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Dr Shojai: Hi everybody, Iím here with Dr Kim Millman today. Hello, Doc.
Dr Millman: Hi there. Dr Shojai: Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Dr Millman: Thank you. Iím honored to be here.
Dr Shojai: Great, thank you. I have actually have a lot of questions for you, because this
is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Iím not going to blow it, because today weíre
talking about something thatís a secret organ. First, I just want to introduce you to our
listener base, our viewer base. Dr Kim is a holistic MD who practices in San Francisco
Bay area, molecular geneticist and ex-engineer at [USC 00:00:38], trained infectious disease/epidemiologist
and expert in osteoporosis and natural medicine; a Stanford-trained MD with 20-plus years of
medical research and clinical experience. You are no slacker; look at you with that
bio. Sheís on us sharing with the information
and advice about how to go about living healthily. She advocates eating colorful, organic diets,
moving your body for stress relief, and turning to natural medicine when you have an illness
or chronic condition. Today Dr Kim wants to tell us about the secret organ that controls
our heart, our brain and our hormones. Howís that for a secret?
Dr Millman: [Inaudible 00:01:16] is important. Dr Shojai: Thatís right, so Doc, yeah, letís
have it. Letís get into the background. Iíve known you for a little while already. I know
that youíve got some bulletproof credentials. Youíve been doing all kinds of amazing stuff,
that just every passing conversation I have with you just makes me think, ìWow, sheís
so smart!î I know youíve been really busy with the current research that youíve been
doing. Iíd love to hear about it. Let us know.
Dr Millman: What I really want to talk about with you and your listeners today is an epidemic.
In 2004, the Surgeon General came out and predicted that 1 half of all people in the
United States over 50, by 2020 will have this disease. This is a disease that can potentially
impact your heart, your kidneys, your hormones, your brain, and essentially every organ in
your body. What Iím talking about here is bone disease. Now, I know that sounds weird,
but hereís the thing that you have to know. Bones are an organ, and this organ is directly
responsible for controlling the health of your heart, your brain and every other organ
in your body. If your bones start to degenerate ... and the Surgeon General predicts that
1 half of all people will have this problem over 50 ... then everything starts to fail.
I believe that 1 of the reasons why we take our bones for granted is because theyíre
such a strong device in our body, so we think that we can abuse them a little bit. Well,
Iím here to tell you that you canít without sacrificing optimal health, because they are
so tied to everything else. Number 1, I want to help your listeners today find out if theyíre
at risk for this epidemic, because I know that 1 out of every 2 people who are listening
here today could be at risk. Number 2, even if these people are not at risk, help them
to strengthen their bones so they can have a healthier optimal life. If they always want
to have a clear, crisp mind and a glowing skin, a tiny waist, a great sex drive, they
need to be thinking about how to keep their bones healthy. I know that thatís really
a paradigm shift for people. Keep your bones healthy, and you stay healthy. Let your bones
degenerate and your sex drive, your clear, crisp mind, and your tiny waist goes with
it. I really want to talk about 5 fundamental
things that damage your bones and optimal health, and simple little tweaks that you
can do to your lifestyle, to your diet, and some simple botanicals that can really help
your bones to get strong, and help you to have a really fabulous life.
Dr Shojai: [Okay 00:04:07] Dr Millman: Lastly, I want to give people
the opportunity to figure whether the things that weíre talking about today are affecting
them right now. I want to give your listeners the chance to see if theyíre at risk for
any kind of badness that would happen to your bones and basically the rest of your body.
If they are at risk, I want to talk about things today that they can do to reverse that
risk. If they know they have osteoporosis, I want to give them things today that they
can do so that their bones donít get any worse, and actually to help them reverse the
bone damage thatís there already. Then lastly, if a person is not at risk, who just wants
to remain really active and healthy, I want to also give them things to do that they can
do to strengthen their bones and keep their bones and their optimal health as amazing
as possible. Dr Shojai: Fantastic. Fantastic. Where do
we start? Dr Millman: The first fundamental reason why
bones decay is inflammation. We know weíre an inflamed society; in fact, in the extreme
situations, we have increasing rates of Alzheimer and diabetes and autism. These are all inflammatory
conditions. I believe that 1 of the reasons why we are so inflamed is that since the 1950s,
weíve given up many of our [folk 00:05:39] foods of old, like raw milk, organic vegetables.
