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. Last week, we talked
about how to identify quality supplements. When
you come in, you get functional medicines. I'm
always reminding people it's identifying how
your body, places your body needs support to
heal and repair itself. And the solution, when
we identify what it needs support for, is always
better food. exercise, and supplements. Better
food to get. It's always best to get as many
of the nutrients your body needs from food, obviously,
or if it's not obvious, that's my belief, is
that you should get, ideally, get everything
that your body needs from food without any supplements.
But if you test people, most people I find are
not getting all the nutrients they need to stay
healthy and to deal with whatever ailments they
show up. And that's why I very frequently recommend
supplements. In fact, there's three supplements
I recommend that everyone take, even without
testing, because I just find that I've hardly
ever found, very rarely find anyone that doesn't
need to supplement the following three things.
A good multivitamin for the minerals. You can
give vitamins relatively easily from food, but
most people do not get enough minerals from their
food. Number two, fish oil to get the proper
amount of, or, you know, an adequate amount of
Omega -3 fatty acids, you can only really get
them from the ocean. So unless you're eating
fish, you know, an oily fish like salmon or sardines
every day, then you're not going to get the benefits
of omega -3s for your cardiovascular system,
your joints, anti -inflammatory properties, keeping
your good cholesterol up, healing your brain,
mood, etc. You're not going to get that unless
you supplement a good quality fish oil and vitamin
D. Most people need 5 ,000 units of vitamin D.
But how do you tell if the supplements that you're
taking are good? How do you know if you've got
something that's going to do the job to get the
desired result? We talked about this last week,
and we ran out of time, so we're going to talk
about it some more. The easiest way, the best
way I know of to tell if any product works is
to give it to a few thousand people, tens of
thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of
people if possible, and see if it achieves what
you expect it to achieve. If it's a vitamin D,
it's easy to test. It kind of does work all by
itself like a drug, but most nutrients work in
combinations. But if you give any individual,
you test their blood, give them some products,
and see if it achieves the desired effect and
improves a follow -up test. You do a test, give
somebody some supplements, do a follow -up test,
and see the changes. That's pretty good evidence
that you've got a quality product that's doing
the job. And if you repeat that with thousands
and thousands of people, I have seen thousands
of people in my practice. When I go to conferences
every year and discuss what's working with my
colleagues, together we see the results and share,
compare notes with many, many, many thousands
of patients. So top shelf brands of supplements,
orthomolecular products, and designs for health
are two of my favorites. Pure Encapsulations,
Douglas Labs, Gaia Pro, Thorne Research. There's
several, there's quite a few good companies out
there. And, you know, thousands and thousands
of ones that you see in stores that are not so
good. So, you know, the good brands that I use
are not the only ones that work. They're just
ones that I've had the best results with. And
I often benefit from the experience of colleagues
that I see at conferences and seminars around
the country every year. What's working for what
do you use for patients that have this condition
or that, etc. So we can get a pretty good idea
of what's working for many, many thousands of
people. And why do they work better? So top shelf
brands are more bioavailable. They're better
absorbed into the bloodstream and into your cells.
And so those three things right there, something's
bioavailable or not. So if a lot of cheap mineral
supplements, for example, calcium carbonate,
99 % of the calcium supplements on the market
are calcium carbonate. No one should take calcium
carbonate. It's very difficult for your body
to break down and absorb calcium carbonate. Top
quality supplements have a higher antioxidant
effect. And because they're more like plants,
they're more plant -like and less processed,
they're familiar to your physiology. So they're
going to have a much more impactful, beneficial
physiological effect. When you use nutrients
that your body recognizes in the proper forms
and in the proper combinations because they work
synergistically. Oh, why don't I just take this
one thing and see if that works? That's how drugs
work. That's not how nutrients work. You need
to take nutrients in combinations. Food is full
of nutrients in combinations. There's no food
that has one nutrient in it. All food, all plants
have many, many, many hundreds of nutrients,
some of which we haven't even identified yet.
