Gallbladder Problems - Sludge, Stones & IBS

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Functional Medicine and Natural
Healing Podcast, where we sharethe secrets to upgrade your
digestion, improve your hormones, restore your immune system and
detoxify your body.
I'm your host, Dr HoustonAnderson.
Now let's get started.
The following discussion is foreducational purposes only.
It is not intended to diagnoseor treat any disease or disease

(00:24):
process.
Please discuss any medicaltreatments or medical
interventions for your personalphysician.
Hey guys, welcome back to thepodcast.
I'm Dr Houston Anderson and I'mhere with Dr Gabe today and
we're going to talk about allthings gallbladder.
Gallbladder is one of my most Iwould say one of my most
favorite things to talk about,because I think it's one of the
most forgotten organs in thebody.

(00:44):
Is that what you see a lot of,Dr Gabe?
Do you see a lot of gallbladderproblems in your office?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Oh no, you definitely see quite a few gallbladder
issues.
I would definitely say that youcan easily miss it if you're
not paying attention or anythinglike that.
You can easily miss it becausesometimes in the functional
medicine world we're moreconcerned about the gut, we're
not really thinking livergallbladder, or we dismiss it

(01:10):
with just do a liver detox.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think.
To start this one off, I thinkwe'll go a little bit out of
order.
Normally we talk aboutmanagement or treatment or
different ways to go about it,but let's talk about signs and
symptoms.
What are some of the thingsthat someone might have a
gallbladder?
Let's start with the obviousones.
Then maybe let's bring out someof the ones where it's like
people don't know they have agallbladder problem, but for
sure they have a gallbladderproblem.
Give me some of the obviousones you got in your head.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, no that's a good question, obvious ones.
You eat a fatty meal, you don'tfeel so good, whether it is
immediately after eating, or 30minutes after eating you start
getting bloated.
You might start just havingsome indigestion, gut pain, that
sort of thing.
Oftentimes you feel the painaround where the gallbladder is

(01:54):
sitting right next to your liver, so that's kind of where you're
going to feel the pain.
Sometimes you'll mistake it forsomething else, but that's the
obvious one for a gallbladderattack for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
And the other place for gallbladder pain obviously
is the right shoulder blade thattalk about, but oftentimes it
actually feels more like upperback pain.
It doesn't have to feel likeyour right shoulder blade.
I think everyone's like oh, myright shoulder blade feels okay,
but it really can radiatethroughout that whole upper
mid-back area when you're havingkind of like a gallbladder
attack.
Common one obviously is thebelching after meals, so lots of

(02:27):
burping, and it could beburping whether you're eating a
fatty meal or you're not eatinga fatty meal.
It's just a discommunicationbetween that stomach and the
gallbladder that you're seeingthere.
So that'd be another sign orsymptom that if you're that
person, the easiest one is likefish oils that you keep burping
up all day.
That could be a gallbladderissue going on, because that's
why everyone hates taking thosefish oil pills right, Because

(02:49):
they deal with it all day long.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
What else?
They're just burping up grosstaste and stuff all day.
What else do you see?
So then we're starting to getinto some of the more difficult
to pinpoint types of things.
So started off with still somemore easy ones.
You might see like floatingstool or even you can have a
little bit of diarrhea orconstipation, so that's a fairly

(03:12):
common thing.
Change in stool that is maybemore directly tied to the
gallbladder for a lot of people.
But then you start getting intothese weird ones where they
have like bilateral knee pain.
Both their knees are hurtingand that's kind of a weird one.
And like you mentioned, withthe right shoulder, that one is
definitely a strange one.

(03:33):
That people are just like ohman, I just got stress in my
upper back or I pulled somethingin my right shoulder.
But then you can also get likesome jaundice if it's really
really bad.
You can also get nausea,vomiting that sort of thing if
it's really bad, but nausea isactually a fairly common one.

(03:55):
I actually forgot about that oneearlier.
So nausea is pretty common fora lot of people with gallbladder
issues and so you know, afterthey're eating a meal or even
just later on, they might benauseous and they're just like
what's going on?
I don't understand what's goingon.
And the last one that I totallyforgot your stool may change
color.
It may become kind of gray.

(04:16):
It may not actually be yourtypical color and that can be
alarming for some people.
Like what's going on there?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, so they often call it like clay colored stool
in the medical textbooks, right.
But it can range anywhere fromlike a white to a gray to almost
like a yellow, a little bitdifferent.
If that gallbladder is havingan issue there, that can be
confused oftentimes with like apancreas titus, so like if
you're in a weird spot or youneed like if your digestion is

(04:46):
getting pretty severe.
You probably need to go getthat figured out whether it's a
severe pancreas issue or whetheryou're just having a mild
gallbladder issue or whetherthat gallbladder issue is coming
up on you.
So I think those are prettyimportant.
I'm trying to think of otherones.
A simple test, right.
So I love throwing out likethese things that people can do
at home.
If you take like twotablespoons of coconut oil and

(05:06):
you eat that and you get likehot flashes or you get sweats or
you feel uncomfortable, that'sa sign that your gallbladder
can't tolerate that much fat.
So that's two tablespoons worthof fat you can start with.
And there's a caveat, becauseyou're all are going to get sick
off of that because everyone'sgot a bad gallbladder these days
.
But let's go back and say try ahalf a tablespoon of coconut

(05:27):
oil, see if you can toleratethat, then try a tablespoon,
then try a tablespoon and a halfand keep working your way up.
But that's a big one that I see.
In fact I had a lady just theother day, a 77 year old lady.
She comes in, she's like oh,I'm suffering from hot flashes,
just can't get my hormonesbalanced.
And guess what she does?
Every morning, a tablespoon ofcoconut oil.
Well, she cuts out the coconutoil All of a sudden she doesn't

(05:47):
have hot flashes.
But it was just the timing ofthe hot flashes were weird,
right.
So it's like every morning Ihave hot flashes.
I was like, well, what about atnight?
Like, oh, no, no, no hotflashes at night.
I was like, well, this doesn'treally make sense for a typical
female hot flash.
Plus, she's plenty of yearspast or into menopause.
Why should she be experiencinghot flashes all of a sudden?
So she had kind of changed upher diet and ate a bunch of fats