These days, weíve given them up for so-called foods that come out of boxes, that are sugar-coated,
high-fructose corn syrup. We have trans fats, homogenized fats, pasteurized proteins. You
know, the FDA says that all of these things are safe for us, yet weíre in an epidemic
of inflammatory diseases these days. Bone disease is an inflammatory disorder.
One of the inflammatory markers that I actually look at in my patients is homocysteine. If
your homocysteine is elevated, youíre inflamed, so homocysteine is a marker for bone disease.
People with high homocysteine are 2.5 times more likely to fracture their bones than someone
who has a normal homocysteine. 1 of the main mitigators of inflammation in the bone is
a protein called RANKL. RANKL actually turns on a set of DNA that creates this inflammatory
little army that goes around. The bones decay, cells increase, and the bone-forming cells
actually decrease. So youíve gone RANKL turning on this inflammatory army that starts to go
and chew up the bone. I think that the best way to really decrease
your inflammatory situation is by ... Actually, 1 of the reasons why I think it will ... The
main thing that you need to do is figure out why are you inflamed and get those causes
handled. 1 of the reasons why I think that people are so inflamed these days is because
of these [inaudible 00:07:27] foods that weíre eating. I believe that weíre becoming more
and more and more allergic to these foods, because our bodies are seeing them, and the
digestive enzymes in our gut are used to the foods actually being natural. We havenít
evolved to have digestive enzymes that will digest these GMO foods. Weíre becoming more
and more allergic to our food, the food is hybridized, weíre not keeping pace, we become
allergic to our food, and then our gut lining breaks down. You know as well as I do that
a leaky gut has all kinds of consequences. 1 of the things that happens is that we become
infected, because we lose that barrier against infection. You know that Candida is much on
the rise. A lot of people are doing anti-candidal diets and feeling so much better. Then the
other thing that happens is that minerals are notoriously difficult, actually, to absorb.
Because then we have this leaky, inflamed gut, itís harder for us to absorb our minerals,
and we become mineral-deficient. My number 1 tip here is try to become a food detective.
Figure out what foods youíre allergic to, and take them out of your diet.
I know this isnít such an easy thing to do, because what happens is that the symptoms
of food allergies still overlap, so you could be allergic to wheat and you could have the
same exact symptoms as you would have if you were allergic to corn. Itís really hard to
figure out, but these are things that a holistic practitioner like myself and Dr Shojai can
help you with. Thatís my best tip on inflammation, is get back to the foods of old, eat things
that have come out of the ground, and if youíre not a vegetarian, eat things that eat things
that are coming out of the ground, and just get rid of the sugar, high-fructose corn syrup,
trans fats, homogenized fats, pasteurized fats.
Dr Shojai: Fantastic. When you say so, basically itís an absorption issue with the leaky gut
and also this RANKL thing. RANKL ... you guys, for you to look it up ... is R A N K L, for
those of you who curious about what Docís talking about and want to go google around
and try and do some more research. Weíre going to give you a ton of resources as well
after this, so just stay tuned. So thatís your number 1 cause for this deterioration?
Dr Millman: The number 1 cause. Number 2 is acidity. The pH of our blood is held in a
very narrow range. The optimal pH of our blood is 7.4, and the narrow range is 7.35 to 7.45.
Now, if we are lower than 7.4, like 7.35, our blood is acidic compared to optimal. We
never have truly acidic blood. That would be less than 7, and basically, we couldnít
survive with a pH less than 7 in our blood. Then anything over 7.4 is alkaline, alkaline
compared to 7.4. There are many chemical buffering systems in the body. 1 of the things is bicarbonate.
