No.1 Herbal Medicine Expert: This Over The Counter Drug Is Quietly Killing You & They’re Lying About Medicinal Plants!

0:00 That is the most widely prescribed drug in this country, and I believe in the US also. But the list of problems accruing from long-term use is beginning to grow, and as serious cancers, dementias. But the other thing is that once you're on it, it's really difficult to come off it. And that's not all. We use far too many antibiotics, and that's becoming a serious health issue. you know, because a number of people dying from antibiotic resistance infections is beginning to rise dramatically. It's quite frightening. So are there alternatives on this table that I should also consider as a form of medicine? Oh yes, and most of these ones I'm gonna be talking about have a pretty immediate effect. Now have a bite of this. Oh for almost fifty years, Dr. Simon Mills has pioneered how we think about natural medicine, earning global recognition as one of the most respected and influential herbal practitioners of our time. These things have medicinal properties. So let's start with dark chocolate. In terms of long term brain health and cardiovascular health, that's one of the best medicines around. Really? Oh yes. Next one is garlic.

1:03 And in some parts of the world they use garlic instead of penicillin. In fact, there was an old trick where if you had enough garlic breathe on a petri dish and you could kill various pathogens just by the old breath. Wow. And then there's to reduce your cholesterol levels. This can really help with the eye side. This is for your blood flow. Gut health. Early vascular health. Now this is one of the ones to watch in terms of long term brain health. Rose me. We actually did a clinical trial on this. So you can see why some of the stuff already is powerful. Now we have some more to go through. And this is where it gets interesting. There's a lot of people listening who will want to hear this. Coffee. What do I need to know? So Quick one before we get back to this episode, just give me thirty seconds of your time.

1:46 Two things I wanted to say. The first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning into the show week after week. It means the world to all of us, and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place. But secondly, it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started. And if you enjoy what we do here, please join the twenty four percent of people that listen to this podcast regularly and follow us on this app. Here's a promise I'm gonna make to you. I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this show as good as I can now and into the future. We're gonna deliver the guest that you want me to speak to, and we're gonna continue to keep doing all of the things you love about the show. Thank you.

2:24 Thank you so much. Back to the episode. Uh Simon Mills. You want

2:32 A pioneer. By all accounts in what is called complimentary medicine, but you're also one of the most respected herbal practitioners in the world. You've been doing this for more than fifty years. I've actually never spoken to somebody that has a comprehensive understanding of herbal remedies and herbal medicine. So I'm super excited to have this conversation with you today. What is the what is the mission you're on, and why do you think it's important? I think the

2:59 My main mission. I sometimes say that Yeah, the The world is pretty rough out there.

3:09 I can't do anything about the sea and the waves, but I can help you to build a better boat. Mm that can sit better in the water. And I think people relate to that.

3:19 That If they were felt a bit stronger in themselves. I would Better.

3:26 with what life throws at them. I chose plants because people have always used plants as their primary source of medicine. People have always grown up with plants. They've evolved along with plants. And what I aim to do is to put the old wisdoms into some scientific framework. And then make it fit with conventional

3:48 norms of healthcare. You were A board member of the British Herbal Medicine Association. You're the first chair of the Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine launched in Parliament by former Prime Minister. Alec Douglas. Hm.

4:04 You led a major European Commission project on herbal medicine involving over twenty centers across Europe. You're the secretary of the European Scientific cooperative on I was not able to say that one. So it's phytoplant therapy. W I think when people think about herbal medicine and using plants as a form of medicine

4:28 They think of Tribes and they think of I don't know. sort of ancient Chinese traditions. And I think You know,

4:36 Uh the modern westerner thinks pills. Yes. When they think of medicine. What what is it that we've Lost. Is there like a lost wisdom? Yes.

4:46 And how did that happen and what of what is it we've lost? When we lived in the countryside, when we lived close to nature, that was very much around us and and in every little community there'd be someone, usually a woman, who would know their way around the plants and would Yeah, help you out when you had a s illness and sickness. I'm not saying that there's a golden age, but when we moved into cities we lost a lot part from anything else, we were living on top of each other. We had to drink each other's water, you know, there was a lot of s new illnesses, sicknesses, pestilences and so on that only came in cities.

5:20 And that world, the herbs. Couldn't cut it. So we needed stronger stuff. So they started using minerals, they started using things that were poisons. And the original physician's job was to be the Only guy who could handle

5:35 medicines that other people would not be safe to use. And so you got your training to use these much more powerful medicines. And it was sort of the old Club things were too soft and gentle. And so they were generally discarded. And then you develop these medicines into pills because often they were powders anyway. And you know, then the pharmaceutical industry came in and branded and and made um proprietary m materials from them. And that drifted a long way from just going down to a hedgerow, going into the garden, going to the kitchen and picking up Remedies. A lot of cultures around the world still use plants as

6:12 Uh First form of medication. A variety of different sort of Illnesses and diseases, right? They do, yes. I mean most

6:20 do. I mean if you were in New It's in northern territories in Canada and so and Alaska, you would probably not have very many plants to choose from. But for most other people They surrounded by plants. That's their world. Yeah, I think you know,'cause I'm I'm what, thirty two years old, so I've not really grown up with

6:40 The wisdom of plants and how they can be used to treat some of the illnesses that I have from a very young age. I'm taking cough syrup and I'm taking paracetam or want to have a headache and all these kinds of pills and medicines, but plants were never a part really a part of that conversation. And I guess that makes me think that They don't work or

7:00 That's what most people would now think. And one of the uh one of the points of this conversation now is to Point you to ways in which they can and to show you how you can figure that out within a minute or f An hour. Most of these ones I'm going to be talking about have a

7:15 Pretty immediate effect. You know, we now think oh, if you take a herb it may take months before anything happens. When I see a patient. My usual request to them is Can you call me tomorrow?

7:28 To let me know how it's going. Because things happen so fast. And if you're up for it, you can do a couple of taste tests and you can see why some of the stuff already is powerful. W what is it then? That you know from the fifty plus years of work that you've done working with plants as a form of medicine that the average person on the street doesn't know.

7:49 How close we are to being to having Ah I I think life is a miracle, as I said in that early encounter. Um and we can realize the miracle within us. If we just

8:04 trusted. I've got a few guys to what I call health empowerment. Things that you can do yourself at home just to begin to understand what's going on in here and to nourish it. Uh and the plants are the in my world the um one of the most effective ways of supporting that inner to nourish our health, to empower us. It I I sometimes think that you know medicine is extraordinary. I mean we now live with cancer, used to die with it. Uh

8:35 Almost all the major illnesses of the past have now had treatments for the But you know, if you've got a chronic condition. And you're still left with yourself. And you're maybe not feeling so good in yourself.

8:48 I sometimes think that a lot of medicine is a bit like uh fast food delivery. We know we have a meal brought in because it's convenient. But that also de skills us. You know, we we've stopped learning how to cook even. You know, I remember going to New York back in the eighties and surprise to find that so many apartments in New York didn't have kitchens. Because

9:09 Everyone went out to eat. And I thought, Gosh, you're losing all those skills of making food and enjoying it and sitting it down over a m over a table. Um I think medicine, you know, we use far too many antibiotics. We use you know, these um PPI things called ameprasol for our acid reflux, the most widely prescribed drug in this country, and I think USO also mostly unnecessary. Uh we use

9:34 A lot of Anti inflammatory is just because it's sore. Without asking why is it so? And why are we suppressing one of our body's main defence is'cause inflammation is a defense.

9:47 So these are things that you learn as you get into this world that a lot of what we think are problems are solutions waiting for support. I think most people would think. Th. Medicine.

10:02 That is a food. That's food. Yes. Well you're right. Medicine, food. Yeah, you're quite right. That's medicine, that's a food. What I'm saying is that there's a spectrum. And We may talk about that raspberry because it's red. And we might talk about the broccoli'cause it's green and there's oranges uh colours there.

10:21 all of these colours actually have properties that are actually quite valuable properties for our circulatory health, for our gut health, our brain health. Um and when the more the science is looking at it, the more amazing it's looking. These things. have medicinal properties. So you're saying that this is medicine as well? Yes.

10:43 Not food be thy medicine is what old Hippocrates said. Two thousand years ago. Two and a half thousand years ago. Yes.

10:57 Oh the Anywhere I mean there's f there's only five countries. in the world that are not big on herbal medicines. And I'll tell you who they are and you can see if you can draw your own conclusions. UK is one. The US is the second.

11:09 Canada is the third, Australia and New Zealand. No, can you think of something that combin binds them all together. They're originally white English speaking countries. If you go across to France The channel here. Go to any pharmacy.

11:25 Most of the medicine stocks on the pharmacy are herbal. If you go to some parts of Germany you have to Sit a herbal exam to get your license. and further east in the old Soviet uh c block where they couldn't afford the pharmaceutical industry. They had

11:40 home grown primarily plant based medicines much more widely go into Asia. It's The majority by far. And Doctors and

11:51 People working with plants and acupuncture in China. Work together. Without thinking about it. And many doctors use plants in their medic as their medicines. Yeah, how different'cause I've never really spent a a significant amount of time in China, how different is the perception of

12:08 herbal medicines there than it is. Out on the streets of London. They don't think twice about it, it's what they grew up with. Um they Like a lot of people, we would say regretfully,

12:19 Do seem to want to do more things like The West does. Um so they'd adopt more Western habits and as soon as you earn a bit of money you tend to adopt more Western lifestyles and think that the herbal things for your parents and grandparents. So there's still that trend even in Asia.

12:36 Um but they start from a much broader base of experience. Why? Why should anyone care? You know, I have Ibe proofing at home. I have medicine that I can have in the

12:50 the cupboard. I have you know cough syrups if I get sick. If I get the flu, I have some flu pills that I bought from the pharmacy. Why should anyone care about what we're gonna talk about today. I suppose the answer is in my practice. So I see patients three sessions a week. And these are people.

13:07 Almost most of them have been round the block. They've had treatments for their conditions sometimes for many years. They're often living with chronic complex conditions and they're sore, they're tired, their energy's gone, you know, they've been told that uh we ca just keep taking the pills, you know, we've done all the tests, there's nothing else we can do, time and time again.

13:30 Cookie crumbles. Because then you realize And the quick pills. Ain't doing it anymore.

13:39 There's a bigger health. Need. Yeah. And that's when they come to me as a practitioner.

13:48 And I give them things that they can see improving their health, their sleep, their eating, their whatever it is that's Not their energy levels, whatever it is that's not Playing. probably we I see myself as a fine tuning or upping the performance. Uh I'm not sure.

14:06 When someone comes to me and they say I've got whatever it is, arthritis or skin disease or whatever, uh I will politely take all the notes down. But that's not what I'm interested in. I'm interested in where that came from. What is the misbehaviour, what is the poor performance.

14:23 explains why all this happened. And often you find they had pneumonia at the age of three, or they had glandular fever at the age of fifteen or sixteen, and things took a turn then, and you can see the trail And Often what I'm doing is going backwards and Fixing things that

14:41 weren't fixed back a long time ago. Working on digestion particularly,'cause that's where we work. Uh kidney function, uh li liver function, uh circulation you know, uh up to the brain of when we're dealing in that area. Um So we're looking at the performance of the body, and it's only when it doesn't behave that you notice the need to doing it. How many patients have you seen in your career, do you think? Thousands of patients?

15:08 An hour or so at a time. To start with, so we get deep into the story and then Rolling on.

15:17 At any one time I've got two hundred running. You know, that I'm actively treating and tooth couple hundred. And one of the range of illnesses or conditions that those patients have had. And when you think about the most remarkable or most interesting case studies, the most reliable case studies that you have? What are the conditions that are at the center of those case studies?

15:40 Do we go to medical encyclopedia or anywhere? I've I don't know if I've seen everything in the medical and cyclopedia, but I've seen most things. I mean literally everything comes in because mostly it's chronic anyway, when they come and see me. And it can be anything. I mean about a th quarter of my patients are living with cancer, so we that's one big group. I'm not treating the cancer, I'm helping them to live better. with whatever it is they're dealing with.

