How can we reduce inflammation without eliminating sugar? How do we strengthen our brains and avoid dementia? How can we increase the nutrients our body absorbs?
On this special episode of the Health Quest podcast, Dr. Sal reads the questions sent in by our listeners and offers his advice, insights, and opinions on the situations described.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Expose the undercover effects of inflammation on your wellness journey.
- Dive into nature’s pharmacy to mitigate inflammation and promote health.
- Boost your cognitive strength and fend off early-onset memory loss.
- Courageously manage malrotation and deal with its ensuing complexities.
- Seek solace in spiritual healing and sever ties with past hindrances.
Reducing inflammation is one of the key factors in building brain power and avoiding memory loss or Alzheimer’s. Keep your mind constantly active, reduce inflammation with the help of fish oil and turmeric, and stay open-minded to new experiences and socialize. – Dr. Sal
Key takeaways:
- Inflammation can be effectively addressed by incorporating various healthy behaviors, not just relying on one specific approach or food item.
- Fish oil is recommended for reducing inflammation and can be beneficial when taken in appropriate amounts. However, it should not be seen as a quick fix or an excuse to continue consuming unhealthy foods.
- Turmeric, berberine, and various herbs like clove, basil, peppermint, sage, rosemary, and thyme have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that can help reduce inflammation naturally.
- Spiritual growth and alignment with God’s will are important aspects of healing and dealing with physical deterioration or illness. These experiences can help individuals grow and strengthen their relationship with God.
Dr. Sal [00:00:00]:
You can't just go off and eat sugar and, you know, drink alcohol. I'm not saying that you can't have it once in a while, but get yourself to a weight that should be right for you and then have these as treats, not something you eat on a daily basis. Welcome to the HealthQuest podcast, your guide to god's will for your health. Hello. My name is Doctor Sal. and I've been a practicing surgeon for well over 30 years. And my goal for each episode is that you'll be able to have your mind transformed to god's design for your health and affect the way you eat and you live. If you're new here, we release a new episode every week.
Dr. Sal [00:00:53]:
And if you enjoy the content. Would you please leave us a good review? It really helps our ratings and allows us to reach more people. And in turn, we can help more people. We'd like to thank you for your support. And on today's episode, we're gonna be answering some questions that have been sent into us and hopefully answer them to the best that we can. So for those of you who have sent those questions in, I'll have some answers for you. So at the end of this episode, I hope they satisfy you. And if you have more questions, please feel free to send more And for those of you who have not sent any questions, you could send them directly to our podcast, and we'll do the best that we can to get to them.
Dr. Sal [00:01:35]:
So let's stive right into today's health quest podcast. And our first question comes from Shelley from Gross Point Michigan. And she wants to know more about inflammation and what people can do outside of eliminating sugar from the diet. Well, Shelley, when you're trying to heal in in a I've I've I've seen this with a lot of patients When we have a disorder and I give my patients instructions as to follow the disorder, and this is common with a lot of other physicians as well. So this is stuff that myself and other physicians we talk about. We'll give you a list of 5 things to do. And right away, patients will come up and say, well, can I do 1, 23 and do 45 later on? when it comes to healing, somehow what ends up happening is that everybody wants to put god in a box. And god tells you this is what you have to do and we turn around to god and say, well, god, how about if I just do this part and that part and I'll skip this part for now and maybe do it later to you wanna say, okay, we know about inflammation.
Dr. Sal [00:02:59]:
We know that, you know, this is what causes it, but I'm not gonna stop doing it. Can you give me something else to get rid of this inflammation so I could continue eating my sugars? That that that's that's not how it works. People, you you know, you you can't be half pregnant. You're either pregnant or you're not pregnant. You either a tumor or you don't have a tumor. Trying to make things kind of like, you know, let's come to a compromise here. isn't gonna work. I can recommend some of these, you know, supplements that will help reduce inflammation.