Another thing that is very important is the shuttling to and from our bones of minerals,
because minerals are this counterbalancing factor to acidity. Thatís 1 of the ways that
our body actually handles acidity, is actually to take the minerals from the bones. We have
calcium and magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron, manganese and zinc. These are the major
alkalinizing minerals that are held in our bones. Theyíre constantly being shuttled
back and forth. These minerals are so important to all physiology,
to metabolism. What happens is that in order for us to maintain homeostasis, which means
that basically that weíre optimally functioning, the blood gets the minerals first. Then the
cells get the minerals second, and the bones get whatís left over. This is an issue; if
our blood is always acidic, weíre always going to be shuttling the minerals back and
forth from the blood. 1 thing that people donít realize, and I donít even think that
MDs realize this, is because minerals are so intracellularly kept, you canít look at
blood levels of magnesium and know whether youíre magnesium-deficient. You need to do
something like a red blood cell of magnesium, or you need to do a hair analysis to really
see what your mineral levels are. What are the things that make us acidic? Well,
every time that we have any kind of energy-production in our cell, it produces metabolic waste thatís
acidic. Anytime we deal with toxicity, we are producing acidic waste. Anytime that we
eat an acidic food ... and this is where our control comes from; this is where we actually
can control the acidic load in our body, is through our food, but quite a bit of the food
that we eat is acidic. If you look at it, sugar is acidic; alcohol is acidic; coffee
is acidic; black tea, even protein, nuts, fruit. There is an awful lot of acidic components
to our diet. Dr Shojai: Mm-hmm.
Dr Millman: Grains are acidic. There hardly is any alkaline foods. Really, basically,
thereís vegetables, lemon, lime, honey and [inaudible 00:13:45]. What you want to do
is counterbalance your acidity by having enough green vegetables, and moderate the acidic
foods that you have. If youíre a big coffee drinker, you donít want to have 5 cups of
coffee a day. You want to moderate that; you want to have 1 cup of coffee a day. Drinking
wine nightly ... What I do, is I have a half a glass of wine, and then I have a half a
glass of mineral water. Thatís going to decrease my acidic load. The other thing that I tell
my patients is to have the half-plate-veggie rule. Always have a half a plate is your vegetables.
Thatís going to counteract your acidic other foods that youíre eating.
Dr Shojai: How do you feel about some of these alkalizing agents that are out there? You
know, like the [Cumbrian 00:14:42] waters and a few other things that help drive alkalinity.
Is that something that youíve looked at the research on that or ...?
Dr Millman: I havenít done a lot of research on alkalizing machines, although Iíll tell
you that I own 1. My husband loves the water. I donít like it; it upsets my stomach for
whatever reason. I think that some people are meant to be a little more acidic than
others and can actually handle that really high alkaline load. Iím just really a big
proponent of doing things from food, and let our bodies kind of get ... Iím also a big
proponent of doing mineral-supplementation as well. Thatís my next topic, actually.
Dr Shojai: All right, letís hear it. Dr Millman: That was my [trade secret 00:15:36].
Mineral deficiency is another big reason why we donít have optimal health in our bones.
In fact, 99% of our calcium is in our bones; 50% of our magnesium is in our bones, 30%
of sodium, 85% of phosphorus, in our bones. Minerals are so important to every single
cellular reaction that we have. Our thyroid needs selenium and iodine and potassium, and
our heart needs calcium and magnesium. Our pancreas needs chromium and zinc. Even our
joints need minerals; our joints need manganese and iron and sodium. There isnít an organ
that doesnít need minerals. Theyíre really a critical nutrient, and theyíre in short
supply. The reason for this is since the 1920s, the
mineral content of our food has drastically diminished. This is because of over-cropping
and fertilizers. The fertilizers that we use are basically devoid of any trace minerals.
