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 Bankley, board -certified
doctor of non -force chiropractic, no snapping,
no cracking, no popping, and practitioner of
functional medicine. So most of the time on this
show, I talk about functional medicine, how to
use more comprehensive and progressive testing
to identify conditions that other doctors miss.
If you have someone that you know and love that's
not getting the help that they think they should
be getting or the results, especially that they
think they should be getting, then I'd love an
opportunity to try and help them. If they don't
need, if that person who's not getting the results
they expect, if they don't need to go to the
hospital immediately, then there's a good chance.
that I can help them. We talk about all kinds
of different conditions on this show that functional
medicine can help that I've successfully helped
over the years, 30 years, 30 plus years in practice.
And all of the previous episodes of this show
are available. as podcasts on my website, binkleyhealingcenter
.com. You can also subscribe to the show on Apple
Podcasts or on Spotify, on YouTube. And on all
of those places, there is a transcript of the
show. If you want to read or you didn't hear
something or you wanted to review something quickly,
you can see the written text for each show transcribed.
So today, the subject of today's show is toxins
and how toxins affect your health, increase your
risk of certain diseases. And while I'm on that
subject, I also am doing a live presentation
in the office every week in downtown Ventura,
the first Wednesday of every month on various
topics. And the next one coming up the first
Wednesday of November, which I believe is November
5th, on toxins and how they affect different
conditions. Who do you know perhaps that has
an unexplained rash? This is something that comes
up a lot, people that have rashes. and nothing
else, and nothing seems to help get rid of them,
especially just doing steroids. It's the most
common medical therapy, which often doesn't work.
There's usually a toxic exposure there. In my
experience, I've helped people with really, really
horrible rashes that were eliminated after we
got identified specific toxins that have built
up and got their body to safely and effectively
flush those things out. Your skin is an organ
of elimination. And so if it's having trouble
flushing something out, a rash is often the result.
But also persistent autoimmune conditions like
rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto's, low thyroid,
lupus, multiple sclerosis, all these autoimmune
conditions are much more likely to occur and
often are worse. The symptoms expressed by them
are often worse if you have a significant body
burden. of various toxins. And then, you know,
they also increase your risk of certain types
of cancers. So if you have a family history of
certain cancers. or exposure in your work if
you worked around industrial chemicals or around
farms, or even if you didn't work on the farm
but you lived near fields and your windows are
open and they're spraying chemicals on those
fields, that can increase your risk of all these
things. And the stress that chemicals and other
toxins, heavy metals, impose on your immune system.
It's a challenge. So if you have a body burden
of these chemicals and other toxins, it stresses
your immune system and it can make it more difficult
for you to fight off many conditions, especially
many cancers. And most doctors just don't text
for toxic exposure. So at best, they'll do blood
tests if you have a known exposure. And this
is the least important type of test for most
toxins. Now, if you have an acute exposure to
mercury or arsenic or... glyphosate, which is
one of the most common pesticides, or other pesticides,
benzene, other industrial chemicals. These things
will show up on a blood test if you've recently
been exposed to a lot of them. But your body's
really good at flushing these things out as best
it can. And so when it does that, one of the
ways it does that is by pulling things out of
circulation so it's not continually exposing
every cell in your body to this chemical over
and over and over again. What it can't flush
out, through the kidneys and colon, it will shove
into fat cells just to get it out of circulation.
So that's a defense mechanism to try and reduce
the exposure of the rest of your body to this
stuff that is unable to eliminate. But the downside
is that ends up stored in your fat cells forever.
And most people don't get testing for these things
because they're usually totally unaware of when
they're exposed to them. Often, if you are, you
get an acute exposure to something at work from,
you know, a spill or something like that, then
it's obvious and you'll get tested. But if you're
not, most people are just, you know, have low
-grade exposure to these things over years, decades
even. And the symptoms usually don't show up
from a long -term chronic exposure until many,
many years later. So even if you've suspected
toxins and gone and had blood tests for various
things and they've told you that you're fine,
that is not necessarily true because as a protective
mechanism, your body shoves these things into
fat cells and then they'll still be stored there
indefinitely forever. But you can identify that
body burden mainly doing urine tests. So most
of the tests for chemical toxins, for mold toxins,
heavy metals are urine tests. And heavy metals
can also be tested. With a hair test, just like
they test for drugs, for employee drug tests.