(06:09):
, and then she was pretty muchvegetarian, so doing a lot of
insulin at the same time.
So that's kind of where we seethese happen.
So let's say, someone comes inyour office.
Honestly, most people don'tknow they have a gallbladder
problem.
But that's that I, after likereviewing this stuff, I'm like
obsessed.
So I really want to go and I'mgoing to make a whole PowerPoint
on this because I think thatit's the most undereducated

(06:29):
organ in the body.
Everyone talks about detoxesand liver detoxes and gut health
and brain health and all that,but no one ever talks about the
gallbladder, which, arguably, inmy opinion, is probably you
can't say anything's mostimportant.
But I would just say like it isthe missing link in so many
cases that I see that will kindof go in and, like I said, I'm
kind of obsessive about thegallbladder.

(06:50):
But, dr Gabe, my question foryou is what is the traditional
medical system going to do forthis?
You go to the doctor usuallyit's after you have a
gallbladder attack, right?
Or maybe if you have some weirdgut issues, what's your
presentation?
What do they do for you?

Speaker 2 (07:04):
So whether or not the severity of the attack.
So sometimes they go to the ER,sometimes they go to urgent
care or they just go to theirPCP and they're talking about
these things.
Now to what degree that they'regoing to do various tests kind
of depends on the severity ofthe attack.
So whether they're going to dolike an ultrasound or something
like that, to kind of do somesort of imaging on the
gallbladder, they're mainlylooking for gallstones or

(07:27):
they're looking for essentiallyhow well it's functioning and,
if it's able to functioncorrectly, how much bile is
getting out or how is it stuck,that sort of thing.
And generally speaking, it'sgoing to be dependent on the
severity.
So if it's mild, they're goingto be like watch your fads,
probably even more low-fat diet.

(07:49):
If it's very severe, they'regoing to go to one thing, and
one thing mainly, and that'slet's cut that thing out, and
that's going to be one of themain ones.
Especially if there'sgallstones present, they're
going to cut it out, and that ofcourse comes with its own risks
and you're going to have anincreased risk of cancer and
other things for the rest ofyour life because you removed

(08:09):
that thing.
But many, many people stillhave gallbladder issues
Afterwards.
Yes, you're missing thegallbladder, but now your bile
production is still impaired ornot functioning correctly, and I
think maybe the next importantthing to cover is what's the
point of the gallbladder?
Dr Houston, what do we use thegallbladder for?

(08:29):
What's?
the physiology there.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Well, I think the basic thing that everyone talks
about and this is why I think hegets forgotten is simply
because they talk about the bileis responsible for helping to
metabolize fats.
Right, that's all they talkabout.
It's like, oh, you need it soyou can get your vitamins A, d,
e and K, those kind of fatsoluble vitamins.
You need to metabolize the fatsthat you eat in your diet, your

(08:52):
olive oils, your animal fats,your butter, things like that.
But I think what people forgetis that the bile's primary
responsibility other than thatso that's the first one, but in
my opinion, the primaryresponsibility is that it
actually lubricates theintestines.
So there's a whole endocrinesystem that, once again, this is
like something that peopledon't talk about.
This right, the bile isactually a steroid.

(09:15):
That steroid goes and calmsdown the inflammation of the
intestine.
That's called the bile steroidsystem.
Not many people talk about thataxis, and that axis
specifically literally goes andtakes your IBS and your inflamed
stomach and your irritationthat's going on in the duodenum,
that upper GI, and it calms itdown.
If we don't have enough bile,we can't do that.
So I would say that that'sprobably one of the most

(09:37):
important reasons and we'll talkabout essentially like that.
That goes wrong when your bilegets too thick or you start
forming stones or you don't makeenough, all of those things.
The second thing that I wouldsay is it's the way that you
eliminate toxins, so your liveris going to go and bind all of
those right.
Your liver binds all thosetoxins, but then it goes into
this bile acid and the bile acidis responsible for essentially

(09:57):
like, holding it and protectingit.
And while it holds and protectsthat, then it throws it into
the digestive tract, and that'swhy you want to see your stool
to be that nice brown color,because if it's that clay color
or that yellow color, it meansthat you're not eliminating
toxins adequately.
So that's kind of how I thinkof it, but I don't know if

(10:18):
there's something you were goingat specifically.
But those are two of the ones Iwanted to mention because I
think that no one talks about.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
No, those two are great.
The other one, of course, wealready kind of like sort of
alluded to, which is just theemulsification of fats so that
you can digest them properly.
Otherwise, the other importantthing in my mind is
understanding what your bile ismade of, what is in it, and
that's going to be your bilesalts, your lecithin and your
cholesterol.
And that's actually another bigpoint that medical doctors are

(10:45):
going to actually go after isthey're going to link your
gallstones with too muchcholesterol.
Therefore, you're going to beput on a statin, and the statins
are definitely problematic.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yes, you'll often find that people will have high
cholesterol while they have agall bladder issue.
So even if you look at it andsay like, hey, someone comes in
the office has high cholesterol,that can simply be the fact
that your gall bladder isinflamed and your body is trying
to decrease that.
I did want to cover one morething on that diagnosis and kind
of like, when you have yourgall bladder removed when you

(11:19):
shouldn't.
There's an important thing thatI want to talk about.
So sometimes they'll measurewith that ultrasound the
ejection fraction ratio.
When you measure your ejectionfraction ratio, it's a really
weird number and they don't tellyou this.
So they're going to tell youthat your EGFR and it's not EGFR
, I can't think of it in anacronym right now they're going
to tell you that your ejectionratio is very low.