They have 4 major minerals in them, and weíre just not getting trace minerals in our food
anymore. Thatís even if you eat organic, the amount of minerals in our food is drastically
diminished. Theyíre in critical need, and theyíre in short supply. Thatís a recipe
for disaster. The best thing to get minerals, I think, again,
is look to your fruit first, but if youíre going to supplement, supplement with a really
well-balanced mineral. I want to give you my top 10 best nutrients for calcium, because
my top 10 best nutrients for calcium is much different than the Surgeon Generalís, where
basically theyíre saying to have fortified cereal, fortified orange juice, a lot of different
kinds of dairy. These are not my top, because so many people are allergic to dairy. If you
are allergic to it, the dairy that youíre eating to get calcium into your bones is actually
going to cause more inflammation. In fact, youíre going to be doing more damage to your
bone than good. My top 10 nutrients for calcium are sardines
and salmon with edible bones. You have to eat the bones, because thatís where the calciumís
at. Chinese mustard greens, turnip greens, bok choy, kale, rutabaga, broccoli, green
cabbage, and kohlrabi. 1 of the reasons why Iíve picked these nutrients is because they
are very low in 2 calcium blockers. The 2 calcium blockers are oxalates and phytates.
What this means is that if you have something like spinach that is a high-oxalate vegetable,
even though it has a lot of calcium in it, you donít absorb that calcium because the
oxalates prevent you from absorbing that calcium. If you really want to get your calcium, you
need to eat vegetables with low-phytates and low oxalates.
Iíve already picked the vegetables that are the highest on the list and the vegetables
that are going to give you other minerals that are really important, other trace minerals.
The salmon and the sardines give you omega-3 fatty acids, which we know are very anti-inflammatory
and help our health in all kinds of other way.
Dr Shojai: Those things are kind of offsetting the number 1 on your list, which is inflammation,
to begin with. Just to be clear ... Dr Millman: [Crosstalk 00:19:28].
Dr Shojai: Sure. Sure, [crosstalk 00:19:30]. Dr Millman: All connected.
Dr Shojai: To be clear, you have all these other organs that are requiring minerals.
Who gets first in line? Are the bones always last in line for the remineralization or how
does that work with the way these things get staged?
Dr Millman: Yeah, I know. Thatís exactly the case. Itís that the bones what is left
over. The bones are our mineral storehouse. They are meant to have these minerals in place,
but theyíre constantly giving them up. Itís a prioritization thing, in that we need our
heart to be pumping more than we need to worry about a broken bone. Itís heart gets things
first, then thyroids, adrenals, brain, and the bones get everything last.
Dr Shojai: Interesting. Itís almost as if they are a repository of vitality, and you
got to borrow from the bank. We donít think about it because once you have a broken bone
or youíre getting elderly and someoneís yelling at you about at your T-score, your
bones arenít really on your mind. This is fascinating for me because no one is really
talking about the bones in a meaningful way like this. Iím excited about this.
Dr Millman: Thank you. Yeah, this is what I try to do, is increase awareness, because
I really do believe that the health of your bones is related to your optimal health. If
you look at things in an integrated way like this, you really can do much more for yourself
than just protect your bones. All of these, [the whole system 00:21:13], is related. [Inaudible
00:21:15] Itís like we all somewhat talk about similar things, but we get different
spins on it. My number 4 is toxicity. Even within the last few years, weíre talking
about persistent organic pollutants being tied to diabetes. We have so much pesticide
and fungicides in our foods with GMOs. We have cleaning supplies like chlorine that
attack our thyroid. We have so much heavy-metal poisoning these days. Our detoxification system
is constantly under attack, and there are few organs that take the brunt of it, especially,
and that is the liver, the kidneys and the gut.
This is a huge, huge tip here, is if youíre constipated, you will be toxic. You will be
toxic. You have got to keep your gut moving. Eat foods with fiber in them, and make sure
that your magnesium is replete, because that can really cause a lot of constipation. We
need other vitamins and minerals for detoxification, especially the B vitamins and vitamin C and
other minerals. B vitamins and C are water-soluble, so we constantly need to be eating foods,
replenishing our stores. 2 heavy metals that are very important for the bones are lead
and cadmium. 90% of the body burden of lead is held in the bones. Cadmium interferes with
the metabolism of calcium, phosphorus and zinc.
There was actually a Swedish study that showed that people who had a high body burden of
both cadmium and lead had decreased bone density compared to people who didnít. You know what?
