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 -forest chiropractic and practitioner
of functional medicine. The theme of today's
show is take responsibility for your own health.
Well, what do I mean by that? What becomes available
when you truly embrace responsibility for your
own health? Each week on this show, I bring you
a selection of highlights from current medical
literature about topics I hope you find interesting.
They're certainly the ones I find interesting.
And most of medical literature isn't really that
interesting to me. It's mostly about the latest
offerings from big pharma. So I choose reporting
on the latest science that supports my main mission
for this show, which is to arm you with evidence
-based information you can use to take better
care of your own health. You certainly don't
have to. You're busy. Everyone's busy. Ultimately,
time and treasure govern all of our choices and
decisions. So by choice or lack of resources
or neglect, Far too many people choose to just
say to themselves, I feel fine. Well, what does
that mean? Usually it means the person saying,
I feel fine, thanks. I'm in great shape. I'm
perfectly healthy. The best thing to do is just
ignore pesky little symptoms. They'll probably
go away. And even worse, if I really need a doctor,
we've got great hospitals in the area. I'll be
fine. Well, I'm going to be a little facetious
now, but waiting for a magician in a white coat
to save your life in a crisis is not usually
the best way to go. It's really popular, but
it results in a lot of unnecessary pain, expense,
suffering, and early death. I love it when I
hear someone say, oh, I took my mother to the
top guy at UCLA or the Mayo Clinic or the preeminent
expert in the world at John Hopkins or some other
major medical center. But I'm thinking, well,
great. How's that going? And it may be great
to seek out the top. best in their field, world
-renowned experts, especially if no one's ever
been able to even diagnose your condition. If
no one can figure out what's wrong with you,
then nationally recognized experts might be worth
the time and the trouble to figure out something
that other doctors couldn't. But here's what's
missing from all these conversations, in my experience,
most of the time. When patients come to see me
and they tell me they've been to a dozen doctors,
they've been to the best of the best, their doctors
have, quote, unquote, checked everything. That's
the favorite phrase. I'm sorry, no doctor ever
checks everything. But they've been to all these
doctors and no one's been able to figure out
what's wrong with them. And no one has consequently
been able to figure out how to help them. Well,
that's simply never true. Most of the time, all
the doctors they've been to do the same thing.
They all practice standard Western medicine.
They look for well -known diseases for which
there is a standard of care, usually drugs or
surgery or some other traditional medical therapy.
And if you don't have that, they say something
like, you're fine, there's nothing wrong with
you, maybe you should see a psychiatrist. Well,
if you have a mood disorder, if you have anxiety
or depression or another obvious condition for
which psychiatry is appropriate, then sure, but...
People get told they need to go see a psychiatrist.
Basically, they're told it's all in your head.
We can't find anything. I can't find anything
wrong with you. Therefore, it must all be in
your head. Wow. I can't tell you how many patients
have come to me with that story, something like
that story. And it's really frustrating. And
the problem is most doctors never do enough tests
to get a comprehensive overview of how your body,
your normal function, your body, whether or not
it is, is every organ and system in your body
functioning normally or not? Most doctors never
use the tests to identify that. The narrower
set of lab ranges that identify not just disease,
but lack of normal function. function. When you
restore normal function, everything works better.
And many doctors, like most patients, are looking
for open quotes, the single cause, close quotes,
of everything that ails you. This is the kiss
of death. This is a trap that far too many people
fall into. We're always looking for that one
thing that no one else has been able. I can just
figure out that one thing. It's never one thing.
What ails most of us rarely has a single cause.
We feel the way we feel, and we do or do not
get the results we would like for a whole host
of reasons, which can be identified with proper
testing, usually can be identified with proper
testing. So it is much better, in my humble opinion,
I hope you agree, to find the motivation, the
willingness to make time, spend a little bit
of money, far less than you might imagine, to
take better care of your own health. And you
don't have to do it alone. I'm here to help.
