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. Happy New Year. Are you
ready to thrive in 2025? Start the new year out
right with a renewed commitment to taking better
care of your health every day. Resolve to make
this your best year ever. How are you going to
do that? Well, there's lots of ways, lots of
areas in life that can use attention, always
can be improved upon. I'm going to focus today
on the things that you can do to improve your
physical health mainly. Your mental and emotional
and spiritual health are also very important.
But for your physical health, Better food always
starts there, hopefully, with better food, with
spinach and broccoli and cauliflower and mushrooms
and Brussels sprouts and carrots and beets and
tomatoes and peppers. Getting more of these things
in your system every day. You can cook these
things with fresh chopped garlic and onions or
shallots and pepper or throw them in soup. This
time of year is a great time of year to make
soup. All kinds of recipes out there online for
making your own soup. Or if you don't have time,
you can buy stock and add things to it. Or even
worst case scenario, buy some canned soup and
improve it by throwing in some broccoli or spinach
or other fresh vegetables to your liking. Eat
more good protein like chicken and salmon and
nuts and seeds and beans. Healthy starches like
quinoa instead of white rice. If you've ever
had quinoa, it's actually delicious. It has kind
of a nutty flavor. Healthy fats like olives and
olive oil, avocados, coconut oil, nuts and nut
butters. It's always a good idea for most people
to eat less starch. You've probably heard that
before. Bread, rice, pancakes, pasta, cookies,
crackers, bagels, etc. It's usually a good idea
to eat less of those things for most of us and
to cut out sugar as much as possible. A little
dark chocolate is nice. The worst sugar of all
is liquid sugar. Syrup, soda, beer, fruit juice
of any kind. There are lots of nutrients in fruit,
but it's always better to get those by eating
fruit, and preferably the fruits with the highest
amount of antioxidants and other beneficial nutrients
and the least amount of sugar, like berries,
not grapes, not melons or oranges or overripe
bananas. Physical activity is also critically
important to maintaining and improving your health.
Form of physical activity is the one that you'll
actually do that's easy to incorporate into your
life, into your schedule, and that you actually
enjoy so that you can do it every day or at least,
say, five days a week. Walking, cycling, swimming,
if you have access to a pool, is wonderful. Resistance
training with weights or with bands or just using
your body weight like when you do push -ups.
Just regular old calisthenics. You don't have
to join. It's nice to go to a gym if you have
access to one, but you can just do plain. old
calisthenics, push -ups, sit -ups, jumping jacks
at home. You can get a stationary bike or a treadmill
or an elliptical machine if you really don't
want to go out. You can get an exercise bike
with a comfortable seat. I was just looking this
up. Adjustable resistance to make it a better
workout and a bracket on the handlebars to hold
your tablet or a phone. A nice exercise bike
on Amazon for $200. So good food, better food,
exercise. Supplements. So many times when I test
people, thousands of people I've tested are not
getting enough nutrients from their food. And
that's why supplements are often important. The
supplements you need are best determined by testing.
But there's three things I recommend that everyone
supplement because nobody tends to get enough
of them from food. And they are a good multivitamin
for the minerals, about a gram and a half of
fish oil for the omega -3s, and 500 units of
vitamin D. If you're over 50, I often recommend
a vitamin D with K2 combined, especially if you're
over 50 or at risk for heart disease or osteoporosis,
especially. So why? Why does everyone need a
multivitamin? Well, you can get vitamins from
food, vitamin C. There's vitamin D in multis,
but usually only 400 units a day. And you really
need 500, 5 ,000 units a day of vitamin D to
keep your immune system functioning at its peak.
And vitamin D affects every system in your body.
But mainly, you need a multivitamin for the minerals.
Most people do not get enough bioavailable calcium,
magnesium, iodine, selenium, copper, manganese,
chromium, molybdenum, potassium, and zinc from
food. They don't get enough of those things from
food. So hence the need to take a good multivitamin.
