once the stove is lit and you're starting to cook, most of those fans have
a low setting.
Leave it on low while you're cooking.
If you can, crack a window to let some fresh air in, flush that gas out, especially if
you have bronchitis, if you have asthma, if you have anybody with a sensitive issue to
their bronchioles or lungs.
So we're going to go back to heavy metals again.
So we've been talking about heavy metals the last two episodes, continuing this week.
So I did get a lot of questions about the sources.
You know, Todd, please tell me about how to avoid some of these things, where everyone
knows that there's mercury in fish.
Everyone should know that there's mercury in quote unquote silver fillings or what are
technically called amalgam fillings.
Most dentists don't put those in your mouth anymore.
If you're going to a dentist that does get a different dentist, no one should put amalgam
fillings in their mouth anymore because there's mercury makes them hard.
And that's why they last long and they're cheap, but they're durable.
But they also, you know, leach mercury into your bloodstream, into your brain.
And you know, nobody should have those.
So you can go also directly to Doctors Data.
Doctors Data is the premier lab in the U.S. for testing heavy metals.
And you can go to their website and just look for the test menu, toxic and essential elements.
DoctorsData.com, go to test menu, toxic and essential elements, hair toxic element exposure
profile is the full name of the test.
And it says right here on their website, what is this test useful for?
Tactic element exposure from excessive food consumption can cause alopecia, hair loss,
depression, fatigue, malabsorption of nutrients, hypertension, high blood pressure, impaired
glucose tolerance, disrupted kidney function, Parkinson's like symptoms, sexual impotence
or decreased testosterone, vision problems.
And that's just a partial list.
And then you can go over on the right side of the page here and it says view sample report.
So when you pull up a sample report, you see all the things that are tested remain the
concern with arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium and uranium.
They test several dozen other minerals, some for research purposes.
This tests the nutrient minerals as well to see if you're deficient in some minerals.
Well, that's not the best way to test for nutrient deficiencies.
Blood test is better for most essential nutrient deficiencies.
But some of the trace elements will show a deficiency on a hair test like chromium or
selenium or vanadium, a few others.
But on the, you know, you see that the, in the color of the first page, it shows you
the results.
And then if you keep scrolling down, you'll see the sources of all these things.
So you know, aluminum is in aluminum cookware, containers, kitchen utensils, automobile and
airplane components, building materials.
You can get exposed to aluminum, aluminum alloys have other minerals bound to them.
Well, aluminum is not, it is neurotoxic at high levels.
It takes quite a bit.
It's not as dangerous as lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic and uranium, but excessive, early
symptoms of excessive aluminum burden may include fatigue, headache and a few other
symptoms.
Uranium is present at varying levels throughout the U.S. in drinking water, in root vegetables
and high phosphate fertilizers.
So a lot of chemical fertilizers, high phosphate chemical fertilizers have high amounts of
uranium as well.
Other sources include ceramics, colored glass, many household products, cleaning products
and obviously uranium tailings from uranium mines.
If you live downhill or down river from a uranium mine, even if it was hundreds of years
ago when that was being, well, a hundred decades ago, you can be exposed to uranium in the
water that way and spent uranium rods are sometimes milled into armor piercing bullets
and missile heads and the firing mechanisms in certain munitions have toxic heavy metals
in them, uranium.
So you're not being exposed to the radiation from uranium.
It's not nuclear bomb uranium.
It's just the mineral itself, the non-essential element that is abundant in rock and granite
and other types of stone in the surface of the earth.
And if you live or work near or work at a military base, that is a risk factor for exposure
to uranium.
Arsenic can be just absorbed from food and water.
It's in the water in many parts of the country.
It's often in food.
We talked about earlier about in fruit juice, tested in fruit juice by a report came out
from Consumer Reports.
It can get it from air, water, dust, shampoos, soap.
I'm reading this from the sample report available on Doctors Data's website.
Common sources are insecticides, smog, shellfish, industrial exposures, particularly in the
manufacture of electronic components.
And it can cause malaise, muscle weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, dermatitis and skin cancer.
Long term exposure affects the peripheral nervous system, nerves throughout your body,
cardiovascular and the bone marrow that make your red blood cells and your white blood
cells.
It's a major antagonist to selenium, so it can cause selenium deficiency.
It's in insecticides.
Those are the main sources that are listed here.
It accumulates in hair, skin, nails, the thyroid gland, bone and the gastrointestinal tract
and can cause kidney disease as well.
Mercury.
I talked on a previous episode about how mercury is ubiquitous in the ocean.
You cannot eat any fish that comes from the ocean without being exposed to some mercury.
But so for example, the highest mercury is in the biggest fish.
It works its way up.
It comes from coal fired power plants, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, goes up in the
air, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, is eaten by bottom feeders and it works its way
up the food chain.
So the bigger the fish, the more mercury it has in it.
Fish oil supplements are made from little tiny fish that haven't been alive for very
long at all.
