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. We're continuing a review
of the latest research into brain health, several
episodes in a row now. I've been getting a lot
of questions, a lot of feedback from these past
two or three episodes, and so I ran out of time
on the last one, so we're going to continue where
we left off there. But the main focus is how
to protect the health of the brain. how to protect,
how you can help your loved ones to keep their
brains healthy and reduce the risk of the devastating
effects of dementia and neurodegenerative conditions
like Parkinson's. And I'm going to talk about
one of my favorite patients, a lovely lady in
her 80s who is doing a great job of reducing
her risk of dementia by keeping herself healthy
generally. And in spite of very... various genetic
predispositions and that lovely lady is my mother.
But before we do that, we're going to finish
talking about where I left off last week, this
article about the toxic effects of golf courses.
increasing risk of Parkinson's. Now, this article
is specifically about Parkinson's or a review
of several studies specifically about Parkinson's,
but I can promise you anything that increases
your risk of anything that involves toxins, exposure
to toxins, increasing your risk of Parkinson's
is also going to increase your risk of all neurodegenerative
conditions of the brain, including all forms
of dementia. including Alzheimer's. At the end
of last week's show, I ran out of time in the
middle of reviewing this excellent article in
JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association
Network, open on Parkinson's, entitled, The Risk
of Neurologic Disorder Rises for People Who Live
Near Golf Courses. Yikes. A lot of people who
are at the highest risk of these things naturally
often move. to be near golf courses. So that's
not very encouraging to know about. But what's
happening here? So the risk is from toxins. It's
from all of the pesticides and chemical fertilizers
that they put on these vast expanses of green
that then slowly trickle down into the drinking
water of the people that live nearby there. And
so they determined that living within one mile
of a golf course was associated with more than
double the odds of developing Parkinson's disease.
compared with living more than six miles away.
This was led by a researcher with a Polish name
that's a little bit difficult to pronounce, Dr.
Kryzhanowski, PhD of the Barrow Neurological
Institute in Phoenix, and it was reported in
JAMA in May of 2025. This was a study done in
Minnesota with 1 ,419 Parkinson's cases and over
5 ,000 control patients. The median age was 72,
and the study was done from 1991 to 2015. They
collected data from 139 golf courses and 224
water services areas. And they found that the
odds of getting a Parkinson's disease decreased
by 9 % for every mile in distance from a golf
course up to 18 miles. Wow. Full stop. That stuff
they put on golf courses is clearly not good.
So you can always avoid these things. One way
you can dramatically reduce your risk of these
things, if you live near a golf course, for example,
is to get a good water filter, a solid carbon
block filter. So send me questions if you want
to know more about that. A lot of people have
reverse osmosis. filters that's the three chamber
very common type of filter that people have under
their sinks that will also filter out most of
the toxins unfortunately it also makes the water
a little acidic so a solid carbon block filter
is better but yeah filtering that water can be
really important the data is now showing if you
live near a golf course the topography varies
obviously in different regions but limestone
bedrock is very common that dissolves over time
and it creates little underground voids that
allow water from the surface to move rapidly
through it and accumulate in your water that
your water service area provides to your tap.
The authors also encouraged people who live near
golf courses to find out what days they spray
the pesticides and other chemicals and during
those times try to stay indoors and close your
windows and putting a HEPA filter in your bedroom
so that you're breathing clean air all night
is always a great idea. Parkinson's disease has
been tied to many environmental contaminants,
including industrial solvents like trichloroethylene
in drinking water and pesticides like semazine,
atrazine, and lindane, all of which have long
been known to be associated with the development
of Parkinson's disease and used to treat golf
courses for years, Dr. Krishnanovsky and her
colleagues pointed out. They also reviewed data
showing that pesticides such as paraquat and
rotanone have been shown to induce Parkinson
-like neurodegeneration in the substantia nigra.
Substantia nigra is the main part of the brain
that's damaged by Parkinson's disease. It has
a role in movement and cognitive functions. It
produces dopamine. It's the loss of function
of that part of the brain that is primarily involved
in Parkinson's. And so these pesticides, paraquat
and rotanone, damage. that induce neurodegeneration
in those areas through oxidative stress, mitochondrial
dysfunction, damaging the energy -producing part
of every cell, and even death of the cells that
produce dopamine. So you can get tested for your
exposure. How do you know? Chemicals are everywhere.
It's sometimes frustrating. People get tired
of hearing about them because you can... often
get the sense that they're unavoidable. What
are you going to do? Well, exposures vary. Your
genetic ability to excrete the toxins that you
are exposed to varies. And whether or not, critically,
whether or not you're getting the nutrients needed.
to excrete those toxins efficiently is really
important. So let's say those things again. So
obviously everyone's exposure to chemicals varies.
And one of the best ways, there are known exposures.
