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 and welcome. I am Dr. Todd Binkley,
board -certified, non -forced doctor of chiropractic
and practitioner of functional medicine. If you're
wondering what is functional medicine, you wouldn't
be the first person to ask. Functional medicine
means using standard diagnostic tests to identify
earlier signs of stress on your various organs
and tissues early enough that you can give your
body a chance to heal itself before you become
dependent on medication. Have you been to a doctor
and been told that there's nothing wrong with
you? You still don't feel right? If you don't
feel right, there probably is something wrong
with you. You just haven't found out what yet.
Whatever is preventing you from feeling as fabulous
as you should can often be identified with proper
testing. And there is a safe, effective, natural
solution for almost any health challenge. I've
been getting a lot of questions coming in, and
one of the most common questions I get, and one
of the most common conditions people come to
see me for is fatigue. So I'd like to talk a
little bit about that today. There are some myths
that need to be dispelled that people are misinformed
about. So myth number one, if I eat right, exercise,
drink plenty of coffee, my energy should be great.
And if that's not happening, I guess I'll just
have to get used to it. In reality, lots of people
eat fresh organic vegetables, eat farm -raised
chicken and wild -caught fish, go to the gym
five days a week, drink good filtered water,
and still feel exhausted. Myth number two. I
had my blood work done recently, and all the
tests came back normal, and my doctor checked
everything. No doctor ever checks everything.
There are 300 common tests. Most doctors only
check 15 or 20 on a typical visit. And most doctors
never check to see if any part of your body is
functioning normally. They only check to see
if you need medical care, a prescription, an
injection, more tests, a referral to a specialist.
Myth number three, it's totally normal to not
have all the energy I used to have. Everyone
slows down as they get older. In reality, most
fatigue, tiredness, lack of energy is caused
by a dozen little things that are undetectable
by standard medical practice. They are identified,
if you look, for loss of normal function in your
liver, your kidneys, your cardiovascular system,
your digestive system, your immune system, etc.
So, for example, I had a patient come in. Let's
call her Yolanda, not her real name. She's a
47 -year -old hairdresser. She's complaining
of gas, bloating, nausea, poor concentration.
It's a long list. Headaches, dizziness, depression,
anxiety, frequent colds and stuffy nose, cold
hands and feet. Has 50 % less energy than she
had five years ago. After I asked her a few questions,
she revealed that she rarely exercises. She drinks
five to six glasses of water a day. She constantly
craves starch and sugar. Uses a lot of artificial
sweeteners. She has dry, thinning hair and hair
loss. Dry skin. She's noticing bruises that seem
to come out of nowhere. She also has neck and
back pain, severe cramps. and heavy menstrual
flow. So I did some blood work on her, and the
blood work showed that she had some stress on
her kidneys, some stress on her liver, several
nutrient deficiencies. She was low on calcium
and chloride and magnesium and protein. Her thyroid
was low. She had iron deficiency, anemia, and
a few other things that are a little complicated
to explain on this show. But the good news is,
four months later, Her kidneys were doing better.
Her mineral deficiencies were still there, still
needed some work. Her total protein was better.
Her cholesterol was better. Her liver was a little
bit better. Her cholesterol was completely normal
now. We're near normal now. And her iron deficiency
anemia was gone. But when I was explaining this
to her, she actually stopped me. She said, you
know what? Thank you. I don't really care what
my blood tests look like. I want to tell you
that I have no more gas, bloating, or nausea.
I have no headaches, no dizziness. My concentration
is better. My depression and anxiety are much
better. I have no colds or stuffy nose. My hands
and feet are less cold, or cold less often. And
our energy is not only not like it was It's not
reduced compared to, but it's actually better.
Her energy is now better than it was five years
ago. She also is exercising three to five days
a week and drinking two quarts of water a day.
She was really surprised when I told her that
five or six glasses of water was not enough for
her body weight and lifestyle. She's eating much
less. starch, and sugar. This is huge. She's
not using any artificial sweeteners, which jangle
her nerves. Most importantly to her, or at least
the thing that seemed to get her the most excited,
was that her hair wasn't falling out anymore,
and it was thicker, less brittle. Her skin's
back to normal, no bruising, neck and back pain
are 70 % better, her menstrual cramps are 50
% less, and her flow has returned to normal.