16:10 Um about another. at least a third a bit more living with chronic inflammatory disease. Autoimmune diseases, Crohn's, ulceritis, psoriasis, spectrum. um things that are more complicated than you can shake a stick at. And again, in a

16:30 We're not dealing with the end result we're looking at. What may be leading up to that. And seeing if we can improve underlying functions. But Literally. Anything can come by.

16:42 It isn't uh particular case studies of patients that you've worked with that stand out to you that you're most proud of or that were Eureka moments in your own sort of Johnny. Most of my stories are like journeys.

16:57 So you see little steps and you're with somebody often for a long time and you just see changes in the way that they um they change over the weeks and months. So, you know To say I've got an instant Eureka moment. I've

17:15 stories just you know to come to them and you know just the they're a they're a motley mix and in fact I made notes'cause it's sometimes better to remind myself of the sort of things I did. Because Patience. will walk out with five or six or eight

17:33 different plants. And the reason I put them together is because they have a A unique story. Um So probably the one with the most complex one is someone uh all the names have changed by the way. Someone called Heather's sixty five. And she had a really severe

17:50 complex condition called erythema multiformi, which is a complex skin disease that's really distressing, very upsetting. What we know about it is is that it's linked possibly to other infections. Um So we actually spotted mycoplasma pneumonia is Like the implicated.

18:09 She'd previously had a lot of lung damage. Um in her youth she had early pneumonia. And she was diagnosed with a chronic obstructive pulmonary thing bronchiases as it happened. Then she got COVID badly, and most of her trouble started after that. She also has vitamin B twelve deficiency, pernicious anemia, we call it, which is a

18:31 autoimmune problem for gut lining stops the vitamin B twelve being absorbed. Those were in her. Background story. The lungs because it was the earliest.

18:41 And probably the main factor. First my focus. And the second was What was lining the stomach because Most inflammatory problems start down here.

18:52 So I ended up giving her something. That was a combination of Remedies for the gut lining. And for the lungs. And

19:02 Almost within a week or so. The Itching of the s uh her skin. Subsided. I just happened to think that was the reason I remember it because it's

19:12 and it's unusual to get such quick results in such a complex condition. But it's a reminder that if you can find the right button then quite big things can happen. I was lucky to find the right button. And Progressively. over the w ensuing

19:31 The skin problem. She was my dream patient. She said, I don't need your herbs anymore. That to me. is my r biggest reward.

19:43 They can move on. They don't need help anymore. It sticks in your mind because it

19:54 got better without and it been going for a long time. They've been going f three or four years by the time she saw me. Um And it's Resolves very quickly. with what seemed to be totally irrelevant.

20:06 treatments but there there was a r rationale for them. Karen. Panic attacks. Major.

20:15 Problems. Heaven knows. There's a lot of that about. Uh it turns out that um And w when she she was hospitalized when she was twenty with Jaundice, which is A lived.

20:27 Liver. uh problem all the processing, all the detox processes uh in the liver. Uh it's the gateway from the digestion, it handles emotions, it handles the immune system. It It's an amazing. organ. It's self correcting, by the way. So it's

20:43 fixes itself very quickly, if you give it the right nudge. She had jauntis, so immediately a little bell goes off because and at a age when that could mean long term Liver. Damage hepatitis.

20:56 Uh she's ended up with very little appetite. Uh she feels full easily, gains weight easily. And often feeling nauseous. Which is Definitely a sign of liver distress still.

21:10 Menstrual cycles very erratic. She's Early Covid again another. Thank you Hammer hammer bloke.

21:19 And this the the COVID was before her main symptoms of panic attacks set in. Uh so I I use that as an example of the way in which what goes on up here in the brain is linked with what goes on Lower down than the gut. Yeah. Interesting point.

21:37 When we were living in caves. Best place to be was in the cave. Because Al Sai was dangerous. The only thing that got you out.

21:46 Hunger. And when we look at the way in which the cells uh uh pr uh the the machinery inside the cell we find that the mechanisms anxiety are the same as the

22:00 managing uh appetites and and food processing. So the idea of linking anxiety with Metabolism. Is Basic.

22:12 This was an ex exact answer. So the mix of herbs had nothing For the anxiety at all. It was all to do. Uh with metabolism. And so the included milk thistle, Barbary. uh an oriental herb called Bu Plurum, artichoke, and an Indian remedy called gymnemo, which is called sugar destroyer, which which reduces your uh hankering for s sweet.

22:37 First goal was to manage her sugar cravings,'cause that seemed to be a key part of what she was saying. Mm. And to improve her liver functions. This was very quick, and she became more settled over several weeks and months. Then the next thing that happened was her menstrual cycles became clearly the

22:54 where the trouble was and she was most likely to be distressed around the period. So we shifted to include Women's remedies. Which were then included in the mix. To help manage the The hormonal.

23:08 Ebb and flow around the menstrual cycle. And um three months, which is n the normal time for cycles to begin to turn, uh cycles began to steady And so did the rest of her symptoms. Nothing to do with anxiety of just dealing with these.

23:25 Four. Function. So there's a couple of examples of Yeah, if Camera gone to most other. Practishness.

23:36 She would have had something for her. Noves. I do really want to talk about it. You use the term W women's hubs?

23:44 Women's, yeah. I do want to talk about that and I do I do also want to talk about fertility in the menstrual cycle and things like PCOS because I'm super f interested in that, which might surprise some people. But obviously s there's women in my life that struggle with those things. So I do want to get onto that. I think a second ago you you pointed at the stomach when you said that we treat down here. Yes. Is that really the place to start to understand Well it's wet places to our plants'cause that's where you that's where they go. So tell me what what do I need to know about

24:11 This region, the stomach, the gut. Wow. In order to have a sort of foundational knowledge s so that we can then start talking about I'd be preofing, painkillers, fevers, all these kinds of things. Well very simply.

24:23 We think Our intelligence is up here. Yeah, we got a brain. Yeah. As soon as you swallow something. Until it comes out the other end.

24:34 We have no control over what goes on down there. decisions are being made as the food traverses down the tube, and there's a long tube. It's about twenty feet of small intestine that has to go around. And then like another two or three feet of large intestine. It used to take about eighteen hours to go through and we announce because we certainly take longer. But all that time intelligent decisions are being made. by the digestive system, what to do with this, what to do with that.

25:03 And the lining of the gut. is full of censors. Receptors, we call them. That's uh picking up chemical cues. And responding.

25:15 So as the food changes as it's digested, as the bile from the liver comes in, it's Picking off these signaling devices and switching on a whole series of metabolic hormonal, all sorts of other functions. All controls.

25:31 major choreography going on here. You know. Without us even knowing about it. And then just when you thought This was wonderful.

25:40 You add something called the microbiome. Now when I was at school and there was a long time ago when I was doing medical sciences, oh yeah, there was the there's the bowel flora and they help with digestion, vitamin K, one or two other things, you know, they might be quite useful. No, The microbiome runs the show. That is it's huge.

26:00 You know, we thought we knew what the kidney did, we thought we knew what the heart did, we thought we knew what the brain did. We know they only do it because they work with the microbiome. It's it it's running a show. And the microbiome is the Billions.

26:14 And we've got more of of those little critters than we have of our own cells, so much more. So they are huge. They've got about a hundred times as much genetic capacity Yeah. We've got more bugs in our gut than cells. Yes. So we basically We're we're walking gut. We're walking bac bacteria. Yeah. Yeah, well there's more there m m there's more bacteria than there are us. I mean this i it's a bit of a gob smacking thought and you know, obviously people want and then I mean the bugs will keep them there.

26:44 One of the Big issues of the day. Our antibiotics. Which uh we know becoming a serious health issue now.

26:53 You know, uh the World Health Organization and others. say very seriously that antibody resistance. You know, antimicrobial resistance as they call it. is the biggest threat we have. Soon going into a hospital and getting an operation will be a real risk because hospital born infections are increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Yeah.

27:13 Piling them in. to us but also to the animals that we grow. Uh a lot of them are full of antibiotics. And that means that the diversity Of the microbiome. Is is being reduced. We've losing we call biodiversity. There's a

27:30 Bi diversity issue in here. But even with the diminished um flora that we have They still have to do it. pretty much run the show. And a lot of the Fruits and vegetables, particularly the ones with colours in them.

27:44 Actually feed. Those guys down there. And help them to perform better. As we say, eat the rainbow, just get those colours in. But yes, uh as you can see, if I start talking about the gut, I'm not gonna stop for the next month.

28:01 The mechanism is that they kind of kill bacteria, right? So they're killing good bacteria as well. In the process often. They have different range depending on the antibiotic, but yes.

28:13 They will be cutting a sway through your Cut Flora. For sure, some more than others. I mean the point about antibiotics and we we did a big project with this Ironically, just before Covid.

28:26 Uh when I was working with Parker. Uh Yeah. We put a campaign together to find natural approaches to managing antibiotics or reduce the use of them.

28:38 Antibiotics are useless for anything viral. They don't do anything for a virus. But unfortunately, people with viral problems will still be given antibiotics. Mainly by a harassed doctor who just You know, because they said give me something dog.

28:53 You know, for viruses mostly you just have to wait for the body to get rid of it. But giving an antibiotic is actually of no use at all. Everyone knows this. And you get NHS, you know, in this country. um posters saying antibiotics are no good for viruses.

29:10 Please don't ask your doctor for them. So for many of these things, colds and respiratory problems, for example, there are many spices I mean some of the things on that plate there are particularly good. for coals and viruses. up here. And so we put that all together in the package and said we can encourage people not to ask the doc for an antibiotic.

29:32 and use some of these home easy free or sometimes. Uh Treatments. Um to um uh to to uh use instead.

29:46 uh the most urgent health issue of the moment. Um, I wanna fully understand why you think it's so so urgent, because we're gonna Develop a resistance, which means that We're more susceptible to disease. It's already happening. And it's not me that saying this is these are the guys who look after our health care for us like the W the World Health Organization, who are rarely Getting close to panic.

30:10 About this issue. Uh because already the number of people dying from antibiotic resistance infections is beginning to rise. Dramatically.

30:22 And New antibiotics. Unfortunately there's less financial incentive to develop them because they're often handed out free by in various countries, so you don't get the margins back. And uh the the uh pipeline of new antibiotics is not good. Uh so all you need to do is check on the World Health Organization to get the chapter and verse on that. It's It's it's

30:46 Actually quite frightening. I'm on the World Health Organization site now and um found a definition of antibiotic resistance. It's when bacteria stops responding to antibiotics and is mainly caused by overusing or misusing antibiotics. In twenty twenty two, US doctors gave out about Two hundred and thirty six million. And

31:07 What? U S doctors gave out Two hundred and thirty six million antibiotic prescriptions. prescriptions, roughly seven prescriptions for every ten people. Studies show that at least

31:21 Roughly thirty percent of antibiotic prescriptions in the US aren't needed, especially in places like doctor's offices and emergency rooms. In twenty twenty, about thirty million antibiotic prescriptions were given out in the UK. Children age zero to fourteen made up three point six million of those. And in two thousand twenty three, the World Health Organization declared antibiotic resistance one of the top global health threats and estimated that it is responsible for one point two seven million global deaths in two thousand and nineteen and could and contributed To almost five million deaths. That was twenty nineteen. I can tell you uh that the figures have r risen dramatically since then. So that's

32:01 What people think. And you need an operation. And you know that that's going to involve exposure to hospital infections, which is one of the most serious of them the ones in the the average hospital the most lethal ones there. Um increasingly

32:23 That is going to be a risk, but that he gets something that you can't treat. You're not saying don't take antibiotics. No. I'm saying Take them carefully.

32:35 Um use them when you need them. and not otherwise. And and again, it's not me saying this as most responsible doctors would wish that their patients wouldn't keep asking for them. Uh So the sort of three things that I've I've been able to ascertain.

32:54 as risks of misuse or overuse or inappropriate use of antibiotics, which is the impact on the gut microbiome. Um the you're contributing to the rise in antibiotic resistance and Those are the main things. I guess even with the diseases you get, you'll be slower to heal.

33:12 Because you're less if you've got that resistance. That things that we do see, particularly those who are Long term ill.

33:21 You know, that they lose some of the healing capacity. And that's so much of the work I do is to And Put some of that. Right. And there's links to colorectal cancers. Yeah.

