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, board certified doctor of non-force chiropractic
and practitioner of functional medicine.
Functional medicine means using standard diagnostic tests to identify conditions other doctors
miss mainly because they don't do these tests.
Identifying toxins that you may have been exposed to, chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers
that are in the air we breathe if you live especially near conventional farming like
we all do in Ventura County.
Chemicals that are in the water and in the food that we eat that we're exposed to in
different types of workplaces.
These are all things that can be tested mainly with a urine test but also heavy metals, heavy
metals can also be tested in a urine test or even more simply in a hair test.
If you have ever heard about people getting drug testing with a hair test that's a fairly
common thing and heavy metals are also detectable in a hair sample.
The focus of today's show is going to be ways to prevent your risk, reduce your risk of
lung cancer and heart disease.
And so there's an excellent study that came out in the Nature Reviews of Clinical Oncology
in January 2024 talking about lung cancer in never smokers.
So lung cancer is the most common cause of death from cancer, the most deadly type of
cancer and it's mostly caused by cigarette smoking.
So if you're not a smoker there are still lots of people that get lung cancer that never
smoke.
It's estimated to be the fifth most common cause of cancer related deaths worldwide.
It is more common in individuals, especially women of Asian ancestry, but it's certainly
not limited to them.
And this paper, the Plenary Session at the 2024 World Congress on Lung Cancer, many,
many experts addressed the known and suspected causes of lung cancer that people that have
never smoked.
So what else causes lung cancer besides cigarette smoking?
Well, climate change, mainly dust in areas with prolonged severe drought, stirring up
things.
We talked a little bit about that in the previous couple of shows.
And wildfires.
So wildfires is something we all know about here in California and they're probably going
to continue to become more and more frequent and that stirs up all kinds of nasty stuff
in the air and not just on the days of the fire itself when you can see the smoke, but
then that stuff blankets the surface of the earth, your roof, all around your house.
It's really important to clean up around your house, vacuum, change your filters after we've
been exposed to wildfires, change the filter in your heating and ventilation system, change
the filters in your HEPA filters, get a HEPA filter, especially in your bedroom so you're
breathing clean air at night.
So wildfires and dust are one of the most common causes apart from smoking of lung cancer.
Also, vaping.
So vaping was hoped by some people would be a good alternative to cigarette smoke, but
not so much.
The chemicals for one of the main things is it's unregulated.
You don't really even know what's in a lot of that stuff.
And when they are tested, many, many of the most common brands of vaping stuff that they
put in those vaping things is full of toxic chemicals.
So you really don't want to be doing that either.
And cannabis, marijuana, you know, has some health benefits.
It's relaxing, stimulates appetite in cancer patients.
It has some benefits, certainly.
But if you're going to do cannabis, you might want to consider doing an edible instead of
smoking because smoke is smoke.
Any kind of smoke produces fine particulate matter that gets down directly into the deepest
recesses of your lungs and enters your bloodstream and wreaks havoc.
So any kind of smoke, including pot smoke, damages your lungs, increases your risk of
lung cancer.
And then lastly, airborne carcinogen exposures arising from military conflict was mentioned
at this World Congress on Lung Cancer, identifying other causes apart from smoking cigarettes.
Carcinogen exposures from military conflict, explosions, building fires, pit fires, oil-filled
fires where they're burning debris.
Most of the listeners to this show can thank God we don't live in a war zone.
And my heart certainly goes out to all the folks that are suffering in those horrible
conflicts that are still raging in the Middle East, Ukraine, Africa, et cetera.
So Letitia Noguiera, PhD, Scientific Director of Health Services Research at the American
Cancer Society at this conference on lung cancer, issued a call to public officials
to do what they continue to do what they can, do the things necessary to reduce climate
change so that we can have, not continue to have these severe droughts and floods and
wildfires and for everyone else to educate their patients and themselves on how to avoid
exposure to these other known causes of lung cancer.
So if you're going to use cannabis, consider doing an edible instead of smoking.
Don't vape and do the things that I've been talking about to reduce your exposure to the
damaging effects of all that stuff that's stirred up when we have wildfires.
Another study that was presented, reviewed there and published in the Lancet, Planetary
Health Long-Term Exposure to Wildfires was associated with an increased risk of lung
cancer and brain tumors.
So individuals exposed to a wildfire within 50 kilometers of their residence in the prior
decade has a 5% increased risk of lung cancer and a 10% increased risk of brain tumors.
So I'm going to say that again.
50 kilometers is 31 miles.
So people that have been exposed to a wildfire within 31 miles of their residence in the
previous decade have a 5% higher incidence of lung cancer and a 10% higher incidence
of brain tumors.
So check out the episode 60 of my podcast on my website.
Anytime you can go back and listen to that.