So here's a question. Who do you know who struggles
to do things that used to be easy or who's always
sick and takes forever to get well? Do you know
anybody that suddenly feels 10 years older than
they used to be? That never feels like going
out anymore? Who's gained weight eating the same
food? Do you know anybody who never wakes feeling
fully rested? anxious or depressed for no reason,
anyone who's addicted, someone who's addicted
to caffeine, sugar, and stimulants, someone who
used to love to go on long walks, hiking, or
dancing, it doesn't have to be this way. I am
Dr. Todd Binkley, sharing with you safe, effective,
natural solutions to almost any health challenge.
If you're ready to take the next step and find
out what's possible for your situation, email
me at drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter .com.
That's D -R -B as in boy, I -N -K -L -E -Y at
binkleyhealingcenter .com. Another common question
I get is, Dr. B, you're always talking about
functional medicine. Making lifestyle choices,
eating better food, exercise, supplements, trying
to prevent reverse disease without needing medication
all the time. Why doesn't every doctor do this?
Well, probably the most common reason is most
patients wait till they need medical care, crisis
care, some kind of pharmaceutical intervention
before they go to a doctor. Most people wait
till they're that bad off. And that's why the
practice of medicine is so heavily based on treating
things with drugs because most people need them.
But here's another reason. This is an article
that just came out in Medscape in the medical
literature a few days ago. Here's the title.
How primary care practitioners are penalized
for positive outcomes from lifestyle change.
How primary care practitioners are penalized
for positive outcomes. from lifestyle change.
This is written by Dr. Padmaya Patel, MD, President
-elect of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.
And he says, Clinical practice guidelines for
many chronic diseases recommend lifestyle intervention,
basically better food, exercise, stress reduction,
etc., as the first and optimal treatment. A growing
body of evidence supports lifestyle and behavior
interventions to treat and, when used intensively,
even reverse common chronic conditions such as
cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes,
while also providing effective prevention for
those conditions. However, no current quality
measures consider lifestyle. In fact, some even
unintentionally penalize physicians for successfully
treating and reversing disease while rewarding
conditions for meeting process measures, usually
adherence to medication. So this means doctors
are rewarded for, especially in a nursing home
setting, for patients who consistently take their
medication. If they consistently take their medication.
then that's considered a positive, a gold star
for that institution, and the physicians themselves
are often rewarded for that. So rewarding medication
adherence for the treatment of disease when a
lifestyle change for something like hypertension
could work better incentivizes physicians to
skip the conversation about lifestyle changes
and go straight to the prescription of medication.
Meanwhile, the clinician who takes the extra
time, to guide a patient towards lifestyle interventions
that could treat their current disease and prevent
future diseases without side effects is penalized.
Isn't that crazy? He goes on, existing comprehensive
lifestyle programs that patients are eligible
for, for example, the diabetes prevention program,
are often so poorly reimbursed that clinicians
and health systems decline to offer them. So
despite the fact that lifestyle behaviors are
top contributors to health and conversely contribute
to up to 80 % of chronic diseases, few of the
measures that tell whether or not an institution
or a physician is doing a good job, few of them
measure lifestyle interventions, eating better
food, exercising, stress reduction, etc. And
instead, they penalize these approaches. So specific
quality measures penalize lifestyle medicine
approaches include pharmacotherapy drugs for
type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, osteoporosis,
and gout, as well as rheumatoid arthritis. So
quality measures, whether or not somebody is
being measured as to whether they're doing a
good job for their patients, a physician is penalized
for lifestyle medicine approaches. for type 2
diabetes, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, gout,
and rheumatoid arthritis. Statin drugs for high
cholesterol are a perfect example. Here's a lifestyle
medicine primary care physician who had a patient
covered by Medicare Advantage who was diagnosed
with high cholesterol. The patient had a total
cholesterol of 226 and triglyceride level of
132. Instead of prescribing a statin drug like
Zocor or Lipitor, Torvastatin, etc., the physician
prescribed lifestyle behavior modifications.