And I'd love an opportunity to use more progressive
analysis of standard medical tests to identify
conditions other doctors miss that you can usually
heal and restore normal function with better
food, exercise, and research -based supplements.
Last week, I talked about the correlation between
grip strength, a standard test for muscle strength
in general, the correlation between this and
abdominal obesity. So abdominal obesity means
you could have a normal BMI, a normal body mass
index, a normal weight for your height. But if
you have a belly, if your waist specifically
is for a woman greater than 31 .5 inches or for
a man greater than 37 inches, then you have something
called abdominal obesity. Meaning you might not
be overweight at all, but you have too much weight
around the middle. result from that high blood
pressure, increased risk of diabetes and heart
disease, et cetera. So a fat gut is the worst
kind of fat. And so I got a lot of questions.
Well, so what am I supposed to do about that?
And some people think, obviously everyone would
love something quick and simple. Oh, if I'm fat,
I'll do sit -ups. If my belly is fat, I'll do
sit -ups or, you know, train, get core exercises.
And, you know, most people, I think most people
know that that. Usually it doesn't work. What
does work, if you want to get rid of fat from
any part of your body, the most effective way,
in my experience, is to build and maintain muscle
mass, eat fewer junk carbs, do cardiovascular
exercise and weight training to build muscle
mass, and for many people, time -restricted eating,
restricting the time window in each 24 -hour
period when you eat food to eight hours or maybe
even six hours. and allowing your body to rest
and digest for the remaining 16 to 18 hours per
day. Well, what if you're already doing all of
those things? This is something that comes up
all the time. You've got a perfect diet. You
exercise every day or at least three times a
week, five days a week, something in the range
of 20 to 30 minutes, maybe even 45 minutes, three
days a week or more. And you've got Fitbit data,
your smartphone, you're monitoring everything,
and you still can't lose the weight. I get a
lot of questions about this all the time. So
if you've done all the things that you know to
do to maintain some muscle, decent amount of
muscle mass and exercise, keep your heart strong,
you still can't lose that belly. The first thing
I think of is I recommend that you get tested
for your body burden of mold, heavy metal, and
chemical toxins. So last Wednesday night, I did
a talk in my office or explained, presented some
cases. We've seen some just amazing results when
people finally get tested. How much of this,
we're all exposed to glyphosate, the most common.
Pesticide roundup that's sprayed on fields and
lawns everywhere. We're exposed to a whole host
of chemicals that are in the air we breathe when
the wildfires are going. It's unavoidable. We're
saturated with chemicals more than ever before
in human history. It's unavoidable. But we all
vary in the amount of these things we're exposed
to, depending on where we live, where we work,
which way the wind blows sometimes. We vary in
the amount that we've been exposed to. That's
obvious. We also vary genetically in our ability
to excrete these toxins. So two people can live
side by side their whole life, be exposed to
the same amount of this or that and have different
experience because one is genetically more efficient
at flushing that stuff out. Our bodies are trying
to flush this stuff out all the time too. It
does the best it can. So that varies. And then
the nutrients that you need flushing this stuff
out effectively requires certain nutrients, mainly
minerals. antioxidants, a few other things, and
everyone varies tremendously in whether or not
they're getting enough nutrients to facilitate
those normal mechanisms of excreting toxins.
So all of these things can be identified with
proper testing. I've had so many patients over
the years that have unexplained persistent weight
that nothing they can do will get that weight
off, but also unexplained rashes. I've had some
severe rashes. I talked about this. I do this
in the lecture talk. People that have just had,
I had a man, the first one that comes to mind
is a man that just had severe, just oozing pink
rashes over his entire forearm and both forearms
and both hands on his neck and back that had
been going on for several months. He'd been to
several different, well, two or three. Everyone
says I've been to everyone. I think he went to
two or three different dermatologists. He tried
all the standard topical ointments, cortisone,
steroids, and everything, and nothing helped.
And I did some toxin testing on him and I said,
you know, it's going to take probably four months
to completely flush out. not even completely
flush out, to flush out enough of these toxins
that it's going to stop burdening your skin.