Now we know another one. Don't live near a golf
course if you want to minimize your risk to Parkinson's
or take an appropriate action to make sure that
you're not exposed to the chemicals that they're
using. But you can, in addition to dealing with
known exposures and avoiding them or mitigating
them, It's also important to at least know that
the genetic ability for you and those you love
to excrete things that you're both exposed to
varies tremendously. And people have experienced
this. You may, you know, know someone who had,
who was diagnosed or, you know. had the proper
testing and found out that, wow, they had this
toxic exposure and it's been causing them all
kinds of problems and now maybe they're working
on eliminating it. But what about their spouse
or their family members that lived in the exact
same environment and didn't have a problem? How
does that happen? So you can be exposed to certain
things and have someone else sitting right next
to you living in the same house. with virtually
identical exposure and not develop the same symptoms
and other health -related problems, how is that?
Well, your genetic ability to excrete the toxins
that you're exposed to varies tremendously. And
so have some sympathy. Some of us know that person
that's sensitive to everything. They're sensitive
to fragrance. They're sensitive to chemicals
of any kind. And hello. I am one of those people.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing, being
insensitivity, being insensitive to things that
damage your health is far worse than being sensitive
to them because then you don't know that you
need to do something to avoid those things. But
some people just seem to be hypersensitive to
everything. And that is partly genetic. That
has been shown. So people's sensitivities in
general to various types of toxins. It's different
for everyone. So your exposure is different.
How your body is going to react to the same toxins
is going to be different than other people. And
most importantly. When you want, the people who
have part of the reason that some people, another
reason that some people don't have as much of
a problem with a chronic toxic exposure, maybe
they work in a factory or some kind of industry
with a lot of toxins and their best friend got
cancer from it and they're fine. Another reason
that that experience varies is because even if
you have the good genes that minimize, that enable
you, fortify your ability to flush toxins out
more effectively. maybe than the average person,
your body needs certain nutrients to make that
work well. The mechanisms your body uses to flush
out toxins ongoingly, every day, your kidneys
and your colon and your liver help filter these
things out of your body and flush them down into
the sewer system. But you need nutrients to facilitate
that process and make it work at its best. And
mainly these nutrients are minerals. All the
minerals that so many people don't get enough
of. Calcium, magnesium, iron, selenium, zinc,
chromium. There's a long list of micronutrients
that you need in tiny, tiny amounts. And these
are also measured, by the way, when you do toxic
testing. So if you do a hair test or urine test
with a chelating agent like DMSA, that's kind
of a whole other conversation. But there's a
couple of... important ways to test these things.
And the same tests performed by the best lab
in the country, Doctors Data, the most accurate
lab for testing these things. The test results
also include your level of Essential minerals.
It includes, it shows you how much of these various
healthy, important minerals are also being excreted
by your body naturally. It gives you a proxy
for your levels of getting, whether it tells
you whether or not you're getting enough of those
in many cases. So all of these things are testable.
You can get a hair test or a urine test to test
your exposure to heavy metals and a specialty
urine test called ToxDetect. tox detect test
is the premier test for measuring most of the
pesticides, chemicals, fertilizers, other environmental
things that we're exposed to. Uh, and it is from
mosaic diagnostics and that is available. And
a lot of my patients have been very surprised
to find out, Oh my God, where did I, where did
I get all this stuff? Well, We're all exposed
to it, but it really kind of hits home when you
see the data on the lab report right in front
of you. And hopefully that can make it easier
to motivate yourself or someone you love to take
the necessary steps to gently, safely, slowly,
not fast. You make yourself sick if you do one
of these crazy liver cleanses and try to. clear
everything out of your body in one week or one
vacation or something. You want to flush these
things out slowly, gently, so that your body
can eliminate them without making you sick. These
things are stored mainly in fat cells throughout
your body to keep them out of circulation, to
keep them from irritating your brain, your cardiovascular
system, your immune system. And so when you're
trying to flush these things out, you're pulling
them out of storage. into circulation where they're
floating throughout your body and, you know,
for a short period of time, irritating cells
throughout your body again. So that's why you
want to pull them out slowly, no faster than
your kidneys, your liver, your colon can complete
the process of flushing them out of your body.
So out of storage into circulation, then through
mainly the liver and the kidneys and somewhat
the colon out into the sewer system. I'm Dr.
Todd Bankley. You're listening to Safe, Effective,
Natural Solutions to Almost Any Health Challenge.
I sometimes get asked if I can help somebody
who lives out of state. If you know someone,
maybe something I've said on this show reminds
you of a problem that your brother or your niece
or your aunt in Washington State or Florida or
Illinois or New York, you know, can I help somebody
that lives in those places? And the answer is
yes. I have patients in all of those states and
a dozen others. I can consult with your loved
one anywhere in the country, on the phone or
a video call, have them get their blood drawn
in their town. LabCorp has a draw site within
five miles of almost any city in the country.