Within three weeks, the patient's total cholesterol
improved to 171. It dropped 50 points. And triglycerides
similarly dropped over 50 points, down to 75.
which is a great success, and the patient was
delighted. However, the CMS five -star rating
system assigned the primary care physician a
grade of C rather than an A, which puts that
physician's five -star rating at risk. Why? Because
the system bases its score largely on medication
compliance. So despite achieving the optimal
outcome at a lower cost than with medication,
he was penalized. So Medicare risk adjustment
incentivizes physicians to manage rather than
reverse disease. A physician utilizing diet alone
to achieve remission in a patient with type 2
diabetes is penalized financially because when
the risk is adjusted, diabetes is no longer listed
on that patient's list of conditions. So Medicare
pays the physician less money. Does this make
sense to you? For the change that needs to happen
to be successful, it's vital. This is the end
of the article. For the change that we want to
be successful, it's vital that lifestyle behavior
interventions, optimal nutrition, physical activity,
restorative sleep, social connections, stress
management, avoidance of harmful substances.
This needs to become the foundation of how we
measure quality outcomes. in health care. So
isn't that sad? Somebody's trying to do a better
job for someone's health when it's proven to
work better and they lose money and lose their
ratings for the institution that they work for.
Pretty sad state of affairs. Let's talk about
another great case, give you an idea of what's
possible with taking better care of yourself.
And even when things are have become really bad
what you can do with high doses of nutrients
in special cases. So I had a 75 -year -old man,
a patient that was coming to me regularly for
a few years. He had a lot of arthritis in his
neck and his hips, and he was coming every month
routinely just to help me, just to have me help
him keep his neck and hips loosened up. And he
had gone on vacation. with his family and I was
only supposed to be gone for a couple of weeks
and a couple of months gone by I hadn't seen
him and finally I think about three or four months
later he comes in and he says oh yeah when I
was visiting my family I had a heart attack and
ended up having to have open heart surgery double
bypass surgery and actually I didn't see him
for five months And when he finally came in,
he looked like a ghost. He was weak, pale, couldn't
drive anymore. Previously, he was fit. He always
wore shorts. He's in Southern California. He's
always wearing shorts. His legs were as strong
as a man many decades younger than him. He always
looked fit. He walked. He exercised regularly.
He was in great shape. He comes in. He's pale,
weak, slumped over, can't drive anymore. He's
got shortness of breath. He's kind of huffing
and puffing a little bit. His ankles are swollen
up bigger than his calves. And I asked him what
his BNP level was. And his daughter was with
him and his wife, and they immediately knew what
test I was referring to. BNP, B as in boy, N
as in Nancy, P as in Paul, stands for B -type
natriuretic. B -type natriuretic peptide. So
this is a test cardiologists use to diagnose
heart failure, congestive heart failure especially.
So when you start, it's a common cause of death,
it's a natural, quote unquote, natural cause
of death, congestive heart failure. You get older,
you start to get shortness of breath. fluid backs
up into your ankles and into your lungs eventually,
and at some point your heart just gives out.
But long before it gives out completely, it just
becomes weaker. So the definition of heart failure
doesn't mean that your heart is stopped. It just
means that it is failing to keep up with demand.
It's failing to pump strongly enough to keep
all of your blood circulating, and so therefore
fluid starts to back up into your ankles and
eventually... So he looks terrible. He's had
open heart surgery, but it's been five months
now. And I asked him what his BNP test was, and
it was 382, nearly four times the medical upper
limit of normal. And he'd been to his cardiologist
recently, and his cardiologist told him that
this was just normal. He's 75 years old. He's
had open heart surgery. Basically, this is as
good as it gets. Enjoy the... the time you have
left. So I put them on a high dose of coenzyme
Q10. Coenzyme Q10 is an essential enzyme for
heart repair, for muscle repair throughout your
body. It's also essential for energy and the
mitochondria for making energy and the energy
making part of every cell in your body. But it's
especially important for heart muscle. And our
bodies make coenzyme Q10. but production peaks
at around age 25. And then after that, it tapers
off. So if you have heart failure or struggling
heart condition, almost any type of heart condition
will benefit from supplementing with coenzyme
Q10. I put him on a very high dose of coenzyme
Q10, 1 ,200 milligrams plus several other nutrients.