Your skin is an organ of elimination. If you
know someone who has a rash that nothing has
been able to help, it's often, in my experience,
because your skin is an organ of elimination.
When you sweat, that's one of the ways your body
flushes out toxins that it can't flush out through
the colon or the kidneys. And if it's struggling
with that and it's something particularly toxic,
that's going to irritate your skin. can often
cause a rash that nothing else will help. So
this man who had just these postulant, oozing,
disgusting rash all over his hands, slimy, I
think you get the idea. And he was, you know,
obviously really, really frustrated. And I told
him, this is a really bad. condition you have,
one of the worst ones I've seen. We're going
to be able to help it because we've identified
these toxins. We're going to help your body flush
out, excrete these things safely and efficiently,
but there's no fast way to do it. It's going
to take four months. Well, two months, two months
later, he came and says, I've been doing everything
you tell me. You know, it's, it's hardly changed
at all. It's just, I'm going crazy here. What
are you going to do for me? And I said, I told
you when you came in, it's going to take four
months. You're going to have to be patient. It's
going to help. I promise. It's going to help.
He had been coming to me a long time before for
other things. So he did trust me and he held
out. Four months later, a little over four months,
around four months later, maybe a little before,
a little after, somewhere around then, it was
a few years ago, the rash was completely gone.
And that's been several years ago. I've spoken
to him a few times since. He moved to another
state and it's never come back. So if you have
a family history of certain cancers, exposure
to many toxins can increase your risk of those
things. And the stress they impose on your immune
system can make any fight with cancer more difficult.
And most doctors never test for toxic exposure.
They might, if you go and say, oh, I was exposed
to lead or mercury at work, if you have a known
exposure, an acute exposure, it just happened
recently, they'll do a blood test to see if you
have mercury in your blood or lead or arsenic.
etc. And if you have an acute exposure to glyphosate
or other pesticides or benzene or industrial
chemicals, anything, you know, something at your
work, it will show up on a blood test if it just
happened. But most people are totally unaware
of when they've been exposed to any of these
things. And the symptoms don't show up till years
later, decades later. It's much more common for
people to have low dose exposures to these things
over many, many years. And your body is very
good at flushing most of these things out through
the kidneys and the colon as best it can. But
what it can't flush out gets shoved into fat
cells just to get it out of circulation. If it
can't flush this stuff out, this is a protective
mechanism. If your body can't get this, if you
can't get that stuff out of circulation, then
it's constantly floating around, round and round,
saturating your entire body, all of your cells,
your brain, irritating your brain, stressing
your immune system. So the defense mechanism
is to get it out of circulation as best it can.
If it can't excrete it, shove it into fat cells.
At least that'll take it out of circulation.
So your body does that as a protective mechanism,
but then unfortunately those toxins remain stored
in your fat cells indefinitely. Forever. And
so the best way to test this long -term exposure
is with a urine test. Heavy metals, chemicals,
like the stuff we breathe in the air, industrial
exposures, pesticides, fertilizers, urine tests
is the best way to test that. Mold, toxins. If
you've been exposed to mold, say you lived in
some place. I had another patient who said, oh,
yeah, no, I haven't been exposed to mold. Oh,
well, wait a minute. He came back later and he
said, oh, yeah, when I moved out of this place
about 10 years ago, we moved all our boxes out
of the garage. There was all this mold behind
the boxes, trapped between the boxes and the
wall. And I said, how long have you been living
there? Oh, yeah, like two or three years. So
that was, you know, every time he was driving
in and out of his garage. He was breathing in
mold spores from that mold that he couldn't even
see. You usually can't see it. You see a little
tiny speck in your bathroom breaking through
the drywall. And you get a guy, hopefully, get
somebody in that knows how to take care of that
stuff. They'll open up the wall and the cells,
the space between the studs and the drywall is
full. It's full of mold. And so you usually don't
even know you're being exposed to it. But the
most important thing to understand about that
is it's usually not an issue of a lung infection
or sinus irritation from an acute exposure to
the mold. It's not the mold irritating your respiratory
system. The metabolic waste from the mold, basically
the mold's wee, is a chemical toxin that accumulates
that your body sometimes can't efficiently excrete.