And a good multivitamin is always three or four
capsules per day. Usually four capsules per day.
Never one. There is no... one -a -day multivitamin
that is useful. It is not possible to fit the
bioavailable forms, the good forms that your
body recognizes and will absorb and actually
use to make new healthy cells with. You can't
fit those forms in an adequate dose in one pill
per day. So that's why you can tell if a good
multi is good by starting out by just making
sure that it's at least three or four capsules.
a day, not a one -a -day fish oil. So the best
place to get omega -3 fatty acids that we all
need for heart health, brain health, its anti
-inflammatory benefits, even cancer prevention.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about the
cancer prevention effects of omega -3 fatty acids
here in a little bit, is by eating oily fish
like sardines, oysters, salmon, and Tuna, if
you don't overdo the tuna, tuna is a special
consideration because of the mercury content.
The biggest fish have the most mercury and tuna
is a huge fish. So I don't recommend eating a
lot of tuna from restaurants or the typical chunked
chicken of the sea type tuna from cans because
it's all high in mercury. It's impossible to
avoid. But you can get tuna, pole -caught, smaller
tuna in cans and packed in olive oil. To minimize
the mercury exposure, a brand called Wild Planet
is one that makes this, and it's delicious. Packed
in olive oil, it's a whole filet of tuna. It's
really delicious. If you can put it on a salad,
you can eat it right out of the can sometimes
if I'm in a hurry with some capers or some fresh
tomatoes or on a bed of mixed greens with a little
olive oil. And canned fish is super convenient
when you don't have time to cook. And if it's
packed in olive oil, This is really important.
If you get canned fish packed in olive oil, it's
delicious. If you already like canned fish and
eat it, good for you. But if you don't like it
or if you don't like anything that quote -unquote
tastes fishy, the fishy taste in fish, number
one, mostly comes from the omega -3s. So that's
the stuff that you want from fish as well as
it's a good protein source. But it's the oxidization
of those healthy fats that make fish smell fishy.
So it's exposure to air and packing. That's why
fish, you know, needs to be fresh. But if you're
going to get canned in water, it still tends
to oxidize more than if you pack it in oil. So
if you've never tried sardines packed in olive
oil or salmon or scallops, there's a whole bunch
of really good tinned fish that you can get.
And Trader Joe's is where I get most of mine
and packed and look for packed in olive oil if
you've never tried it. Really nice. I eat it
for breakfast. It's a great way to start the
day with something savory, some healthy protein,
and healthy fats. But most people are not going
to do that. So that's why I recommend that most
people take about a gram and a half of fish oil
every day. And it's really important to not buy
cheap fish oil either, because you want to get
fish oil that's been properly processed and handled
by a reputable company that tests their equipment.
It's expensive to buy the equipment that processes
fish oil to filter out any toxins and test it
for the presence of any toxins. because there's
toxins in the ocean everywhere that are unavoidable
and so you want to get good fish oil comes from
little tiny fish that haven't been in the alive
very long from really cold waters in the north
or the or to the far south off the coast of norway
or chile generally little little anchovies sardines
and tested for low content of mercury and other
toxins and the adequate amounts of the two omega
-3 fatty acids that you need, which are EPA and
DHA. So look for a fish oil that you can usually,
a good one will have about a gram and a half
of combined EPA and DHA in two gel caps. I stock
fish oils from Designs for Health and Orthomolecular
Products because I've found really excellent
results with both of those. There's a few other
good brands. I've also seen the testing data
on Metagenics fish oil. I've used that for years.
