Episode 153: Spleen

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Be my physician. He said, you're definitely ill. That's the
nurse I've seen worse than the doctor. Just gave me
a pill. Take one of those three times today. You
don't never stop on till you're really denner awful. Better
keep out of the region children. The thing is that
might be some side effects. You mean the probably will well.
Limits of fact, you can't come. I'll give you another film.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
On top of that, on top of that, on top
of that, on top of that, on top of that,
on top.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Of that, and many showed me his bill. I've popped
another pill.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Welcome to When Your Health Matters. Your host is doctor
Richard Huntoon of Advanced Alternative Medicine Center located right here
in Pool of Georgia. Doctor Hantoon has been practicing alternative health,
utilizing chiropractic and many other health techniques for the past
twenty seven years to support you when your health matters.
It's his intention to offer practical advice every week for

(00:57):
you to consider and to apply in your own life
to make your life and the lives of your family
and friends healthier and happier. When you have questions, you'll
get your answers from doctor Rick himself or another expert
on the show. Being empowered to make positive health choices
before problem arises is the best way to approach health,
and doctor Rick promises to have information for you every

(01:17):
week that will allow you to become proactive and empowered
to take control of your health and your life.

Speaker 4 (01:23):
You are listening to the Alternative Healthcare Network.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
Welcome to this week's show, When Your Health Matters. The
show designed to empower you to better health through knowledge
and education. And I'm your host, doctor Richard Untun from
Advanced Alternative Medicine Center. And here's my partner for the show,
your health advocate, Mark says.

Speaker 6 (01:41):
So, Doc Rick, we're getting close to when the fall
is going to be upon us. It's as we enter
into this September time. What element do we focus on
it this time of year and why do we choose
that particular element? Now?

Speaker 5 (01:55):
Wow, fall already amazing, isn't it still wanting to hold
on to some yep? So after the heat of summer
and the fire element, we begin to move into the
Earth element. That's the next in the five elements of
the five element theory. The Earth element is about self,
It's about self esteem and it's about your ability to

(02:16):
taste the sweetness of life or suffer low self esteem.

Speaker 6 (02:22):
Well, I wouldn't want to do that if I could
avoid it. So what organ it relates to the earth
element that would be related to self esteem.

Speaker 5 (02:30):
Well, in August, it's about the stomach and the center
of self esteem. In September that we're moving into we
will move to the spleen slash pancreas and the ability
to taste the sweetness of life.

Speaker 6 (02:44):
Now, I've heard a lot about the spleen, but what
exactly does the spleen do.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
The spleen is a recycling plant for the blood and
it filters out dead or tired red blood cells within
the circulatory system.

Speaker 6 (02:57):
What does it mean that filters out dead blood cells?
Does it just eliminate them?

Speaker 5 (03:03):
Well, it recycles them. So it's kind of like when
you send something to the recycling plant. It pulls apart
the useless component components and throws them out and it holds.

Speaker 7 (03:14):
On to the useful components.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
So the hemoglobin and the iron, those are usable. But
the format that they take to make a red blood cell,
the red blood cells life itself is taking its toll.
It's lived its lifetime and it's you know, going to
go off to the next life, which is going to
be essentially reincarnated. But all the body parts of the

(03:38):
blood cell are going to be destroyed and the functional
components like the iron and the hemoglobin, those are going
to get recycled into new red blood cells.

Speaker 6 (03:47):
So they get rebuilt and reapplied. So I understand that
the spleen also plays a major role in the immune system.

Speaker 5 (03:57):
It is a repository for immune cells and store white
blood cells. It stores the lymphocytes a specialize white blood cell,
and recognize and get activated with long term chronic infections.

Speaker 7 (04:09):
And so.

Speaker 5 (04:11):
That's its its relationship with the immune system.

Speaker 6 (04:14):
M And when you get those rud blood cells, are
the blood cells actually filtering things out or are they
carrying things? I know they carry oxygen, but what else
do the red blood cells do?

Speaker 5 (04:29):
They carry other components related to how the body functions.
And what's important is the fact that if your body
isn't doing that correctly, you will develop health imbalances and
diseases and symptoms.

Speaker 7 (04:45):
And you will know pretty quickly.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
But the body, how the red blood cells work, unless
you have an underlying condition, pretty much takes care of
itself and you don't ever have to worry about it.

Speaker 6 (04:56):
Well, I mean, I've heard about things like mononucleosis, right,
which creates an enlarged spleen.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
Yeah, Mononucleosis is where there's a virus that impacts the
functioning of the spleen, and so the spleen can get enlarged.
Its most common the symptoms associated with an enlarged spleen
is you're going to get pain or fullness in the

(05:24):
upper left abdomen which may radiate to the left shoulder,
or feeling full quickly after eating. We also have cool
symptoms like fatigue, easily bruising, shortness of breath. And so
we want to make sure that our spleen stays healthy
and what the functions that it's supposed to do or

(05:46):
are being maintained properly. And that's going to happen primarily
through maintaining proper eating and eating quality food as opposed
to eating the completely refined and processed foods.

Speaker 6 (05:58):
Now, what about leukemia? Is that another disease that affects
the spleen.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
Yeah, Leukemia is a problem that affects how the body
produces white blood cells, and and so when a person
has leukemia. It's something to be aware of when they
discuss treatment options.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (06:26):
You want to appreciate the fact that when one gets
leukemia that the the ability for them to replace the
blood cells, et cetera is going to be problematic and
and just the complications that result with your body can't
produce blood the way that it's supposed to and the

(06:47):
blood cells to maintain normal functioning. Uh, then that that
becomes pretty serious pretty quickly.