Top quality supplements are often endeavoring,
especially with minerals, for example, endeavoring
to find a way to get a good dose that mimics,
that is as close as possible to, as least altered
from the form that is in plants. I'll come back
to calcium carbonate again. Calcium carbonate
is ground up rocks and seashells. You can mine
minerals. like that from the earth and grind
it up and put it in a capsule. And it's legal
to put a, put a label on. So this has this much
calcium in it and it's inexpensive. So somebody
is going to buy it because it's cheap. Well,
if you put a plant in that same part of the surface
of the earth and the roots of that plant grow
in, absorb those minerals, bring them up above.
and bind them into complex forms in the roots
and leaves and trees and fruits and things we
call vegetables that we eat, and our body recognizes
those. We've been eating plants for thousands,
hundreds of thousands, millions of years. Our
physiology recognizes how to break down and absorb
the nutrients from plants and animals. but not
from rocks and seashells. So when you use the
nutrients your body recognizes in proper forms
and combinations, they always need to be in combinations
because they work synergistically. They have
much more powerful healing properties. They enable
your body to more effectively heal itself. And
when taken in the appropriate dose, for you and
your condition, they have no side effects, only
benefits. Note that I said when taken in the
proper dose for you and your condition and the
appropriate form. So that's how you make sure
that you're not going to get any side effects.
And that's, you know, sometimes mild side effects.
You know, if you take too much, you can take
too much of anything. I talked about this last
week. You can take too much water and get hyponatremia.
And you can take too much of some vitamins. But
the hysterical things that you hear in the media,
oh, my God, 5 ,000 units of vitamin D, that's
way too much. The USRDA for vitamin D is only
400. If you get too much vitamin D, why is there
so many stories that continue to come out? And
why do most medical doctors still think that
5 ,000 units of vitamin D is too much? They're
afraid you're going to get kidney stones, which
is an absurd fear because it never happens. To
increase your risk of getting kidney stones.
vitamin d the what can't if you take too much
vitamin d it is possible to do that but to make
that happen the way it happens is vitamin d keeps
calcium in circulation and if you have especially
if you're taking calcium carbonate if you're
taking crappy calcium and uh too much of it maybe
or especially if you're taking too much vitamin
d for too long it will increase your risk of
getting a kidney stone but to do that first your
serum level of calcium has to go up I've given
scores of patients told to take 10 ,000 units
of vitamin D a day for a few months. If your
vitamin D level is 15 or 10, really, really low.
way below 20 or 30, I'll usually recommend that
you start out taking 10 ,000 units a day for
a while, and then eventually cut it down to 5
,000. And then we retest to make sure that it's
in between 50 and 90. Well, I've had a few patients
over the years that forget to cut down from 10
,000 back down to 5 ,000, and maybe they take
10 ,000 every day for a year. Well, their serum
level still usually doesn't go above 90 or 100.
It takes a long time of taking a large amount,
depending on your condition and age. There are
a few variables. But it's just very rare for
someone to take an amount of vitamin D that causes
their serum level of D itself to go into any
toxic level. But beyond that, even if your vitamin
D level is 100 or 120 or 130, it still isn't
going to cause any problems until your calcium.
level goes up. The main concern that causes all
this hysteria, oh, you got to be careful not
to take too much vitamin D, is because if your
serum calcium level goes up, the calcium in your
blood goes up and stays up for too long, that
will increase your risk of a kidney, getting
kidney stones. But it just doesn't happen. I've
seen many people get their blood levels of vitamin
D above 100, and their serum calcium level still
doesn't go up above 10. It still stays down in
the nines where it belongs. So it's just not
true. It's possible to take too much vitamin
D, just like it's possible to drink too much
water, but it almost never happens. And even
if it does, all you have to do is stop taking
it for a month, and it'll go back to normal.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. You're listening to Safe,
Effective, Natural Solution to almost any health
challenge. And this week we're talking about
how to tell the difference between good supplements
and supplements that are not so good, that won't
do the job, that are cheap. You get what you
pay for and you might get something cheap and
maybe it will just have no effect at all. The
most expensive supplements you'll ever take are
the ones that just end up in the toilet and do
nothing on the way between when you buy them
and they end up in the toilet. They have no beneficial
effect on your body. And of course, some cheap
supplements can even cause problems. So yeah,
get top shelf products. If you're not sure what
those are, ask me. I'd be happy to guide you.