And the specialty labs for the toxin testings,
those are all samples that you collect yourself
and mail into the lab anyway. There's only one
lab in the whole country. And then I receive
the results online on a secure website and call
you or them up. It is nice to see patients face
-to -face in the office, but it's often not necessary.
And we can review the results on the phone, email,
whatever, a video call, whatever's easiest for
them. And this distance consultation or telemedicine
that I've done with many, many patients is the
standard of care I provide to one of my favorite
patients, my own mother. And she's given me permission
to talk about her case, and she's doing great.
So my mom just turned 83, and her mother died
at 79. complications from open heart surgery.
She also had severe arthritis with the gnarled
fingers and stiffness and, you know, aches and
pains all the time that were difficult to deal
with. And my own, you know, my mother also has
arthritis, but it started many, many years later
than my grandmother's did. And even though she's
older, it's still nowhere near as bad as what
my grandmother had. So my mom has outlived her
mother by four years and remains in excellent
health for her age. My mother's father, my mom's
dad, my maternal grandfather, he began showing
early signs of dementia. in his late 70s and
died of complications from Alzheimer's at 87.
So I've taken it upon myself to help her in any
way I can, obviously, to avoid that fate or prolong
it as much as possible. I'd like to have her
around for as long as she still feels good and
healthy. And she kind of has a metric of her
own. She's already told my sister and brother
and me that she wants to live until we take her
car keys away. So it's not my favorite metric.
But if that works for her, that is her motivation.
She is taking good care of herself. She exercises
every day. She walks two miles a day. She still
travels regularly. She just visited me. She flew
from Kansas to California and stayed for a week
earlier this year. And she still goes to church
every day. She sings in the choir at Christmas.
And she does her best to eat good food. She's
doing actually really good with her diet. And
she takes a handful of supplements from me. And
we check her labs at least. once a year and sometimes
more. And, you know, she's doing great. And she's
a great patient. She would much rather do anything
natural than become dependent on drugs for the
rest of her life. When she goes in to see her
doctors back home, they often are surprised.
They're shocked, actually, that she's not taking
seven, six, seven, eight medications like all
their other patients that are her age. And she,
you know, for example, one time a few years ago,
her cholesterol was elevated and they wanted
to put her on statin drugs. And of course she
said, thank you, but no, thank you. And we got
her cholesterol down, I don't know, 30 or 40
points or whatever it was in a few months, went
and had it retested. And I had her take that
in and show her doctor, look, my cholesterol
is fine now. What about that? And he said, well.
thinking that, of course, her doctor would be
fascinated to know how she lowered her cholesterol
without taking statin drugs. Was he interested?
No. He also wanted her to take bisphosphonates,
bone density. drugs, osteoporosis drugs. And
these things are, you know, I'm not going to
tell you not to take any medication. Some other
doctor recommended for you, but I will tell you
that these drugs are horrible. And I definitely
did not recommend that my mother take them and
she didn't want to take them. And she is taking
adequate forms of bioavailable calcium, vitamin
D. vitamin k2 and collagen and she hasn't had
a fracture since she was in her 30s or 40s and
she's you know her bones are in excellent health
for her age much better than a lot of her friends
for example even who are taking those drugs and
still end up falling and breaking their hip In
other news, the British Medical Journal just
reported a meta -analysis of cardiovascular risk
associated with the use of cannabis and cannabinoids.
So these things are growing more popular. They're
being legalized in several states. Sometimes
patients ask me about them. What do I think about
this? I'm not a fan. There are some uses for
it that are pretty well documented for appetite,
people, cancer patients, other patients who have
difficulty feeling, you know, getting enough
food. Again, it helps with their appetite and
for pain control as well. A lot of data on pain
control for some things with using these things,
but they're not without risk. So this is an analysis
that looks at the relationship between major
adverse cardiovascular events. and the use of
cannabis. And they also used cardiovascular death,
non -fatal acute coronary syndrome, including
myocardial infarctions and non -fatal stroke.