In two months, his ankle swelling was reduced
by half. He was standing up straight again. His
color had come back. He was driving again on
his own. And he couldn't believe it. His wife
and his daughter were very happy. I reduced his
dose of CoQ10 down to 900 milligrams. These are
high doses, and it's expensive to get that much
CoQ10. But it basically saved his life. Four
months later, his ankle swelling was gone. His
fatigue was gone. He looked and felt better than
he felt before the surgery. And his BNP test...
was down to 132, 132, just barely out of the
medical range. A lot of physicians who are used
to treating patients who aren't aware of the
benefits of coenzyme Q10, especially high doses
on somebody with a situation like this, think
it's impossible to get the BNP test down below
200 in somebody in their 70s or their 80s or
older. So we got it down to 132. A couple of
years after that, or I think about a year after
that, if my recollection is correct, we even
got it below 100. We got it down to 87. And he
went on and lived another seven or eight years
driving on his own, walking, doing all the things
that he enjoys doing. And then eventually his
heart gave out when he was in his 80s. So that
would never have happened without... coenzyme
q10 and it did happen with no medications he
was taking some some medications for his blood
pressure but he wasn't taking any statin drugs
for his cholesterol i think the only medication
he was taking was one medication for his blood
pressure so some people would call that a miracle
because it doesn't often happen and A lot of
people don't understand how it can happen, but
I've seen many, many patients respond very well
to high doses of coenzyme Q10 for almost any
heart condition. It works for people on atrial
fibrillation. It works for people with cardiomyopathy,
which is a thickening of the muscle of the heart.
It works for people that, well, have almost any
heart condition. So BNP is the test. to run if
you want to find out how much stress there is
on your heart right now. BNP is a feedback mechanism
between your heart and your kidneys. So a peptide
is a fragment, a building block of a protein.
The proteins that your muscle, your heart muscle
is made out of include one of these peptides.
So as basically as your heart muscle is normally
turning over as some old cells are dying off
and new ones are replacing them, some of that
cell turnover results in BNP ending up in your
bloodstream. There's a normal level of it in
your bloodstream all the time. The medical upper
limit of normal is 100. The healthy range is
40 or less. But there's always some there telling
your kidneys that this is the amount of stretch
and strain on your heart muscle. And if it's
elevated, then it tells your kidneys to dump
more water to take the pressure off of the heart.
So that's why there's always some there. But
if it's above 100, And a lot of people have no
idea. I test this on anybody who has signs or
symptoms of being at risk for heart disease.
And I've had people that are just high -stress
personalities or had a family history of heart
disease but have no symptoms of heart disease
at all. People in their 30s, 40s, 50s. I recommend
we run this test. And I've seen people with no
symptoms of heart disease have a BNP of 300,
400, 600. No symptoms. Put them on a high dose
of CoQ10 for a few minutes, get them back to
normal. That's called preventing heart disease.
Did you know that most doctors are employees?
Most doctors are employed by a medical group,
a hospital, a nursing home. They're told what
they can and cannot do based on standards of
care, meaning you get the same treatment everyone
else does, and insurance reimbursement. They're
governed by a board of directors. who are mostly
interested in maximizing profits for their institution
and cutting costs at the expense of your health.
I'm not employed by anyone other than myself,
full stop. I work for you. My only interest is
helping you, teaching you how you can take responsibility
for improving your health. Nothing you'll ever
hear from me on this show is a cure for any disease.
That's not the purpose of this show and it's
not what I do. I've never cured a single disease
in my entire 33 years in practice. That's not
my job. Your body does that. Your body heals
or fails to heal any disease you get. That's
worth repeating. Your body heals. or fails to
heal, any disease you get. Diabetes is not caused
by a lack of metformin. High blood pressure is
not caused by a deficiency of lisinopril. Chronic
headaches are not caused by inadequate Advil.
Heart disease is not caused by insufficient statin
drugs like etorvastatin or simvastatin, liposor
or Zocor. Most of these disease conditions are
caused by stress, identifiable. nutrient deficiencies,
lousy diets, lack of exercise, and general neglect.
If you want to be truly healthy, you have to
take responsibility for your own health. But
you don't have to do it on your own. I'm here
to help. I'd be honored to help you identify
all the areas where your heart, liver, kidneys,
lungs, immune system, digestive system are silently
struggling and could use a little help. Remember,
the condition of your body is far more important
than any disease condition you've been diagnosed
with. Do something today to be a little healthier
than you were yesterday. Go for a walk. Eat more
fresh vegetables. Call your mother or that friend
you haven't spoken to in years. I'm Dr. Todd
Binkley, sharing with you safe, effective, natural
solutions to almost any health challenge. I look
forward to the privilege of speaking with you
again right here next Friday at 4 p .m. Have
a blessed 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 4 p .m. for safe, effective
natural solutions right here on 98 .3 The Word,
KDAR.