33:31 But that's it, because we're talking about the microbiome, you see. So those are the cancers in the lower gut. And we know that the microbiome is a major factor in how well So things like Crohn's and ulceral colitis and Cancer the bell. Very closely linked to the state of the microbiome. Uh okay. So are there alternatives?

33:52 on this table or in the world of plants to Antibiotics that I should Maybe also considering it. Um instead of just jumping straight to antibiotics for everything that I experience. If you got a serious

34:06 Got. Or other than the Infection. you may need the antibiotic, so let's put that straight away. But if you've got a

34:14 Cold. flu, virus, repres uh a a viral problem, particularly the airways. You A antibiotics will have no use at all and be

34:25 As we just said. they just add to the risk of more.'Cause every time you take an antibiotic, you're growing a small population of that Oh of the species of bacteria that's affected who are resistant to that. is natural selection. You know, so you have a thousand

34:43 Little bacteria, that's a small amount by their terms, and you kill nineteen uh nine hundred and ninety nine of them. The one that survives. will then become two in twenty minutes and four in forty minutes and suddenly become a new population. And you know, I I I

35:00 Stuck that bullet. And so that group of bacteria will already Resistant. So we're creating resistance every time we use an antibody.

35:08 So Try let's try then doing something else, shall we? So let's say you've got a cold. Feeling the cold. It's got a good name, by the way. So Cold is one of the things you feel when you've got a cold. And that's interesting because in former times we didn't have tests, we didn't have laboratories, we didn't have paramedics, we didn't have people poking things in you.

35:31 All we could know is what it felt like. And when you've got a cold, you often feel cold. And you feel chills and you want to wrap up. And he wants to hop.

35:44 All that in the old language. meant that you were cold. And what you needed to do was to heat up. No, you take This fella This is Ginger.

35:57 It's grown. widely around the world, in its original Asian form, it was made extinct around the time of the Romans. So popular was it. And ever since all the ginger sense of this species.

36:11 uh has but going from rootstock because it no longer seeds itself. So This has been the most valuable natural commodity ever. in its dried form worth more than its weight in gold. And you know, the reason why all those Europeans ended up in Asia and running India and South the Dutch and the Indonesia and so on, it's because that's where these things came from. That's where the spices came from.

36:36 And so we decided, you know, like good Capitalist to go and uh Control the business. So Ginger became. Very popular over here because we don't have nothing like it over here.

36:48 The nearest thing we got is horseradish, which I promise you is no substitute for this. So How do we use this? We've got a knob of ginger here, about the size of your thumb. That's about a good dose. You crate it.

37:01 Fresh ginger. Into a Uh a mug. Can you do that for me? I've got a great

37:09 Um We've got here a piece of ginger that as I say, about the size of your thumb. A thumb's a good measure because it's your measure. So if you're a small person, you'll have a small thumb. But I'm a bigger person, so I'm gonna use

37:23 And you literally it's gonna make a bit of a mess here. But doing this at home, you don't mind a bit of mess. You're literally grating and it grates nicely, doesn't it? And let's say that was the whole thumb. I don't want to take up too much time on this. And then

37:41 The one thing that works brilliantly with ginger. Is cinnamon. Yeah, this is It comes in different forms.

37:51 There's one from China called Cassia. Which looks like one be curled. Bok. Yeah.

37:58 If you look at this one you'll see that it's tightly wrapped with lots of little curl lots of little filaments in it. That's the one you go for. It's got it's more aromatic. And you Either grate that with if you've got a a spice mill or You take a teaspoon

38:14 Of It. Um let's say there's a teaspoonful, and you put that In your Okay.

38:24 So that's ginger and cinnamon. That's it. Then you add your hot water. Yeah. You're going for the real one, right? Bon, yeah.

38:41 Uh at this point a Civ is useful. One. Because it's gonna be r it's full of Oh bits. And then let's say this is this is a nice Japanese green tea mug, but let's say this is your

38:56 Mug. And Well for a little bit. And then You see all the stuff that you leave behind?

39:06 Oh yeah. Uh okay. And if you don't mind. Sharing a mug? So what's in here? This is just ginger and cinnamon.

39:19 Just ginger and cinnamon. It's it's fairly weak. Oh it is nice though. It is nice. Yeah, can you feel it warming already? Yes, straight away.

39:28 It's really nice. Yeah. Now you see what what's happening there is that you I mean Ginger is an is an example of

39:37 A group of remedies which includes turmeric, by the way, and that's other root the other root there. Um it's normally seen a yellow powder. We might talk about that later. And black pepper and chilies. Which when you take them. You think you're burning your mouth, aren't you?

40:00 The interesting thing is that You can actually have at full madras level. Uh Chili.

40:12 And no harm will be done. to your lining because there's no burning going on. What you're doing is you're stimulating the pain fibers. So you got pain fibers. All the way through the lining of the mouth. When you take a hot thing like ginger.

40:29 It's stimulating the pain fibers and immediately There's a What we call a reflex. Response. Which opens up the blood.

40:37 Vessels. It's called hyperemia, more blood. And uh Vessels lining these Mikosa, the ones that you've just swallowed and then cluing a little bit up in the nasal passages.

40:49 A opening up. The mucus cells producing mucus. We'll loosen up. And you get more runny mucus. Which is helping to flush through.

41:00 The uh The grot on the mucosa. And the main thing you feel is the warmth. Mm-hmm. And if you're dealing with something down here in the lungs you'll actually start bringing up more

41:11 Up the Anyways. It's there's a natural escalator that we use to that the body uses to get stuff out of the lungs. That's stimulated And the mixture of cinnamon and ginger was created, I think, in heaven.

41:25 I mean I think there's such a natural compliment. And anybody can do that. And The point about it is that it's warming. And in the old days.

41:36 That was the key thing. He would Didn't matter if you had a headache. All right. Joint pain.

41:43 or menstrual cramp. If you wanted to put a hot water bottle on it. Or heat it up. Then that was a cold problem. And putting a heating medicine.

41:55 would begin to make difference. So you can use the same thing. If you have a headache and you want to put a hot pack on it. If you got a menstrual cramp and you want to put a hot water bottle on it. If you've got a joint pain and you want to put a uh heating uh liniment on it. You can use the same thing.

42:12 Ginger. And that's Simple. Old medicine. So

42:19 So when you are experiencing types of pain or a cold Then cinnamon and ginger are good. Well only if it responds to heat. Uh if you want to put an ice back on. I mean the old doctors when someone came with a migraine would say Tell me.

42:36 Would you prefer a hot pack or an ice pack? For your migraine. And migraine sufferers generally split seventy thirty. Preferring heat. Seventy.

42:46 But A third of people. with migraines actually want a coal pack. You don't use ginger for that. You use cooling remedies, which we might come on to later.

42:57 My girlfriend, she drinks Ginger tea all the time. Almost every day. Yeah. She likes the heat. She likes the heat. Heat. Yeah. She she drinks it before bed as well. Can help with sleep if that's the way. Because I mean everyone's People are different.

43:12 And There are some people who can't take Um

43:20 You know, literally heats them up too much so they get Simulated by it. Um But that's where the individuality comes in. Okay, so any any condition where I might be looking for heat

43:32 Ginger and cinnamon. First place to go. First place to go. Yeah. You could t if you want it to be Tex Mex, you can take the chilies. Um, you know, that's a we think of them as a much more extreme version. Uh of the heating. And you know, remind ourselves it was only when Europeans discovered

43:52 America's Uh. Chili's became used. Over here. You know, can you imagine a an Italian meal with a

44:00 Yeah, without tomatoes and Chinese. But in the old days there were none of those,'cause they all came from America. Um But yeah, chilies were the American equivalent of ginger.

44:12 Use for the same purpose. So if someone comes to you and they say Oh. Sorry, when should I use Chile's

44:20 as a form of medication, what what would you say? First one I don't know yet. Yeah. And you know, if I'm dealing with someone at a distance, you know, online or on the phone or something and they say, No, what should I try I said, the first thing to do Is you've

44:34 Figure it out. You could start with herbal tees. You are. I'm gonna drop it into the Gonna drop it into here. Is that a bad idea? Yeah, yeah, no, go for it. But it'll

44:47 You'll s you should notice that's should be quite a hot one. Uh I will uh s suggest that they start with herbal teas,'cause herbal teas are a very low dose. Mm-hmm. But they'll allow you to figure out what suits you. And you can divide m as hinting at earlier, old medicines were often divide into those that were more warming.

45:07 We were now cool. Stimulating circulation. A more cooling. Which we would now translate as stimulating digestion. And depending on which of those you prefer would really give me a clue.

45:21 So If you were looking at warming remedies, it could be ginger tea, it could be pennel tea. You know, that's a warming remedy, or it could be cinnamon or um any of the spices. Cardamom is one of my favourites, by the way. Um this is I use cardamom, this is the cardamom pods inside of little black seeds. Absolutely lovely taste. Do you know him? Do you know Cardaman? Have you tried it? Not really now. Oh have a bite of that.

45:48 Or just bite the seed. Yeah, just bite into it. You don't t just just get a hint of the taste. In many parts of the Mid East. Cartaman is one of the main Flavors, things like coffee and so on. Mm reminds me of um

46:02 Oh, say Indian food. used a lot in India. And in China it's a Uh convalescent tonic. So they use it when people building up their digestion after being ill for a long time. They will often use cardamom.

46:17 That's one of my favorite remedies for that. When people really run low, their digestion isn't functioning. It was appeared in one or two of these stories I've got here. Uh because I prefer that to most of the other spices when I need warming. As I said before. But also. Sustaining and nourishing.

46:36 So you asked them. Do you prefer teas that are warming? Or Would you like something more cooling? You know one of the most Cooling remedies.

46:47 That people know about. This Mint. Mm. Mm-hmm. Spearmint, the best one is peppermint.

46:56 What. I love this. Yeah. That's has always been thought of as cooling. And it's a simple test. Would you prefer ginger or peppermint tea?

47:08 And already you're beginning to narrow things down a bit. Mm-hmm. The main cooling. remedies throughout history from Yeah.

47:17 The main cooling remedies, so called the Are the bitters. And they taste. Really.

47:30 Bitter. When you say cooling, you y you mean I feel hot, so I want something to cool me down. That's right. And there's certain conditions where I will feel I'll feel hot. Fever. F

47:41 And they were often used to fever, manage fever. And Um what happened? You remember w when we were young we were told. If you've had a big meal, don't go swimming.

47:53 Um You weren't told that. I can't swim, so there you go. But that was one of the things that you know some of us in my generation at least were always remembered we were told, you know, if you've got a big meal, it's not a good idea to go swim because you'll The blood. moving into the digestion. And you won't get many as much as you want where you need it in the limbs.

48:14 Uh and that's you know, it's true when you're digesting a lot of blood Investment, shall we call. is going into the digestive system because there's a lot of work needed to break down this food, turn it into something useful. It is an investment. You put a lot in, get much more out. But what it means is is that Um

48:34 Uh digestion is all about sh I'm just being a bit loose here with the language, but it's not a bad language. It's like bringing blood into the Cool. When you got a fever.

48:47 The blood's all charging around and your body temperature's going up. Which is great. Because fever actually is a defense measure. You know, when our body temperature rises by a couple of degrees Uh white blood cells, the ones that are doing the

49:01 Legwork. Two or three times as active. So fever is what the body uses when it needs to Bring out the big guys, bring out the fights. This is

49:11 design problem is almost as though You know. Creator. put it a you know, purposeful fault in the system because a lot of fever comes from the gut. You know, they get gut infections. You know, that's one of the main places.

49:26 And at that moment all the blood's going out here, and you want more of it. going in more digestion, if you like. So when you take a bitter When you're taking a bitter, you're actually s triggering taste buds up here? A bitter.

49:40 Is are there any plants that are bitter? Yeah, uh bitter plants are very common. And were highly valued in The old world. Um

49:52 In our times. Probably the most bitter plant that people used in European terms was something called wormwood. Now you may not be familiar with that word, but the French for wormwood is for moose. And you think of the

50:07 Use of a drink before a meal. Mm-hmm. The idea was it was they used to call it an aperitif, something that stimulated your appetite. So they would use improve your appetite and uh

50:20 And Burdock. Up two. Other.