And Nordic Naturals is excellent. Nordic Naturals
is available in stores, unlike those other three
brands. So if you're looking for a good brand
in a store, Nordic Naturals is a good way to
go for your fish oil. The most basic nutrient
of all that many people do not get enough of
is water. So most of us should drink about 2
to 4 liters of water a day, depending on body
weight. An easy reference, if you weigh more
than 120 pounds, I recommend drinking at least
2 liters of water a day if you're over 150. at
least three liters a day. And if you're over
175, 180, probably four liters a day. And that's
a lot more than most people drink. If you're
drinking bottled water, the standard bottled
water that you see that people hand out for free
places is usually 16 ounces. That's a pint. So
a liter or a quart is twice that. So, you know,
at least if you're thinking of those little plastic
bottles that you see everywhere, those pint bottles,
think of at least four of those up to eight.
Of those per day. And, of course, it's better
to not drink water out of plastic bottles at
all because they sit in that soft plastic and
absorb plastic, and then you're drinking plastic,
and that's not good. It's better. The best way
is to get a good quality water filter at home.
The most common types of home water filters that
people are familiar with are reverse osmosis
systems that go under your sink, which are better,
much better. They filter out most of the stuff
you don't want in your water better than, say,
just a Brit. or a cheap granular carbon filter.
But the best home filter is a solid carbon block
filter instead of the little granules of carbon.
It's a solid carbon block with little tiny holes
in it, nano -sized holes in it, that filter out
all of the toxins in the water. And they're rated
and have to get tested by NSF. You can look this
up on their website. The brand that makes the
solid carbon block water filters is Multi -Pure.
That's what I have in my home and in my office.
And they have to get NSF certified for all of
the contaminants that they claim that their systems
remove. every few years, and I've verified that
when I started with those systems about 10 years
ago. I used to use reverse osmosis before that
for a couple of decades, and it was so much better
when I switched. The water tastes better. The
main benefit, in addition to getting all of the
toxins out, is it leaves some of the minerals
in. And so when you leave some of the minerals
in water, it keeps it alkaline, whereas reverse
osmosis water is slightly acidic. And that filtering
out of all, stripping out of all the minerals
makes your body strip minerals from your muscles
and your bones to balance out the pH of the water.
So it's much better to drink filtered water from
a solid carbon block filter for the alkalinity.
and to filter out all the stuff that you don't
want. It even filters out PFAS and some of the
new things. Anytime some new pollutant comes
out, it turns out that this filter is already
equipped to remove it much of the time. And a
solid carbon block filter also doesn't block
your water pressure as much as a reverse osmosis
membrane does, so you still get a nice strong
pressure when you're wanting to fill a large
container. I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. You're listening
to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to Any
Health Challenge. We're talking about how to
start out the new year right so that you can
thrive in 2025 by taking better care of your
health. Resolve to make this the best year for
your health. Make your health better this year
than it was last year. And there's some important
things that can help you with that. The next
one we're going to talk about is sleep. Everyone
should be sleeping eight, seven, eight hours
a night for most people, preferably uninterrupted.
But if you get up once or twice a night, it doesn't
matter as long as you go back to sleep easily.
And how many hours you get doesn't matter necessarily.
Some people do fine on six hours. What really
matters is do you wake up feeling rested and
refreshed? That's the most important thing. That's
the best way to tell if you're getting adequate
sleep. As you wake up, rested and refreshed,
ready to go, ready to start the next day. It's
the best way to tell if you've got the right
mattress or the right pillow. It's not how you
feel when you lie down at night, but how do you
feel when you get up the following morning? Do
you wake up feeling rested and refreshed, no
kinks, no stiffness, no stuffed up nose or lungs?
If you have a stuffy nose and lungs, there's
a whole bunch of things that I recommend for
that. But if you're having difficulty getting
to sleep, I can often help with that by identifying
what's making it difficult for you to get to
sleep and coming up with a solution that you
can often do yourself at home. You might also
need some calming nutrients for a period of time.
If you're waking up and having difficulty getting
back to sleep due to pain, restless legs, intrusive
thoughts, you wake up thinking about something,
anxiety, Or if you're having to go to the bathroom
too much, there are options available to address
all of these things, which don't involve drugs.