You can shoot me an email if you're wondering
if the supplement that you're taking is good
or not. Shoot me an email. I'd be happy to. to
answer that question for you. So we've talked
about calcium, the bad calcium, don't take calcium
carbonate. So what's a good calcium? Well, calcium
citrate is a little bit better. That's also widely
available and inexpensive. So you can see that
in stores too. Nothing necessarily wrong with
calcium citrate, but it often doesn't, if you
have osteoporosis, for example, it's often not
going to do the job. The calcium product that
I like to use is from Orthomolecular Products
and it's called Reacted Calcium. And that means
these minerals are chelated forms, which means
that they're bound with their other constituent
materials, similar to the way minerals are bound
up in plants in forms that your body can easily
unbind and break apart and absorb. And so for
people that come to me with osteoporosis, for
example, I see it all the time. People bring
their DEXA scan in, their bone density scan,
and they've been taking calcium, what they think
maybe is a good calcium. Maybe they've been taking
calcium citrate. It's not uncommon, hopefully.
Well, a lot of people are taking calcium carbonate
too because they got a record. They were told
by their MD to just go get cheap calcium from
any store. It's all the same. Well, they're not.
And so, for example, when someone's DEXA scan
is not, they've been taking calcium. and maybe
vitamin D, maybe their vitamin D level is fine,
and they've been taking a good calcium, say,
from Whole Foods or a health food store, but
their DEXA scan, their bone density, they still
have osteoporosis or osteopenia. It either hasn't
improved or oftentimes has even gotten worse.
In fact, when you do bone density scans, And
often, if you're over a certain age, many physicians
just are happy if it doesn't get worse, even
when they prescribe you medications. If they
prescribe you, you first go from normal bone
density to osteopenia or osteopenia to osteoporosis,
and they give you Boniva or Fosamax or Evista
or one of these other bisphosphonates, bone density
drugs, which are horrible. because they do nothing
to increase the strength of your bones, and in
fact often make them weaker, and even cause bone
cell death, bone necrosis. The mechanism of action
for these bone density drugs is they block the
function of osteoclasts in your bones. Your bones
have two types of cells, osteoclasts, C -L -A
-S -T, the end of the word, and so the clasts,
clear bone, and osteoblasts, with a B, so osteoclasts.
Clear old bone. Osteoblasts build new bone. Well,
you need both. If you want to have strong bones,
you need to clear out the old, bad, weak, fragmented,
weak bone. clear that out of the way before you
can replace it with good new cells that keep
your bones strong. And otherwise, why would bones
be designed with both of those cells? So the
bone density drugs work. You can look it up on
any of the websites. Go to the website for Fosamax
or Boniva or any of the big bone density drugs
and look up the mechanism of action of that drug.
And it will say blocks the function of osteoclasts
or anti -osteoclastic. And that's just crazy
because it just makes no sense to stop the normal
function of your bones, body's ability to clear
away old bone before you start building new bone
on top of that. It's like building a, you know,
you got to have a good foundation and you have
to keep everything constantly turning over. Every
part of your body is constantly breaking down
old cells and replacing them with new ones. So
yeah, you don't want to take a bone density drug.
That just blocks. It makes your bone density.
Why do they do it then? Why do they give people
these drugs if they don't work? Well, I suppose
for some people who have a really lousy diet
and aren't taking any supplements, maybe it must
work a little bit better for some people. One
thing it does do is makes your bone density scans
look better. That's the main reason they use
these drugs. If you stop breaking down the old
bone and just keep shoving in more new bone.
That will make your bone density scans increase.