50:27 Which is Which we now have as a soft drink, you know. And we know that bitters do switch on the appetite, so we sometimes use them when appetite is poor. And Yeah.

50:41 There's all sorts of reasons why you've got a low appetite, but Bitters can rarely help. Um They can help with um

50:51 Getting the digestion juices flowing and the appetite up. Because they bring blood to the digestive system. Well, they do all sorts of things actually. When you switch on these receptors in the mouth, these taste buds, they are hardwired and they produce hormones. That switch on all sorts of things. Uh an effect of increased digestive activity.

51:11 coming into the area. So yes. Let's imagine you're living in some part of you know the the desert area in the Middle East. You know, you're eating a sheep or something that hasn't seen a refrigerator. And it's a bit dodgy.

51:26 Yeah. And you think after a meal. It turned to something. easily available in that part of the world. It's a plant called Cafea Arabica. We call it coffee.

51:38 Ground the coffee. into a sludge at the bottom, pour a bit of hot water. And drink that straight. That's bitter. So if you ever had an espresso without sugar,

51:50 That's a bit of a Okay. And that was used as the digestive. In other words, after you're eating It would help cope with the Some pretty rough food.

52:01 So bitches were always seen to be good for your digestion and appetite. And in fever that actually meant lowering your body temperature. And that's we can see that happening. You know, it uh it means that You some of the anger out here just gets

52:16 Sublimated into digestion. So that was where the bitters got their cooling. Reputation. And we can now laugh at this is all medieval nonsense.

52:26 But the point that I keep coming back to when I'm seeing patients, I start with that blank sheet of paper. It's because the only test of what these do to you is to take it.

52:39 And as you notice with your ginger and cinnamon, you don't need long. You've got it there straight up. And you know, if I give a bitter to somebody Uh and yeah, some of us got Is really bitter.

52:51 They will know within an hour or so. What effect it's having? If you're starting a business, that means you're one person doing the workload of probably about 50 people. When I first founded this podcast, I had no idea that I was about to step into a hundred different roles that I'd never trained for, things like researching and production and scheduling and branding, all of it all at once. And this experience isn't unique to me, but for millions of founders around the world, the tool that changes all of that is our sponsor, Shopify. Shopify now powers ten percent of all US e commerce, from names like Gymshark and Mattel to first time founders just getting started. It's like having your very own design studio, content creator, and marketing team in one with hundreds of online store templates, AI tools to create product pages, and easy to launch email and social media plugins. Behind the scenes, Shopify manages your inventory, international shipping, and even your returns.

53:45 So if you're ready to sell, sign up for your one dollar a month trial at shopify.com slash Bartlett. That's Shopify.com slash Bartlett. One dollar a month. No way. On this point of antibiotics. Um, I've heard you talk about vitamin D, vitamin C, and zinc. Mm.

54:04 As a Potential alternative to jumping straight from the not straight alternative, but in improving your natural Resistance. Okay. Um then there is evidence for both

54:19 vitamin D and vitamin C, but also zinc as backups and turn and subform, supplement form. Uh that Do seem to add. to your resilience. In the face of infections. I'm quite concerned because you know, I'm a I've got dark skin and uh

54:36 In the weather that we live in here in the UK. When I am in the UK. I worry that I won't get enough vitamin D. quote unquote supplements important, do you think? What are the supplements that you think are imperative?

54:49 None. None. Not for mo for everybody. But there are certain situations I think vitamin D is a good one and it's not just people with dark skin that have a vitamin D deficiency uh is pretty widespread in in Darker co countries, if we can call our weather. Um we know when there's not enough sun.

55:09 uh vitamin D deficiency is quite widespread and increasingly doctors do suggest you have vitamin D supplementation through the winter, particularly. Even just having a f fifteen minute outdoors with the sun will give you a fairly hefty amount. Two supplement. Not myself.

55:27 No. I don't I d uh I don't haven't spotted a need. Uh but that doesn't mean that I don't recommend supplements to people. Well there is a need.

55:39 And garlic. We've got garlic there that has a antibiotic role. Well this is yeah. Garlic. Uh what used to be called Russian penicillin and when penicillin was invented they because some parts of the world they use garlic instead of Penseven, which was hard to come by originally. And it was used in places like the w first world war to avoid some of the French foot and other problems that soldiers would get in those lousy conditions.

56:08 When talking raw now. is a very powerful prebiotic. In other words, it helps the Got Flora, the good guys down here in the Malacobium.

56:20 And there's evidence to show you. A lot of these other ones do as well, but garlic is particularly Strong. And uh when I'm dealing with a disrupted gut flora, a microbiome I will sometimes refer to

56:34 raw garlic as a treatment. But you need to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

56:42 Don't want to lose too many friends. Well what's wrong with God is it? Function. It's the aroma you give out afterwards, so. Yeah.

56:51 Your p your friends will be very polite, but they'll rather wish you hadn't. Um And some people find that it does upset. You know, when they swallow her. But I have a little trick which I call the garlic intensive. Which is when

57:07 Everything is down, the gut is in the state you maybe got a lung infection or whatever, and there's a lot of need for If you like an antibiotic type of Treatment. raw garlic, what you do is

57:22 And for all sorts of reasons, the Friday evening is the best time to do this because you got the weekend ahead of you. You take One of those clothes. Yeah, first of all On that day you haven't eaten so much, so you don't have so much on the way.

57:38 Then you take one of these clothes, you peel it. Chop it up. Small pieces. And swallow it. With water, you don't chew it, just

57:46 Chop it up and swallow with a little bit of water. And wait for half an hour. Just to make sure that that's okay. Your stomach's okay.

57:56 If it is. Take another cloth. Touch it up. Swallow it. Another half hour later take another clove.

58:04 And if you start at six o'clock by ten o'clock in the evening, you've got eight cloves inside you. Eight. And what and what's that gonna do? Well. That's the point. You you usually go to bed and I would suggest you go to bed alone at this point,'cause you're not very friendly at this point,'cause you're

58:21 Oozing. Got it. the aroma of garlic is coming out of all your pores. Incidentally, it's also coming out of And

58:31 You know, there was an old trick where you used to be able to if you had enough garlic breathe on a petri dish in a laboratory with various pathogens and you could kill them just with your breath. You know, it's uh the o oil of garlic is a powerful antiseptic. But what is doing in the lower Digestion. Is it seems the good guys down there quite like it. But the bad guys, you know, in the old days we had garlic was, you know, against the devil and it looks as though the bad guys down there don't like garlic.

58:59 So just doing that. Over a weekend. can make a big difference to your Good. the good guys in the microbiome. And if you got a low level gut or lung infection

59:13 That can be really helpful. But that's you know. Something you can do at home, but you don't want to do that too often, in fact. I would suggest that one garlic intention is probably enough for most people. So prebiotic effects, it has an anti microbial properties.

59:29 Um Which is it good for pain? Called it Russian penicillin, is it? Yeah. Well it depends where the pain's coming from. Um but if your pain is a cough or a chest infection, yes. particular particularly good for chest infections. Some people do use it for arthritic problems. Uh it will depend on what's

59:48 causing the arthritis. I you know, and I it's very hard for me to say one of these things will do it for everybody. It won't, it'll do for in certain situations. And what we learn when we're dealing with plants is that You're the g you're the boss. You find out for yourself.

1:00:06 All people like me do is say, Well give this a try. This is worth trying. This is valuable. Why don't you g give it a go? How do you think about Chronic pain. There's so many people living with

1:00:19 It affects fifty one point six million people, I believe, just in the US alone. And the most common forms of chronic pain are conditions such as arthritis or migraines or lower back pain or other types of nerve damage. Roughly seventy five to eighty five percent of Americans will experience some form of back pain during their lives. When I think about this big

1:00:40 Array of plants that are in front of me and other plants. What is What is the first place to go in your mind if you're dealing with chronic pa pain? It depends again where it is, but let's take joints and back.

1:00:51 Um you know where you've got a joint and uh That's causing. And it's because it's inflamed. Yeah. So

1:00:58 What When you have inflammation, you add itis to the name of the But so this is arthritis. Because it's It's a inflammation of the the joint. Um you have cystitis, which is w the bladder, you have bronchitis if it's the lungs, gastrite if it's the stomach. So it tells us there's an inflammation.

1:01:17 And mostly. with arthritis is an inflammation. Um Briefly is because There's junk being dumped.

1:01:26 On the joint. The Joints have got very poor circulation by design because, you know, there's there's surfaces being pressed against each other. And so the Tissue in the joint is cartilage.

1:01:39 um which is designed to survive with very poor circulation because you know when you've got Two things pressing in there's not much room for blood in there. So if there is metabolic Waste. Let's call it junk.

1:01:56 In the system. It's more likely to come out in these places where there's poor circulation. Sometimes things are a bit like a U bend under a basin, you know, if there's any Stuff in the sink is gonna come to Deposit there. So I think of joints is a bit like a U Bin.

1:02:12 Mm. So the first thing that people did With a joint pain. An inflammation of the joint was to help to clean Do I bring more blood.

1:02:22 into the area. And that's what the inflammation is doing. Is so. Hm. Like. Anyhow.

1:02:29 But what it's doing is bringing more blood in by brute force. to do what I was just saying. But if you were to put on a mustard plaster. Or a K N plaster. A cane pepper plaster.

1:02:43 Which is simply put on on the ex outside. And you can buy these in pharmacies and so on, that's called capsicum. Um It's a standard prescription. Dressing.

1:02:57 For a pain. What it does is it brings the blood in directly. And that means the information doesn't have to do it. And the inflammation is sore. What you're doing isn't.

1:03:09 So by definition, you're reducing the pain level. Mm-hmm. That's an example of using plants in a Creative way. Which people always did.

1:03:19 They used to do that back in the day. Oh yes. Yeah, I mean if you go to North America, the uh the native populations would regularly use K in Self.

1:03:30 For Yeah. And Europe it was mostly mustard. Um then we're talking the yellow mustard, the one that's strong uses a plaster over a

1:03:40 Joint. Arthritis in your fingers, and this is something anyone can do with Yeah. Use a mustard bath, put your fingers into a s Dilute warm solution of mustard.

1:03:53 And It's amazing how quickly they ease up. Or you could put a plaster on a hip or whatever. Um people Always did this.

1:04:02 Have you seen this work in your practice? Oh yes. And I often recommend it to patients and they keep reporting back. It's really makes a difference. I think I worry about lower back pain'cause I spend so long sitting down and I've got low back pain too. And I didn't use herbs very much for that.

1:04:20 What did you do? Well, it was a long story, but there was a very Good uh West. African combo called O C Bisa, which I saw back in the day.

1:04:31 When I had really bad back. And I got the music got so into me that I loosened up. And began to jive and dance around and realize that my back had gone and had stayed gone for decades. It's just

1:04:44 unblocked or not. So that wasn't any herb, that wasn't any plant. Dancing. Duncan.

1:04:51 I mean letting the music get into you. Was the difference. Well, you know, when you feel the music. running through, you know, you're just moving in With the beat.

1:05:01 in a that loosens up a lot of knots. You know, I don't just do plants. I you know, I talk about breathing, I talk about exercises that you can do for yourself. And uh sometimes when you got a joint pain it's all about is locked.

1:05:17 And you can find ways of Loosening. That joint. I be proofing. Yes. People reach for this all the time. I mean I was looking at some of the search trend data for IB proofing.

1:05:33 And it is absolutely exploding. Yes. Um that's the the search graph I'd be proofing. And it is but it's m one of the most widely used drugs in this country. Um obviously'cause it works. And it's based on Um

1:05:51 A plant. substance called salica salicylic acid. Um which Gave us aspirin. And

1:06:00 we still use th the basic molecule to create the what we call non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs and ibuprofen is one of the Most widely used of those. And basically they cut the inflammatory t Process. Just

1:06:17 Cut it. And so the inflammation does Diminishes. Which is good, right?

1:06:24 Well if it gets rid of the pain it is. But there's a Always a follow up question. Why was that information necessary? Because inflammation is a defense. It's one of my most powerful defenses we have in the body.