The whole episode was about wildfires and how to reduce your risk of the damaging effects
of the debris that ends up all over the place and far, far away from the source of the fire
itself.
Lots of ways to reduce your exposure to that.
So enough about wildfires.
For now, we're going to turn to heart disease.
Now one important way you can reduce your risk of heart disease, and that is a very
simple thing, don't drink energy drinks.
I actually get people ask me about this a lot.
Well, how bad is it?
Everyone knows they're not great for you.
How bad is it to drink Monster and Rockstar and all these other energy quote unquote energy
drinks that mainly young people eat, drink, but others as well?
And the answer is they're all bad.
They're full of sugar.
They're often full of other stimulants.
There's nothing wrong with caffeine.
Lots of studies show that one or two cups of coffee or one or two cups of tea a day
for most people is good for you.
And there are beneficial things in tea and in coffee that have health benefits.
So it's not it's not tea or coffee, but it's these energy drinks that are full of other
stimulants like Ma Wang and then all the sugar and some other herbs in different types of
these energy drinks.
The study that came out here in July 2024 in the journal Heart Rhythms analyzed data
from 5000 patients treated for arrhythmias at the Mayo Clinic between 2000 and 2023 and
presented some surprising cases of cardiac arrest, mainly in young people who had been
drinking energy drinks.
So these things can typically typically contain up to 300 milligrams of caffeine per serving
three times the amount in a typical cup of coffee, which has about 100 milligrams.
And they also include ingredients like taurine and guarana.
Guarana is another one of those herbs that I was looking for.
Taurine in and of itself isn't necessarily bad, but too much of it can be just like too
much caffeine can be.
And guarana is not really good for anybody to take it anytime in my opinion.
So the interaction between these ingredients and just the high amounts of them are of particular
concern, and especially people who if they've been told already they have abnormal heart
rhythms, but they can surprise you even if you don't have a family history of arrhythmias.
So for example, a 32 year old woman experienced cardiac arrest 11 weeks after delivering her
baby after consuming an energy drink before a workout.
The cardiac arrest occurred when she was resting.
Before workout she was resting, no specific cause was identified, but postpartum weakness,
sleep deprivation and malnutrition were determined to have been possible contributing factors.
But one energy drink before workout at rest and a woman who had recently given birth caused
her to have a heart attack.
Another one, here's another case of 37 year old woman had entered cardiac arrest, had
a heart attack after consuming an energy drink in the evening.
Her partner noticed her gasping for breath and successfully revived her with a defibrillator.
The cause of the cardiac arrest remained undetermined, but it happened right after she drank an energy
drink in the evening.
Here's another one, a 20 year old man who was regularly consuming energy drinks before
exercising on one occasion collapsed during a sprint and required resuscitation.
A 28 year old woman had a heart attack after consuming large quantities of an energy drink
right after a work related argument and she was diagnosed with a specific type of heart
condition that she didn't know she had until she aggravated it by drinking this energy
drink.
Another one, a 20 year old woman who was known to have a specific gene associated with a
type of rapid heart rate had previously experienced fainting at age 7, but despite medications
she collapsed after an argument with a colleague at work having consumed an energy drink.
So there's another tip if you're getting in an argument with somebody at work, don't
drink an energy drink at the same time.
Here's another one, a 42 year old patient who had a fainting incident after giving birth
regularly consumed energy drinks before workouts.
She fell off of an exercise bike and required resuscitation due to cardiac arrest.
She later found out that she did have a genetic heart condition as well, but she found out
about it by drinking an energy drink.
Another one, a 26 year old woman collapsed after exercising and experiencing cardiac
arrest at a hospital.
She had consumed an energy drink, was dehydrated and had eaten very little food, was also diagnosed
with a type of genetic heart condition that was triggered, caused a heart attack after
drinking an energy drink.
So this is just a sample of cases published in a study in the journal Heart Rhythms analyzed
from data people that showed up in the Mayo Clinic with heart arrhythmias over the past
few years.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, you're listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to almost
any health challenge.
We've been talking today about things you can do to reduce your risk of lung cancer
and heart disease and specifically for reducing your risk of heart disease, don't drink so-called
energy drinks.
Everyone always, I often ask questions, a lot of people ask questions about what about
coffee and tea?
So the lay press in particular, magazines and newspapers, TV stations, everyone's,
every week, month it seems like there's another new study that says coffee's good for you,
coffee's bad for you, tea's good for you, tea's bad for you.
Well, we're never going to stop hearing studies like that, especially in the non-medical press
because they're just a great story.
That's what they're, they're attention, they generate attention getting headlines.
When you look at the real medical research that has good data behind it, the answer consistently
is showing that in general, a couple of cups of coffee or a couple of cups of tea a day
is perfectly healthy for most people and often beneficial.