So they found 24 articles, analyzed them, and
found that your risk for acute coronary syndrome
was 1 .29. and 1 .2 for stroke, and 2 .1 for
cardiovascular death. So that means you had a
29 % increased risk of acute heart attack, a
20 % increased risk for stroke, and double the
risk for cardiovascular death. So it's a really
well done study, and it appears to be the first
meta -analysis that examined the potential association
of cannabis and these major... adverse cardiovascular
events. Further, they wondered, so how does it
do this? What are the mechanisms that cause cannabis
to increase risk of negative impacts on the cardiovascular
system? So there were associations with oxidative
stress, tissue injury, and cell death. Cannabis
use was also pro -atherogenic and pro -fibrotic
and pro -inflammatory. So all three of those
things are going to increase the plaque formation,
blocking of the arteries, hardening of the arteries
and the formation of plaques that can become
thromboses that could migrate and cause a heart
attack or a stroke and results in vasodilation
and constriction in the sympathetic nervous system
that could put additional stress on the entire
cardiovascular system. One thing the study doesn't
address is whether or not the effect is in part
due to the smoke or how much of these effects
are due to the fact of smoking cannabis as opposed
to doing an edible. For example, there are some
well -known dangers with edibles because the
manufacturers that make them have these ridiculous
portion size. They give you something that looks
like one serving and then say in fine print somewhere,
oh, don't eat all of that, only eat a tiny portion
of it. So if you are going to do those things,
definitely make sure. to find out what the actual
recommended serving size is before eating the
whole thing. So my concern is smoke. They don't
really mention anything in this study. They don't
look at how much of these damaging effects to
the cardiovascular system involved with cannabis
use is simply due to the fact that someone is
smoking. The cannabis smoke of any kind is pro
-inflammatory, pro -atherogenic, pro -fibrotic,
increases hardening of the arteries. It irritates
this delicate lining of the blood vessels throughout
your body, just as it irritates the linings of
your lungs. So smoking anything, cigarettes,
marijuana, breathing in smoke from wildfires,
as we've talked about on several previous episodes,
which is becoming more and more unavoidable.
And just any kind of smoke so that, you know,
even the smoke from candles, the smoke from anything
that produces smoke, fireplaces, a lot of these
things aren't problems for most people, but they
might be. Anytime you see something, any fine
particulate matter that can float in the air,
that you can see floating in the air. That's
the definition of smoke. And any fine particulate
matter that is light enough to float in the air
is going to, when it floats in your nose, up
your nostrils and down your trachea and into
your lungs, has a unique ability to reach the
deepest crevices of your lung tissue where it
then gets lodged. And it's so difficult to cough
or in any other way flush out. Your body makes
mucus and you have a coughing mechanism to try.
get that junk out of your lungs when your body
realizes there's stuff in there that shouldn't
be there, it causes you to cough and it causes
you to make more mucus to produce phlegm so that
you cough that up and get that junk out of your
lungs that you've been exposed to. But those
mechanisms can only do so much. And when you
have a particulate matter like that and other
things that your lungs cannot help you. cough
out, then it forms scar tissue. Your body forms
scar tissue around these deposits and those things
cause things like chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease and lung cancer. And of course, just
like oxygen, anything you breathe in also goes
into your blood circulation and courses throughout
your arteries and veins to every cell in your
body. So your lungs are designed to breathe in
oxygen every day. That's how air reaches every
cell in your body. It first has to pass through
a membrane at the furthest recesses of your lungs,
which is a very thin membrane that it can easily
cross directly into your bloodstream. Every breath
you take involves... oxygen molecules coming
across from the air you breathe through that
slight barrier directly into your bloodstream
so that it can reach all of the cells that depend
on it for life. But because of that, because
that membrane has to be so thin to allow oxygen
to directly enter your liquid bloodstream, toxins
of any kind that you breathe in can also work
their way directly into your bloodstream and
irritate the lining of your arteries in ways
that cause little micro tears that your body
then forms scars around, which eventually become
plaques. The plaques that narrow your arteries
reduce circulation to your brain and eventually
can sometimes break off little fragments called
thrombi, thrombuses, and migrate to your heart
and cause a heart attack or to your brain and
cause a stroke. I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. You're
listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions
to Almost Any Challenge. We're about out of time
here. So I'll just talk about one more thing
about creatine. A couple of episodes ago, we
were talking about creatine and its beneficial
effects that are now documented to actually even
slightly reverse damage to the brain, damage
that causes dementia and Alzheimer's. So this
is really exciting. And I got a few questions
about that. And there's a really interesting,
you know, for more information about creatine,
a couple of people. ask me, okay, where do I
get creatine? What's the form that you recommend?
And I recommend creatine from Thorne, T -H -O
-R -N -E. Thorne is the company that makes an
excellent creatine supplement. And you can go
to their website, thorne .com, and punch in creatine.
There's an article on their website that was
published this month called Creatine Benefits
for Women's Health. It was in response to the
same research that I talked about. on the last
couple of episodes. And it talks about how the
evidence shows that creatine can be very beneficial
for women's muscle strength, body composition,
mood, energy. and overall health throughout their
lifespans. And they have research at the bottom
of that article to back it up. So you can find
that on their website. And, you know, it reviews,
highlights the fact that women consume less creatine.
They store less creatine. And supplementing,
the research shows that supplementing it is an
option that many women might want to consider
throughout their lifespans. During childbearing
age, through menopause, estrogen and progesterone
are known to alter creatine bioavailability as
well as the expression. Thank you so much for
listening. Send me, email me, or text me your
questions anytime at drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter
.com. Have a fantastic 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. Here on 98 .3 FM, The Word.