Dr. Sal [00:03:36]:
There's not a problem with that, but by doing that doesn't mean that you can go off and continue with the lifestyle that you're eating. If you recall from one of the podcasts that we were talking about, we were showing about the bacteria in the gut. and there was a study that was done in collaboration with a Greek University where what they were doing is they were treating patients while they were actually given people, plain Greek yogurt three times a week. And with that, they showed an improvement in the gut bacteria. And as a result, these people started losing weight. Now I I even said in that podcast just because I'm making this suggestion doesn't mean that you can continue eating your fast foods your processed, foods as well, you know, just my recommendations is just to start taking some fish oil. There's a gentleman that goes up to the, vitamin shop in Royal Oak, and this guy's ninety years old, and he's he's really lean. He's really vascular.
Dr. Sal [00:04:42]:
Ninety years old. And every time he goes there, he buys all the Vitamin Shoppe brand fish oil, both the orange and the lemon flavored. So you know that when they're out of it, it's because he probably just came in the day before. And this guy, he that's all he does all days. He drinks the stuff out of the bottle. And he's ninety years old. Inflammation is the underlying key to a lot of these disorders that we talked about in the in these episodes. Okay? So, you know, you can't just go off and eat sugar and, you know, drink alcohol.
Dr. Sal [00:05:16]:
I'm not saying that you can't have once in a while. But get yourself to a weight that should be right for you and then have these as treats. Not something you eat on a daily basis, but fish oil I take 4 tablespoons of fish oil a day, 2 in the morning, 2 at night, help to reduce the inflammation, turmeric. is another source to naturally reduce inflammation. A lot of the Indians and the Indian culture Southeast Asian Indians used a lot of procurement, which has a lot of anti inflammatory properties to it. And berberine, which is another, herb that helps to reduce, gastrointestinal and we talked about it. We talked about that in one of our podcasts. So these are my recommendations as your turmeric, your fish oil, berberine, There are a lot of herbs out there from clove, basil, peppermint, sage, rosemary, thyme, all these herbs that you use to spice up, some of your dishes are wonderful and have a lot of great deal of antioxidant and are also, have anti inflammatory properties to them.
Dr. Sal [00:06:31]:
So but still, when it comes down to it, don't compromise don't think that, well, I'm gonna take these supplements, but I'm gonna continue the lifestyle that I'm living. The objective is is to align yourself with god's will. Gotta telling you. Very simple, man. I I gave you all the cures just in the foods, and that's the natural foods in their natural state. Nothing genetically modified. Nothing with all these chemicals on it or cullings. In fact, by the way, just wanna let you know that California just passed a law that there are allowed to use certain colorings that we put in our foods like our cereals and candies because of the neurologic disorders that could develop as a result of that.
Dr. Sal [00:07:12]:
So I hope I answered your question. And, if you have any further questions, please feel free to send send us some more questions on our webpage. So our next question, hails from New Jersey. His name is Ron from New Jersey. What could be done to strengthen our brain power and avoid memory loss or Alzheimer's. Well, Ron, if you had listened to some of my podcasts, we, again, a lot of these disorders like dementia, brain fog is all due taking place in our body. we all have this leaky gut. Our body allows certain proteins, to seep in through the intestinal into the circulatory system, which then sparks an immune response, which leads inflammation, which then, as like even with gliadine and lipopolysaccharides, these are detrimental, and they they permeate through the blood brain barrier and start to affect the neurons and the brain cells and alter the, neurotransmitters.
Dr. Sal [00:08:21]:
helps to build the plaques up, which causes Alzheimer's in the long run. So reducing inflammation is one of the key factors. Again, we go off in your your fish oil and your turmeric really helps out in that, the ways to build strength is to keep the mind constantly active, whether it's doing puzzles, reading, you know, there was a great, TED talk with an It was called the ninety two year old body builder, and this ninety year old man, was saying how we all retire at fifty five and sixty years of age when we're really at the best in our life. I mean, we we've got some life experience. We've got some knowledge. We should really be starting our lives off at sixty years of age. and he kept himself physically active, reading, writing, taking classes. there's a friend of mine he just got his masters in law, and there was an eighty two year old attorney who went back to law school to get his, LLM is what it's called and I guess that's your master's in law.