Speaker 7 (06:53):
And so we want to make sure that.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
Appropriate treatment is being given for are those conditions more
as a preventative as opposed to a responsive After the fact,
you want to feed your spleen properly, and there's various
spleen supplements. We offer a couple of spleen supplements. One
is desiccated spleen, which is nutrients to actually feed the

(07:19):
spleen itself. And we have another supplement called spleen PMG,
which is designed to help repair and rebuild the spleen.

Speaker 6 (07:27):
So you were talking about the white blood cells and
the red blood cells. Can you talk a little bit
about what the difference between those are and what their
their function is.

Speaker 5 (07:38):
The red blood cells are about carrying nutrients to and
from the lungs, it picks up oxygen and brings that
to the tissues. It also picks up garbage from the
tissues and brings them back to the lungs and brings
them back to the liver for excretion, brings them to
the kidneys for excretion, whether it's a liquid execratory product

(08:02):
or a solid one that's going to go through the
liver into the intestines. So that's primarily what the red
blood cells do. The white blood cells are about fighting
infection and dealing with the defense system within the body
so that the body can fight off and defend itself

(08:23):
from these particular types of pathogens which we get exposed
through through what we're breathing, what we're eating, what we're drinking,
and what we come in contact with.

Speaker 6 (08:32):
So it's that when you have an infection in your spleen,
which is recycling your red blood cells, but you actually
need your white blood cells to get in there and
fight it off. So are they it is the spleen
able to handle that or is that something that is
you know, you have you have something going on with

(08:53):
your spleen. Are you really going to be able to
fight off an infection or does that have to happen
elsewhere in your body, in your immune system.

Speaker 7 (08:59):
Well, it's the end of the day.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
That's the recycling plant for the body is the spleen.
And the immune system itself doesn't work directly through the spleen.
It works through the other immune system organs and glands
within the body in order to make sure that the
body functions properly. So, for instance, you mentioned mononucleosis or

(09:24):
mono for short. That's a viral infection caused by the
epstein bar virus and leading to symptoms such as fatigue, fever,
sore throat, and swollen lymph nodes. Now, the fact that
it's going to potentially cause your spleen to be enlarged,
that's a response to the viral infection, and for some

(09:48):
people that ultimately creates issues where they have to have
their spleen removed. And for other variety of reasons like
injury or other blooded or infections or cysts or terminal
tumors or certain cancers, et cetera. Those are all the
reasons why a spleen can get enlarged or why a

(10:10):
spleen can stop functioning. And so it's important to like
I mentioned before, it's important to give the body the
necessary ingredients it needs to help repair and to help
feed the spleen to keep the spleen functioning. Can we
survive without a spleen? We certainly can, But is it ideal?
Absolutely not. God puts things in the body for a reason,

(10:31):
and you want to make sure that your body functions
and maintains itself optimally.

Speaker 7 (10:37):
And if it's not doing that, then you need to.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
Go find somebody that can help you restore normal functions
so that you don't develop complications of these imbalances over time.

Speaker 6 (10:48):
Well, I would think if you were like somebody that
had an injury and had your spleen removed, how does
your body now compensate for it? Because the body is
pretty amazing at being able to sort of compensate and
keep you alive. Do the blood cells get recycled elsewhere?

Speaker 5 (11:03):
They're probably going to get recycled through the liver and
ultimately end up getting dumped into the The components that
the body doesn't need is going to get dumped into
the intestines because the blood that would have gone to
the spleen is eventually going to head back to the
liver for further filtration. The spleen is one of three

(11:24):
internal filters that the body has. You have your spleen,
you have your kidneys, which filters the liquid toxins, and
then you have your liver, which filters the toxins that
come in through the food supply. And so when one
teammate in the system starts to fail or even stop
functioning altogether, the other filters are going to pick up

(11:47):
where that one can't do the job appropriately.

Speaker 6 (11:50):
M I mean, because you don't often hear a lot
about the spleen. I mean, you're about the liver, you're
about the kidneys, But it's not so something that is
really top of mind for a lot of people unless
you've had something where you have a particular illness or
injury to it.

Speaker 5 (12:08):
Well, yeah, you can have cancer of the spleen, known
as primary spleen cancer, and then you can have a
secondary spleen cancer where cancers from other parts of the
body end up infecting the spleen as a metastasist, so
to speak.

Speaker 6 (12:21):
And now I understand that the marrow in your bones,
like the long bones of your leg, you also are
producing red blood cells. Is that fundamentally different? Is that
the original manufacturer of the blood cells, and then the
spleen recycles the elements that are produced in the marrow
of the bones.

Speaker 5 (12:39):
That is correct, So your bone marrow produces the cells.
That's where all the cells are born. And then once
they're born, they leave the home and they go out
into the world, and.

Speaker 7 (12:52):
You know when you need to.

Speaker 5 (12:54):
Repair, rebuild, replenish, and recycle. That's where the spleen comes in.
As far as the red and white blood cells.

Speaker 6 (13:04):
And I would imagine that if you had a broken bone,
one of the major bones that's going to affect the
production of your red blood cells, that would be one
of the consequences or am I.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
Mistaken well, potentially that could be an issue. You want
to make sure that the bone heals. Just because you
broke a bone doesn't necessarily mean that you've negatively impacted
the bone marrow's ability to function. But the bone is
going to have to heal in order for it to
continue functioning in a normal fashion. But the bones, the

(13:34):
part of the bone that hasn't broken, that's still part
of the same bone, but it's away from the area
of where the bone broke, is still manufacturing blood cells
through the bone marrow. That is within the bone that
wasn't affected by the break.