Another really big tip is that ... I think that your listeners are probably savvy enough
to realize that artificial sweeteners can cause formaldehyde toxicity, so please donít
have artificial sweeteners. I think 1 thing you can do is to substitute your Diet Coke
with some mineral water with a little bit of cranberry juice or a little bit of cherry
juice in it or something like that, or a little bit of stevia.
Always remember about the gum. I canít tell you the number of patients that I have who
are hardcore like your listeners, and basically they forget about the gum. I have people on
my exam table, and if theyíre chewing gum, I literally make them go and get the box for
me and show me that itís in ... They go, ìWell, itís sugar-free, Dr Kim.î That has
artificial sweeteners in it. Dr Shojai: Right.
Dr Millman: That is really going to turn into formaldehyde in your body.
Dr Shojai: Yeah, and formaldehyde, last time I checked, folks, is not good for you. I fought
with this personally. I was a gum-chewer for years. Finally I started reading the labels
and going, ìWhat is this? What am I putting in?î I mean, not is it food-grade plastic
that youíre chewing on nowadays; itís just filled with things that are going to mess
up your system. Toxicity is a topic weíre talking about all the time, but now weíre
talking about it getting into the bones. Now, this is something weíre actually going to
do a feature and have some discussions about chelation in a few weeks. How hard is it to
get this stuff out? Because the bones are pretty packed in there; theyíre pretty deep
in the body. Is it last to go? Are you seeing any effects with oral or IV chelation with
this? Dr Millman: Honestly, I think that I detoxify
differently than any other practitioner in the country. Youíll understand when I tell
you. My [friends 00:25:29] is really minerals. I love minerals; I think theyíre really underappreciated,
and I think theyíre really misunderstood as well. If you look at trying to get rid
of cadmium, cadmium and zinc look almost exactly the same structurally. In fact, theyíre right
next to each other on the periodic table. If you start to chelate out cadmium, youíre
going to pull in that person who was deficient before. The cadmium is sitting on the zinc
receptor [inaudible 00:25:57]. Now you start to pull out cadmium, and you make that person
zinc deficient. In fact, the way that I deal with cadmium
is that I give zinc. The zinc will push the cadmium off of the receptor [inaudible 00:26:15].
I make sure that the people have enough D vitamins, C vitamins and other minerals, and
I make sure their liver is working well, their kidney is not getting congested, and that
their gut is wide open and free to get rid of the toxicity. Thatís the way that I detoxify.
I donít use any chelators. I just detoxify with minerals. It comes off very slowly and
very gradually, and people donít tend to have detoxification reactions.
Dr Shojai: Fascinating. Fascinating. Very cool.
Dr Millman: Yeah. Yeah. The 5th major contributor in bone disease is hormones. Iím going to
hit 3 big ones, which is insulin, cortisol and estrogen for the ladies. Cortisol: There
isnít anyone who comes into my office with [inaudible 00:27:08] who doesnít have a cortisol
thatís sky-high, because we live such a frenzied life. We have so much so to do, so much stress,
so little time. Theyíre all exhausted; theyíre not relaxing enough, and theyíre not sleeping,
so their metabolism is so ramped up. Cortisol is just like inflammation. It really destroys
anything in its path. We know that prednisone, which is a synthetic form of cortisol, breaks
down the bones so quickly. Itís a huge risk factor for bone disease. It gives your body
the breakdown message. People with high cortisols have all kinds
of other problems like insomnia, irritability, panic attack, anxiety. They donít heal well
from cuts. They get ëbuffalo humpsí on their back. Thatís actually a cortisol thing. They
can be wired and tired at the same time. I think the most important thing for cortisol
is sleep. I got a couple of really good tips for your listeners about sleep.
Dr Shojai: Great. Dr Millman: The first 1 being is, I have a
lot of patients who come into my office, and they say, ìDr Kim, I just canít unwind my
mind. Itís just going full blast, and thatís why I canít get to sleep.î Well, thereís
a Bach Flower Remedy called White Chestnut, that I think is really helpful for that. In
fact, I use it all the time for myself. It decreases the kind of internal chatter that
doesnít turn off. The other tip that I have for you is B12. I know this might sound a
little counterintuitive, because itís a B vitamin; you would think that itís stimulating.
