Three Incredibly Beneficial Supplements That Aren’t on Your Radar, But Should Be
When it comes to supplementation, the amount of choices can be overwhelming. Even with the standard nutrients that most folks are familiar with, research is constantly changing and new products emerge frequently. That’s why we’re here. We stay on the forefront of the supplementation industry and are always on the lookout for the most effective, trustworthy supplements out there.
On this week’s episode Ed discusses a few of his favorites that you might not be familiar with. From bone health, to fighting pain and inflammation, to a powerful antioxidant that can help in many ways, these are supplements that pack a punch. Admittedly, these are nutrients that even we had to do a little brushing up on, but now we’re looking at them with more discerning eyes and are happy we did. We hope you enjoy this episode!
Some Topics We Discussed:
What are the 3 supplements you’ve probably never heard of that can make a drastic difference in your health ?(4:20)
How does VItamin K help us and why should we take it? (7:50)
What is SPM and why should we consider it? (14:52)
What is PQQ and why would we want it in our supplement toolkit? (20:35)
What damages our mitochondria? (23:08)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
Conventional practitioners are not going to get training on natural remedies unless they choose to spend their time learning about it on their own. (4:25)
Some researchers are now saying that Vitamin K may even be more important than Vitamin D. (8:44)
When you take Vitamin K, make sure you take it with fat. (14:44)
SPMs have a unique way of dealing with inflammation in ways that curcumin and omega-3s don’t do. (18:37)
PQQ helps address mitochondrial function. (22:55)
Products + Resources:
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:00 Welcome back to The Holistic Navigator Podcast everyone where we believe in the body's ability to heal itself if it's given the proper nutrients and care. Thank you so much for listening today and Happy Holidays. We're getting really close to Christmas and hope everyone enjoys their time off. If by chance you happen to be new to the podcast, we just want to say welcome. My name is Brian Strickland. I'm the producer of the show. And I'm joined in the studio today by our host, Ed Jones. And our goal is to simply educate anyone who may be interested in learning more about natural, holistic healing. We have another great episode for you today on some supplements that might not be on your radar, and never may have been for that matter. Ed has a few of his favorite more obscure supplements lined up that you may find surprisingly beneficial. And on that note, I guess it's time to hand it over to the host of the show, Mr. Ed Jones.
Ed Jones 01:35 Thank you, Brian, so much. What a great intro and you get me all in the rhythm for this and I had a great off day yesterday being in the woods. And it helps to ground me and recalibrate me for more and more excitement for what I do, which is talking about health, not just supplements, but exercise, sleep, food, all of it. Don't ever think that I'm all about believing you can achieve optimal health with just supplements. But that has been more of my passion for 41 years. And I am here to help everyone know what to do and not what to do in regard to all these subjects. But the complexity of the supplement industry is quite the challenge because there's so many things that are advertised to be, you know, the greatest since sliced bread. It's gonna make you live longer look better feel better, turn that hands the clock back and half of it bs. It just is. But I can tell you because we have science now that can back up a lot of the claims. I have the best bs detector that anyone has ever had in this industry. I can pick out a charlatan kind of ad or a product in 10 seconds. So I'm here to weed through it for everyone. And so today we're going to talk about the three nutritional supplements that you probably have never heard of. But I can tell you you need to know about these if you're interested in optimal health. You know, I was a policeman back in 1978 for several years. And why I'm saying that is most mornings or if I were at midnight shift most evenings I would get up and I would put on my bulletproof vest. And of course then get dressed with the rest of the clothes to go to work. That bulletproof vest gave me a sense of security, which partially was, you know, not going to completely protect me against a bullet to the face or something else. But it gave me a huge kind of insurance against, you know, being killed or mortally wounded by the wearing of the vest. I see supplements, I see lifestyle, I see foods, I see your choices every day as your bulletproof vest. And a bigger part of this conversation has to rely on supplements. I am telling you right now that you probably cannot unless you've been genetically blessed. Go into your 50s ,60s, 70s and 80s with what you would want to achieve without the wise choices and use of supplements. So today we're going to talk about three of those so you can have your bulletproof vest. How about that, Brian?