Speaker 6 (13:54):
And one of the things that we talk about quite
often are the emotions that are associated with the organs.
What are the emotions that are associated with the spleen?

Speaker 5 (14:05):
Low self esteem, disgusted, expanded importance of self, egoistic, nervous, despair,
feeling stifled. I think I said over sympathetic, So over
sympathetic is for spleen pancreas, and low self esteem is

(14:28):
about stomach, and I believe we talked about that last month.
And so you have these emotions that relate to self
and self identity, and when you feel vulnerable in any
particular way, that's going to cause you to feel the
types of.

Speaker 7 (14:46):
Emotions of.

Speaker 5 (14:48):
You know, all the ones that I just mentioned, the
the the overconcern.

Speaker 7 (14:57):
And those kinds of things.

Speaker 5 (14:58):
So it's it's it's important to appreciate that your spleen,
along with the pancreas, helped to counterbalance the functioning of
the stomach. And those three organs together make up what
is called the Earth element. And this particular month of
the year, the spleen and the pancreas are the ones
that are most active I.

Speaker 6 (15:18):
See, and they all relate to that Earth element, which
then is why we're talking about them in this particular.

Speaker 7 (15:25):
Season, correct, right, And now the.

Speaker 6 (15:27):
Earth element has emerged out of the fire element. So
is that kind of like when a fire, you know,
their ashes left over at the fire? Is that kind
of what the earth element is?

Speaker 7 (15:38):
Is that?

Speaker 6 (15:38):
How that?

Speaker 7 (15:39):
Well, it's a continuation of that naturally, of course. And so.

Speaker 5 (15:46):
The five element, the order of the five element is water, wood, fire, earth,
and metal. And so as we move into the second
half of the year, we get into the earth element
because we've already moved through the the water, the wood,
and the fire. So now we're moving into the earth element.

(16:06):
And when you put wood in a fire, it turns
it to ash, and yes, that ash is part.

Speaker 7 (16:14):
Of the earth element.

Speaker 6 (16:15):
Well, this is fascinating, it's fascinating conversation. We're going to
have to take a short commercial break to hear from
our sponsor, the Alternative Healthcare Network dot Com. When we
get back, I want to turn the conversation into the pancreas,
which again is another one of the organs in the
body that we often only hear about when there's some
crisis relate related to it, like pancreatic cancer or something

(16:39):
of that nature. And I know you have treated people
with pancreatitis and pancreas cancer very successfully, So when we
get back, I want to go and turn the conversation
in that direction.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
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Speaker 4 (17:29):
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Speaker 6 (17:33):
Was mentioning before we took our break that the other
organ that relates to this element in this time of
year is the pancreas. What is the pancreas? What does
the pancreas do?

Speaker 5 (17:44):
It plays an important role in digestion and hormone production,
and it helps to regulate blood sugar balance as a
byproduct of its relationship with the liver.

Speaker 6 (17:55):
And so I mean a lot of problems are resulting
from having a pancreas that's not working properly.

Speaker 5 (18:01):
Yes, And the most common misunderstanding about the pancreas is
taught to it causes diabetes, and as I was just
alluding to, diabetes is actually a condition of the liver,
and the pancreas gets to solve the liver overwhelmed to
the sugar that's coming in. So when the sugar gets
overwhelmed with the amount of when that liver gets overwhelmed

(18:23):
with the amount of sugar coming into the system, the
first ten percent is converted over to liver glycogen, which
is for emergency purposes.

Speaker 7 (18:31):
The other ninety percent.

Speaker 5 (18:33):
Now needs to be stored and taken out of the blood.
And so what the liver will do at that point,
when it's overwhelmed or when it's reached its storage capacity,
it will call down to the pancreas and it will
instruct the pancreas to secrete its primary hormone of insulin,
which will then gobble up all the blood sugar and

(18:53):
put that blood sugar into storage, and it converts it
over to driglycerides and then puts it into your fat
fat stores.

Speaker 6 (19:01):
So, as I understand it, you're saying that the body
gets overwhelmed with the amount of sugar in the.

Speaker 7 (19:08):
Bloodstream certainly the way that we eat today, absolutely right.

Speaker 6 (19:11):
And then once it's in that overwhelmed capacity, which is
overworking the liver, the pancreas comes to the rescue. It's
like the knight in shining armor and releases the insulin
and the insulin Actually, what does it transform the sugars
into triglycerides for storage.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
Well, it takes the sugar out of the blood, converts
them over to triglycerides, and then the triglycerides are stored
in our storage sites, which some people would call our
fat deposits. But it isn't directly fat. It's sugar that's
been converted over to fat as a storage form.

Speaker 6 (19:49):
I see, I see, And so that's why you see
that obesity. Now, I mentioned before we broke the pancreatitis.
What is pancreatitis.

Speaker 5 (19:59):
Pancreat Titis is inflammation of the pancreas, and hence it's
called pancreatitis. The itis on any condition remains relates to inflammation.
So if you have pancreatitis, that's inflammation of the pancreas,
and it can be due to many different things.

Speaker 6 (20:16):
Okay, I presume it's painful.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
Uh yeah, when you get inflammation of that particular organ.
It's definitely inflammation of any organ, but certainly of an
endocrine organ is going to create problems and would be painful.
M h.

Speaker 6 (20:33):
And it's I mean, the pancreas are rather small relatively.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, it's small compared to some of the like. It's
certainly smaller than the liver. It's it's probably it's not
as wide as the spleen, but it is longer than
the spleen is It's certainly not as big as a kidney,
but it is bigger than in the adrenal gland.