1:06:39 And whenever someone is saying I'm on a I need Iborophin My next question is what can we do to reduce the need for the information? I was saying This

1:06:52 Junk, shall we say. Being dumped. on the joint, can we help to relieve that? Can we go upstream and reduce some of the metabolic strain. You know, people eat sometimes the wrong food and sometimes increases arthritis. Uh you can improve your arthritis by h switching to more plants very often. Um, but there are other things that we can give that seem to help reduce some of those pressures. But the pain might be somewhere else.

1:07:17 It might be linked to a Full blown. Disease. Yeah, and in that case. You know

1:07:25 using anti inflammatory is the only thing you can do. But If there is a way in which we can help reduce the need for that inflammation in the first place, I would much prefer to do that than just suppressed. A natural defence. We we tend to think of inflammation as the enemy. We do, and I think we're wrong.

1:07:44 We think of it as the disease itself. We are wrong. It's the Consequence of a problem. And it's inflammation itself is a healthy response. It's

1:07:54 When we bring out the You know, I sometimes use military language here and there's a bunch of white blood cells that I liken to marines. You know, these these are guys who when they're working well they just go in and do the job. They don't

1:08:09 sort of figure it out. They don't ask questions, they just go and do the job. We got a whole bunch of white blood cells that Fine. They we call them neutrophils m and the there's various others of that group. And they just go in and whack'em.

1:08:24 Inflammation is bringing those guys out faster and harder. So we're bringing in more of the Marines, if you like. To finish the job. What's wrong with that? You know, that's what we want to do.

1:08:36 It happens to be soar. Then If they don't do the job and then junk or the problem keeps piling in, then the p marines become the problem and then we use the ibuprofen to Shut them up.

1:08:51 But as I said, there's always a question, you know, why are we What's what's the consequence of stopping this Internal. Cleansing process. Yeah.

1:09:01 uh is so important. So inflammation is not The enemy information is The Defense. measure that can sometimes overstay its welcome.

1:09:12 I had an injury in my ankle a couple of couple of months back. Because I I pulled some some of the ligaments down there and my ankle swelled up. And I was getting conflicting information from people about the information,'cause I had this big football game coming up this for this charity match called Soccer Aid at Old Trafford. And I had one of my physios telling me

1:09:30 to apply the ice thing and take anti inflammatories and I had another one telling me something else about the inflammation that actually I didn't wanna combat the inflammation because it was doing its job. And so it it's quite difficult to navigate whether One should let inflammation stay. Mm.

1:09:48 If I should be taking anti inflammatories or I be proofing. Um if you've got a match to you sometimes need something just to get you match fit or m match acceptable. Um but if it's a short term, we call it acute inflammation, then Overwhelmingly the advice is Don't suppress it. Because in the short term.

1:10:08 Yeah, we get a cut, get a bit of dirt, it gets swollen, maybe a bit of pus and so on. And after a while It sorts itself out. That's this miracle I called talked about earlier. The body heals itself all the time. That's information doing its job properly. Cleaning out. The Marines go in.

1:10:25 Clear all the stuff out. Back to normal. That's great. It's only if it's a said.

1:10:33 The junk keep piling in. the job doesn't get finished and we call that chronic inflammation. That's when you sometimes need a bit of help. And chronic inflammation is of often caused by something further upstream, right? So you try and think about what's causing it upstream. Exactly so. And what tends to be the perpetrator upstream.

1:10:54 The gut is where most of these things begin. Thanks. Where we take most foreign material. Oh, almost all of it. has to be dealt with by the gut.

1:11:05 So that's where most of our immune system is. You know, we talk about the immune system, but you know, the majority of the immune system is a m few millimeters away from the lining of the gut because that's where the action is. That's where all the foreign stuff is. So if there's a disruption there, it's W that's the first place to begin. Uh'cause it's usually the best place to begin. Uh and if we add the what we talked about the microbiome as another big factor.

1:11:31 Then there's plenty to work. Done with down there. So if it's a chronic inflammation. I will spend a lot of time looking at what might be going on down there. And what's the typical suggestion if it is a

1:11:44 A gut related problem. Uh get the best food you can down there, which is mostly plant based. um I mean the reception to that. Uh but in if we're looking at restoring your good The gut does seem to like.

1:12:03 Plans at this point. Um so we talk about, you know, having a wide range of plants. You know, the the the current uh advice from one or two people is that you would aim to have thirty different types of plant per week, you know, just to get the diversity'cause we don't know which one you need. So I didn't give as much difference as you can.

1:12:24 And Yeah, they're Yeah, people think you can't afford To eat healthily. All I would suggest is that you go and travel to somewhere like India or anywhere in Asia where they eat

1:12:40 Pretty much a lot of plants, mostly plants. For pennies. You know, you can make a healthy meal. By if you know how to cook. by just mixing some of these simple the dolls and the m the root vegetables and the other vegetables easily mixed together.

1:12:56 A few spices in there. Absolutely delicious. And your Got. And your microbiome will be.

1:13:04 Jumping with glee. You talk about eating your rainbow. Yes. What does that mean? Means as many colours as you can fit in. Um literally. Because each colour is caused is produced by a constituent of plants.

1:13:19 Many of them we call it. Polyphenols. Which we know have a range of effects. On all sorts of Awesome.

1:13:28 Mainly on the microbiome again, because they're all in different ways. Pre biotic, they all Help good guys. Prosper down there. But then after the microbiome is processed and which is interesting, the microbiome is in Is critical.

1:13:44 For processing polyphenols. They don't get absorbed unless the microbiome breaks them up already. So The benefits of the colours depend on The good guys down here.

1:13:57 they start doing all sorts of wonderful things. to the lining of the blood vessels, for example. Up into the brain. Where we got a What we call a blood brain barrier.

1:14:07 Which is actually a very exciting Interface. The Polyphenols The colours.

1:14:13 All have Well established mechanisms. That improves the health. All round the body. So simple. If you got a child.

1:14:23 We now say. Eat your rainbow. The more different colours the better. Wonder if that's why they put so many um artificial dyes in junk food. To try and trick our brains into thinking it's

1:14:36 No, there's nothing quite like the original. In terms of fruit. What are your favorite? fruits to sort of recommend people to eat and why? Probably the the if you wanted to s have a sh you know a top

1:14:49 The darker the colour the better. So we talk about purples and I'm pleased to see that uh your team has found a purple carrot there. We remind ourselves that most vegetables were purple. Once upon a time, if you think of maize, you know, in the the s the sweet corn and the maize that you grow in the Americas, that mostly was originally purple. And we bred the purple out because it didn't look so appetizing.

1:15:16 And we're probably purple deficiency. Uh I think we could do with more purple in our lives. Because the Yeah. These are

1:15:29 types of polyphenol. And they're particularly Powerful, particularly with a blood supply. We're talking about things like eyesight and brain health and blood pressure control and all those sort of things.

1:15:43 Can be improved just by having more purple in our lives. So we've got beetroots, that'll do. We've got the berries, uh uh red grapes are probably more But the yeah, we got the red grapes here. There's got more of these than the yellow th the grapes do. Um so I was start with the reds and purples. You said

1:16:03 You think we're purple deficient. I mean just Yeah. Interesting to say, but it's probably something in that. Yeah.

1:16:15 And in terms of vegetables, what are your favorite go to vegetables that that you'd recommend I eat? Uh start with the roots. The root vegetables, the carrots, the beetroots, the parsnips. the the uh the various other root vegetables out there. Not always of people's favourites, but they have uh fibre uh sort of starch in them.

1:16:35 Which is particularly Pre biotic. And some of the most powerful prebiotics are the root vegetable. So Those are definitely worth having. The greens obviously and broccoli.

1:16:48 And interestingly I found a purple one. Uh which are easy enough to get. So you know, you can get the Yeah. But any broccoli, any of the cabbage family. is full of all sorts of other ingredients uh that have their own benefits.

1:17:06 In all sorts of ways, metabolism. Got. Or Mono. Blood supply. So Greens

1:17:14 Well it's And The big Well in most people's lives are the grains. You know, weed.

1:17:21 But Uh cereals, lentils, Uh all of these have their own benefits. Particularly for the

1:17:32 I could buy them. Yeah, again. I don't know exactly what. even I need, let alone what anyone else needs. So I the best thing to do is to have as much diversity as possible.

1:17:44 What is your diet? It's a mixture of the Vegans, you eat meat. Yeah. And I have um you know, I just have a broad range of what most humans have eaten, which is a mixture of things. Uh I do with obviously many of my patients are vegans and they can you can live quite well with them. You have to add a few extra things just to cover your back on a few p areas, but you can live perfectly well. least uh when you're a grown up, an adult on a Plant only diet.

1:18:11 Um but you know Who am I to say that an Inuit And The Arctic. Who never sees any vegetable ever and only lives on

1:18:23 Uh traditionally only lives on s seal and whale meat and blah blah. Is any less healthy than someone in Thailand who lives only on rice and vegetables? Yeah, we're all We we can cope with all sorts of variety of foods. There isn't one food for everybody.

1:18:39 I think we would we were discussing before we started recording that I I'm currently on a ketosis Which basically means that I'm Extremely low carb in my diet. Yes. Basically consuming no sugar. Um What do you think of the keto diet?

1:18:55 What's been your experience with it? They can be, and I think y y you're one of those that would get a lot of benefit from it. Um because it I mean sugar's Uh You know, they're in a lot of vegetable material. And of course, unfortunately we have sugar now as an added um to our diets. Um they tend to slow down various parts of your metabolism. They tend to make metabolism a bit more like hard work. And so if you take those out and some of the more

1:19:22 Sugar producing carbs. Then you're freeing up a lot of energy. So A lot of people on key To diets find that You know, they're sharper. That's probably what you do. Um

1:19:35 But there are potential. interestingly, you know, and the first thought was well that can't be very good for your microbiome because they Rely on um f vegetable material to a large part. But when we've looked at the microbiome of

1:19:50 Keto di after keto diets. It's not as it's actually there's some good guys that Re emerge. With a keto diet. So it's a mixed bag. The only thing is is that when you don't have as many plants in your diet, then there's slightly more strain on things like liver and kidney function. So

1:20:09 Someone who's taking keto for a long term. It's always a good idea to check that they're okay. And some of the more long term concerns have been around kidney. Um because if there's a lot more of the animal based material in the in food, then that's

1:20:25 can be more hard work for the kidney. So it's always worth checking that those functions are doing well. But I come back to the point, uh there is no one size fits all We are omnivores, we're designed to eat almost anything. Mine Girlfriend she's doing key to it.

1:20:43 As well, and she noticed that her menstrual cycle became more regular. Yes. When she she was like shocked by it. And she's really done a lot of A B testing over the the last couple of years. And whenever she's in a ke ketogenic diet, very low carb, very low sugar diet for Six weeks.

1:21:00 She was shocked that she could Predict the day when her Period would come. And outside of that sometimes it's really Varying.

1:21:09 Well there's a very good point about keto. One of the most effective things that keto does is it reduces insulin resistance. Which is something that most of us suffer as we get older and larger as we get on uh through our life. Insulin is the hormone that

1:21:26 Packs sugar way into the s into the tissues. And then to the liver. And th uh insulin we would have diabetes.

1:21:37 Um Insulin. it resistance is growing and that leads to diabetes increasingly. And so diabetes is in many most parts of the world now is becoming a r another big health issue. And it's mainly because we have too many carbs, too much sugar in the diet because Whenever we eat sugar, particularly sugar. There's more work for the insulin to do, so it gets more likely to get run down and tired.

1:22:03 When you're on a keto diet. It's been observed. That you're You get more insulin sensitive. So in other words, insulin works better.

1:22:14 So you can reverse early stages of diabetes by switching to a keto, for example. Now interestingly many menstrual problems. A linked.

1:22:24 So Insulin resistance. And then something called PCOS. Which official. Quite a lot of women now.

1:22:32 Uh in which the ovaries Basically produce more hormone producing cysts. Mm. And that is increasingly linked with insulin. Resistance.

1:22:45 So it affects people who are are more likely to be in the pre diabetic. Face or Putting on weight and that sort of thing. The incident resistance itself.

1:22:56 balance and the menstrual cycle is a m wonderful choreography. I mean when you think about it, you know, all around the world is a s it's a pretty predictable cycle. And it runs itself. But if th there's something on insane resistance getting in the way Then that can disrupt.