With a hair test, you can also measure heavy
metals in a hair test. So when you identify your
body burden of these things, which is essential
because everyone is different. Everyone's exposure
to these things is different. Your genetic ability
to excrete those things, even if you are independent
of the exposure, varies. And whether or not you're
getting the nutrients you need to effectively
excrete them. It varies tremendously from one
person to the next. So that's why it's so important
to test to see what you're dealing with. And
then you can take some steps to flush these things
out safely and effectively. You don't want to
flush them out if you hear about people that
have done these weekend cleanses. So I'm going
to do a liver detox or some other kind of cleanse,
some mix that you drink and don't eat or do a
kind of a fast. Some of those things can be dangerous
because if you pull things out of storage too
fast, then it'll make you sick. And whenever
you're pulling these things out of fat cells,
You're pulling them into circulation and you
want to get that out. You want to flush those
things out through the kidneys and colon as quickly
as possible. So if you have no idea what your
body burden is and you do one of these cleanses
sort of at random without testing, then you can
make yourself sick. So nobody wants that. But
when you do it properly, slowly and effectively,
identify your body burden, what you're exposed
to, what your body is storing safely, and effectively
excrete those things with some binding agents
and some antioxidants and some other things that
effectively help your kidneys and colon escort
those things out. And then you retest months
later to make sure you're on the right track.
So you may wonder, well, how do I know if I need
to get a test for various toxins? How do you
know that that should be a priority for you or
not? Well, I recommend... that anyone with the
conditions that I mentioned earlier, an autoimmune
condition, but even if you just have risk factors
for certain cancers, or obviously if you know
you've been exposed to something over the years,
the only way to tell is to be tested. But here's
a specific example. A 32 -year -old male came
to me a few years ago with dizziness, brain fog,
debilitating fatigue, runny nose, cough, nausea.
soft stools and insomnia. So that's a lot of
symptoms. He was really miserable, but he looked
perfectly healthy. Perfect. It looked like a
perfectly healthy fit 32 year old man. And over
the previous seven months before he came to me,
he'd been to the ER five times. He'd seen three
ear, nose and throat specialists and a neurologist
and a cardiologist. And as he explained it, for
seven months now, I wake up every morning, have
to sit on the edge of the bed for 20 to 30 minutes
and wait till my head stops spinning. It feels
like I'm drunk, but I don't drink. Then I go
to work, but I have half the energy that I should
have and constantly feel like I'm about to throw
up. So immediately I asked him, I said, what
kind of work do you do? Are you exposed to chemicals
now? Or do you have any history of being exposed
to chemicals? And he says, no, I'm the manager.
I'm mostly just at my desk. or out in the field
sometimes talking to a team of people. So I'm
thinking, well... brain, something wrong with
his brain that's causing the dizziness, or inner
ear. Both of those things can cause dizziness
and sinus symptoms. Is there something directly
wrong with his sinuses? Is there something wrong
with his gut? And I did a bunch of tests for
all of these things, and they showed mainly minor
abnormalities. So I again questioned, are you
sure that you never have any history of exposure
to toxic chemicals? And then he finally said,
well, yes, actually, when I was a teenager, I
worked in the fields and sprayed chemical pesticides.
fertilizers on crops, frequently for years. So
people don't realize that this stuff gets stored
up in your body for years. Another common one
is people will say, I said, do you have any exposure
to mold? Have you ever noticed mold in your house
or any house you've ever lived in? They think
about their... current house and no, no exposure
to mold. And then they would come back and they
remember later, oh yeah, when I was in college,
I lived in this place. And when we moved out
and got all the boxes out and saw this whole
really moldy wall that was really gross. Well,
when you're exposed to something like that, it
builds up in your system. And often the times
those toxins are still stored in your fat cells
and can be identified with a urine test. So it
makes a huge difference to identify these things
and flushes them out, flush them out. For this
example, for this man with all these symptoms,
he identified the things that he had just off
the charts, exposure to glyphosate and a few
other chemical pesticides and fertilizers. So
I gave him some nutrients to help flush those
things out and some other things just for general
health to make sure he was getting adequate amounts
of vitamin D and omega -3 fatty acids, protein.
and micronutrients, minerals. Most people are
deficient in minerals. So just a basic program
plus some extra stuff to help his body flush
out the toxins. And three months later, his dizziness
and disequilibrium were minimal or occasional.