In fact, what happens is there is whatís called the [inaudible 00:28:57], the melatonin/cortisol
rhythm. Naturally, what we should have is high cortisol in the morning, which gives
us our get-up-and-go, and then low melatonin, which puts us to sleep. We want high cortisol,
low melatonin, in the morning and just the opposite at night: high melatonin, low cortisol.
B12 is actually in the synthesis pathway for melatonin. It helps to drive up your melatonin
at night, drive down your cortisol at night. Actually that can have such a wonderful effect
and give you a really deep, restful sleep. Dr Shojai: Fascinating. Fascinating.
Dr Millman: Have you used B12 in your practice for sleep?
Dr Shojai: Never for sleep. Weíve used serotonin. Weíre very careful with melatonin itself
for some people; we use a lot of 5-HTP to push serotonin over the pathways. Occasionally,
weíll look at B12 being down or something like that would do it. Iím going to mess
around with that. Thereís no shortage of insomnia out in our world here.
Dr Millman: Absolutely. I think itís a huge problem in my practice. Absolutely. Then the
other really important hormone is insulin. When our sugars are on a rollercoaster ride,
this is not good for our bones. In fact, in the womenís health study, they found that
type 1 diabetics are 17 times more likely to fracture a bone than people who didnít
have diabetes. Then when they looked at diabetes type 2, people that were type 2 diabetics
were 1.7 times more likely to fracture a bone. Itís a huge, huge risk for the bones. We
just need to keep our blood sugar stable for other reasons anyway. 1 of the ways that you
can do that is by eating fat and fiber and protein in every meal, because that quenches
down the effects of the carbohydrates in our food.
Carbohydrates: When youíre having a food that has a very carbohydrate load, a high
glycemic load, a lot of the insulin gets produced. The insulin drives the sugars into the cells,
and you get whatís called reactive hyperglycemia. Whatís happening is your blood sugarís going
up and down, up and down, but if you have fiber and fat and protein in your meals, it
will help to actually even that out. The other thing that happens with a lot of sugar in
your diet is when your sugar stays up high for a long period of time, you start to actually
coat your proteins with sugar. We know that coating your red blood cells is one of the
ways that we look for long-terms effect of blood glucose on our body. Itís called hemoglobin
A1c. Thatís really looking at the sugar content of whatís on our hemoglobin. This happens
to other cells as well. The cells in the kidneys, kidneys get damaged, eyes get damaged, heart
gets damaged, brain gets damaged. We actually think that now that Alzheimerís
is like the second form of diabetes; thatís what weíre thinking. I think that 1 of the
things that we did was we really gave up eating fats in our diet with the lipid hypothesis
back in the 1950s when Ancel Keys came out and said that cholesterol was related to heart
disease. We gave up the fats in our diet, and we became enthralled with eating carbohydrates
and sugar-laden things. We started to eat polyunsaturated vegetable oils and they go
rancid very fast. They almost always have to have some of kind of trans fat in the vegetable
oil, because otherwise they wouldnít have a good shelf life. Then we started eating
trans fats and fake butter and margarine. These things are not good for us.
My suggestion here is to really get a sense of the glycemic load of your food. What this
means is the higher the glycemic load, the more insulin gets produced. The more insulin
that gets produced, the faster your sugar is going to your cells. Youíre more likely to get reactive hyperglycemia,
and because of the high sugar content, youíre more likely to have a lot of sugar in your
blood and get these proteins coated. So limited your carbohydrates, learn your glycemic loads
of your food, and eat fiber, fat and protein in every meal, is my tip for that.
Dr Shojai: Fantastic. Fantastic. In doing so and stabilizing that, I know when youíre
stabilizing your blood sugar, youíre effectively helping your bones and keeping them from falling
apart. Dr Millman: Yeah, and preventing Alzheimerís
and heart disease and everything else that we know are important.