Brian Strickland 04:23 That sounds awesome.
Ed Jones 04:25 First off, before I list the three, I want to tell you why does conventional medicine and health care not embrace these ideas, this conversation? They never have and they never will. They won't. And it's not really because the people in the system don't want to. Many of them do actually. I'm talking to a lot of young physicians today and they are disenchanted with the profit driven system that allows them to have nine to 12 minutes with a patient. They know that healing cannot take place in 12 minutes. You can patch in 12 minutes. And that's really the way the system works. But there are two good reasons why this is not going to change and why you as a consumer must be your own best advocate in order to put together this toolbox. One is that only patented remedies and medicines are placed in the toolbox of conventional practitioners. There's reasons for that. You know, to have a rep, come in, bring lunch, do all the things that go with training an ongoing physician requires a lot of profit because of the expenses, you're not going to get that profit if you're selling hawthorne berry for heart rhythm, or, you know, COQ10 or anything else, because this industry does not have the margins and things that would allow that to happen. So the doc is not actually seeing anyone who's educating them on natural options. And secondly, as long as they prescribe medicines, regardless of how damaging and toxic they are, they have legal protection in a court of law, because of the way the system is somewhat rigged, in order to make the machine run efficiently. You can write prescriptions all day long if they're semi appropriate, and you're fine. And I know I talked to a nurse practitioner from one of the big hospitals in Atlanta about three months ago. And I asked her, I said, so in that 12 minute conversation you have with a patient, if they have desire to choose natural remedies. Can you talk about that? She said, we are told every single week, you will be on probation if you discuss anything that is not a normally prescribed drug. I said you're kidding. She said no. I said that is sad, it really is sad. So we have to keep in mind that that's the way the system's working. And that doesn't mean that you have to fall prey to that, because healthcare today is assembly line medicine. It's not individualized or personalized. So let's talk about the three other options that we you may want to place in your toolbox. Now some of these will be probably for people who are not 20 years old, maybe not even 30. But somewhere between 30 and 40, when you really start maybe having a better budget to support it. And you get completely convinced that you are the one who has to take care of your health. And you realize that no one else is really going to do that. Well, you may want to know about these because I'm telling you, I could drop dead tomorrow, we all could. We are one blood clot away from turning our life upside down. But it puts the odds so significantly in your court. That's all we can do people, we can address the common sense subjects like the sleep, the exercise, the stress management, but the supplement protocol is humongous for maintaining cellular health. First one is vitamin K. I know some people have heard of vitamin K. But most people I counsel with don't really know about the supplementation of vitamin K. The thing we know about vitamin K is that if you're you know, we read about it, or we have relatives who are on blood thinning medicine Coumadin, they cannot eat foods that have vitamin K because it interrupts the function of that drug. So there's one of the most commonly known topics on vitamin K. But we know it has to do with clotting. We know it comes from green vegetables. But guess what happens when you're deficient in vitamin K? Very significant issues with cellular damage. In fact, some of the people who are researchers feel that vitamin K is going to be even more important than vitamin D, which we all know plays a significant role in about 100 things. It's just it hasn't, it's been under the radar. And Dr. Cece Vermeer, the world's top researcher says in his studies with patients, almost everyone is deficient in vitamin K. And so what happens when you're deficient in K? First off arterial calcification. What does that mean? Well, we know that our arteries are what supply the blood flow. We know it's like a water hose. And if the water hose gets messed up with substances inside the hose, it reduces the flow of the water. Same thing happens with calcification within the artery. And what's interesting is when they want to do studies on animals and rats to look at the heart disease and calcification issue, they make them deficient in K. Well, here's the catch. Does that make sense then that we give Coumadin which they make you not take K. They're giving you a drug that makes blood flow but in the long run is increasing calcification. Another part of the insane system that we are involved in. Secondly varicose veins, how many women and even men have trouble with that past 30 and 40. K can help significantly. The huge one is osteoporosis. You cannot have adequate bone mass and or strength without adequate vitamin K. Prostate disease, a humongous amount of studies showing the relationship between if you maintain K and maintain prostate health, and that is something of ultimate concern to most men. Even a reduction of many things like leukemia, dementia is a big one with vitamin K. And, you know, where does k come from? Well, you know, Brian, I mean, most of us know veggies, green, green colored things. And that's, again, we go back to the diet, we will not say you should try to live off of any supplement pills, and then go out and eat bad. However, if you eat kale, spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and a foreign food called natto, you probably will get enough K. If you do that every single day, twice a day. I don't know many who do that. So let's maybe put another piece in the toolbox and put your bulletproof vest on by supplementing. It's not that expensive, you take one single pill a day. So there's two different Ks. There's a K1, which actually only has a lifespan of about one to two hours, they come from green veggies. So even if you're eating the green veggies, you're not getting but a two hour window of opportunity with those green veggies with the K1.