So that thing where he woke up every morning,
20, 30 minutes, he'd have to sit on the edge
of the bed, wait for his head to stop spinning.
Three months later, still had it, wasn't completely
gone, but it was minimal. It was much, much improved.
He was very happy about that. The brain fog that
he had was gone. His fatigue that was, you know,
making it very difficult for him to work, 50
% of what he used to have, that was half gone.
He still had it. Another 50 % improvement. His
runny nose and his cough were almost gone. His
soft stools were, instead of every day, were
down to once a week now. And he's sleeping much
better. So fast forward another three months.
Six months after we started, he says, I feel
like a normal human being again. I'm Dr. Todd
Binkley. You're listening to Safe, Effective,
Natural Solutions to Almost Any Health Challenge.
If you just tuned in, we're talking about toxins
today, how various heavy metals and chemicals
and mold toxins can affect various aspects of
health, make it more difficult for your immune
system to fight off certain conditions, and how
that can increase your risk of certain cancers,
and a whole host of other things. But before
I, I'm going to come back to that and talk about
toxins some more. But before I do that, since
it is breast cancer awareness, month. There is
another really interesting study that came out
in the literature about invasive lobular carcinoma.
So this is invasive, meaning bad, basically.
Cancer of the lobes of the breast, which is different.
It's much more common to have breast cancer in
the ducts than in the lobes. But this invasive
lobular Cancer now accounts for 1 in every 10
breast cancers in the U .S. and is increasing
at more than triple the rate of other breast
cancers. This is a report from the American Cancer
Society. The lobes are the milk -producing parts
of the breast. Cancer of the ducts that carry
the milk to the nipple are much more common.
And in 2025, an estimated 33 ,600 women will
be diagnosed with this lobular cancer of the
lungs. And it also has the unique characteristics
that makes it difficult to detect, which can
contribute to delays in diagnosis because it
has more of a linear... dispersed or a dispersed
pattern. So instead of forming a lump, typical
of other breast cancers, it's more linear in
a line or a dispersed pattern spread out, which
makes it more difficult to detect clinically
on a mammogram. And it can also have different
symptoms, atypical symptoms like nipple inversion
or skin thickening. or dimpling. That's why it's
important to always check for those things as
well as checking for, most women know if you're
doing self -exams. If you don't know, and if
you're not doing self -exams, all women should
do a self -exam of their breasts at least once
a month. So pick a day, the first of the month,
the 15th, the end of the month, whenever. You
can do it in the shower. If you're not sure how
to do it properly and comprehensively, go on
YouTube or just search for it on the internet.
There's plenty of tutorials out there so you
can make sure you're doing it correctly. But
this is one reason to be reminded, remind yourself
that in addition to feeling for lumps, you also
want to check for things like dimpling of the
skin, thickening of the skin, or changes in the
shape or color of the nipple, because that can
indicate these other types of cancer. So incidence
of this lobular cancer of the breast has more
than doubled over the past half century. growing
from about 6 per 100 ,000 women in 1975 to 14
per 100 ,000 women in 2021. And more importantly,
the biggest rise is in the more recent years.
From 2012 to 21, the rates increased by 3 % per
year compared to only 8 .8, less than 1 % for
other breast cancers. So because it's more difficult
to identify than other cancers and it's... The
incidence of it is growing at three times the
rate of other cancers. It's really important
to know about this. This type of cancer also
has a likelihood of spreading, a greater likelihood
of spreading to the GI tract, to the stomach
and the intestines, as well as the urinary tract
lining and the ovaries compared to the more common
ductal carcinoma, meaning cancer of the ducts
that carry. milk to the nipple this type of cancer
is also less responsive to neoadjuvant chemotherapy
which is where they give you chemotherapy before
if you're a candidate for surgery they'll do
this type of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor
before the surgery it has a higher risk of involving
both breasts and it's a higher risk of a late
recurrence so you you get a favorable outcome
but then it more likely to recur later in life,
and it also has a greater risk of being in both
breasts from the outset. And this increased risk
of lobular cancer of the breast is similar in
women of all ages and all racial and ethnic groups.