Speaker 7 (21:00):
And as a as.

Speaker 5 (21:01):
The pancreas is also a gland and secretes insulin the hormone,
then you'd need to appreciate that as endocrine organs go,
the pancreas is actually one of the larger endocrine organs.

Speaker 6 (21:14):
Uh huh. Okay. Now, the pancreas, when it's inflamed and
you have pancreatitis, can that be associated with somebody who's pregnant.

Speaker 5 (21:25):
Gallstone pancreatitis, often linked to hormonal changes and altered bile
acid metabolism, can occur during a woman's pregnancy. Helping mothers
to be with natural methods is always better as a
first choice versus going right to the medication and potentially
going in in them, you.

Speaker 7 (21:44):
Know, putting you on medication while you're pregnant.

Speaker 6 (21:47):
Now, is there a difference between the pancreatitis we've been
discussing in what's called acute pancreatitis.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
Acute pancreatitis is the type of pancreatitis that happens very
quick and it comes on out of nowhere, and that's
different from chronic pancreatitis. Chronic pancreatitis is long standing inflammation
of the pancreas due to dysregulation in the liver that

(22:17):
causes the pancreas to lose its ability to regulate itself
in a normal fashion.

Speaker 7 (22:24):
And so.

Speaker 5 (22:26):
There's various reasons for why that occurs. But it's important
just to appreciate the fact that if you have on
my website, I have two different articles. One is for
acute pancreatitis and the other one is for chronic pancreatitis,
and either one is a pretty serious condition that you're
going to want to get a handle on, and we

(22:47):
have some pretty simplistic nutritional supplement solutions to help eliminate
either the acute or the chronic pancreatitis.

Speaker 6 (22:57):
Do you treat them differently.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
Eat them differently in the sense that one's going to
certainly take longer to come back into balance than the other.
To the acute pancreatitis, because it's acute, you will usually
recover pretty quickly if you give it the right input.
If it's chronic, then it's going to take a little
bit longer to overcome the habit of being in the
chronic state.

Speaker 6 (23:19):
I know you mentioned that gallstones and pancreatitis when we
were talking about women who are pregnant. How do gallstones
relate to that?

Speaker 5 (23:28):
Well, gallstones if they come down the common bile duct
and they meet with the pancreatic ducts where those two meet.
If the stone gets in the way of the pancreatic duct,
then the pancreas can't excrete the way that it's supposed to,
and then gallstones can be associated with and even potentially

(23:50):
cause pancreatitis.

Speaker 6 (23:52):
Other than gallstons. What other things could cause you to
have pancreatitis.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
Repeated episodes of acute pancreat titus, alcoholism, possible genetic factors.
Just depends on the individual and what their lifestyle has
been m M.

Speaker 6 (24:09):
And as far as symptoms go, what are the symptoms
that you have pancreatitis?

Speaker 5 (24:14):
It's going to prevent present a severe abdominal pain often
radiating to the back, with nausea, vomiting, fever, rapid pulse,
those kinds of things.

Speaker 6 (24:23):
So when the doctor asks you if you have a
stomach ache, can you have nausea? That may be one
of the things they're looking.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
At, maybe one of the things that they need to
rule out. More times than not, when you have stomach pain,
abdominal pain, and nausea, that's ninety nine percent of the
time going to be coming from your gallbladder gallbatter.

Speaker 6 (24:44):
But now, as we understand, the gallblader can affect what
happens to the pancreas. So what are underlying the issues
that would lead to having a problem with your pancreas.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
Again, we mentioned some of the emotions, low self esteem
and the abuse of actions one takes to mask that
low self esteem things like alcohol consumption and it getting
out of hand over time, you know, eating too much
sugar on a regular basis and just causing your system
to fatigue over time, and then you can develop adult

(25:19):
on set diabetes, which is typically a byproduct of abusing
the relationship between the liver and the pancreas well.

Speaker 6 (25:26):
It's so interesting because we've been talking about, you know
how the liver, the gallbler of the pancreas, which are
all sort of lined up together there. And alcoholism, which
seems to be one of the major issues that people
who get jaundice and have liver disease, but now we're
talking about a lot of those people may have any

(25:47):
of those three issues actually combining into what's going on
with their health.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
Yeah, and so it's important to have somebody that can
assess the situation completely and not necessarily needing you to
go to three different specialists in order to try to
get the big picture put together. Certainly, if you come
to my office and we evaluate, we will find where
the source is coming from, and we will offer you

(26:12):
opportunities to address the source.

Speaker 7 (26:15):
And if we need to make a referral to.

Speaker 5 (26:17):
An endocrinologist or some sort of gastroinrologist to figure out
what the dynamic is, and we may send people for
ultrasounds or some kind of viewing procedure just to see
if there's anything in there that I can certainly help
people take care of. But you know, each person is

(26:38):
unique and individual and they need to be addressed as
unique individuals and to figure things out. There's never a
one size fits all.

Speaker 6 (26:46):
Yeah. No, I mean, if you're we've talked about too
much alcohol, too much sure, both things that would be
things you could avoid and change about your eating habits.
What other things could you do to help avoid getting
pancreatitis or any other pancreatic malady?

Speaker 5 (27:03):
Again, treatments for pancreat tit has focused on pain management,
addressing the nutritional deficiencies, and enzyme replacement therapies are typically
what I use in the office, and I've had a
pretty good track record with helping people.