Sometimes taking a low dose of melatonin is important.
Certainly not for everybody. For years, I hesitated
to recommend melatonin because even when I tried
it from a lot of the top shelf companies, I didn't
find that it got the result. But a few years
ago, I began using specifically melatonin from
Designs for Health. Designs for Health is one
of my favorite companies. Their products just
seem to work. most of the time, almost all the
time. And melatonin, their melatonin products
in particular, are just completely different.
I've had patients that have said, oh, I've tried
melatonin before, it didn't work, didn't help
at all. And I've heard reports about how a lot
of the melatonin supplements that you get in
stores are just completely useless, either because
they're inadequate dose or improper binding agents.
I don't remember what the details were on that,
but it was just a game changer when I started
putting patients who needed it. on either a capsule
of melatonin to help you fall asleep better or
a time -release tablet, a slow -release tablet,
low -dose, 6 milligrams, slow -release tablet.
And people often ask, oh, if I take melatonin,
is my body going to stop making it? Because that
used to be a common... And the research is in.
Absolutely not. It's been completely disproven.
They've done studies with athletes. Melatonin
is actually a potent anti -inflammatory. So they've
done studies with athletes taking up to 15 grams
a day, and it had no effect on their body's normal
natural production of melatonin. The production
of melatonin is largely regulated by your exposure
to light and your sleep -wake cycle, not by how
much you take. So if you're someone who wakes
up at night and has difficulty getting back to
sleep, sometimes taking a six milligram slow
release tablet will make it less likely for you
to wake up for no reason and make it easier to
get to sleep. If you have woken up just to go
to the bathroom, for example. There's another
nutrient I use a lot or combination of nutrients
to just balance out your neurotransmitters. and
calm your mind and your body more. It's called
Serenity PM by Ortho Molecular Products. So I've
had lots and lots of people with sleep difficulties
get amazingly better sleep with that. So functional
medicine. Make your health decisions based on
sufficient relevant testing. to identify the
specific support your body needs. That's what
functional medicine is. You do relevant testing.
Not everyone needs to do every single test, but
most people need to do more tests and additional
tests. to what you would get from a standard
visit to your physician for an annual physical,
those are generally not enough tests to identify
how healthy you are. It's easy to identify an
obvious full -blown medical condition like diabetes
or heart disease or kidney disease or liver disease
or an acute infection. These things are really
easy to identify on just a few tests. To identify
how healthy your immune system and your gut and
your cardiovascular system, your digestive system,
how healthy all of these interconnected systems
are, you need to do more tests. And you need
to use a different yardstick when you're looking
at the tests, not just the broad range. that
says you have diabetes today, take this pill,
or you have kidney disease, or you have a full
-blown condition that requires a medical diagnosis
and pharmaceutical treatment or a referral to
a specialist, but a narrower focus, the same
blood tests, the same complete blood count, metabolic
panel, your iron levels, your red blood cell
count, all of these things have an additional
range in addition to the broad medical range.
For example, if your red blood cell count is
super, super narrow and you have anemia, you
might need a blood transfusion. Or if it's super,
super broad, you might have hemochromatosis and
need to give blood. But somewhere in between
that is health. And a lot of times people walk
out of a standard medical evaluation. Thyroid
is another classic one. You can be within the
medical range and be told your thyroid is fine,
but you still have no energy. You have cold hands
and feet. can never shift that last 15 or 20
pounds of weight because you have functional
low thyroid. What does that mean? It means your
thyroid is not functioning at 100%. And it's
within the medical range, but it's outside of
the functional range, this narrower range, roughly
this band in the middle third of the broader
medical range that identifies what your blood
work looks like when you're in your teens and
your 20s and everything's working perfectly.
And that type of narrower range applies to...