And the rising rates, like those of other breast
cancers, are believed to be driven by risk factors
such as obesity, younger age when you have the
first menstrual cycle, later age of having a
first child, if any, and later age of starting
menopause, as well as increased alcohol consumption.
So these are all known increased factors that
increase your risk of any breast cancer. Well,
this is important to know about, of course, and
this month everyone's out running, raising money
for more research, reminding people to get their
mammograms, funding mammograms for people that
need that, have difficulty getting that. And
that's all great, but every month, when this
month, October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month
comes around every year, I'm always wondering
why more focus isn't put on educating people
on how they can reduce their risk of getting
breast cancer in the first place. Wouldn't that
be a good idea? I think so. And there's many,
many ways you can, anybody, any woman, and men
get breast cancer too. There's many ways you
can reduce your risk of getting breast cancer
or any other cancer. For example, you can just
take better care of your overall health. If you
do all the things that most people already know
about to take better care of your health, you
reduce exercise, eating good food, reducing stress,
getting adequate sleep, etc. You can reduce your
risk. There's good studies that show you can
reduce your risk of most cancers just by doing
those things, taking better care of your overall
health. You can also specifically optimize your
immune system function. One of the simplest ways
to do that is get tested for vitamin D. Make
sure your vitamin D level in your blood is between
50 and 90. If you get, most doctors will order
that test for you now and they'll tell you it's
fine if it's above 30. Well, that's enough to
prevent your bones from collapsing, but it's
going to still leave you at increased susceptibility
to osteoporosis and it's especially not even
going to come close to getting your immune system
to function at its peak. And there's lots of
other ways to test your immune system function
and make sure you're getting the things your
body needs for your immune system to function
optimally. That will also reduce your risk of
getting severe colds and flus and a whole host
of other things. And then you can also do specific
tests that measure your current cancer -fighting
activity. If you've ever heard that you're fighting
off, even the moment you're born, your body is
fighting off cancer -causing cells. It doesn't
mean you have cancer. It just means you have
cells that have mutated and can potentially cause
a cancer, and your body identifies those. Your
immune system identifies those and destroys them
like little Pac -Man. It gobbles them up and
eliminates them. types of cancer fighting activity
that can be identified, certain enzymes that
show up and break down products that show up
in your blood. Some of these tests are called
things like cancer antigen 2729, cancer antigen
153, cancer antigen 199, and cancer antigen CA
125. Also CEA, carcinoembryonic antigen. This
test is mainly, most famously known for risk
of colon cancer, but it can be increased on certain
types of breast cancer. And also AFP, alpha -fetoprotein.
So that's a lot of words, a lot of numbers. It
doesn't really matter to remember all of that.
But the important thing is these are tests that
oncologists use to see if your cancer is coming
back. You can't diagnose cancer with these blood
tests yet. They're working on. blood tests that
will identify certain types of cancers earlier.
But right now, for years, for decades, oncologists
have been using these inexpensive blood tests.
They're around $30 each. And the five that I
mentioned, you know, figure $170 give or take
for all five. You can do these if you have risk
factors. You know, if you had a mother or an
aunt or a sister or a grandmother that had breast
cancer, then obviously your risk is going to
be increased. And if you have any of the other
things that I've talked about earlier. for if
you just want to be, you know, on the safe side,
anybody can get these tests done to see if you
have increased cancer fighting activity consistent
with potential breast cancer right now. So again,
this doesn't diagnose breast cancer. If these,
I always tell anybody that orders these, you
got to promise you're not going to freak out
if these numbers are a little elevated, because
if they're a little elevated, that doesn't mean
anything. There's other things that can cause
these numbers to be elevated when you have no
cancer at all. But there's always, and there's
always, almost always a certain amount of these
things. The normal range for some of them is
zero, but a lot of them... the expected range
is more than zero. There's usually some of these
things present in your bloodstream all the time.