Speaker 7 (27:18):
Deal with that kind of stuff.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
And you know, it's just important to understand what the
pancreas is trying to do, why it's inflamed. All inflammation
is nutritional deficiency, and so when we can isolate the
reason for the inflammation, whether it's a pathogen, whether it's
a food sensitivity, whether it's heavy metals, some kind of chemical,
et cetera that could be impacting how the pancreas functions.

(27:43):
Making sure we identify that and then making sure that
we address it fully becomes vital.

Speaker 6 (27:50):
Now you said that the pancreas is not the ultimate
thing that's causing the diabetes. How does that because we've
all been told that with the pancreas failing is what's
causing diabetes.

Speaker 5 (28:03):
Well, that's the thing. People don't necessarily understand the relationship
between the liver and the liver being the parent of
the pancreas as far as hierarchy goes, And so your
endochronologists will look to mask the pancreas in diabetes when
the solution is a liver condition, and addressing that to
take the stress off the pancreas is what allows the

(28:23):
pancreas to calm down. I had a Type two diabetic
in my office, insulin dependent diabetic in my office, and
when we started fixing the imbalances that he had in
his liver, his blood sugar levels came down much closer
to normal levels than the amount of insulin that he

(28:45):
needed needed to be reduced, but it's not within my
purview and to instruct him to reduce his insulin. So
I sent him back to his endocrinologist who seemed to
be upset over the fact that he needed to have
less insulin. And you know, I ultimately the anocrinologist held

(29:07):
my patient's feet to the fire. Even though he was
improving under my care. He basically made the patient decide
to stick with the inocrinologists handling of his condition versus
getting better.

Speaker 6 (29:20):
Now, is is it ultimately that diabetes is really just
a sugar disease? I mean, there are people that are
born with type one diabetes.

Speaker 5 (29:29):
Right, So diabetes is a disease of processing sugar and
an inability to handle the amount of sugar coming into
the body and then removing it from the blood efficiently.
It starts in the liver and causes overworking of the pancreas.
The overconsumption of sugar is eventually going to stress out

(29:50):
the pancreas because the pancreas, like we said, is the
party responsible for getting rid of the excess blood sugar
that you're ingesting after the liver has filled up all
of its stores.

Speaker 6 (30:03):
So like when you let you have a sugar rush,
like you eat a candy bar or cookies or something
like that and you get that rush. That's the sugar
get getting into your blood streams.

Speaker 5 (30:14):
That's the sugar getting into your bloodstream and then starting
to overwhelm your liver. And at some point you're going
to get a signal sent to the pancreas which is
going to dump the insulin based upon the urgency of
the liver, telling it how much it needs. And then
what typically ends up happening is you get a reactive hypoglycemia.

(30:37):
Your your blood sugar dumps, and that in itself isn't
cool either. You don't want to have high blood high
blood sugar, and you certainly don't want to have too
low of a blood sugar.

Speaker 6 (30:48):
So so does the insulin balance that, or does or
what balances that hypogysmia or hyper glycemia.

Speaker 5 (30:58):
Well, if the the relationship between the liver and the
pancreas are on good terms and they're not always fighting
and they're not always at odds with each other because
of the amount of sugar that's coming in and the dysregulation.
When you get insulin resistance, that's where your insulin does
not respond appropriately. To removing sugar from the blood, and

(31:22):
so that's when you have difficulty transferring the sugar that's
in the blood into the tissues, and then you over time,
you will develop a type of diabetes that isn't directly
related to the amount of insulin that the body produces.
Is just the insulin isn't as effective as it used

(31:46):
to be.

Speaker 6 (31:46):
Oh, that's interesting you now, I mean, I'm sort of
getting this picture, you know about that in your blood,
which your blood is circulating out through your body, and
the sugar is in your blood and there's too much
of it. That's when you of that hyperglycemic reaction. Then
the insulin is gonna take it out of your blood
and then put it into other tissues that aren't necessarily

(32:12):
part of the circulation system.

Speaker 5 (32:13):
Well, well, these are the storage places for where your
body would hide the sugar so that it's going to
convert it over triglycerides, and those triglycerides are going to
get stored as fat, and so the excess amount of
sugar that people have is ultimately going to end up
in their fat stores.

Speaker 7 (32:31):
And that's why we understand.

Speaker 5 (32:33):
Obesity to be primarily eating too many carbohydrates instead of
eating a more well rounded, balanced diet, especially if those
carbohydrates happen to be highly refined and processed, man made
ones as opposed to the ones that nature produces.

Speaker 6 (32:48):
Because when they're stored, it's the same number of fat cells,
but they're enlarging with the storing of the triglycerates. Do
I have that right?

Speaker 5 (32:56):
Well, you're having more fat being put into the stores,
and so yeah, the size of the fat cells will
continue to increase as it has to store more of
the fat that's coming from the inability to process the sugar, But.

Speaker 6 (33:16):
You're not getting more fat cells. As I guess the
question I'm asking.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
Now you have the number of cells that you have,
it's a question of how big you make the cells
based upon what it is that you're putting in. And so,
if you're somebody that has no ability to regulate your
sugar consumption, then you are going to develop obesity and
there's going to be nothing that you can do about
it until you stop putting the sugar in your body.
So it's important to recognize the signs of over consumption

(33:48):
of sugar, over consumption of carbohydrates, over consumption of breads,
pastas cereals, cookies, pies, pastries, all your desserts. Understand what
your carbohydrates are and stop consuming all of them, and
then you will have the opportunity to recover your health.
But people get addicted to their sugars, They get addicted

(34:10):
to their low self esteem, they get addicted to their
inability to not feel their sense of reaching for food
and putting something sweet in their mouth because of how
we're hooked up psycho emotionally, and they have a tendency
to overeat and they're not even conscious of the fact
that they're overeating, right, And.