So when you identify things that are outside
that range and restore the nutrients required
for your body to heal and repair itself, then
you restore health. So the headlines you often
read in mass media about different supplements.
and nutrients are rarely based on well -designed
clinical research they're often based on ridiculously
poorly designed studies that often seem specifically
designed to fail so you hear about if you ever
see studies that say oh vitamin d doesn't work
or fish oil doesn't work well read the fine print
or send it to me better yet and i'll read the
fine print for you and then describe what was
wrong with that study the following week but
for so for example uh 20 about 10 years ago 12
years ago 20 in uh 2013, some ridiculous headline
came out saying that fish oil increases the risk
of prostate cancer, which is just ridiculous
on the face of it. I mean, people eat fish all
the time. Has anybody ever heard of it? Well,
anyway, it doesn't matter. The study was really
poorly designed. It wasn't even directly measuring
consumption of fish oil. It was measuring something
else. And the test they used to measure it was
the wrong test. They were using plasma phospholipid
levels, which fluctuate quickly. And it's far
more accurate to identify your levels of omega
-3s with an RBC omega -3 level. This is a test
that anyone can do for general health purposes
to see if you're getting adequate omega -3s in
your diet. And it's a simple test you can do
at home. You get a kit. It's a dried spot. You
just get a little finger prick, put a drop of
blood on a little dried... card and mail it in
and if that seems strange i was a little skeptical
you know why don't you need to have to do a proper
blood draw to get a measure of this well the
reason is because you're not measuring serum
you're using red blood cells so the packaging
is the cells themselves so that's why it's you
can do an accurate test with just a tiny drop
of blood because the red blood cells they're
measuring are really tiny and it just takes a
few of them and omega -3s are bound up in red
blood cells, and that is the best way to measure
whether or not you're getting enough in your
diet. So the latest study, which just came out,
the CAPFISH -3 trial, a phase 2 clinical study,
offers much more promising new evidence. The
researchers looked at the effects of a high omega
-3 and low omega -6. That's the bad fats from
cheap vegetable oil and fried foods. baked goods
in supermarkets and stuff like that. And combined
that, they studied the effects of this high omega
-3, low omega -6 diet combined with fish oil
supplements in men with active prostate cancer.
And the important thing about this is they used
a much better marker for identifying the effects
of what they were looking for, which is reduction
of prostate cancer. And they used a marker called
KI -67. So Ki67 is a protein that's found only
in cells that are dividing. So a high... KI -67
proliferation index means that many cells are
dividing quickly, and therefore the cancer is
spreading and growing. And this is not a test
that you can do at home. It requires a biopsy.
But for the study, this type of controlled study,
it's an excellent indicator of whether or not
something is working. And so the results are
the... People with the high omega -3 diet combined
with fish oil supplements, their KI -67 marker
for tumor growth decreased by 15%, which is huge
because a lot of things, they're happy if it
doesn't change at all. You just stop any growth
or proliferation in this marker, and it decreased
by 15%. And the control group that had none of
the omega -3s, theirs increased. Their cancer
got 24 % worse. So it's a difference of over
30 % between the two groups. So the group with
the fish oil and a marker that often, it's a
good news if it doesn't change at all, actually
decreased by 15%, decreased growth of the tumor
measurement. And the group that did not do any
fish oil as a control group, their marker increased
by 24%, which is what you don't want. Their cancer
growth increased. The omega -3 group also had
lower triglycerides and lower levels of pro -inflammatory
cytokines. And this was the CAPFISH -3 randomized
clinical trial published just this month, December
2024, in Journal of Clinical Oncology. Thank
you for tuning in. I hope this gave you some
good ideas or at least a reminder of things that
you already know you should do and hopefully
inspires you to start out the new year right
with a renewed commitment to taking better care
of your health every day with better food, physical
activity you actually enjoy, supplementing nutrients
that might be missing from your food, and testing
to make sure that everything is working as it
should so that you can thrive in 2025. Have a
great weekend. We'll see you here next week on
KDAR 98 .3. 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.