1:23:17 So Someone like your girlfriend. Might find that switching to a keto diet. abolishes or reduces. That disruptor.

1:23:27 Yeah, I yeah, I was just reading some stats on that. So that eighty percent of women with PCOS have some degree of insulin resistance, even those who aren't overweight, and my girlfriend does have PCOS, which she's talked about publicly before. So it's no surprise that uh That when she comes off. She takes sugar out of her diet, her menstrual cycle seems to fall back in line and I think there's also links to insulin resistance PCOS and

1:23:52 I guess ovulation and fertility. Yes. It is uh I think uh I mean the mo the modern woman, the modern man for that matter, has a whole string of burdens to carry because we have too much sugar. I mean when you think about it. Yeah, uh sugar only emerge as a

1:24:07 common ingredient, and Uh up till that time only very rich people could afford it. Then we had the industrial sugar.

1:24:17 production and uh a a lot of slaves over in the Americas producing vast amounts of cane sugar. That is a modern phenomenon and our boded to deal with the amount of sugar that we now feed it. And it does put a strain on the system, and insulin is one of the f guys caught in the mix. So if you're trying to have kids Which we are now. I guess you wanna remove the uh

1:24:44 If that's a factor, I would be looking at reducing your sugar intake at the very least, yeah. I mean we spent uh uh I spend a lot of time with uh women who are having difficulty conceiving. And you know I think I have about thirteen herb babies.

1:25:01 You know, in other words. Babies who were born with women who were having Challenges. Getting pregnant. And that was all

1:25:10 Mainly, I think, because we were stabilizing the menstrual cycle and making the fur Tile. phase a bit more productive. W what do you say to those women? You you What do you prescribe, I guess?

1:25:23 I do. I mean that's my business I will be prescribing, so you see there's some bottles there. Uh these are the sort of things that we use in the practice. Um So I've given a Um

1:25:37 Just Yeah. Yeah. Which we all think we know. But these uh

1:25:45 Very strong. Extractions that only practitioners use. So these are practitioner owned supplies. And when you smell it you realise that the That they are strong.

1:25:56 Yeah. So a teaspoon of that is a really powerful. No, if you really want. Two Realized the power of herbs.

1:26:10 This is a remedy called Echinacea, and a lot of people know about Echinacea and It's a major supplement. This is a Route. extraction from a variety of species of Echinacea called angostifolia.

1:26:25 I'm just gonna put a little bit in there. I'm gonna test it. Not poisoning you. So you just take A little.

1:26:40 Do I put out my skin or? Or did you want me to shop that? Oh. Wow. Mm.

1:26:53 So these are the sort of things this is just a particularly striking example of the sort of things that we use in the practice. And so Some of them. The women that come to me, for example, with fertility or menstrual problems will go out with a mix of herbs f drawn like this from a about a hundred or so different plants that I have on the shelves. And they are often, as I said earlier,

1:27:19 Wem remedies. Developed by women. Um and uh incidentally North America is is a prime site for some rarely powerful Women's Remedies.

1:27:31 Um And interestingly when you look at them. You find they contain plants equivalent of steroids. They're not steroids, but they seem to interact with our own.

1:27:41 Hormone. mechanisms and some of them were particularly good at re Timing. The menstrual cycle and the the one or two that were particularly.

1:27:51 warned that women should not take unless they wish to be pregnant so effective were they? What's that f what's that doing to you? So basically for anyone that can't see what we're doing'cause you're listening on audio. He put a little drop of this uh solution. Echinacea. Echinacea on my finger. And I licked it off my finger.

1:28:12 And at first I was like there was a this sort of taste journey, which was interesting. It kinda tastes like Maggie seasoning, some kind of food seasoning. I'm now sixty seconds later. And I can still it's like got more intense. It's a bit like a fireworks thing on it. Yeah, it's like fireworks going off in my mouth. And all it was was a little lick of it. Um What we use that for is for infections or

1:28:34 Problems of the mouth and the throat particularly. What was it doing? Well, you know you have to use bit of unscientific language here. But remember I talked about the Marines, you know, the guys who do all the battling for us. A lot of them hang out. Their barracks are in the throat. Yeah, we've got tonsils, we've got adenoids, we got the glands that run down our neck here that sometimes get swelled up.

1:28:55 You know, if we got an infection in this area. Yeah, you have to take something to take the taste. It sometimes gets in the way of talking as well. I was hesitating before giving it to you. Didn't want to stop you in your in your s steps. But what's that that tingling? Yeah. Cut of as I said, or rather Confusing story short, those are constituents that

1:29:17 Almost seem to talk directly to those white blood cells. And make them. More than active.

1:29:24 And so Echinacea In that form particularly. works primarily on the front line, shall we call it, of our immune system? These Battlers though.

1:29:36 Yeah. And so often that's where you want to start the job. And you might have an infection somewhere else in the body, but if you can work Up here with these guys. You can kick off all sorts of benefits.

1:29:50 And as you've just discovered, it doesn't take long. Yeah, yeah. So so who should be thinking about echinesia? Certainly if you got And an upper respiratory

1:30:00 problem. And you you do need to get that tingle if you want to get that particular effect. I mean you can have echinacea in other forms Pills and tablets and so on. Uh and there are some which don't Have that. That Tingle Factor. They got other elements to it. But for the tingle factor. It's anything to do with an infection that has a link to what's going on

1:30:20 Up here. And that could be for lower down in the gut as well, because all You know I got. begins up here as well. But it could be a sinus problem, it could be a middle ear problem, it could be a throat problem, it could be a gum problem. You know, we've got all sorts of gum problems and all sorts of problems we have with mouth. Uh we've got a microbiome up here as well.

1:30:41 Um This can With one or two other things. Some of the plants we use in this form contain resins. An example is uh frankincensus. We got some tablets there. These ones.

1:30:54 And this just comes in a In a uh in a in the form of tablets. Yeah. It just look like any other tablets is they're sort of greeny

1:31:06 Yellow colour because that's just ground up. Um Uh resin. Uh resin we know about that because it's the sort of thing you get on out of pine trees. You know, that very tacky. Stuff.

1:31:22 All we need to do is remember the Bible story. Um there were three gifts that the baby Jesus got, didn't he? For his birthday from those wise men. Bombers gold, fair enough. The other two are resins.

1:31:35 This is the frankincense. I use myrrh in a liquid form. And you almost like you're lining the mouth with uh this Resin in a It's

1:31:48 When you Put. Some myrrh on the mouth, you definitely feel the the mucos are firing up. And it was most widely used, um

1:31:59 medicine and the reason why it was so valued in the in those days by the three wise men is because myrrh was And first of all they had to bring it out of Africa. He knows where he comes from. Um Remember the Queen of Sheba who married Solomon, you know, in the old uh Bible story. Queen of Sheba had the trade routes of East A East Africa sorted, so Solomon

1:32:23 married wisely by marrying the Queen of Sheba because she was she had the monopoly on um On myr, particularly and on frankincense. And but those And echinesia. Maybe we'll do the licorice to help it.

1:32:38 are amazing at reducing infections in this area. And the mouth and the throat and the sinuses and the There is a round.

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1:34:48 I will speak to you then. Do you think that um things like water fasts. People are doing a lot of these sort of water fasts and these sort of seven day prolonged fasts are effective Medicines.

1:35:07 Uh y my u usual answer when I'm faced with a question and and someone needed to answer for him is to think back a bit. What did humans evolve to do? And when we were hunter gatherers, which, you know, was three or four hundred thousand years we were hunter gatherers. And now what we're doing now is a Tiny. But we evolved to eat.

1:35:25 Intermittently. You know, when you're a hunter gatherer there are times when you're not eating at all, especially off season. You get very hungry. And then you eat a lot and you have a big feast. So I think our systems were designed to be intermittent fasting. And fasting is probably part of our

1:35:43 Gene makeup. You know, that's what we were in a sense meant to do. So The fundamental principle of fasting is probably Right on.

1:35:52 Issue is is that sometimes if Your metabolism, your digestion, your hormones or other functions are not Prime. Yeah.

1:36:03 Fasting, particularly if it's extended, can actually be damaging. So You do need a bit of advice. if you're going down that route just to make sure it's okay for you. Yeah.

1:36:14 And y at the start of the conversation you referenced that you deal with a lot of cancer patients. I think you said one third That's all third of my Quarter, maybe a quarter to a third, yeah. Uh living with cancer. Living with cancer. Which is something that's relatively new, remember, because I mean that is a testament to What Morton Medson has done.

1:36:35 'Cause when I started out all those decades ago Most people died with cancer. or increasingly eating people living with cancer for extended periods of time. And The cancer is not

1:36:49 I mean we are there are things we can do to help And there is evidence to show that we can help reduce the risk at least, and if not sometimes the Um But mostly what we're doing is helping people to

1:37:04 Well they've been through chemo or various other treatments while they're still recovering from the cancer and its effects. And it could be digestion. It could be things like sleep. It could be, you know, all sorts of other things that we can do to help. So there's there's the the preventative element, which is doing things within your sort of lifestyle choices, your diet, to reduce the the likelihood you'll get. Answer, but then once you have it, there's ways you can

1:37:28 use herbs and other sort of remedies to but to deal with Life. Life. Generally. When you th when you think about cancer prevention.

1:37:38 Is it Did you think that one of the most powerful things we can do is To focus on what we're putting inside our bodies. Yes. And you know, we've learned about cigarettes a long time ago. And there are other foods that have got a Higher risk.

1:37:52 of cancer. We talk about, you know, processed meats, for example, has increasingly being seen as a cancer risk. Um, but I suggest that the main risk in cancer is just Poor diets generally. too much fat, too much carbs, too much sugar uh all at once usually. Um that Strains the body in a way wasn't meant to be.

1:38:11 And there is evidence to show that by correcting poor diet you can Prevent uh Cancer, increasingly that's accepted. I I'm pretty sure that the the cardiovascular diseases are the the single biggest killer still. Uh cardiovascular in the West we're talking about, so in developed countries.

1:38:29 Catch up, I'm afraid, in uh other. parts of the world where they adopt More Western lifestyles. Uh but that's a combination of food and poor lower level of exercise, um that Well.

1:38:42 There's also a cardiovascular disease is a is another form of long term inflammation. And increasingly. That's been understood, you know, it's not just fat or cholesterol or

1:38:55 Yeah. It's an inflammatory mechanism going on. that's causing the harm. And that's increasingly accepted by cardiologists and such. So if I'm if I'm trying to Mm.

1:39:07 reduce my chances of having some kind of heart related issue. Are there any herb or any products here that you think are beneficial? Mostly it's the food when we're talking about long term cardiovascular health. Uh we have plants that we use uh to manage cardiac or cardiovascular problems. I mean the classic that a lot of people know about is the Hawthorne or the Mayflower. But the Hawthorne

1:39:32 Particularly the flower and the leaf. Used be of regular home remedy that people used to use and drink as a tea, uh, for all sorts of reasons, m you know, p managing fevers and all sorts of things like that. But we can we can now see regular Hawthorn consumption. Hawthorn leaf consumption as a preventative for some of the problems of cardiovascular. Just as an example.

1:39:56 I would I would use spices as my main go to to help to fend off cardiovascular problems'cause they all have Vascular benefits. The ginger and the cinnamon we talked about. But here's turmeric. This is something we don't usually see in

1:40:15 But if you can see there's the the in fact if you cut that with your knife there. Yeah, you'll see it's bright yeah, it's bright orange. That's The Kirkman.

1:40:28 that people use as a supplement. I've got curcumin at home. I was um I was advised to use that when I pulled the ligaments of my ankle. Yes. It's anti inflammatory, isn't it? You can see a little bit why I don't like using anti inflammatory, because I like inflammation as a friend. So what I prefer to talk about is the modulator support or Manage inflammation.

1:40:50 Uh but Timerick. is an extraordinary. Remedy. And here's an interesting story. We talk about We need curcumin th from turmeric. And you'll get a supplement saying, you know, my curcum my turmeric's got more curcumin than yours and it's more available.

1:41:05 The interesting point is that Curcumin is not absorbed by into the body at all. About one or two percent maybe.