Speaker 6 (34:31):
One of the things that you do in the way
that you approach helping people who have cut back on
the amount of sugar they're eating, but you also supply
the nutrients that allow them to burn off the excess
fat that they've accumulated. So part of the mission that
you have is to be able to improve the diet
by feeding people.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
Feeding people what they need, and ultimately, at the end
of the day, the average person is going to have
to do more physical activity than the amount of food
that they're eating and storing because they're not If you're
a sedentary person, you sit in your office all day
behind your desk, and you do that for roughly eight

(35:15):
hours a day, and you do that for forty hours
a week and you don't do any physical activity, you
are over time going to become obese.

Speaker 7 (35:24):
You need to.

Speaker 5 (35:25):
Burn whatever it is that you're eating so that your
body is using it for fuel as opposed to storing it.
And anybody that has a weight management issue, I can
promise you that I can help you understand how to
lose weight, but it's going to require you to change
what it is that you're doing. If you're not ready
to change what you're doing, certainly don't waste your time.

(35:48):
But if you are ready to change, because you've reached
the end of that particular rope that you're swinging by
and you want to do something to change it, I
can certainly help you lose weight. I help people lose
weight much as one hundred and sixty five pounds. And
so it's important for people who are out there who
are having difficulties with weight management to get proper instruction

(36:11):
and not necessarily go to the medical professionals which are
going to offer them medications that are going to create
more stress and more damage to your liver and your
sugar regulation mechanism and leave you in a world of
hurt somewhere down the road.

Speaker 6 (36:29):
Well, this is a good conversation to be having dot Greg.
We need to take a short commercial break to hear
from our sponsor, the Alternative Healthcare Network dot com. When
we get back, I have some more questions about what's
going on with sugar, the pancreas and the spleen.

Speaker 5 (36:44):
Absolutely, but please listen to this commercial from our general sponsor.
You're listening to the Alternative Healthcare Network dot com.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
You we're listening to the Alternative Healthcare Network.

Speaker 5 (36:55):
If you're currently suffering from any health concern and you're
not getting the results you're looking for, please feel free
to call me directly at area code eight four to
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(37:18):
look forward to serving your health care needs naturally.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
You are listening to the Alternative Healthcare Network.

Speaker 6 (37:26):
So when you're consuming sugar, what's the first thing that
happens in your body once you eating that sugar well.

Speaker 5 (37:32):
If it comes in via the mouth, an enzyme is
produced by the saliva called salivary amylase, which sends a
signal to the digestive system to prepare the body for
the sugar that is coming. Once the sugar reaches the
small intestine, more enzymes are produced to process the sugar
into the bloodstream, where it will then be sent to

(37:52):
the liver for ultimate processing. There's too much sugar coming in,
the liver will send a signal down to the anchreas
to dump its insulin stores, to take the sugar out
of the blood and put it into storage, and that
storage form is converted to fat.

Speaker 6 (38:08):
Okay, But there's a reward center in your brain that
responds to the taste of the sugar that feels like
you've gotten something good.

Speaker 5 (38:16):
The brains reward system, specifically the mesolimbic dopamine system, is
activated when sugar is eaten. This system composed of the
ventral tegmental area or the VTA portion and the nucleus accumbens.
The NAC is responsible for processing the rewarding aspects of

(38:38):
the stimuli, including food, so when sugar is consumed, dopamine
is released in the NAC system contributing to the pleasurable
sensation and reinforcing the desire to eat more.

Speaker 7 (38:52):
So we want to.

Speaker 5 (38:53):
Try to interfere with that in a natural way as
opposed to using medications. But at the end of the day,
you want to try to greatly reduce or even eliminate
your refined sugar intake intake altogether.

Speaker 6 (39:08):
Now that sugar that refines sugar does that lead to inflammation.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
Sugar consumption and highly refined state is deficient in the
ingredients the body needs if it was whole food sugar
found in sugar cane, and being deficient in all the
ingredients that the body needs causes the body to respond
with inflammation as it has difficulty doing the job minus
what it's been refined out of the sugar that's being eaten.

(39:37):
And so the inflammatory response is your first indication that
what you're eating doesn't have the ingredients that your body
needs in order to process that food.

Speaker 6 (39:48):
And now the diabetes impact your immune system.

Speaker 5 (39:51):
Diabetes suppresses your immune system. So diabetes both type one
and type two can negatively impact the immune system, increase
susceptibility to infections and potentially worsening existent health conditions. High
blood sugar levels can directly impair immune system cell function
and disrupt the body's inflammatory response, making it harder to

(40:13):
fight off pathogens and.

Speaker 6 (40:16):
Does an overconsumption Why so many people have an insulin.

Speaker 5 (40:19):
Problem, it is the reason. Yes, The reason for that
is that most people do not understand what sugar is
and what it gets broken down into to become sugar.
And so any of the carbohydrates that you eat ultimately
turns into sugar. It's a complex form of sugar, and
your body's going to digest it and break it down

(40:39):
into the sugar that the body now needs to react to.

Speaker 6 (40:43):
You, whether there's a difference between the carbohydrates that are
healthy and the carbohydrates that are overrefined that cause the problem.

Speaker 5 (40:50):
Yeah, those are called the crapohydrates, and you want to
stay away from the crapohydrates. You want to eat what
nature made carbohydrates, but you don't want to eat them
at such a high level that you disregulate how the
liver and the pancreas work together.

Speaker 6 (41:04):
Now, what about something like dried fruits? Is that different
than eating fresh fruit?