(11:42):
So they're going to say, hey,it's only at 13%.
Well, that's kind of trickybecause an optimal ejection
fraction ratio isn't much higherthan like 25%.
So they're telling you it worksat 10%, but you're only
supposed to work at 25%, soyou're still working pretty well
.
The other thing that I'll say isI've seen many, many cases of
ejection fraction ratios thatare at 2%, 3%, that never have

(12:04):
to have their gall bladderremoved.
So they can completely fixtheir gall bladder without
actually having to worry aboutthat number.
But as soon as that ratio goesdown or they say you're not
excreting enough bile, all of asudden they want to remove it
because they think that's theproblem.
So that's another important one.
There Stones can becomedangerous.
Usually, you know, if they'rebig enough and you may have to

(12:26):
have your gall bladder removed.
If it goes into the commonducts, that essentially can jam
up that pancreas and stop alldigestion altogether.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
And that's when it can become an emergency.
For sure, One of the thingsthat in the past that even our
mentor, Dr Erigan Jimmy, he'stalked about if you have
somebody who has extreme rightshoulder pain and then it
instantly goes away, that's anemergency situation.
Go get it checked out, becauseI could have been.
Their gall bladder got ruptured.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, and what I always tell people is like
everyone says, what if I'mhaving a gall bladder attack?
What should I do?
There's a lot of things to do,but from the medical perspective
, here's what I would say.
One I would go to the ER.
I would go and take whateverpain medication they want to
give me right, not natural but Iwould take the pain medication
and then I would still leave andtry and save my gall bladder.
That's what I would do, becauseas soon as you get there, what

(13:15):
you run into is you have a gallbladder attack.
Everyone knows you have a gallbladder attack.
When you get to the hospital,and who do you meet with?
Well, you meet with someonecalled the general surgeon,
right?
The general surgeon does onething he cuts things out.
That's his specialty.
He ties things up, he connectsthings, he removes organs.
He does surgery on pretty muchevery internal organ in the
thoracic cavity, and so ifyou're going to meet with him

(13:37):
and he doesn't want to waste histime, he's going to say, hey,
let's get this out, becauseyou're going to be back in a
week and I'm going to have toremove it in a week.
So you do run into this problemas soon as you have a gall
bladder attack, you're prone tohaving more, so you have to
start to do something prettyaggressively at that time.
So let's jump from the medicalworld, because neither of us are
medical doctors, but that'skind of how we see it approached

(13:59):
.
I'll just leave it at that andlet's jump to what kind of
thought process is in a naturalpractice of the gars.
What do you?

Speaker 2 (14:09):
think, yeah, somebody's coming in, we know
it's a gallbladder or we assumeit's gonna be a gallbladder.
I had a patient yesterdayEverything was kind of lining up
to it.
They were dealing with like ahiatal hernia issue.
They ended up actually gettingthe surgery for the hiatal
hernia and guess what?
They're belching, they'rebloating, didn't go away.
And so I was like, yeah, we'vealready cleaned up the gut,

(14:31):
things are looking pretty good.
I bet it's gallbladder iswhat's left.
And so looking into that, thatwas kind of my important thing I
wanted to get at.
I was like, okay, what'scausing this gallbladder issue?
And that's gonna be more alongour lines is we're gonna be
looking okay, what's the naturalphysiology, what's actually
going on in the body?
And then what affects thegallbladder directly?
And there are many differentthings that affect it.

(14:53):
And so I'm gonna be trying tofigure out like what are the
most common is insulin.
If you've got blood sugar issues, your gallbladder is not gonna
be in a happy state, so youcould have constipation, you
could have all the symptoms thatwe've talked about.
But we gotta address insulinNow.
Insulin is gonna be high, formainly because we're eating a

(15:14):
lot of carbohydrates.
We're not really eating enoughprotein, that sort of thing,
things that we've talked aboutin the past, but we need to
address that directly too.
So what can we help the insulin?
Lower the insulin or at leasthelp your body process things
correctly?
So sometimes it could be thingslike zinc, it could be things
simple, things like chromium,which a lot of people know about

(15:35):
chromium I mean, there's afamous drink that's out there
that has chromium in it that alot of people use and it's
probably helping with insulinissues, which has been, in turn,
helping with gallbladderproblems.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
I don't know that drink but I'm not gonna ask you
to drop names, but I can't thinkof a drink.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, otherwise there's several other things
that are gonna be doing otherthan diet.
So one of the other things thatI see commonly that actually
help with insulin is sesame seedoil Unrefined, unroasted, like
none of that like toasted stuffthat you're getting in the store
.
It's unrefined sesame seed oil.
When you do a high dose for ashort period of time and that
helps you get over the curve asyou're trying to fix your diet.

(16:15):
But insulin is by far not theonly thing that affects it.
Estrogen also affects it andI'll throw that back at you
because I know that's a hugething you love because of
artichoke.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, so let me connect those two things we just
talked about, because how Iaddress this when I was looking
at just your show notes versusmy show notes, I address it
slightly differently.
But there's a reason why andonce again, that's what I love
about this and that's why I wasactually excited that we didn't
like share notes about this onebefore we talked is because I
like people to know like there'sone, more than one way to treat

(16:47):
something.
What makes a doctor or aholistic practitioner powerful
is that you tried something athome and this is every patient
that walks into our office.
They tried seven differentthings that they found online
from famous Instagram, drAnderson or anyone and it's like
, all of a sudden then it didn'twork, and so our job as
practitioners is like to havemore tools up our sleeve rather

(17:09):
than hey, well, I already trieda gallbladder flush, it didn't
work.
So let's connect those twothings.
So the reason why I loveartichoke so much for the
gallbladder and you're gonna seethat I use it ridiculously
almost all the time If you havea gallbladder or liver issue, I
do believe you need to takeartichoke.
And why is that?
Well, not because I make it andmake money off of it.
But because in order to balance, in order to create bile, you

(17:32):
need something called glucuronicacid.
It's a big word, but glucuronicacid, the base word is glucose.
It comes from that insulinproblem, right?
So if your insulin's notbalanced, if your blood sugar's
not balanced, you can't makeenough glucuronic acid.
So what happens is everyonecomes in with bad blood sugar
and now they wanna have perfecthormones and a great gallbladder
and just getting there like toperfect blood sugar could take

(17:56):
you, you know, three months toget there before you even see a
home run in your totalphysiology.
I mean, you have to startrebalancing every system.
You have to balance yourhormones, things like that.
So what we use artichoke for isit has that glucuronic acid in
it and so it kinda I call itlike the second liver.
But the reason why I call itthe second liver is cause it
takes care of two things.