Dr Shojai: Yes, I think thatís [inaudible 00:34:16]
Dr Millman: Lastly, for the women, estrogen. After menopause, women lose .5 to 1% of their
bone mass per year. Our bone mass peaks at 35. This is a huge, huge tip. Thinking about
your bone mass at 50 or 60 years of age is not ideal. This is not ideal. Women who start
to get decreased estrogen, they lose their sex drive. Their female juiciness isnít as
good. They lose their memory, their zeal for life. It doesnít have to be that way. There
are really simple things you can do. I love maca. I bet you love maca, too. 1 of the great
things about maca, which is a simple botanical that you can use: Maca has estrogenic effects,
which means that it helps to decrease the perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms, like
hot flashes, but it actually was shown in rat studies to increase to trabecular bone.
Thatís really important. It does not increase urine mass, so it doesnít have any kind of
bad estrogenic effect, and it doesnít increase estrogen either; it just has estrogen-like
effect. Another thing that you can do is Siberian
rhubarb. That is very similar, although I have not seen rat studies on Siberian rhubarb
showing any increase in bone-mineral density. Dr Shojai: Fantastic. These are both readily
available at the health-food store; this isnít anything esoteric that people canít get their
hands on. Just google it, guys. This stuffís all over the place.
Dr Millman: Yeah. The thing I want to close with is I want to give your listeners a chance
to find out whether or not they are risk for any of the things that Iíve been talking
about here. I created this online bone assessment, because quite frankly most people donít have
any idea of whether theyíre at risk at not. It turns out that whenever I give this quiz,
almost everybody whoís not in optimal health has some sort of risk. Let me give you a couple
of examples. This is going to illustrate what weíve gone over on the 5 points today. I
have this patient who is a heavy-duty coffee drinker. She drinks 5 cups of coffee a day.
Because of that acidity factor, sheís going to be stealing minerals from her bones constantly,
and her organs, basically: her thyroid, her heart, and her adrenals are not going to have
the minerals that they need because itís going to get shunted into the blood to counteract
this acidity factor. In fact, 1 of the things that she was complaining
about was being mentally sluggish and being physically sluggish. What I did was I said,
ìOkay, I donít think that you need to give up your coffee, just to have coffee in moderation.
Have a cup a day, and then make sure that you eat more vegetables to counteract it.î
Iíve put her on a basic mineral supplement. She started feeling better right away.
This brings home that acidity can really affect your mineral status and your metabolism and
the way you feel. Itís not just your bones; itís your thyroid, your adrenals and your
heart as well. If you drink alcohol daily, I already gave a tip for that, which is just
to take your wine ... wine tastes really great as a little spritzer with a little bit of
mineral water in it. Wine is going to do the same thing. Even black tea is going to do
the same thing. Green tea has less of an acidity factor than black tea, so if you can start
to move from black tea to green tea. We know that green tea is a great antioxidant. Itís
so helpful in so many other ways, too. Then I have my patients who came in and theyíre
drinking Cokes, although I see this far less often than I used to in the beginning. People
are drinking Cokes. They have the high-fructose corn syrups, and they have the blood-sugar
issue. They have the acidity issue to deal with. When somebody is drinking a lot of Cokes
and their blood sugar is going up, they could be irritable and anxious, but then a half
an hour later, their blood sugar is tanking. Theyíve got their head up on the desk at
3 pm, and their productive day is all over with. When your blood stays high, your cortisol
stays high. It just is such a vicious cycle. Diet Cokes ... switch this out for a mineral
water with a little bit of cherry juice, a little bit of cranberry juice. If youíre
having the Diet Coke instead of the high-fructose corn syrup, you might think that youíre doing
yourself a favor. Again, that formaldehyde is causing toxicity thatís bringing toxicity
into the mix. A lot of people who come to my office, they
have some aches and pains here and there. Inevitably, these people are inflamed. We
know that inflammation is related to Alzheimerís, rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease. Again,
eating a food that youíre sensitive to can be a huge culprit here. The problem with inflammation
is that there are very few outward signs and symptoms from it, but there are many indicators
of inflammation that Iíve found that Iíve put on my bone-health assessment quiz. Inflammation
is a big deal when it comes to the bones. You know, itís my sincere hope that your
listeners are not at risk. Thereís a really easy way to find out, so I created this online
holistic bone-health assessment test. Anybody can take it. You can go through the quiz.