And that also gets shoved. into your fat cells.
So mold toxins, basically the issue with mold
is mostly just like being exposed to glyphosate
or other chemical pesticides or fertilizers or
being exposed to benzene or petrochemicals, something
in your workplace or breathing in the stuff from
the wildfire smoke. It's like mold toxins are
a chemical toxin that also gets stored in fat
cells long -term. And you never know if you have
that unless you get tested. It can be identified.
on a urine test. The stored toxic chemicals that
build up in your fat cells, small amounts of
that do get excreted in your very small amounts.
It requires sensitive equipment to identify it,
but small amounts of it are still slowly, your
body's still trying to flush that stuff out and
it will show up. on a urine test. And once you
know, because everybody's different, once we
know the things that you've been most exposed
to, we can customize a course of things to help
your body safely, slowly. It's not fast. It takes
months, but slowly, safely excrete those things.
It seems miraculous to many people when they
do that. And so when I say slowly and safely,
some people say, oh, yeah, I did this liver cleanse
that my cousin told me about. And oh, my God,
I was sick for days. Well, don't do that. Your
liver is the cleanser. You don't need to do a
liver cleanse. You need to identify toxins and
customize a plan of things like binding agents,
modified citrus pectin, antioxidants like glutathione,
chlorella for heavy metals. There are a number
of things you can use, but everybody's different.
You need to do the proper testing and identify
what's going to work best for you. When you're
excreting, when we talk about detoxing, These
toxins are stored in fat cells. And so when you
pull them out of storage in fat cells, you're
pulling them into your bloodstream, where it's
now, once again, saturating every cell in your
body with a small amount of those toxins, irritating
your immune system, saturating your brain, causing
brain fog. You don't want to pull that stuff
out of storage faster. then you can excrete it
mainly through the kidneys and the colon. A certain
amount through sweat also, doing saunas for some
of these toxins is also important, or sweating
by any other means. So it's stored in fat, you
pull it into the bloodstream, and then you want
to immediately flush it out by sweating, by peeing,
or pooping. And if you can't, if you try to pull
it out, if you pull out of storage too fast...
then it's circulating around and it'll make you
sick. So you never want to do that. So identifying
the best way to do that requires testing and
customizing a specific program for what you are
dealing with. I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. You're listening
to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to Almost
Any Health Challenge. I know a lot of this is
kind of complex, so send me a question. I love
getting questions. I'd love to answer you specifically
or talk about it next week. On next week's episode,
email me at drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter
.com. You can also text me at 805 -218 -3939.
Feel free to text me anytime. The ringer on my
phone is always off, but I will reply. So more
good news in the medical press. The whole theme
of last week's show was about exercise. And when
it rains, it pours. You may have even heard about
this. I heard it on the radio and in the popular
press. Walking, the title of the study is Walking
is Good for You. Walking backward can add to
the benefits. So most of us know that exercise
has impressive mental and physical benefits,
stronger bones and muscles, cardiovascular fitness,
and stress release. But, you know, sometimes
it gets boring. People say, oh, yeah, I'd love
to go out and walk. But for whatever reason you're
not doing it, then it can be helpful to shake
up the routine. I mean, whole industries are
based on this. New classes and this or that just
to, you know, shake up the routine. Nothing wrong
with that. It's all good stuff. Backward walking,
also known as retro walking or reverse walking,
adds variety and when done safely has a whole
host of benefits. It not only provides a change
of view, but it also puts different demands on
your body. Janet Dufek, Ph .D., a biomechanist
and faculty member at the University of Nevada
in Vegas, has researched the mechanics of both
walking and landing from jumps to identify ways
of preventing injuries and improving physical
health. The former college basketball player
and regular exerciser, she's also done her fair
share of backward walking. In humans, walking
backwards can increase hamstring flexibility,
strengthen underused muscles, and challenge the
mind as your body adjusts to movement and posture.