Brian Strickland 11:39 I didn't know that.
Ed Jones 11:40 No. And you know what, it's interesting that you say that. Not that I pretend to know everything. I didn't know that until I researched for this podcast that only had that short lifespan. K2 however, has a half life of three days. Three days. Well, that's the kind of we want. Well guess where K2 comes from? Fermented foods and natto. No one in this country is eating natto. It's, it's really I don't like it. And so that's not a possibility. Well, in the supplements that are available from reputable and ethical companies, they're going to combine K1 and K2. In a 2004 study named Rotterdam Study, they looked at a good number of individuals and came to the conclusion that if their K2 was what they called optimal, they actually look at living seven years longer. That was from one single nutrient level that they checked. Is that absolute a forecast with a crystal ball? Heck no is not. But it sure lends itself to common sense that perhaps we should be taking it. Just a little bit more information on this K thing. When they looked at some Japanese trials involving about 30,000 people, the K2 level, if it was adequate, showed a 60% reduction in vertebra fractures, and about 75% in other fractures of the body. So you know, here we are with another jewel from the nature's pharmacy. And again, the toolbox of conventional people will never ever have these. That's why you will not hear about it at your doctor's visit. Now in other countries in which I hear stories from so many people from other countries who visit me or talk to me, it isn't like that in many of those. It's a 50/50 system. You go into your doc and you have something like you know, calcification, arterial things, bone loss, they're gonna offer you two options, you can either do the strict, straight synthetic approach, or we can take the more alternative natural approach, which would you like, ma'am? And they're going to be open about it, because they have a system that supports that. So we're going to finally learn, hopefully you are learning because you're listening to someone who is thinking outside the box, which is myself. But you know, I remember being in the 60s in my family, Brian, my sister tells this story because she has such a memory. We would travel in the car and they would put a playpen in the back and I would just play in the playpen, because seatbelts were not even in the car back then in the 60s. Well, that's where we are with conventional medicine and supplements. They're clueless people and they don't want to know unless they have you know, somehow personally evolved. So last point on K if you do the supplement, you got to deal with fat or it will not be transported. So there we go on K. Brian, you clear on that? Sounds good to me. Okay. Next one is something that I can assure you that no one has heard about unless they've been talking to me, which is called SPM, specialized pro resolving mediators is the name of that. Sounds very fancy. What it is and if we go back to again, the common thread that I run through is chronic inflammation is at the root of almost every disease we don't want. You know, Brian, you're how old are you?
Brian Strickland 15:22 I'm 34.