Dr. Sal [00:09:30]:
So keeping yourself active, reading, just just so sit around watching TV all day. That's that's a mindless thing, and and you'll start to get a lot of negative communications from television, that just doesn't really do you any benefit long term, either physically by sitting around and watching hours of TV or, intellectually. So Again, reducing inflammation, keeping a good, healthy gut, helps reduce, a lot of that. You know, keep yourself open minded. One of the other things that I didn't mention, which is really important, and we noticed this about Centurion's is socialization. So if you take the blue zone, and these are countries that are within an area around the world, and most of our islands. one is Okinawa, Japan, the southern part of Japan. There is, Ikaria or Ikaria, which is in the Mediterranean.
Dr. Sal [00:10:32]:
It's one of the islands of Greece, which is the further east, just thirty miles west of the Turkish border Sardania, Italy, Loma Linda, California. And it's the way these people eat in their lifestyle that these people naturally live be a hundred years old. One of the other areas that I wanna mention is the Hunza province of northeast Pakistan, where if you die at the age of 92. It's like dying at 62 here in the United States. I mean, everybody lives to be over a hundred years old. Of course, these people live up in the mountains. they they don't they're not surrounded by any industries. Their their soils have not been, intoxicated with the chemicals and the byproducts that come out of these, factories, these people eat everything natural, all organic, They're physically active.
Dr. Sal [00:11:22]:
They live up in the mountains. So when you go to the American Academy of anti aging conferences, we talk a lot about these cultures and these civilizations and what they eat and what they do. And then we transfer that and saying, well, this is what we have to do. So yes, in America, I do take supplements. I take a lot of supplements because even our foods, even though you're eating healthier, foods just don't have all the nutrients that you might more fruit is a day or 2 before it's ripe or after it ripens while it's on the tree, picking the fruit off the tree 2 weeks before they're actually ripe, doesn't allow for all the nutrients to get into that fruit or vegetable, in its appropriate time. So That's why supplements are important. taking a lot of the antioxidants, your vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, these are very powerful antioxidants to take his supplements on the side. So, Ron, I hope you answered your, question.
Dr. Sal [00:12:28]:
if you have any further questions, please refer to it on our website. the the next question, and, I believe this will be our last question because of the time constraint is, Laura, who hails from Rhode Island And her question is is, dear doctor Sal, I have an aunt who's in her fifties, and she's had numerous surgeries for a disorder known as Mel rotation. She's now left with a colostomy bag and they've removed so much of her intestines. that she has a difficult time, absorbing the nutrients from the foods. Could you help me in regards to some recommendations. She feels that she's on her last limb and feels like she wants to let go. and I would like to keep her around because I love her so. So Mel rotation is somewhat of a a congenital disorder.
Dr. Sal [00:13:32]:
And what happens is we're kinda born with a improper development of the intestines. And we start noticing this in childhood where the intestines actually starts to twist on the on itself. And then, it could develop into what is known as volvulus. and that is where it stays there for prolonged period of time, and it cuts off the blood apply to that particular area of the intestines and it starts to die off or necrosis. the the the symptoms that these children use have a severe pain bloating. you get a specific X-ray, whether it's a conventional X-ray, a CAT scan, or even an ultrasound you see distension of the intestines or the stomach proximal or prior to the area where it's twisted on itself. And in cases like that, the treatment is emergency surgery. And what they have to do is the doctors have to do what we call laparotomy where they open you up from the sternum down pubis literally open you up completely and hopefully find that area of the intestine in an untwisted and hope least set it back in a way so it doesn't twist on itself again.