Little tiny in the Arctic waters off of Norway and Chile, little tiny anchovies and sardines
are the main fish that quality fish oil supplements are made from to minimize that mercury exposure.
You can also get mercury from the water supply, some hemorrhoidal preparations, skin lightening
agents, instruments like thermometers, electrodes and batteries, combustion of fossil fuels,
mainly coal, Ayurvedic herbs, fertilizers and the paper and pulp and gold industries.
So a lot of industries use mercury as part of the way they process and manufacture their
materials or extract materials, separate gold from some of the other stuff that's in gold.
Dental amalgams are always exposing you to mercury and if you're going to get a dental
amalgam removed, get in touch with me, you want to go to a dentist that has the proper
equipment to make sure that you're not going to be exposed to a huge hit of mercury when
they're taking that filling out.
It requires special equipment, special ventilation.
You should be wearing a mask.
They should be putting a dam in your mouth so that only that tooth, you're not going
to swallow any of the mercury or breathe any of it.
It becomes a vapor very easily.
You want to take it out properly so that you're not exposed to it when they're removed.
It is a good idea if you have amalgam fillings to have them removed.
That's a whole other issue.
And so yeah, those are the major sources of mercury and mercury can cause loss of appetite,
decreased sense of touch, sense of hearing, vision, fatigue, depression, emotional instability.
It really, really hits the brain.
And numbness and tremors, poor memory, cognitive dysfunction, neuromuscular disorder.
So you know, it mainly affects the brain.
Lead.
So these are sources I was reading off of the doctor's data website earlier.
You can also look this up on government websites.
This is from the state of Washington's Department of Health's website.
Common sources of lead poisoning include, obviously, lead-based paint, contaminated
soil, children's toys and jewelry, drinking water, workplace and hobby hazards, traditional
home remedies and cosmetics, lead-glazed ceramic ware, pottery and leaded crystal, imported
candy, even mini blinds.
And each one of these has a whole paragraph explaining some of the details.
How does the soil get contaminated?
Well, kids are exposed to lead through contaminated soil when they play in it.
Lead in the dirt clings to their fingers, to their toys and objects that children normally
put in their mouths.
Lead can get in the soil from deteriorating lead paint in buildings and old playground
equipment, leaded gasoline near busy roads, leaks from underground storage tanks, lead
acid batteries, recycling facilities that recycle lead acid.
These are car batteries, basically.
And smoke and dust from industries such as lead ore, mining, milling, smelting and municipal
solid waste incinerators.
So steps you can take, wash your children's hands often, especially before and after they've
been, or after mainly, they've been playing in areas like this.
Use a doormat to wipe shoes when they're in your house, limit soil exposure, cover bare
soil with grass and plants, and do not let your children play near the walls of old houses
and garages that may have lead paint on them.
Children's toys and jewelry.
So you can look this up online.
It's important.
A lot of, especially toys from China that are painted often have lead paint in their
mouth and when they're playing with them, they often put them in their mouth and just
handling them can expose them to lead.
You can look up in your local government, most government agencies have to report the
amount of all the heavy metals in your local drinking water.
And it's different in every town.
It can be different a mile, a couple of miles from where your source, one source is.
You might live across the street from somebody to be right on the boundary of somebody that
receives their water from a different source than you.
So you really need to do your research to find out.
And you know, that brings up an important point.
It's a really good idea to get a high quality drinking water filter.
The best one is a solid carbon block filter made by a company called Multi Pure.
If you have questions about that, Multi Pure makes the best drinking water filters.
It's the only filter I use and recommend.
I have one in my office and my home.
I put one in my mother's house so you can get exposed to from the water.
Traditional home remedies and cosmetics.
Put them in cosmetics because again, anything that makes lead and other heavy metals make
pretty colors.
Lipstick.
Other things that people use in cosmetics.
Glaze ceramic ware pottery.
The glazes on tile and on ceramic dishes and cups may have lead in them, especially if
you get them from, again, from out of the country or if they're handmade.
Imported candy has been found to have high levels of lead in it.
Mini blinds.
This is a new one to me.
I didn't realize that.
But imported vinyl mini blinds have been shown to have left.
They're made from outside the United States.
They can have, they have been shown to have lead in them in the vinyl and that vinyl can
break down and release lead dust into your home.
The last major heavy metal is cadmium, which can affect liver and cause kidney and liver
dysfunction, pulmonary edema, damage to the testes, osteomalacia, softening the bones
and damage to the adrenal glands and bone marrow.
The main source of cadmium is smoking.
There are several other exposures.
I'm sorry I'm out of time.
We may have to do another episode on heavy metals.
Have a great weekend everybody.
Tune in here next Friday at 4 p.m.
I look forward to speaking with you then.
You've been listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.
If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to
drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.
Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved
ones.
Our health matters.
Join him next Friday at 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The Word,
KDAR.