In other words, people are even, people who drink two cups of coffee or tea a day are
in many studies healthier than people who don't drink any coffee or any tea because
there are beneficial, healthy antioxidants in coffee and other components in green tea,
example, foraphanes and a bunch of other cancer fighting particular components in tea.
Consistent evidence from observational and epidemiological studies indicate that intake
of both coffee and tea have beneficial effects on stroke, reducing stroke risk, heart failure,
cancers, diabetes and Parkinson's.
And several studies also suggest that coffee may reduce the risk for Alzheimer's disease.
But as with everything, moderation is key.
So the headline of this study, which was presented on the Alzheimer's Association International
Conference this year, July of 2024, by Kelsey Sewell, PhD, Advent Health Research Institute,
showed that drinking more than three cups of coffee a day is linked to more rapid cognitive
decline over time.
So that's one of the ways it's reinforcing that for most people, the ideal amount is
two cups a day, three or more is linked to more rapid cognitive decline.
So this was a study done in the UK on 8,000 older adults in the UK biobank, which contains
anonymous in-depth genetic and health information from a half a million participants in the
United Kingdom.
And 18% reported drinking four or more cups, high consumption.
And 58% reported drinking one to three cups, which they defined as moderate consumption.
And 25% reported they never drink coffee.
So I just said, and a lot of other studies have shown that drinking two cups a day for
most people is beneficial.
This study actually shows that up to three tended to be okay.
It was more than three cups.
Drinking four or more that showed increased risk of cognitive decline, the precursor of
dementia.
One of the main things they measured in this study is fluid intelligence.
So in psychology, fluid intelligence is the ability to think abstractly, to reason quickly
and solve problems without relying on previous knowledge.
It's a cognitive ability that involves generating, transforming and manipulating new information
in real time.
So it's one of the standard things they test you for to evaluate cognitive decline.
It's different from quote, crystallized intelligence, which is the ability to use knowledge and
experience that has been acquired over time.
So crystallized intelligence is involved in tasks like crossword puzzles and Scrabble.
Fluid intelligence peaks in late adolescence and tends to decline with age while crystallized
intelligence increases throughout life.
And both are important for living and negotiating and navigating the world.
So in this UK study of 8,000 older individuals after eight, almost nine years, 8.83, almost
nine years of follow up people with moderate consumption, one to three cups of coffee a
day had slower decline in fluid intelligence than people who drank four or more.
And then they also showed that people who had moderate consumption, one to three cups
of coffee compared with people who didn't drink any tea or coffee had a health benefit.
It showed that people who never drank tea or coffee had a greater decline in fluid intelligence
than those who had the moderate consumption.
There have been other studies that showed that the amyloid plaque, one of the most famous
researched things that sign of decline in the brain, people who have Alzheimer's are
often diagnosed with amyloid plaque buildup in the brain and coffee and tea drinking seems
to reduce that and sleep patterns also may be involved.
There's further research may demonstrate said Dr. Sewell in conclusion.
So the takeaway is evidence suggests that one great way to reduce your risk of Alzheimer's
and other forms of dementia is to drink one to three cups of coffee or tea per day, no
more and probably no less.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.
You're listening to safe, effective, natural solutions to almost any health challenge while
we're on the subject of heart health and brain health.
Here's a great case study on how to reduce blood pressure naturally.
So I have a lot of patients who come to me with high blood pressure and there's lots
of things that you can do.
One of my favorite things that anyone can do to reduce their own blood pressure is to
do deep breathing exercises.
And if you go on my website and look through the past episodes of this show, I've talked
about many, many episodes on how to reduce blood pressure naturally by doing deep breathing
exercises among other things.
The most important thing is to get a lot that goes with that is to get a blood pressure
cuff, an upper arm blood pressure cuff that you can use at home so that when you have
a high reading, you can lay down on the floor and just do simple deep breathing exercises
for 10 or 15 minutes and then take your pressure again and you'll usually see a significant
drop and that makes it less likely that you'll become upset, freak out, have a panic attack
when you get a high reading.
One high reading doesn't matter.
What matters is an average of your readings over a week.
So if you're concerned about high blood pressure, definitely check it.
If you haven't checked it recently, if you have a high reading, just keep checking it
at different times, switch arms, sitting up, lying down, write all the numbers down, add
them all up at the end of the week and divide by the number of times you checked it to get
the average.
It's the average over a week that really matters for your risk of damaging your heart.
So here's a great case.
It's easy.
Somebody comes in in their 40s and 50s and has high blood pressure, it's actually pretty
often quite relatively easy to help people effectively reduce their blood pressure without
drugs.
I always stress, there's lots of things that people come to me and say, I don't want to
take medication for cholesterol, for osteoporosis, for anxiety and depression and those are examples
of medications that are often a good idea to get off of if you can by going, by making
sure that you're resolving the issue with safe, effective, natural solutions and I always
instruct my patients to, if you're on some medication that was prescribed by another
doctor, you need to go back and tell that doctor that you're choosing to take yourself
off of this, discuss that with them.