There are 5 sections that look at all the different things that we talked about today.
Answer the questions. Itíll be about your medical history, your symptoms, your lifestyle.
You donít have to be a doctor to answer the questions. At the end, itíll take you through
my custom algorithm and itíll give you a score in each of the areas as to whether youíre
at medium risk, youíre at high risk, or youíre super healthy.
Better yet, Iím going to give you some simple tips and strategies to start addressing any
kind of potential problems that you have. Itís really important that people understand
this. I know that people donít think much about their bone health. We donít sit there
wondering whether our bones are rotting away, and theyíre probably not, unless you know
you have bone disease. The really important thing is that your bone health is directly
related to your heart health, your brain health, and to the health of every cell in your body.
If youíre not providing the proper nutrients to the rest of your body, these organs are
going to leach the minerals from your bones. After some period of time, your bones get
depleted, and now theyíre unable to be this abundant mineral storehouse for the rest of
your body. My recommendation is that if anything that
Iíve said to you today sounds like it could relate to you, itís better for you to know
than not to know. Take the quiz. Itís absolutely free. Itíll walk you through these 5 areas
weíve discussed today. Itís superfast to take, and youíll get your assessment literally
within a few minutes after you take the quiz. I want people to be super healthy, and thatís
why I designed this quiz. Are we going to put a link at the bottom of the video, or
shall I give the link here? Dr Shojai: [Inaudible 00:42:07] so we going
to have a link at the bottom of the video. Weíll also put it in the blog post so theyíll
have access to it everywhere. They just click on it, follow it through to you guys. Highly
recommend taking the quiz right now. No better time than now. This will only take a couple
of minutes, and youíll know what you know. From there, Docís got a bunch of advice for
you. These are the types of things that you want to get ahead of. You donít want to find
out that you have bone problems when itís already too late. Nowís the time; if youíre
in your 30s, 40s, 50s, nowís the time to really start addressing this stuff, because
it is. Itís a snapshot into your overall health. Itís your mineral bank, and all your
other organs are drawing from it, so you got to make sure. When you look at your retirement,
you want to make sure that your retirement is ... your endowment really is alive and
well in those bones. Dr Millman: Yeah, itís so true. Those are
exactly the kinds of things that I want to increase aware to. If you have friends and
family, please have them take the quiz as well, because we want to get the message out
to as many people as possible to really start to think about your bones, and to think about
them in a different way. They are not just the structural support system for your body
that you just have to worry about when you fall down and you break a bone, and worry
about breaking a hip when youíre 85. No, you need to think about them now.
Dr Shojai: Itís interesting. A correlation: In Chinese medicine, the bones house the jing
or the essence. Itís really like the most valuable stuff you got for your health is
housed in the bones and stored there. Itís interesting how the ancients had to have known
this somehow, and now weíre starting to come full circle with our science, realizing how
valuable this secret organ, if you will, truly is.
Dr Millman: Yeah, I know. Exactly. I had no idea about that perspective, but thatís great.
Dr Shojai: Iíll send you some on that. I think youíll have some fun with it, seeing
the correlations [crosstalk 00:44:09]. Dr Millman: I will.
Dr Shojai: Excellent. Guys, weíve been talking to Dr Kim Millman, who is just a *** at everything
she does. Sheís a delightful person to know. Sheís done some great work bringing this
information out. I hope you enjoyed it. Share it with your friends. Take the quiz right
now and then let us know how youíre doing. Basically, what we want to do is build awareness
about things that could become healthcare problems 20, 30 years from now. If you do
it now, you maintain your vitality; you restore your vitality. You do things to prevent illness
from coming. You could see the iceberg a long ways away. Basically, the eventuality is there
only if you donít change directions to your course. This is an easy way of knowing it,
so take the quiz. Doc, thank you very much. Youíre lovely to talk to. I loved hearing
everything you have to say. Looking forward to having you on again at some point.
Dr Millman: Thank you so much. Thank you for the listeners, too.
Dr Shojai: Okay. Thank you, Doc. Keep good.