Speaker 5 (41:09):
It is because what's happened is is that the water
that's naturally found within the fruit has been removed, and
so dried fruit is concentrated sugar again since the water
has been removed, thus concentrating the sugar content.

Speaker 6 (41:27):
But it's not the highly refined sugar that we were
talking about.

Speaker 5 (41:30):
No, it's not, but it's a lot of it.

Speaker 7 (41:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:35):
So if you take a grape and you take all
the water out of the grape slowly over time, you're
gonna get a raisin. So a raisin is just packed
with sugar versus the grape is less concentrated.

Speaker 6 (41:50):
M So, is there a difference between the sugar you're
getting from whole foods? Is it really fundamentally different household?

Speaker 5 (42:02):
Well, the difference is it's combined with the cofactors and
the trace elements to lessen the sugar spike and response
in the body. And so when you're eating whole foods
that comes with all the cofactors and the trace elements,
then you're getting a much more gradual rise as opposed
to a spike.

Speaker 6 (42:20):
What are some helpful steps to get over a sugar addiction?

Speaker 5 (42:26):
The first step is to acknowledge that you have a
problem and desire to overcome the issue, and once you do,
then the doors will open up to helping you get
over the sugar addiction. The simplest thing that I ask
my patients to do when they come to see me
to find out if they have a sugar addiction is
we ask them to do a ten day test, and
the ten day test is to literally eliminate all sugar

(42:49):
from your diet. And over the first three or four days,
you're going to go through tremendous withdrawal cravings, and then
you're going to cross a threshold where now there's like
a switch that is flipped. And once this switch flips,
then your ability to avoid sugar becomes significantly easier.

Speaker 6 (43:11):
Interesting, So, how big a problem does sugar have on
people's healths.

Speaker 5 (43:17):
It is the biggest problem that we have out there.
It's the single biggest factor at stripping your ability to
be healthy is eating white refined sugar, because your body's
going to rob from Peter to pay Paul in an
effort to process the amount of refined.

Speaker 7 (43:36):
Sugar that you're consuming.

Speaker 5 (43:38):
And people just consume entirely too much white refined sugar
in all of its various forms. If you're eating pasta,
pasta is forty six grams of sugar in one serving,
but nobody eats one serving, so you're getting forty six

(43:58):
grams times however, many ounces of pasta that you're eating.
I watch people sit down to eat pasta. They're eating
ten to twelve ounces of pasta in one sitting, So
that's forty six times ten. That's four hundred and sixty
calories just from sugar that you're never gonna be able
to burn.

Speaker 6 (44:18):
Now, is there truly a sugar high? Is that a
real thing?

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Oh? Yes, it's a rise in blood sugar after eating it.
Before the body responds to the elevated sugar levels and
then does what it can to restore balance, and so
you can get a sugar high. And then once the
pancreas has been instructed by the liver to get rid
of the excess, then you're gonna probably have a reactive
hypoglycemia state where your blood sugar goes crashes down.

Speaker 7 (44:47):
And that's where the average.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
Person who eats a hearty lunch gets all this kind
of fatigue and wants to take a nap at about
two o'clock in the afternoon because the blood sugar has
spiked and then it's crashed and now you don't have
enough sugar circulating around to keep your brain.

Speaker 6 (45:05):
On, so that mid afternoon nap there. Now, why is
it do you go to sugar to feel better? I mean,
why not go to something that's more nutritious.

Speaker 5 (45:15):
Well, the taste of sugar is tied to your self esteem,
so when you want to boost your self esteem, sugar
is the dominant taste. People choose to stimulate. They could
choose to do sweet, I mean sour, They could choose
to do salty, they could choose to do pungent.

Speaker 7 (45:31):
But the average person is going to.

Speaker 5 (45:34):
Respond to eighty percent of your taste buds, which is
devoted towards sweetness. So that's the easiest thing to respond to,
and the food manufacturers make it so readily available that
that's ultimately what happens that leads to the cascade that
causes the health imbalances we have.

Speaker 6 (45:50):
Now in terms of sugar and heart disease. What's the
effect that sugar has.

Speaker 5 (45:54):
On that refined sugar increases heart disease.

Speaker 6 (45:58):
Well, that's pretty clear. Now, what about sugar substitutes? So
you want to get rid of the sugar, you don't
want to have those spikes. Can you go to a sugar.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
Substitute, well, sugar substitutes. They are chemicals that lead to
the overgrowth of eastern kandidia. So the sugar substitutes actually
feed the problem, causing you to crave more sugar.

Speaker 6 (46:18):
So you actually end up in the same cycle.

Speaker 5 (46:21):
Well, yeah, because ultimately the part of the body that's
going to process all that sugar is being overstimulated and
it's going to have an overgrowth and that's just again
going to cause you to crave more sugar to feed
the problem.

Speaker 6 (46:34):
Yeah, because I understand that diet sodas actually add to
the tendency for obesity. I mean, I know so many
people that want to have a diet soda instead of
using the sugar soda because they think it's going to
save them some calories.

Speaker 5 (46:47):
Right, But the chemicals in the diet drinks disrupt the
microbiome and lead to processing sugar abnormally and storing more
than burning.

Speaker 6 (46:55):
Now, one of the things that you've said to me
is that you look at sugar as the all at
gateway drug.

Speaker 5 (47:02):
It creates a self esteem issue and opens the door
to stronger addictions as one progresses down that rabbit hole.
I had a good patient friend of mine whose son
somehow became addicted to heroin, and so she asked if
there was anything that I could do to help him,
and I said, well, I can certainly give it a shot.