But if it's out of range, if it's out of the
medical range, or even if it's out of the narrower
functional range, if it's higher than normal,
then oncologists don't do those before you've
been diagnosed from some kind of a scan because
they're not going to give you chemotherapy or
do surgery or give you any kind of standard cancer
treatment just because these numbers are up a
little bit. They wait. until you don't get a
cancer diagnosis, until you can see a tumor on
a scan. on a mammogram, on an x -ray, on an MRI,
on a CAT scan, on a PET scan, or an ultrasound.
You have to identify an unusual mass on a scan
and then biopsy and test those cells and look
at them under a microscope. Then you know exactly
what you're dealing with. And then you know it's
worth the risks and other potential nightmares
of going through standard cancer treatment. But
you can use these tests to see if your body is
fighting off more cancer -causing cells right
now. And you're not going to take drugs for that,
but you can take certain nutrients. You can optimize
your immune system function. You can make sure
that your vitamin D is up. You can make sure
that you're getting all the nutrients your body
needs to heal and repair itself with a comprehensive
functional testing analysis. You can take better
care of your overall health. And then you can
retest a few months later and make sure those
numbers are going down. I do this all the time
with certain patients. I'm not treating their
cancer. I'm not necessarily guaranteeing that
they're... But it's a way to reduce your risk.
Those are the words you want to think about.
You can reduce, identify risk factors and do
something to reduce your risk of getting breast
cancer in the first place. I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.
You're listening to Safe, Effective, Natural
Solutions to Almost Any Health Challenge. The
theme of today's presentation is toxins, how
you can identify whether or not your body is
exposed to certain toxins and safely eliminate
them. And then I did a little bit of a divergence
on a specific type of breast cancer that's becoming
more and more prevalent and things that you can
do to reduce your risk. of any type of cancer.
We're going to get back to toxins now, but before
I do that, I want to remind everyone that I am
doing a series of talks in my office now in downtown
Ventura. I call it Live at Binkley Healing Center.
Last month, we talked about reducing your risk
of breast cancer. This month, this coming month,
November 5th, the first Wednesday of November,
I'll be talking about toxins. Everything we're
talking about on this show today, I'll go into
more specifics of that case of the 32 -year -old
man that came to me with horrible debilitating
facilitating dizziness and fatigue and what we
did to help him get back to feeling totally fine
again. And so that'll be November 5th, first
Wednesday of the month, 6 p .m. I'll have some
light refreshments and then questions and answer
afterwards. So even though we'll be talking about
toxins specifically, I'm open to, I welcome your
questions. It'd be nice to meet you face -to
-face and hear your questions about any health
-related topic, whether it's toxins or reducing
risk of breast cancer, helping deal with with
the side effects of cancer treatment. These are
all things that can be done with better food,
exercise, and supplements. So the brain is the
most sensitive organ in the body to any kind
of nutrient deficiency. and any exposure or body
burden of toxins. And so it's not surprising
then that when people have a lot of buildup of
toxins or they're exposed to a lot of toxic chemicals
and unable to flush those things out, that it's
going to affect the brain. And one of the ways
that shows up is Parkinson's disease. It looks
like we're not going to have time to talk about
this this week, so I'll talk about that next
week. But what we're going to be talking about
then is there's some great studies that just
came out on how... Parkinson's risk increases
with outdoor air. chemical exposure. Exposure
to trichloroethylene, a common chemical used
in degreasing and dry cleaning, is correlated
with a higher risk of Parkinson's disease. What
does that mean? This means it's not somebody
that was degreasing, working in the military
or in some other industry where they're degreasing
machinery with the stuff and getting it on their
hands or breathing it directly in the workplace.
No, these are just people that were breathing
the air around places at a certain distance from
these places and having a 10 % or more increased
risk of Parkinson's. We'll talk more about that
next week. As always, thank you for tuning in.
Send me your questions, what you'd like to hear
me talk about next 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 .3 FM, The Word.