Quote, she says, I see a lot of people in my
neighborhood and they walk and that's great,
but they're still stressing the same elements
of their structure over and over again. Walking
backward introduces an element of cross -training,
of a subtly different activity. Kevin Patterson,
a personal trainer in Nashville, Tennessee, recommends
the treadmill as the safest place to retro -walk.
You can adjust it to a slow speed. And he even
likes to turn off the treadmill and do something
called a dead -mill, where you have the clients
propel the belt on their own. Quote, it can take
a while to get the treadmill going. But from
there, we have them be the horsepower for the
treadmill. It's great for older clients because
you have handles on both sides and you can reduce
the risk of falling. Since reading this, I've
been trying it again myself. I haven't done it
in a long time. And it is really fun. It's a
great workout for your brain as well as your
body. And I don't do it on a treadmill. Like
Dufek also suggests, you can incorporate a one
-minute segment of backward walking every 10
minutes that you walk. You can even do it with
a partner facing each other, clasping hands if
necessary. One person walks backward, the other
person strolls forward and watches for problems,
and then you switch. Start off slowly at first
because you might need to make sure that you've
got good balance and you are retraining your
brain. You're learning a new skill, but you're
also using muscles in different ways. Some people
even do marathons. Some people run whole marathons
backwards. So this is considered a form of cross
-training or incorporating a mix of moves into
a fitness programming. Doing a range of exercises
can help prevent overuse injuries, which can
occur after repeatedly using the same muscle
groups over and over. And for many people, cross
-training involves different activities or types
of exercise, like running one day and swimming
the next and strength training on the third day.
But if you don't have time for all of that, just
walking backwards can work in the same way on
a small level. Well, do small tweaks like this
make much of a difference? How does it actually
work? Well, physical therapists instruct some
of their clients to reverse walk after knee injuries
or for people in rehabilitation or recovering
from surgery. Back walking is different from
a movement pattern perspective. Dudek says instead
of landing heel first, you strike your forefoot.
First, often quite gently, and often the heel
doesn't even touch the ground. So this reduces
the range of motion in the knee joint, which
allows for activity without stressing the knee.
Backward walking also stretches the hamstring
muscles, the back of the thigh, and ongoing studies
are evaluating whether it can seemingly reduce
fall risk in older adults by activating more
of the senses in the body to maintain balance.
There's nothing unnatural about backward walking.
In fact, backward running is a key skill for
top athletes. Basketball players, soccer players,
American football players, particularly the defensive
backs, do it all the time. Let's see if I can
get to one more question I had from last week.
How do you build muscle mass? This person asked
me, was asking about their father who's frail
and obviously is not going to go to a gym, can't.
What's the simple way someone older... Or just
someone who maybe even just isn't going to go
to the gym and wants to know a quick exercise
that anyone can do at home to build and maintain
muscle mass. Well, the quadriceps and other leg
muscles in your thighs are the biggest muscles
in your body. So doing squats, using your own
body weight as resistance is a simple way to
build and maintain muscle mass. And you can do
that by grabbing a hold of a handrail, if you
have one, or the edge of your kitchen sink. Or
if you have in your kitchen, you can open a drawer
in your kitchen and reach up under the cabinet
and grab a hold of something secure. And then
simply squat down and squat back up. Most people
do this too fast. You want to squat down really
slowly. People are fine with that. But then they
usually jump back up. So you want to squat down
slowly and really slowly bring your weight back
up. That slowly coming back up is what makes.
Most of the difference, a simple way to increase
muscle mass. At the same time, give me a try.
Shoot me an email or a text. Let me know how
it's going. Shoot me any questions you have,
other things you'd like to hear about on this
show. Thank you for listening. 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. 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.