(18:16):
If you come in with bad insulin, I can still start to get that
estrogen under control.
Now let's talk about theestrogen in the gallbladder,
because that's what thepodcast's about.
Estrogen makes your gallbladderbile thicker.
So, like I said, all thesetoxins go into the liver.
The liver conjugates them,throws them into that bile and
the more toxins you have, themore estrogen and we'll get to

(18:37):
more toxins.
But really, the more toxins youhave in your environment, most
of them being estrogenic,everything from tap water to
birth control to pesticide toyour weed killers, outside
everything that you have,everything we come into contact
to, even tap water right, theyfind estrogen in tap water all

(18:59):
the time.
All of these things kindathicken that bile and the way I
like to think of it is your bileis 95% water.
Actually, it should flowthrough just like water, because
it should be really thin.
But what happens is that withall of these toxins it actually
gets pretty thick.
And when it gets pretty thick,then it, I would say, like rolls
down a hill, like you imagine,like Jello rolling down a hill,

(19:21):
kind of blobby, just not thesame as water would run down a
hill.
So that's what I would say.
Estrogen makes that bile thick.
When it's thick it doesn't haveas many like receptor sites to
interact with your gut.
Now, all of a sudden, it nolonger calms down your gut
inflammation and it doesn'tdetox as well because it's fully
loaded with toxins.
So the bile can only hold somany toxins.

(19:42):
So it's full of estrogen.
As the first one, I did mentionbirth control.
So birth control will go in andcause that there's lots of
different forms of birth control.
We'll throw out that none ofthem are great.
I will throw out on the podcast, just because I've been getting
patients with it recently, thatIUDs are some of the worst, not

(20:02):
because in my opinion that theydidn't.
Yeah, they don't damage thegallbladder in my opinion, based
upon my clinical observations,in my practice at least but they
do slow down transit time soyou get constipated and your
gallbladder doesn't contract asmuch as it used to.
So just balancing those hormonesout, whether it's artichoke or
really even before artichoke,would be the insulin that you

(20:23):
talked about balancing the diet,getting that blood sugar.
But the reason why I always sayartichoke's so critical is
because the odds of someonegetting in a non-estrogenic
environment, avoiding allestrogens in their food, all
estrogen.
So any unprocessed meat, anynot grass fed meat, is all gonna
be estrogenic, have addedhormones.
The odds of that happening arejust so low that it's like we're

(20:46):
gonna need support at thispoint in time.
So that's where I'd go estrogenOther than insulin, I can
interject you.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
So 100% of the artichoke, like I use it all the
time.
In fact, that patient yesterdayI mentioned with the
gallbladder, that's exactly whatI gave them.
But yeah, I mean, you see thatdirect link with blood sugar
issues or dysplasemia and a lotof these people, because of that
glucuronic acid issue, ifthey're gonna run into joint

(21:15):
issues, they're gonna run intoformulation of like polygen, all
these little things, and thatis an important blood sugar
dysregulation that is directlylinked to this issue with
estrogen and glucuronic acid.
And so having artichoke issuper helpful.
Yeah, you might use chromium,you might use zinc, you might

(21:36):
use a lot of these things, butyeah, no, artichoke 100% is
really really helpful for a lotof patients and, like you said,
it's pretty common to send apatient out the door with that
stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
The last thing I'll say is like for those listening
to the podcast that made it thisfar there's not many doctors
that understand these chemicalpathways and that's where, like,
it gets kind of weird.
I listened to like 15 differentpodcasts before I hopped on here
today.
I was like they're they don'treally understand.
They're like, well, theresearch says, take this and it
helps your gallbladder, but likethey don't really know why it's
happening and so it's importantto like try your best to find a

(22:11):
doctor that has a good grasp ofit, not just like, oh, here's
our gallbladder flush we use foreveryone and it works for
everything.
There's, there's mechanisms,there's stories that bid big
word glucuronic orglucuronidation.
Those are actuallyUnderstandable things that I was
telling a patient yesterday.
There's only two people in theworld that I've ever known that

(22:31):
actually taught all of thosepathways, and they're both
within that the appliedkinesiology, applied kinesiology
profession, right.
So the muscle testing world,which is Chris Day sales Smith.
He teaches a lot of it, andthen you had Wally Schmidt, who
taught it to everyone, and thosetwo were like the original ones
that were doing like thenutritional chemistry that no

(22:51):
one else had put together ortalked about.
So still to this day, in fact,we've kind of lost the people
that teach those.
So we're kind of we're in aweird world right now.
So I think that's one of mygoals of like the podcast and
being online is simply that I'mtrying to share some of the
things that that they're reallynot able to be found out there.

(23:12):
But that's just kind of a rantright there and just like there
are better, more knowledgeablepeople there can be great
doctors that don't know thisstuff too, but I think that you
should just always like try andfind someone that really knows
your stuff.
So what's next, doc?
What are we covering next?
Other things that irritate thegallbladder.
Set them off.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
So the other things are two other common toxins that
I quite frequently see, soammonia and aldehyde toxicity.
So that's for me.
So ammonia.
Of course, when you're thinkingammonia, a lot of people might
think you, I do.
You know the chemical thatyou're cleaning or use as a
cleaner at home.
Of course I kind of live in themeth capital of Missouri at

(23:51):
least, and so a lot of thingsthat smell like ammonia,
depending on what part of townyou're in.
But ammonia itself comes fromthe breakdown of protein.
But it also can come fromdifferent infections, and that
is probably a really commonthing.
So ammonia toxicity, like youwere saying earlier, any sort of
toxins is going to sludge upthe, the bile, it's going to

(24:11):
make a thing not move correctly,and so ammonia toxicity has a
lot of different symptoms too.
So you're going to run intobrain fog, you're going to run
into a lot of neurologic things,you're going to run into
various symptoms with ammoniatoxicity.
But as soon as I see it and Ilook for the things that fix it.
So generally ammonia toxicity,you're going to look the area
pathway, because that's whereour urine comes from.