Ed Jones 15:23 34 years old. Probably at 34 most people don't have any significant long term effects yet of chronic inflammation, but it's already starting, I can assure you, and it's like it takes 10 to 30 years to really start seeing the consequences of that. And even with consequences, you can do a lot to reverse it. But you know, at your age is the time to really look at a lifestyle that creates less inflammation, because when you have something chronic inflamed, if it's in your arteries, guess what people? Plaque forms. If it was in your brain, deposits that reduce your mental function, if it's between your joints as arthritis, if it's in your liver is fatty liver, you could go through the whole list. And this is something again, conventional medicine does not embrace, they're more of a patch it system. So we can give you a drug that changes a number. But is that really fixing it? No, it's not. In fact, there's a new term called inflam-aging. Inflam-aging, and that is what's causing accelerated aging in this country many times. What do you think cigarette smoke does? Why do you think when you look at a woman who's smoked, for 30 years, they have all of this damage, and their upper lip has the little lines in it? It's chronic inflammation. And that is what goes on within all of our bodies, if we don't put together the right toolbox to help ourselves. And again, I go back to food, sleep, stress, all the things I speak about on The Holistic Navigator. So what is SPM? You know, inflammation when it's acute, like you just a few years ago, Brian, I think I know, you know this, I fell on a dip bar that I was doing at the gym. And it was a freak accident. And I fell all over the floor, because the dip bar broke. And I trapped both of my thumb's and dislocated them under the metal of the dip bar. Well, you're talking about acute inflammation, I had never had such an injury, I couldn't button my shirt or zip my pants for almost a month. And what I did with that is I first off did not take pain medication, because when it heals under pain medication, it heals weaker people. Now, if you can't sleep at night, you know use common sense. But doing it ongoing thinking is proving the long term effects, it's not. It's doing the opposite. Well, what happens in some of these cases is that on switch of inflammation basically gets stuck on it can be stuck on through many things, everything from a heart attack, to falling, to a migraine, to whatever. These switches which are genetically driven, should learn to go off once the healing occurs. Because you want inflammation at first. You want those fluids going in, you want toxins removed, you want nutrients. And so there's nothing wrong with it getting bigger and being fluid filled and feeling hot. That's what the body's wisdom is. But the problem is when it gets stuck, SPMs have an effect, which are a natural product of resolution of the inflammation that is basically stuck. And it is something that we have a whole host of remedies for inflammation, but SPMs do something that nothing else seems to do for these on switches. In fact, I had a client about a year ago and she came to see me. She was not a regular client. And she had had chronic inflammation to a point of being disabled in her body of basically barely moving, not being able to function. And she had pursued traditional medicine there wasn't anything left for them to do no surgeries nothing else. And of course, you know the pain meds were killing her stomach and they were dangerous to her. And she was going to Italy or hoped to in three to four months from the moment she talked to me and I was explaining to her you know what level do you want to really get into this? He said I don't care what it cost and what I have to do. I will do it will I put her on SPMs at six capsules per day. And it takes about four weeks for these switches to slowly start going back off. Well she came back in after about five months and said she had the most marvelous trip to Italy. Her pain is 70% reduced. So it has a place that I don't say curcumin having. I don't see omega threes having because of the biochemistry of SPMs. So if you're had that kind of pain chronic and you want to experiment with not do it in place of omega three, or curcumin, or maybe a couple things. But if you've not found resolution of pain in any other way, try SPMs and give it some time. Totally safe. I don't take them all the time. I don't. I'm fortunate I don't have chronic pain that much. But I did a couple years ago, when I did the thumb thing. I took SPMs and I know that it had a positive effects on my outcome. Now the last one is something that I'm probably the most excited about. And it has to do with a product called PQQ. You've heard of that? Haven't you Brian?
Brian Strickland 20:40 I have. Are you gonna tell us what it stands for?
Ed Jones 20:43 Pyrroloquinoline Quinone. Don't laugh now. I know that wasn't exactly.
Brian Strickland 20:50 I was sitting here looking on my phone and see if you got it right.