Dr. Sal [00:14:48]:
If, however, it's been a prolonged period of time and you have necrosis or death of that tissue, then that tissue has to be cut out and then they reapproximate the intestines. Now if you've had multiple surgeries and you've had a lot of your intestines removed, it gets to the point where they do put a colostomy bag, especially if the lower GI tract, which is your large intestines, gets injured and that has to be removed, we're now you can absorb the fluid out of the food, products or waste that's going down into your colon. And so these are people that end up with watery stools that are continuous. So they put a a colostomy bag is what it's known. And it's it's not comfortable for the patients because the fear of going to a restaurant, if that bags the leak. It's an embarrassing situation. So a lot of these people feel very uncomfortable. They don't go out in public.
Dr. Sal [00:15:50]:
they stay home. That in and of itself has a underlying psych psychological disorders. So one of my recommendations, Laura, for your aunt, is we try a couple of things. Number 1, there is the elemental diet. if which if you if you looked that up on the internet, find a number of products. What it is, it's it's powdered foods, that give you all these nutrients that comes in an easy form that adjusted, and it's easily absorbed. But again, certain areas of the intestines absorb different, food, parts like amino acids get absorbed in certain areas. Vitamins and and minerals get absorbed in certain areas.
Dr. Sal [00:16:46]:
And if those areas are taken out, then it it makes it difficult to absorb even that. The other thing that I recommend is a central line, and we used to do this in general surgery, where we would put in a line where we could feed. It's called, total peripheral nutrition. And there's amino acids and free fatty acids, at least you're getting fat and proteins that way. the only thing with that is is that line would have to be changed every so often. I don't know if they can do that through a port, which is what they do for cancer patients with chemotherapy because those ports can stay in for months on by that round itself. You know, my objective was always to help people heal. I felt that that was god's calling for me.
Dr. Sal [00:17:39]:
There comes a time, however, where no matter what we do in the medical community, both conventional, and integrative that there's there's nothing left that we can do. And at this point, people sometimes realize that what's important to them is not the repair or the building of their physical health in so much as their spiritual growth, which becomes very important. if you take a look at at Christ, here's a here's a man that At the time of his passion, he was betrayed by his friends. He lost everything. They beat him physically in a hung him on a cross and then he was humiliated and betrayed by everybody. In today's world, we would call that a loser. But in that lowest state of being, that's where victory was actually won. And it's almost like drawing the string of a bow back, you know, people think, well, you're going back You're going backwards.
Dr. Sal [00:18:46]:
You're going backwards. And so the physical body may now be deteriorating, but Hopefully, your aunt will be seeing things from the light that this is a process that's helping her grow spiritually. getting closer to god, knowing Christ and and eventually when you let go of that bow or that string to that bow, that that arrow now pursues a different route into the spiritual realm and ascends into the higher spheres of heaven. And so We try to do everything that we possibly can in accordance with god's will as far as restoring health as opposed to treating diseases with drugs that just treat the disease, but never cure it. But the in a case like this, we start to realize that there is glory in sometimes letting go of things from this realm that we're in and that the suffering through this type of illness actually is what allows us or fuels the growth with our relationship with god. And with that, I like I like to thank all view who sent in those questions. It's it it really means a lot to me. I think we're gonna start doing more of this because I I really enjoy interacting with people.
Dr. Sal [00:20:14]:
My objective is is to help my fellow man. That was my calling. And as a physician, it's to help, people heal. So Thank you for for the questions. I I hope I answered him the best I could. You could refer to some of the episodes that we've talked about because that'll give you a little bit more information as to how to reduce some of these, these problems. And we will be addressing more of these issues too as well in the future. I do get a little bit emotional, particularly when we're talking about someone, closer towards the end of life it's important to me, to see things and maybe you've noticed that my my voice started to lower, because when we do talk, In regards to the spiritual aspect of our lives, it's it it brings me to a different level.
Dr. Sal [00:21:05]:
And, I just hope that you enjoyed this episode. And, thanks again for joining us. If you have any other questions, please send them in through the web page. some of these, questions that you may have may be answered just by listening to our podcast. So two in. Give us a good review. And with that, I'm doctor Sal. Have a great day, and god bless.