(24:32):
So you're going to look at thatpathway.
There's a few others, like uricacid or creatine, that you want
to look at, because your bodyremoves ammonia in a few
different ways.
But you want to figure out Isthis coming from a bacteria,
fungus or something like that,and where is that located after?
You find that because as soonas you know there's an ammonia

(24:52):
issue, you better probably belooking to rule out some sort of
infection that is goingunnoticed somewhere Usually the
gut.
Probably the gut is the mostcommon, but nevertheless you
better be finding that becauseas much as you can you know,
throw Whatever it is phosphorusor something like that to help

(25:12):
remove ammonia.
You better be getting rid ofthe bacteria or whatever is
causing it to begin with, orelse you're throwing water into
a leaky barrel.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Love it, Love it.
Um aldehyde toxicity.
You want to talk about thatreal quick.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, yeah, no, that one's a.
I like aldehyde toxicity.
I find that one's quite often.
You know it's pretty muchfungus, almost always whenever
aldehyde toxicity is showing up.
And if Somebody is saying youknow they got chronic sinus
infections, they got a lot ofthese little check marks,
frequent yeast infections, maybeeven like toe fungus.
I'm going to be looking fordifferent things, but when

(25:48):
aldehyde show up, I almostalways will ask how do you feel
when you go by Bath and BodyWorks or the perfume aisle at
Walmart or wherever?
And a lot of times they're likeyeah, I don't like being around
strong smells, it makes me sickto my stomach or it gives me a
headache if I'm there for toolong.
And then I'm like yeah, you gotan aldehyde problem and I go

(26:10):
searching on that pathway themost common thing for aldehydes
and my office is Malibu to helpremove it.
So it's the same pathway thatyou detox alcohol from.
So if you're drinking a lot, alot of people have harsh
hangovers because of aldehydetoxicity.
And so there's other thingsirons involved, b3 is involved.

(26:30):
There's definitely thingsinvolved there.
But again, you're going to golooking for a fungus or
something that's causing thisIssue in the first place and
most common for sure, is fungoing sections.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yep, I love that.
Yeah, so I'll.
The high toxicity I have anarticle on my website on
aldehyde toxicity, because a lotof people talk about how
sensitive they are to chemicalsand spells and then they like,
oh, I'm sensitive, the entireenvironment, you know, it's like
I can't go outside and breatheair.
It's like, well, yes, obviouslya lotion shop is gonna be much
more extreme than anywhere else,but yeah, then we explain how

(27:03):
that fungus and that alcohol, asyou mentioned come from the
essentially, are detoxifiedthrough the same pathway and
that over burdens that, and sowe're kind of on those, you have
the aldehyde and the ammoniatoxicity, but I would say, if we
go back to that gallbladder andToxins, that kind of overburden
it.
One of the biggest things thatI like to talk about is simply
that most of our toxins are madeinside our body, and that's

(27:26):
where a lot of people are like,oh well, you know, I got to make
sure that my cleaning chemicalsare perfect, I got to make sure
my makeup is perfect, I got tomake sure everything else is
perfect, and I totally agreethat those things should be
cleaner, but 90% of the toxinsthat your body has to detox is
made inside your gut or anotherorgan.
So those are just like I alwayssay, like you want to, like you

(27:46):
said you want to go after thatfungus first, kill that fungus,
see if you still react to yourenvironment.
If you still react in yourenvironment, then you usually
clean up the environment.
But as a doc I don't have timeto babysit everyone's chemicals
in their house.
I can't go and like, walkthrough everyone's house and
check.
You know everything they didand even some of my cleanest
patients have perfect, flawlesschemicals.
Essentially you would say youknow, and once again we try to

(28:09):
have clean chemicals, but sayyou do that, but they still
spray for bugs, right, that'llburn the gallbladder or and
inside their house and maybethey come once a month or once
every other month because theyreally hate.
You know, whatever bug it is,that's okay.
Or you know, had patientsrecently move into like a new
home, right, so now they gotbrand new couches, brand new
walls, they're all off-gassing,all kinds of aldehydes and they

(28:31):
don't feel well and it's justlike that's.
You know, there's no perfectway to avoid your environment.
So I say, take care of yourinternal environment.
First.
We mentioned alcohol.
Alcohol that pathway, samething with aldehyde, is gonna go
through there.
Low stomach acid We'll justmention.
I'm not crazy on low stomachacid.
We'll get into those somesupplements a lot.
I'd prefer to not add stomachacid to people, but the stomach

(28:54):
acid does stimulate kind of that, that process where it's gonna
make that gallbladder Actuallycontract and release the bile so
you can cleanse out and havethat bowel movement.
So they're into intimatelyconnected.
One other one I did want tomention that we haven't talked
about yet is caffeine.
So what's your stance oncaffeine in the gallbladder?

Speaker 2 (29:15):
so Caffeine's an interesting one.
I think it's maligned Sometimesfor no real reason.
I mean that everyone does thetax caffeine.
Yeah, it is a stressor to youradrenal glands, it's a stressor
to your brain, especially yourHIPAA campus, of course, is the

(29:36):
stressor, but at the same timeis it the big hitter.
I don't really agree with that.
It can definitely be an issuefor a lot of people, especially
if you're addicted to it,especially if your adrenals are
taxed, especially if your liveris taxed because your liver is
gonna your phase one of liverdetoxification get rid of

(29:57):
caffeine.
Yeah, but at the same time, ifyou're using caffeine from a
good, clean, organic product andyou're feeling overall okay,
it's gonna come with a naturaldetoxification agent, so like B3
and others, and so I'm not thatbig on removing it as long as
you're not going nuts at it andyou're taking like three cups of
coffee or something like thatper day.