(47:25):
Send him into me. So he came in and I
spent about an hour or so talking with him about
his addiction and what had led to him doing that,
and what was what came before that, and what came
before that, and what came before that, and when I
helped him trace back the origins of his addiction back
to his childhood, and he recognized it.

Speaker 7 (47:47):
For what it was.

Speaker 5 (47:49):
His words, well, that's just retarded. I don't need to
do that anymore. And he never went back to heroin
after that visit with me, and.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
Went back and traced it back to childhood.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
Well, I sat there with him and reviewed his history,
and it went back to his childhood where he reached
for sugar to solve a particular problem, and it just
snowballed from there and ultimately turned into heroin.

Speaker 6 (48:15):
That's so interesting now, I mean, that's a pretty stunning
example of somebody who's overcome their sugar cravings or overcome
an addiction. But if you have those cravings, what do
you do to get over them.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
Well, you need to get help. You need to find
someone who helps understand the whole picture and what has
proven solution to the actual problem and not a problem
downstream from the source. If you never get to the source,
then you're never going to fully address the problem and
the problem is going to continue to fester and eventually

(48:49):
he can just come screaming back.

Speaker 6 (48:52):
But I said, you have the problem or whatever you're
trying to treat for yourself, what do you do to
get the same feel good response?

Speaker 5 (49:00):
Well, you're gonna want that kind of response and you
may find that over time. That's typically how it works
with adults. And so with the adult form of the
feel good response is is to feed that in an
indirect way, and that's typically what people reach for the
adult form of sugar, which happens to be alcohol. But

(49:22):
alcohol has its very negative impacts on how your body,
the microbiome works, and you destroy the integrity of the
microbiome and that just opens you up to having other problems.
And so I personally recommend that if people can abstain
from alcohol instead of using it as a crutch or

(49:43):
using it as a feel good and a de stressor
and all that kind of stuff, find other outlets. I
certainly have done that myself for forty five years. So
it's you don't you don't have to be attached to
doing the alcohol thing, but it's going to require a
little bit of self determinism and it may require a

(50:05):
little bit of support.

Speaker 6 (50:06):
And you said that the microbiome is affected, but doesn't
the microbiome itself actually start to create the sugar?

Speaker 5 (50:13):
Yeah, they use it as fuel as quick energy source,
and like humans, they want the food that they want
with immediate gratification. But ultimately, over time that impacts how
the brain functions.

Speaker 6 (50:26):
And are the receptors for the sugar in the brain.

Speaker 5 (50:29):
There are, The brain does have it, and that's why
having this imbalance in your digestive system leads to poor
decision making since the brain doesn't get what it needs
to remain in a balanced fashion. And so you need
to understand as the consumer, you need to understand, well,
how is it that I feel? Am I happy with
how I'm feeling and ultimately how I'm functioning? And if

(50:49):
you don't like how you're feeling and how you're functioning,
And you can actually see by truly taking an objective
look at yourself that things are spiraling and getting out
of hand.

Speaker 7 (51:00):
End. Uh, then you want to get.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
In touch with somebody that's going to be able to
navigate the mind field that is food and sugar addiction
and help to put you back on the right path
so that you can overcome your sugar addiction and improve
overall health and function.

Speaker 6 (51:18):
And that's I mean, that's something that obviously that you do.
And just so that people know there are ways to
reach out to you directly and ask very specific questions
about their individual situation. What are the best ways to
reach you.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
The best way to reach out to me would be
to call my cell phone directly in area code eight
four five five six one two two two five again
eight four five five six one two two two five.
If I don't happen to answer the phone, please leave
your name and telephone number and brief message and I
will call you back. It's a little bit more popular nowadays.

(51:55):
People don't like to talk on the phone, they don't
like to leave messages, they like to text. I abhor texting,
but that doesn't stop people from trying to reach me
via text. It may take me a little while to
get back to you, so that's not the most efficient way.
You can email me directly at doc Rick at spineboy
dot com. That's d O c R I c K

(52:16):
at spineboy dot com. You can also stop into the office.
I've had a listener a couple of weeks ago stop
into my office and he told me that he heard
about you know, my office on the radio and he
wanted to stop in. So he came in and he
introduced himself, and but then something happened in his life

(52:38):
and had gotten the way of him, you know, taking action.
So it's important for you if you have a problem,
to get proper instruction and to take care of your
your situations. And so that's why we do this show
each week. The show is called When Your Health Matters.
It's not up to me when your health matters. It's
up to you when your health matters. So if you'd

(52:59):
like help, please reach out. I want to thank you
for tuning in this week. I'd ask you to tune
back in next week, Same health Time, same Health stations.
Is doctor Richard Untune from Advanced Alternative Medicine Center saying,
I look forward to supporting you when your health Matters.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
My physician, he said, you're definitely ill.

Speaker 6 (53:21):
Then to the nurse.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
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Speaker 6 (53:23):
Just gave me a pill.

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Take one of those three times today. Don't never stop
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Speaker 2 (53:38):
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Speaker 3 (53:45):
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I'd rather give you a pill. The thing is there

(54:09):
might be some side effects. Being that probably will welimit effect.
Just come back and I'll give you another pill.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
On top of that, on top of that, on top
of that, on top of that, on top of that,
on top of that.

Speaker 7 (54:21):
Then he showed me a bill.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
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out the medical sight and said, you may not be depressive,
but then again, you might you're worry than you are,
then take this simple test. Obviously you need a pill.

Speaker 7 (54:42):
You know how one is best.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
The thing is that might be some side effects, or
I had that before. I've been rushing back to the doctor,
he said.

Speaker 7 (54:49):
I