I'm not taking you off of your medication.
You can choose to do that and you always should do that in a conversation with, include having
a conversation with a prescribing physician when you choose to do that.
But blood pressure is the great exception.
If someone comes in and says, I want to get off of my blood pressure medication, well,
you have to keep taking your blood pressure medication until you get your blood pressure
down.
And then you do the healthy things to naturally relax more, lower your heart rate, lower your
blood pressure by reducing the back pressure in the pipes from various things by taking
certain nutrients, which I'm going to talk about.
I'm going to present this case.
It's much easier to, you know, the younger you are, the easier it is to do that.
And most importantly, if you're on medication for blood pressure, you have to do something
to get it down.
And then when you do that, your blood pressure will start to go a little bit too low.
And you know, you're ready to have a conversation with your prescribing physician and reduce
the dose of your blood pressure medication.
If you're on more than one medication, maybe stop taking one of them.
Maybe one of them will still be enough, but you never want to stop blood pressure medication
cold turkey.
So it's easier to do in your fifties and your sixties.
The older you get, the more stress you have in your life.
If you can't figure out a way to reduce that stress, then the more difficult it is going
to be to reduce your blood pressure naturally.
But one thing that's really difficult is to reduce high blood pressure.
That's been high for decades and somebody in their eighties.
So this is a case.
I love talking about this case.
An 82 year old woman who'd had high blood pressure.
The top number was over 155 for 30 years.
And the bottom number was nearly a hundred.
I think it was 97 on average for 30 years.
And she was otherwise really fit and healthy.
She was a orchestra conductor with her church.
She played the violin and she was thin and busy go-go.
She ran a school play at her church every Christmas.
She was just a constant, she was a force of nature.
She was amazing.
And she felt dizzy when she took her blood pressure medication.
That's why she kept telling her doctor she wasn't going to take it.
Well, he kept telling her, you know, it's going to catch up with her eventually.
And I told her the same thing.
I said, you really should take the blood pressure medication until you get it down.
So she said, well, I've tried all the natural things.
Nothing works.
I said, well, have you tried taking three gram, a good, a good high dose of a high quality
official?
Yep.
Tried taking high quality official.
I said, did you take enough?
Yes, I took, you know, three or four capsules.
She told me, verified that she had done that.
Didn't reduce her blood pressure.
I said, well, have you taken 5,000 units of vitamin D every day to get your level up to
between 50 and 90?
Yes.
Didn't have, didn't affect my blood pressure.
I said, have you taken a good multivitamin that has all the minerals you need in bioavailable
forms so that your body can heal and repair itself?
Yes.
Have you taken natto kinase, which is a systemic enzyme from the Japanese food natto that's
been identified decades ago to be one of the main causes that the Japanese have lower risks
of heart disease?
He says, yes, I actually have tried that.
Well, I was surprised because not most people haven't even heard of that.
She had tried that.
Didn't reduce her blood pressure.
I said, have you taken anything to boost nitric oxide like arginine or citrulline?
Yes.
She had taken that too.
She had been to some other good practitioners over the years.
And I asked her about CoQ10, a couple of other things.
Yes, yes, yes.
I've tried all those things.
None of them ever worked.
I said, have you ever tried taking all of those things at the same time?
And she looked at me like, why would you even ask?
Like, why would I do?
Why would I know which one's working if I did all of them at the same time?
Well, this is the big important takeaway of this case.
And it applies to lots of situations.
Nutrients don't work like drugs.
Drugs work by themselves.
They have specific effects on receptors and on chemical pathways in the body.
And they do work all by themselves.
Nutrients work in combinations.
They work synergistically.
They support the effects of one another.
And so you can guess the outcome.
She put her on a quality list of all of those.
She was already taking some of those things.
And I recommended that she add in several others.
A product called Citrinox from Orthomolecular Products that has L-citraline is one I use
a lot for high blood pressure patients.
Anyway, the bottom line is when she took all of those things, her blood pressure in her
80s dropped 30 points.
And it stayed there.
And she lived many, many, many years after that without having a heart attack or a stroke.
And she was very happy about that, as was her family.
Once again, we're about out of time.
So thank you for tuning in.
Thank you for listening.
I hope everybody's enjoying getting together with family and loved ones and having stress-free
holiday gatherings.
Remember, a great way you can reduce your stress anytime is to go for a walk and do
some deep breathing exercises.
If you're at a holiday gathering, go hide in the bathroom for a few minutes and relax.
Have a great weekend.
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 because our health matters.
Join him next Friday at 2 p.m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions.
Here on 98.3 FM, The Word.