1:41:14 The rest stays stubbornly. in the gut. And there's a very good reason for that, because in any high dose curcumin is Tonks. So there's a good reason for it staying in the gut.

1:41:27 But there's a lot of work on making it more bioavailable, getting the levels up in the blood. And if you add pepper, you might get from one or two percent to two to three percent, you know, but it's still A small beer. compared with the amount of turmeric that we Uh

1:41:43 take uh the amounts of curkamine that we take in in an ordinary curry. So what's going on? And that what is going on is that Kirkman and in Turmeric is one of the best remedies we have For microbiome. Desert.

1:41:58 conversation going on. The turmeric is encouraging the good guys. The good guys are breaking turmeric and curk him down into more available Materials which are active. It belongs. in the gut. And it's

1:42:12 inflammatory modulating effects. Come Mostly. from the products of the microbiome. Working.

1:42:19 On the Kirkman. And moving through the body that away. So it's a wonderful lesson in You know, the the

1:42:28 Actually relies in this case almost entirely on a good Microbiome. An effect that is reduced, by the way, if you have a lot of antibiotics. Okay, so

1:42:42 My microbiome is really the processing center. Oh. Many of these things. And if I have a bad gut microbiome because I've been eating the wrong foods and I haven't had diversity of plants, then even if I take Some of these herbs that are good for me.

1:42:56 I won't be able to process them properly anyway. Yes, that is true. We talk about uh we the the the We've got probiotics, which is the yoguts and the kimchi and the kafirs and so on, which are f actually living organisms. They have to get through the stomach, by the way, which is quite hard.

1:43:15 Deal because the stomach's job is to sterilize. Food, but some of them will get through. Those are the probiotics. The prebiotics are what we've been talking about here. the foods that will encourage the good guys. in the microbiome. We've got a new kid on the block called Postbiotics.

1:43:33 Mm-hmm. Which is now an industrial term used for killed bacteria, which are then given as a medicine. Technically a post biotic is anything that the bacteria produce. Mm-hmm. And we're learning that more and more of what we eat, particularly from the plant side is converted by the microbiome into medicines.

1:43:55 And all those polyphenols and the colourings and so on are in that group. So a lot of the benefits of polyphenols are post biotic benefits. There was a study done in two thousand and Seven that showed Can't even say it.

1:44:09 Cumin. That shows curcumin upregulates Anti oxidance defenses and down regulates oxidative stress. Yeah. There's a study done in two thousand and sixteen, which is a meta analysis of

1:44:23 random control trials found curcuminum comparable to Ivy proof and In terms of pain relief. Answers your earlier question, doesn't it? And there's a lot of uh lots of studies that show that it's effective for people that have Things like arthritis.

1:44:39 And joint pains. Yeah, that was leaving the best to last. Mm. Yeah, there there's a lot of work on Uh as I say a lot of people get confused because they think the air it only works if you absorb it into the blood.

1:44:54 And I'm saying that actually you don't What you do is you Work with a microbiome to make it useful. And there's early pre clinical studies taking place.

1:45:04 around the impact it can have with cancers and there's promising but early studies showing the impact that curcumin That comes from tumor, it can have on brain health. Yes, well that's uh definitely a big story. But just uh on the when you m say preclinical, that usually mean that it does mean laboratory. So that's A test tubes, and B rats and other animals. Mm. None of those tell us what happens when we

1:45:29 Put it in a human. So all the preclinical study will do is point to a possible effect. And time again pharmaceutical companies will tell you this. You know, a promising pre clinical lead doesn't lead to a medicine because it turns out to be a toxic or doesn't agree with humans. So we take preclinical evidence with caution and we're Personally m I'm mostly interested in human Studies because that's the only thing that makes any sense. Um but you mentioned brain health.

1:45:57 One of the big gaps we have, don't we?'Cause we've we've got a lot of brain health Issues. Right now. Dementia is

1:46:07 Still. Going in the wrong direction. Um it's a very distressing thing if you have any in your family. And increasingly there's people saying, What can we do?

1:46:20 And Alzheimer is is all about there being the wrong sort of protein and deposits in the brain. But increasingly Uh Focus is switching on to the blood supply. to the brain.

1:46:33 What we call the vascular. Effects. On the brain. And there's something we used to call the blood brain barrier. which you've probably heard of, which is seen to be the place where uh the barrier that stops a lot of stuff.

1:46:47 Entering the brain and potentially upsetting it. We now know this blood brain barrier is a very Dynamic. interesting interface between The

1:46:58 Brains, tissue, and the rest of us. is now called the neurovascular unit. And it is so exciting. And the more we look at it So far the more we find that the things that help the

1:47:13 Neurovascular unit, the blood brain barrier. Uh plants. And We have green tea. And you know, we can uh if we if we really want to help

1:47:24 Um Uh Brain health, regular drinking of green tea. You know. i is been shown to be really useful. Not that rather than the supplement, by the way.

1:47:40 Right. So we can make it. So As you make that, can you explain to me? why green tea is

1:47:47 A good idea. Because it contains a number of Gain polyphenols. And polyphenols are those. These colours. These colours, yeah. In this case it's green, obviously. And remember, green tea is just the smoked unprocessed

1:48:03 It's a plant called Camellia. Um So this is a nice Japanese.

1:48:14 Tea pot, that's the sort of thing. You'd have green tea in. And these are the mugs, but we've filled these off already with uh Uh ginger and cinnamon. So

1:48:28 Polyphenols and green tea that seem to be particularly Effective. in modulating that barrier we talked about the neurovascular unit between the brain and the rest of us. And um Uh there's all sorts of reasons why regular consumption of green tea seems to be linked to less of this.

1:48:48 Sort of trouble. What what sort of trouble? dementia type problems. The culture declined as you get older. Do they find that in cultures where they drink a lot of green tea they have less dementia? Yeah, but that doesn't mean there's a cause and effect. So you need a few other things to establish that.

1:49:03 What we're finding is that other plants have very likely powerful effects in this area. And I mentioned the rosemary. No, all you need to do to Appreciate Rosemary's to press it and sniff. Oh smell so good. Mm. Really nice.

1:49:21 That's not just nice because what you're doing there is you're inhaling volatile oils. The things that give the smell. And when you're inhaling. They're literally going into your brain. Because

1:49:33 Actually It's called the olfactory lobe and it's right at the top of the nose here. Mm-hmm.

1:49:40 And when you inhale something, it literally moves into the brain. And from there into the limbic system. Remember there's a line in the Shakespeare play called H Hamlet, Philia. Yeah. Caesar.

1:49:55 Rose me. That's for remembrance. Mm-hmm. Because everyone knew that this improved cognitive. functions of when I was in working on our campus in Maryland. We actually use a clinical trial with rosemary.

1:50:08 in people with struggling with their crosswords, you know, as they get older and found that although it wasn't a conclusive study, there were pointers to it improving cognitive or Forms. in those people. And there's been other studies since that re is that reinforce that. I would say that Rosemary is one of the ones to watch. in terms of long term brain health. There's another remedy called Ginkgo.

1:50:32 that a lot of people know about, which that's used as a prescription medicine in Europe. Uh for cardiovascular problems. And that's been shown To be likely useful and using the same sort of mechanisms as as we've seen here.

1:50:47 And with the green tea. I'll s check it here. Yeah, that looks all right. Yeah. You see it's more yellow than green.

1:50:58 But uh And uh this is flavoured with a little bit of mint to make it a little more Agreeable. Sometimes people find green tea is not their favorite taste. Green tea is rich in polyphenols. Um

1:51:12 which are linked to benefits ranging from heart and brain health to fat loss and cancer prevention. It's got nice. Minty flavour. Yeah. With that, can you.

1:51:25 Yeah. My girlfriend out again, she she's all over this stuff. She's always bloody right. Yeah. Well you know that for lear that that's a long time ago. I know, right? Like I say it all the time on this podcast, but she's always like Two three years ahead.

1:51:37 of what then someone really, really smart comes and tells me. And I spend those two or three years in denial. I'm like, what the fuck is she like But get me start on Kacao if you start talking to me about cacao. No. She's been telling me I'm gonna nail this because there's a lot of people listening who will want to hear this. Coco. Yeah. Chocolate. Star chocolate. is a medicine.

1:51:59 End of One of the best medicines. Around. Is fifty grams or hundred grams of Seventy five percent or more.

1:52:08 Dark chocolate. Do you know what? I've just realized My girlfriend she's gonna live till she's hundred and fifty. Because She oh she Ninety percent or something, some eighty percent Dark chocolate.

1:52:20 She drinks green tea all day. She has The ginger and cinnamon drinks all day. She eats the f the full rainbow. She should be stepping in for you. I know, I I know exactly. No cocoa.

1:52:38 Brain health as well. Cardiovascular health. I mean they just they do studies where they've But

1:52:45 Coco into f volunteers that means students usually. Um you know, so young Kids. And they were able to show changes in the Yeah.

1:52:55 Within Minutes. Certainly within an hour. Oh. Eating cocoa.

1:53:01 Beneficial changes in your blood flow. They call it the heart. Medicine. Yeah. Arts, circulation, brain. Uh sh so she's um my girlfriend's very spiritual. She runs a business called Barley Breathwork. Um Hashtag ad if I have to say that. But in her business, one of the things she does at the very start of the session with women all over the world that come to her retreats is she makes

1:53:22 Yeah. And You notice instantly how people change When they've had a hot cup of cacao. It's all and and she says it like almost brings out their heart.

1:53:34 And I guess that's because of the circulation reasons, it's but it also, of course, we know it contains a few other beneficial stimul stimulating things. Sort of similar the effects of the coffee, which incidentally, as I've already said, is a medicine as well. Uh but cocoa and co chocolate Does have a uplifting effect, which is why we love it so.

1:53:55 And we have to be clear here, we're not talking about Hot chocolate that comes from a packet or something necessarily. Okay. Uh the less sugar, the less fat. Um so uh will you talk about seventy five percent cocoa solids? You know, so it's dark chocolate.

1:54:12 And it tastes a bit more medicinal, doesn't it? It's not as sweet. Um but I'm saying to many of my patients, take fifty grams a day. As a medicine. Mm. Damn.

1:54:26 She's right. My fridge is full of dark chocolate. I tend to avoid it, but the drawer of my fridge has all of her dark chocolate in and it's she she likes it ninety percent. If she can get it ninety percent, she'll take it. Yeah, ninety percent is quite now. Yeah. Yeah.

1:54:41 I am I was in Peru and I went to a chocolate making lesson and that chocolate making lesson changed my life. And it changed my life because I didn't realise how much sugar goes into Chocolate, but specifically white chocolate. Oh my God. They said they gave me this big beaker which was You know, this big, like a a foot high and a foot wide. And they were like, Right.

1:55:02 Or the sugar in. So I poured some and they're like they're like no, fill it like seventy percent with this white sugar. And I was like, there's no way. I pulled about sixty or seventy percent. white sugar into this massive tube. And they're like, Okay, now put a little bit of this in a little bit of this, a little bit of oil, whatever. And I couldn't believe that it's literally like the white chocolate is like literally all sugar. Their milk chocolate was like fifty percent sugar. And then when we did when we made the dark chocolate, it was a tiny amount, like a tiny, tiny amount.

1:55:34 And from that day onwards. White chocolate's left my life. This is once upon a time we a few years back when the Europeans Uh union. I think before we joined it.

1:55:44 said that we shouldn't call uh Dairy milk. Chocolate at all. Yeah. So this is so we've got some green tea here. Yeah. And you're talking to me about the association between green tea and Alzheimer's, which is really exciting. Yes.

1:56:02 Um There's quite a lot of work being done now on these And they're they're obviously looking for medications as well, but so far most of the data coming in relates to plant based materials. So it suggests that there's other reasons why having plants And again spices come back into the mix.

1:56:20 Um seem to be helpful for brain health. Having a look at the Green tea. There was a study done in two thousand and eight which supports how it improved cognitive function, memory attention accuracy, and um long term consumption is associated with lower risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease, according to the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry in two thousand and eleven.

1:56:51 I didn't realise I didn't I had no idea. I had no idea. All those times I turned it down when she offered it to me. Yeah. Can't say sorry.

1:57:02 I've literally literally I've got a Wow. Heart health, brain function. Fat burning and metabolism. And so pre prevention early evidence.