(30:18):
Now it can definitely affectthings, and so if it's affecting
your liver detoxification, thenthat's going to affect your
bile production, directly orindirectly, I'd say.
And so, yeah, it can be anissue, but it is not my and it's
probably not even my top 10that I'm looking at when it
comes to gallbladder.
And one last thing before wemove on, I forget, so we do

(30:41):
practice a little bit differentwhen it comes to the stomach
acid.
Like I do see it, zinc canactually help with the low
stomach acid and so that's kindof a big one that I might see
with gallbladder.
And yeah, you're right, itprimes the pump for the
gallbladder, it helps it.
You get ready whenever If youhave enough stomach acid.
You know foods coming in, thatsort of thing.
I don't think I give it out atongue, but Definitely for those

(31:05):
patients who are strugglingwith Low stomach acid.
They're not, you know, breakingdown meat and that sort of
thing.
I will give it to them for fourperiod of time and then we pull
off of it and their stomachwill take over the course.
So that might be a little bitof a difference, but Otherwise,
is it the big number one?
No, it's a supportive agent.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, no.
So what's getting?
I used like a zypan or a BTNHLevery once a while.
But just to just to cover kindof my interesting thing, Once
again I looking for gallbladder,like how does caffeine affect
that?
I don't have any problem with,just like you.
I mean, I think your stance oncaffeine and liver
detoxification and phase onediagnosis and all that is all
perfect, Like that's exactlywhat I say to patients.

(31:46):
But I would say there's a lotof patients that I get with
gallbladder that say if I don'tdrink a cup of coffee, I don't
have a bowel movement.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was always going to go there.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, and so that just that's one of those like oh
, you have a gallbladder problemand so oftentimes you know, I
don't take people off caffeinecompletely either, but it's a
matter of like.
It's like okay, but we need touse that as a sign that our
gallbladder is not perfect,because as soon as you drink
caffeine, your liver freaks outand then it causes this reaction
in the gallbladder.
You have an over contractionand then sometimes you have like

(32:18):
loose stools in the morning foryour first bowel movement.
Then they solid back up, butlike those are another sign of
that gallbladder Just trying togive people more of those like
little things where you know youcan diagnose your gallbladder
without having to have agallbladder attack.
Because the stones that peoplerun into, the stones that you
run into when you have agallbladder problem, were not
there yesterday necessarily.

(32:39):
They didn't come two days ago.
They came like six months ago.
They started forming slowly butsurely.
It's not like you woke up oneday and had stones.
It's these little symptoms thatpeople are missing and then
they're like I don't know wheremy gallstones came from.
It's like they came from yourpoor habits or your poor health,
and once again, it doesn't haveto be that poor.
You could be almost perfectlyhealthy and still form

(33:00):
gallstones because you'remissing one piece.
And so, anyway, that's.
I use that as an indicator, youknow, as people are like well,
how do I have bowel movements?
Well, if I don't drink mycoffee, there's no way I'm going
poop today, right?

Speaker 2 (33:11):
So I see that a lot.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Um, yeah, and I don't want to think of any other
things copper toxicity, I'llmention that really quick.
Um, but the reason your bile isgreen is because of copper.
Essentially that's oxidizedcopper that you see in there.
Um, so your bile should begreen, um, but you can get too
much copper inside thatgallbladder and if we're not
monitoring him every once in awhile, I'll get someone where I

(33:35):
give them artichoke and thenthey'll have a poor reaction and
they just feel horrible or moreanxiety or heart palpitations
or something like that.
And I want to say this is likeone out of 4,000, because I hear
it about once a month and we,you know, we sell about 5,000
bottles a month artichoke, so alot of artichoke, right?
Um, but of that story you know,one of those people is going to

(33:56):
react with something, eithermental or physical.
That's not so good and usuallythat's because the copper is
high in that gallbladder.
So you have too much copperfrom either pipes or just
exposure or just build up overtime and you have an adequately
detox.
Then we go and push it all outinto the intestines and the body
doesn't like that too much whenit has high copper circulating
throughout some intestines andthroughout the bloodstream.

(34:18):
So that's just another onethere where you'll see a lot of
copper toxicity issues Reallynot as common as I think some
people say.
It's pretty common depending onyour location.
So how older the homes, yeah,how much coppers in your pipes,
right?
So if I get, if I get someonethat's home was built before,
like 1950, I'm checking coppertoxicity for sure.
Um, you know someone's homebuilt in 2000,.

(34:40):
There's probably not that muchcopper in their pipes.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
So no, it is an interesting one because I just
had, uh I just got worked onjust a little bit ago by Dr
Gange and one of the things thathe found was insulin, which is
way common to cause gallbladderissues.
But the thing to actually helpinsulin was zinc and the zinc
there was a direct correlation.
Like I don't I'm not coppertoxic, but because I am zinc

(35:05):
deficient it was kind of showingas causing some certain
musculoskeletal issues leadingto headaches, and it was just a
fascinating thing.
So yeah, again, copper is not,like you know, number one.
You should check it, especiallyif you know the house before,
like 1950s or whatever, orhistory of a copper IUD,
something like that.
Otherwise, yeah, I know it'skind of an interesting thing

(35:27):
with, like, zinc deficiencyrelated to insulin, one of the
more common ones, but you cansee an effect with copper,
having too much copper, eventhough it's still within normal
ranges.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, yeah, I probably don't give as much zinc
as I should, but I uh.
What brand do you use for zincCause I don't think that's on
our supplement list.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Uh, so two different brands most common.
One zinc chelate from standardprocess, the other one is zinc
xyme from biotics.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, I use a lot of xyme from biotics.
Yeah, that's what I do.
So let's go to that.
Let's go over some supplementsnow.
Um, I think we've covered a lotof some of the gallbladder
issues, uh, and we'll go throughsome questions in the next Q
and a podcast, but let's starttalking about some of those.
So, um, can you differentiatebetween betaine and betaine HCL
for me and kind of say like,what are they?
And let's cover both of thosein one shot?

Speaker 2 (36:16):
So betaine, um, you might see it in a kind of a more
chemical form like TMG, um, butmostly we're going to find that
, like the supplement I use ismade from beats, so it's high in
beats and that sort of thing.
It helps thin the bile, ithelps it move.
So the difference betweenbetaine or betaine however you

(36:38):
want to pronounce it in inbetaine HCL is one's
hydrochloric acid and the otherone is not.
So HCL is hydrochloric acid.
That's one that is.
You know, if you take thatstuff you don't chew it.
Yeah, like you swallow that onedirectly, whereas like betaine,
I mean it's mainly from beats,or at least the supplement that
I'm using is mainly from beats.
You can get one from a biotics.