It doesn't reduce your risk of breaking your
hip when you have a fall. It can actually increase
your risk of necrosis in your bones. But it makes
your test look pretty. So, yeah, let's have those
drugs. So, yeah, hardly anyone really should
take those things, in my opinion. What works
better? Good calcium. So, the forms of calcium
in an orthomolecular... products got a bottle
right here calcium hydroxyapatite and this is
um the one that has the most research on it specifically
for healing and repairing bone calcium hydroxyapatite
and it has four forms hydroxyapatite dicalcium
malate bisglycinate and citrate so citrate you
know of the stuff that if you're going to buy
some cheap calcium from stores it's much better
to get citrate than carbonate but if you really
want to do the job and you have uh bone density
issues than a combination product like this.
As I've found, hundreds of patients have seen
bone density scans before and after, and not
only... stopped the bones from getting worse,
but actually improved them from osteoporosis
back to osteopenia or from osteopenia back to
normal density. When most physicians give people
Bonibu and Fosamax and the other drugs for bone
density loss, they're happy if the bone density
scan two years later just doesn't get worse.
Unfortunately, you can only do a bone density
scan. You have to wait two years to redo it because
that's about how long it takes for a noticeable
measurable change to occur. So two years later,
if your bone density just isn't worse, forget
about whether it's better or not, if it just
isn't worse... then many, many doctors think
that that's a job well done. Well, I've seen
many patients who've gotten better from osteoporosis
back to osteopenia and osteopenia back to normal
bone density two years later by taking a good
form of calcium like calcium hydroxyapatite and
bisglycinate, another one on the list here in
the product, orthomolecular products, reacted
calcium, the bisglycinate form of many minerals.
Iron, magnesium, several others. Orthomolecular
Products makes a whole line, and other good companies
make a line of minerals. There's a good way to
tell if you have any kind of mineral supplement.
Many of them, if you get it from a health food
store or a good quality source, the minerals
will be in the bisglycinate, B -I -S -G -L -Y.
C -I -N -A -T -E, bisglycinate form, is one of
the best forms for many of the minerals, not
just calcium. The bisglycinate form is the best
form of iron, for example. Very similar to the
calcium problem. 99 % of the iron supplements
on the market are ferrous sulfate. And there
are people who know they have iron deficiency
anemia, especially women who are menstruating
and know they have iron deficiency anemia, but
think they can't take iron. Oh, I can't take
iron. It gives me stomach upset. It causes constipation,
you know, pain, discomfort in the digestive system
usually. Well, that's because you're taking ferrous
sulfate. I've given the bisglycinate form of
iron, same brand, orthomolecular products, reacted
iron. to thousands of patients and not had a
single one have any problem with digesting it,
any side effects, any discomfort, taking iron
and we can fix. It's the easiest, super easy
to fix iron deficiency anemia by taking the bisglycinate
form of iron. So back to osteoporosis. You need
to repair bone density. You need good calcium.
You need to keep the good calcium in circulation
by having adequate amounts of vitamin D, which
listeners to this show are familiar with. I talk
about vitamin D almost every episode because
it's so important. So vitamin D keeps calcium
in circulation. And then to deposit the calcium
into bone, you need vitamin K. So vitamin K,
a lot of people know that you can get vitamin
K from... Dark green leafy vegetables like spinach
and broccoli and anything dark green is going
to have vitamin K in it. And that form of vitamin
K is K1. And there's also a K2. So both are important.
Both help with bone density. Both help with several
other physiological processes throughout the
body. But specifically for somebody who has osteoporosis,
the K2 form is the one that's important. More
important than K1. You can have plenty of K1
and still not be able to give your body what
it needs to reverse osteoporosis back to osteopenia
or osteopenia back to normal bone density. So
vitamin K2. comes in several different forms.
The most common forms that you'll see on labels
are vitamin K2 is menaquinone, by the way. K1
is phyloquinone and K2 is menaquinone, M -E -N
-A -Q -U -I -N -O -N -E. And the forms of menaquinone,
of K2, most commonly are the MK4 and MK7. So
that's a little complicated, but if you want
to look for your labels to see if your vitamin
K is good, look for MK4 or MK7 form of vitamin
K2. So yeah, I use a product called K -Force
for osteoporosis patients, also made by Orthomolecular,
because it has the 5 ,000 units of vitamin D
and 180 micrograms, 180 micrograms of vitamin
K2 in the MK7 form. So you need the good calcium.