1:57:12 Blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. The anoral health. What about matcha? I'm a I'm a big investor in um The biggest matcha company in Europe.

1:57:22 It's probably more beneficial than the basic green tea because it's more it it's it it it's more Shall we say pure. Um it's finer quality. So the chances are that matcha will do more Then we've just said the green tea will do. Um but there's there's a evidence lacking on a lot of these things. It's we need more evidence. But it would point to matcha being particularly helpful.

1:57:46 We haven't talked much about Cholesterol. No, you haven't brought it up. Cholesterol is a type of fat made in your liver, which travels in your blood and can be found. What is um for anyone that doesn't know cholesterol.

1:58:00 what it is and why it's it if it's a good or bad thing. What do I need to know about cholesterol and is there anything in front of us here that can help? keep my cholesterol in a healthy state. I did th I think a doctor did actually tell me at one point that I had high cholesterol. Um a couple of years ago. Because of my diet at the time.

1:58:18 Well it's interesting. Again, keto you think would push up your cholesterol levels, but actually there's a mixture of effects. So it's not It's not a g done deal that it will raise your cholesterol. It the cholesterol is part of a range of fats. The Body has most of the fats that are in the body come from the food. And they come in as heavy fats, we say. And what the digestion does is it strip down the heaviness and then becomes more

1:58:47 What we call high density. Uh live a five. Lipicide HDLs. My tongue is twisting around it and uh cholesterol is sort of in the middle of that as one of the el elements within that spectrum of fats. Or who Cholesterol is actually a secreted by the liver for very good reasons. It helps with all sorts of things. It's the basis of some of our hormones. There's all sorts of reasons why we need cholesterol. I sometimes have

1:59:16 referred to in the past as the tiger and the tank, that it sort of helps to fire up some of our get up and go. And if we were physically active during the w uh during the day, working on the land or whatever, you need a certain amount of cholesterol to Motor. We're sitting in chair. And cholesterol becomes increasing a problem. We have a high fat diet. That tends to put in more of it and the

1:59:41 Many of us our cholesterol levels increasingly rise, and that is a risk factor, as we know. for cardiovascular disease. Which we said was still one of the Biggest killer. So cholesterol's up there as a risk factor, and so the usual thing that a doc will do is to hand you something a statin, basically.

2:00:02 That will root. reduce your cholesterol levels. they also know that there's more pushback on that prescription than almost anything else,'cause the word is out that statins can do this, that, or the other. Infair with your muscle strength and all the rest of it and give you a little aches and pains. You know, most people can have statements that's a problem. But the uh impact of statins is still modest in terms of the overall scheme of things. You know, the numbers of people's lives it saves is probably fairly minimal. So the probably the better conversation is to have what can we do to recontextualize the cholesterol

2:00:39 So that it becomes more like it should be a good thing rather than A risk. And the first thing is to Have a more apart from the keto, have the more vegetable based, plant based.

2:00:52 diet because that in itself will tend to mop up and reduce cholesterol. Exercise becomes important. Because by physical activity we can manage it better. And then where we come in uh with the work I do is to look at high cholesterol as potentially a sign of liver distress.

2:01:11 And You know, we like working with the liver, and there's a number of remedies that we use to help. reduce. Cholesterol levels.

2:01:21 Mainly by getting more out through the bile and so on. So It's a There's not a straight answer to your question. Um you know the stat and this sounds like a simple

2:01:31 pill that fixes it. Uh the reality is that we need to look at a much wider range of things. You're a fan of artichokes for cholesterol? You re you must have read my mind. Uh the artichoke leaf, uh is the one we're talking about. Which is used in France a lot for Basically fair. liver related problems a lot. Uh I use it a lot in the practice as a juice, actually, just as a pressed juice.

2:01:56 Um Uh yes, it's one of them. Dandelion root is another old familiar which Seems to be a little bit more. Mostly by as I said flushing stuff through the bile.

2:02:08 And there's a range of other things that we use. One of the things that, you know, many people are concerned about when they're thinking about changing their diet is just the cost of it. They think it's super expensive to to buy all these It's fresh fruit and verge and You know,

2:02:25 Is that the case? Is is that a barrier to to entry to the the stuff we've talked about today? Ru. My usual answer to that is East Eat Asian. 'Cause as uh said, if you can make a meal with vegetables and uh uh spices and

2:02:42 things like lentils and so on, beans for very cheaply. It's just that we got out of the habit or we haven't got into the habit of doing that slightly slow cooking. uh we will buy uh Indian meals sometimes from places that put uh more fat in than they might. Um so some of the meals we can buy that are Asian Which learning how to cook.

2:03:08 But You can eat very cheaply. What is the most important thing that we didn't talk about that we should have talked about? Well, I suppose I didn't mention much about the Meprosol. Um because that's

2:03:22 I've never of this before. Ameprazol. Yeah, I've never heard of it. Oh yeah. Yeah, they are increasingly a minority. Oh really. Uh Ameprazole is the most widely prescribed drug in this country, and I believe in the US also and is for acid reflux. It's what the Americans will

2:03:39 Good. And what we call gord. Because we spell Esophagus differently. So we spell esophagus with an O E and Americans spell it with an E, so it's either Gerd or Gore depending on which country you're in, and that means gastroesophageal reflux disease. Good. And

2:03:59 Acid reflux. Is A real Issue with a lot of people. And they f find that when they go to a doctor, the doctor will

2:04:07 routinely prescribe a meprisole or something like it. And God is actually Diagnosed. Uh as a condition which is made better by a meprasol. I mean it's literally

2:04:20 It's a disease that is diagnosed by the treatment. And what a Meprosol does is is Shuts down the acid production in the stomach. So you don't get as much hope. Damage by reflux.

2:04:35 The problem is Is that the S is doing a job. It's sterilizing your food. Which is important, isn't it? It's also helping to break it down so that it becomes

2:04:47 Not an immune threat. transfusion or something in the wrong blood, you get a problem. You w we're eating foreign stuff all the time. We rely on the stomach and the juices to Make it safe. So the acid is there.

2:05:01 To protect us. When we're getting acid reflux. Actually it's not because you got too much acid, it's because you're Reflexing it. It's going back up into the gallet.

2:05:13 The esophagus. But a meprzeo will put an end to that. The problem with a MEP is two problems. First is that the list of problems accruing from long term omethrosole use is beginning to grow and is serious. Cancers, dementias

2:05:29 All sorts of things are beginning to Be downstream. problems associated with long term omeprising. But the other thing is is that once you're on it It's really difficult to come off it.

2:05:40 And you get a famous rebound effect. So you come off the I'm at Brazil and wow. you get much more trouble. So the only thing to do is to tell you more map result.

2:05:50 And people find it really hard to come off it. So you have to do a lot of hard work to get We people often do it and sort of Different ways. So what do we do instead?

2:06:01 Well one simple thing to do, and anyone can do this. And you don't need to go very far. is to use what we call the raft. Principle. So there are some plants.

2:06:12 That have got a lot of mucus in them, mucilage. The classic example from North America's of Realm. It's a sort of powder that looks like you make polyfiller to fill a crack with, you know, is a white powder. when it's mixed with water it forms this paste, this muc mucus stuff.

2:06:32 You want to have it as a tablet because you don't want all to swallow that stuff. But when it's in the stomach it Produces this. Mucus. There.

2:06:41 You don't need to go to Slim. There is a product here in this country called Gavascon. Which is essentially seaweed gum. With it. But it it's seaweed gum with some minerals in there. And they advertise it when you see the television ads as the raft.

2:06:59 They're doing is you're putting a layer of mucus. on top of your food. So you have it out you've had your last mouthful. You have a and then as the food pushes up back into the gullet You've got this nice mucus coating, a raft. To stop it.

2:07:17 That Carbohydrate is what it is. Gets digested within a couple of hours. End of. No problem. It's not even a f medicine. It's just a physical Yeah. So you could have Gaviscon, you could have Sufriana, you could have Aveira. There's a number of other muco mucusy type plants that people use.

2:07:35 And that can Without any other complication at all. be one step and I use it regularly with with uh when I'm weaning people off of Meprasol, I will use the Raft principle. Some of the harm you get with reflux.

2:07:51 Just a simple example. You're very fond of These plants? They are living. Organisms, aren't they?

2:08:03 Are you concerned about how we we treat them? I'm concerned about the ornate the world that they come from because of course increasingly we have to produce these industrially, which sometimes mean in monoculture or usually means in monoculture form. So th they're grown in rows and rows and they put weed killers down to get other plants out of the way. And so they become less Uh natural. Yeah.

2:08:28 And we talked about the polyphenols. You know, uh the company I worked for. And we were able to show that

2:08:37 A plant that grows organically. That doesn't have pesticides. Needs to fight his own battles more. Yeah. 'Cause if you've got a pesticide you don't need to worry about so much, you know, the p p the pests and the uh attackers.

2:08:51 So a a plant that's grown in wild or organically without chemicals has more polyphenols, because the polyphenols are part of the plant's defense mechanism. So the more you can buy or I mean that's where foraging comes in, you know, my colleague Devin is a forager and he he can walk around headro and show you you can make a whole meal out of plows that people just walk past. Um because people used to do that. So

2:09:17 That's real wild eating. Which must be one of the best ways of eating. Uh but the more close to nature you can get your plants.

2:09:26 The better. We have to live with what we've got. And most parts. I groaned. Without that. But they're still better than having them not having them at all.

2:09:36 Simon, thank you. Um we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for you. Is Our world is changing fast.

2:09:48 How do you keep up? I think The world is We all know. Getting pretty scary out there, isn't it?

2:10:03 There is a Truth. Which is You and the people around you.

2:10:10 Uh the Actually the only thing that mattered. Day to day are they? Oh. Closest.

2:10:16 Dearest the ones that We've invested most One of the reasons that I'm increasingly happy to spend my time Working. And the practice and extra rather than

2:10:28 Mm-hmm. Chasing around the world. is because As The world gets more

2:10:37 Frightening. The more you realise that it's the Connections you make. With each other. You put back to back if you like, you know.

2:10:46 Face the world out there, back to back. And I think It's reconnecting with those who are closest to you, that is the best antidote I know. And that also includes reconnecting with the w the nature and the world around it. So that would be my answer.

2:11:05 And who is that in your life? Who are those people? I have family, I have now. ten grandchildren between us. Rachel and myself. Congratulations. And so um the uh electronic calendar comes into its own to keep track of all that.

2:11:22 Uh so yes, the the we we've we've uh got a a no spread around the globe. So it's a it's a widespread thing, but we've got people close by and uh you know, obviously your closest and nearest. Are the ones that matter. Simon, thank you so much for doing what you do. I highly recommend everybody goes and checks out your work. I've never had a conversation with someone that knows so much about plants and and herbs in my life, so I was so ex excited to learn more. And you have changed my opinion on so many things. I can't wait to go and tell my girlfriend that she's right. About everything. I'll I'll slip her the I'll s uh she can slip me the tennis. I highly recommend um people go and check out your your website and go to your herb out, which takes place once a month. Um I'm sure there's gonna be lots of people getting in touch with you to try and come and see you in person as well, which is fantastic. Is there anything else?

2:12:13 But if my listeners want to take a step forward from here in this direction and understand more about Herbs. I've got your books here, which I'm gonna link below. There's the Herb Hour on your website. Is there anything else that we should be aware of? As I said, the website does link to this w wonderful resource. I mean I contribute to the herbal reality one, which is where you're going to find almost anything you want to know about using plants. So that's I'll stop there, but y you can step through my website to get there because you'll find a few other things on the way. There is resources out there and it's increasingly reliable.

2:12:43 These are not dreamt of. You know, uh for a a TikTok video, they're well thought through and based on a lot of human experience. So there is stuff out there if you're looking for it. Thank you. You're very much leading the charge to bring us all back to being human beings. And I'm a big, big fan of that.

2:12:59 Thank you, Stephen. It's a journey on myself, so thank you so much for doing the work that you do and being a champion for the for nature and all its forms. So um and I really, really hope that uh I really hope that more people, more podcasters host you so that you can get the uh get the message out there. Thank you. This has always been my mind.

2:13:18 Fifty three percent of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.

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