(36:59):
I can't remember where they'regetting it from.
It could still be from beats aswell, Um, but that's mainly
going to help the bile move.
I use, uh, either one.
I might use biotics.
I might use standard process.
I use quite a bit of standardprocess for like, like beta food
which is going to have betainein it.
So that's kind of the differencethere.
Betaine HCL definitely willhelp with the stomach acid and

(37:21):
sometimes I see the need of bothbetaine or like beta food and
betaine HCL.
So you kind of need both ofthem to kind of help things move
along yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Yeah.
So I think one of the thingsthat people listening should
know is, like our practices endup being different based on how
we acquire patients right.
So at this point in time, I justopened up to new patients for
like a week a couple weeks agoand I just got like all these
new patients that are just verydifferent from what I'm used to.
I'm like where do these peoplecome from?
Like, because my patient baseis pretty uniform, I've kind of

(37:55):
dialed it in from the last Xamount of years of practicing to
where, like, people alreadyknow what they should be eating.
They've already listened to acouple podcasts, they've already
tried to start eating healthy,those kind of things.
So now when you get like brandnew patients, I'm like, oh wait,
we don't know what gluten isyet, we don't know what stomach
acid is yet.
It's just kind of it's both funand very different than what
I'm used to.

(38:15):
So you may run into a lot ofB-Tain, HCL if you've never seen
someone before, if they haven'tstarted eating healthy, if they
are not on the same point andso I see that a lot.
I remember with the other DrAnderson we had a conversation
and he's like I use fish oil onevery patient all the time and
I'm like man, I just can't getfish oil to test for many people

(38:35):
like they don't need it.
But the difference was he wastreating a population at that
time that was using healthinsurance, so his practice was
covered by health insurance.
They were coming in eating astandard American diet and they
were just eating junk food atMcDonald's all day long, right,
and my patient base had beeneating paleo on average for two
years, you know, and they hadalready balanced a lot of their

(38:56):
omegas.
It's not that I didn't find itall ever, it's just that he was
like I'm using it on everypatient every day and it just
didn't make sense to me.
But the patient bases aredifferent, so we do see
different, different patternsthere.
Probably one of the mostunderestimated supplements that
I use and I actually think a lotof doctors I know would do well

(39:17):
if they added it more is thebody guard or the chonka piedra,
so body guard is a prenutrition.
That's one of my favorites byfar for almost any digestive
issue.
I think a lot of people I'lluse that for kidneys or for
gallbladder, either one thatstones.
So chonka piedra, spanish name,stone breaker.
Right, we're going to use thatto break up those stones and I

(39:37):
think that it works pretty well.
I don't.
I, in fact, like I've hadpeople, you know, for kidney
stones that were passing over 60kidney stones a month that
chonka piedra does miracles.
That's a lot right.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
But that that patient , for example, actually had so
much scar tissue that hecouldn't feel him anymore.
So he was good to go, just likeno pain at all.
He was just peeing stones everyday.
Right, so fun.
But and then also on thatvitamin A, thinning the bile,
you'll find that all thesupplements we talk about
essentially thin the bile.

(40:10):
There's there's another way togo about it.
So you can thin bile with a lotof things we use which are
often beet based, or I don'teven know If we have mentioned
things like to ring or Colleenthat help to thin the bile.
But then you have the herbalway and the herbal way is more
like it stimulates more bileproduction.
So there's two different waysto go about it.

(40:31):
So if I look at like beta food,beta call, coli call, I feel
like all of those thin the bileof what you already have, but do
or add bile salts.
And then the herbal waystimulates the liver to make
more bile, which then in turnthins it out.
So that's like the artichoke orthe dandelion approach or even

(40:55):
the milk.
This will approach any of thebitters right that you're going
to use in herbal medicine arethe ones that kind of like
promote up regulation.
A lot of them like up regulateby our production.
We have to like 60, 70 percent,so it's crazy.
And that's at 500 milligrams aday for most of them.
So if you like triple that,you're honestly like creating
almost twice as much bile.
Now people are like, oh, twiceas much bile, could that be bad?

(41:17):
No, because twice as much bilegives you twice as much
detoxification.
So I quick pet peeve reallyquick.
I'm probably one of the onlydoctors in the world that has a
course on bile acidmalabsorption.
I don't care about selling thatcourse, but I'll just tell you
that bile is never bad.
In that, in that conditionwhere you have like green stools
or loose stools or gallbladderissues they talk about, you're

(41:40):
making too much bile.
It's exactly the opposite,because what I've done to treat
all those people is up regulatetheir bile production and
everything gets better.
So it's.
I have an article, like I saidon it, like biolacid
malabsorption or biolaciddiarrhea.
That is a gallbladder issue andit is because of low bile acids
, not because of high bile acids, and I'd go to go at bat for

(42:01):
that for a lot of people.
But understand that medicine iscompletely opposite on that one
.
So that's a whole notherarticle you can read on my
website just to understand alittle bit more about the
gallbladder.
If you're having those kind ofissues which we didn't cover a
ton of loose stools Gallbladderpresentation is usually the
female.
She's 40, she's still fertile.
Sometimes she's overweight withthat insulin issue and she has

(42:23):
constipation.
That's her typical gallbladderpresentation.
But there's a subset it's about3% of the population with
gallbladder issues right nowthat have this chronic diarrhea
coming from the gallbladder.
So that's another one there.
What other supplements?