You need adequate vitamin D all the time to keep
that calcium in circulation so that it can go
where it needs to go. Because you don't need
calcium just for your bones. You need it for
muscles, your heart. There's all kinds of parts
of your body that need calcium. But you need
to keep adequate calcium in circulation with
vitamin D. And then you need K2, especially vitamin
K, especially the K2 form to deposit the calcium
into bone. So when I've had people that have
been taking a good calcium and have had to test
their blood and their blood level of vitamin
D is good, it's between 50 and 90, and they're
still not getting the results on the bone density
scans, oftentimes the missing link is adequate
amounts of vitamin K2. And a lot of companies
will sell combination products of vitamin D and
vitamin K. And the typical amount of vitamin
K in these products, you'll have 5 ,000 units
of vitamin D and 45 micrograms of K2. 5 ,000
D, 45 micrograms of K2. And I have a couple of
products that I carry that have 10 ,000 D for
people starting out in the beginning and 90 micrograms,
same ratio. So typical. amount for K2 in many
products is 45. So this K4 has four times that
amount, 180 micrograms, 180. And there's a lot
of research that shows if you're trying to address
osteoporosis that supports the use of a dose
of 180 micrograms. So if you have osteoporosis,
check what you're taking. And if it doesn't have
180 micrograms of... good form of K2, like the
MK7 form of K2, then that is also, that can often
make a big difference. It also helps with healing
fractures. I've had many patients over the year
had a woman in her 60s who broke her shoulder
or scapula. in a skiing accident. And six months
later, it wasn't healing. So I went back, had
it x -rayed a couple of times after initially
going in, and there was just a hairline fracture
that just would not heal. And I gave her this
same regimen, a good calcium, adequate vitamin
D and vitamin K, and it healed. After about,
I think, a few weeks later, it finally healed.
I've had that several times with people who break
their feet, too. You get a little fracture in
your heel or your metatarsal or one of the phalanges,
one of the... digits in your feet. I've seen
many people that have just, those have never
properly healed because you're always walking
around on your foot after your cast comes off
or whatever kind of support you have to wear
temporarily. People have, if you take any kind
of bone that's not healing after you have a fracture,
if you take this same regimen of adequate, good
calcium, vitamin D and vitamin K, I've seen many,
many of those heal up like they should. The last
thing with that is some people also need additional
collagen. So bone is the matrix of the structure
of the bone is made out of collagen. And collagen
is a protein that your body makes from food,
from eating protein. But as you get older, especially,
it often doesn't make enough. Or if you have
bad osteoporosis or a bad old fracture, taking
supplemental collagen. And this is really easy
to tell whether you're taking a good collagen,
especially if you're a woman, but men too. If
you take a good collagen, you feel it in your
hair and your skin and nails. Almost anybody
I've put on collagen. collagen, a powder, adequate
dose, a scoop, not a couple of capsules, but
a good scoop full. They notice the difference
in their skin, hair and nails that they like,
and they want to continue taking it. People often
tell me they can tell when they're taking a good
fish oil, too, because it results in changes
in your mood that you can actually feel. Or parents
who have children that are having any kind of
behavioral issues will notice a difference if
they take a good quality fish oil because it
helps heal your brain. Good fish oil helps raise
your good cholesterols, your HDL, and you can
measure these things on a blood test. Coenzyme
Q10. Taking a good form of coenzyme Q10 helps
your body heal and repair muscle throughout your
body, especially your heart. And this can be
measured with a test called BNP. So I've talked
about that before. That's a test that measures
heart muscle turnover. And most doctors don't
realize this. If that test goes up, if you're
having stress on your heart, it's actually very
easy to fix in most people by just taking more
good quality coenzyme Q10. Do something to be
healthier this week than you were last week.
Have a fabulous 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. The Word.