Speaker 2 (42:35):
you got, doc.
I like all that because it kindof depends on the patient.
Do you need the herbal protocol?
Do you need the vitamin, themineral, the thing that's
missing, or do you need both?
A lot of times it's both, andso one of the big ones choline.
Choline is one of the bigcomponents of your bile, and if

(42:56):
we are biodeficient or cholinedeficient I should say not
biodeficient, choline deficientwe're going to have an issue
with our gallbladder.
And how are we cholinedeficient?
We're not eating eggs and we'renot eating liver, mainly the
egg side.
A lot of people don't eat liver.
You can get enough choline fromyour eggs.
Liver is number one, eggs arenumber two for the source of
choline, and if you're avegetarian, vegan, it's a lot

(43:18):
harder to get those Way harderto get choline, and so then you
run into major problems, and socholine is probably one of the
most common ones that I'll giveout.
I don't know if I in a sensehave like a top five, top 10
that I can just list out whichones they are, but choline is
pretty high up there and I giveit quite frequently.

(43:38):
And choline goes into otherthings too.
That's how you make a seedlecholine, which is really
important to brain health andmuscle health, and so you see it
quite, quite frequently and ifyou don't have that, you're not
making bile very well.
Yeah, you can push herbs andstuff to help push it through,

(43:58):
but I'm going to probably arguethat you're going to need some
choline support if that'sshowing up for that specific
person.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
For sure, for sure, and red meat does contain
choline too, so I mean yeah howmany people are skipping their
steaks and stuff like that andonly eating chicken.
I think that was my.
That was like everyone in myoffice this week.
Oh, I only eat chicken.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
It's so common.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, don't even read me.
Okay, what else, what else,what else, what else.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
Last thing is just like some quick things that
people can do, like, let's sayyou're having a gallbladder
attack.
I've told people sip on lemonjuice and water.
Like a couple tablespoons oflemon juice and water.
You can use beet juice as well.
You know, it's like you knowhalf a beet and the juice from a
whole lemon.
That can actually help calmdown a gallbladder attack.

(44:45):
So can a cold pack over yourgallbladder on your upper right
abdomen can help.
Knowing, of course, thelocation of your gallbladder is
also important.
I had someone recently.
They were told they had apancreatitis and their pain is
on the right side of theirabdomen, so on the opposite side
of where their pancreasactually is so kind of important

(45:09):
.
It wasn't their fault by anymeans, they were just told that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
So sometimes I'll have people do like a beet
challenge.
So once again, trying to giveyou people all these like little
things we can do at home.
When they drink, where theydrink like 12 ounces of beet
juice and see if their stoolcomes out red.
If it does, it means that theirgallbladder is probably moving
too fast or it's not healthyenough to metabolize all of that
betaine.
So that's one that I'll do.

(45:32):
Have them drink 12 ounce ofbeet juice, see if their stool
comes out red.
The lemon juice is awesome.
The only thing I'll say on thatis like lemon juice is.
I mean I'll help with an acuteone, but like it's a little bit
slow sometimes.
So I would say like, do atleast 14 days of lemon juice and
hot water.
That's what I like in themornings, but you can't sip it
throughout the day, like yousaid.
What else do I do there?

(45:55):
Oh, I was going to say a lot ofpeople are using castor oil
packs.
There we go, castor oil packsover the gallbladder, and I
don't mind castor oil packs overyour gallbladder, but I
realized that you're forcingyour gallbladder to actually
make that movement and if youneed a castor oil pack to feel
well, I don't have a problemwith it.
Personally, I'll ask you yourstance in a second, but it means
you're pretty deep into agallbladder issue If you can't

(46:17):
fix your issue without doinglike an aggressive castor oil
pack over the gallbladder atnight.
Your gallbladder is prettymessed up if you're having to do
castor packs, so what do youthink, doc?
Do you ever see those in youroffice?
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Same kind of opinion with them.
If it's helping, by all meansyou can do it, but I want to
know the roots.
And I mean it's making me thinkof one patient.
I'm pretty sure that's theright way to do it.
I'm pretty sure that's whatthey're doing, but it's such a
hard thing because it's aninsulin issue and they are type
2 diabetic and so like.
And to change type 2 diabetesand put it you know, get it back

(46:54):
to normal, that takes drasticchanges in their diet and
they're having a difficult timewith that.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Any final words.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
We're almost at the end here.
Any final words on gallbladderdoc.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Super important, overlooked, like you said,
oftentimes.
Definitely seek a doctor thathas the knowledge of the
physiology and the biochemistry,because you've got to
understand it to help clear itup, and there's a lot of
supplements that go into it.
Not everyone is the same andyou know you're going to need a
different protocol.
There's not a set protocol.
There's no cookie cutterapproach to this.

(47:27):
It's individualized.
Otherwise, hopefully some ofthese little things that we've
mentioned, some of the products,some of the, even the things
you can do at home, like beetjuice, can help.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah.
So back to it like I totallyagree, totally overlooked,
something that no one talksabout.
It's because the chemistry ishard and it's a secondary organ.
It originally comes from theliver, all of these chemicals.
So people focus on liver butthey forget that they can still
help the gallbladder.
Both can have the same problem,both can have different
problems.
But long story short, yourgallbladder gets overburdened by

(48:00):
toxins in the environment.
It gets really sludgy and thickand it doesn't do what it's
supposed to do and you sufferthe ill effects.
Every symptom you can imaginecan come from that gallbladder.
Anxiety is a huge one.
Digestive issues is a huge one.
As I mentioned, I use it tocalm down that gut lining.
If you don't have there'sactually really good resources,
if you don't have OptimaBio,you're seven times more likely

(48:22):
to have a hypothyroid issue.
And the second one that I sawwas that people with low bile
acid have more C-diff or gutbacteria the difficulty of gut
bacteria is C-diff than anyother population.
So those bile acids really helpto take care of what your
liver's trying to accomplish,but they work together.

(48:43):
Your bile is absolutelynecessary and your gallbladder
is the most important thing.
Maybe we'll cover anotherpodcast.
And what do we do if we've hadour gallbladder removed and some
of the different problems werun into there, both digestive
and detoxification.
So we'll cover that in anotherpodcast, but for now this is it
for today.
Thanks, dr Gay, for joining me,and we will see you guys on the

(49:04):
next podcast where we're goingto cover some Q&A questions
submitted on Instagram.
Thanks a lot.
All right, see you then.