Ed Jones 20:52 I was 85% right. So I've actually never pronounced it because we all just sayPQQ. But you know what, Brian, and most people don't know this. I mean, I've been around living 63 years. This is the first nutrient that has been discovered in my lifetime. All the rest are discovered before I was born. They weren't researched or other things. But they actually had a name,. PQQ was discovered, I don't know, maybe something like 20 years ago. And it is under the radar screen of everyone. And it should not be because and I know you know this, that I constantly go back to the key to us living the most resilient, robust, disease free life focuses on the mitochondria of the cell. If we could maintain the mitochondria, which is the energy production part of our cells, that means that it takes ATP, it produces all of the stuff that makes you run. It's really like the cylinder in an engine. And I'll tell you a personal story. You know, if you see my podcast photo, you see me next to an airplane. I love aviation. And I fly as much as I can, which is not that much due to work. But I love it, love it love it. We put the plane in the Piper plane and for what's called an annual. Well, that annual looks at everything. I wish we could have a healthcare system that was like an annual. That was safe. And they found that one of the cylinders was not producing power, it had lost compression. Well, that is what happens with mitochondrial dysfunction. The more cylinders you lose, the less horsepower you're going to have. Now one cylinder out of eight is not super significant. But I can tell you one thing, since they fixed it, it is a world of difference that you don't notice until it's fixed. So PQQ is going to address mitochondrial function. And every part of your health future is based at a cellular level and a mitochondrial level. So why would it not be important to at least know these things. Some of the other things that damaged mitochondria of course is excess carbs, not enough omega threes. Not enough sleep, not stress management. All these things do so it's not that this is going to be the magic bullet, but it is a bullet that we have never had before. Because it's going to protect and regenerate. Not only protect, but if you have some damaged mitochondria, it's going to help regenerate that. What is that gonna mean for you? Potential memory processing improvement. Wow, who doesn't want to at least maintain but especially improve the mental function. The mitochondria is in the brain cells are exhaustively huge, and they work 24 hours a day. If we can improve that engine well, you can just imagine the result. Second immune system, maintaining its health. Thirdly, we do talk about blood testing a lot. I'm a huge fan of what's called high sensitivity c reactive protein. It is a marker for chronic inflammation. It needs to be two and under. Don't let any practitioner tell you that eight and 10 and 14 is fine. It is not. And so we want CRP that's extremely low to an under. Well guess what? PQQ lowers the C reactive protein. Studies are showing that it improves reproductive outcomes. And in fact today we have so many people struggling with fertility and and being able to carry a baby and all the things that come with that. Of course we have a country with a lowered sperm count. And that's due to a lot of the xenoestrogens and everything else and I want to put a plug in for Facebook group Earth Conscious Mama. Cady Kuhlman has that and that's where she discusses for more women than men but it's about the toxic environment that we live in. And she's giving up alternatives in a simple common sense method to start replacing some of these terrible toxins like Febreeze, shampoos, toothpaste, deodorant, and she's giving you these tips. So if you go to Facebook just type in Earth Conscious Mama and sign up. PQQ also reduces non alcoholic fatty liver, which is it but damak today part of that is the excessive carbs and lack of omega three, but part of it we don't know. So who knows PQQ could could shift that into another direction. It does put the aging process partially into reverse gear. I love that. My gosh, you know, maintaining and helping us stay healthy is one thing, but maybe turning the hands to the clock back slightly. That is phenomenal. Improves sleep. And I'll be honest with you, Brian, you know, I take 72 proximately pills a day and they're very wisely chosen. This is not random. And I have not been doing PQQ for probably two years and me researching this, I will be back on it as of lunch today, let me tell you because sleep is still one of my biggest issues. I go through really good times and really poor times, but at least I have my toolbox of my remedies which saved my life. And if you have sleep issues, go back on one of our earlier podcasts and listen to mine on insomnia. I just it's what saved my life. It does shield the brain cells from damage. And one of those is with traumatic brain injuries. And I know we have a podcast coming with a physician on traumatic brain injuries. But here's the deal people. If you take our every single day, a subset many of these nutritional supplements, you are with that bulletproof vest armoring yourself in case something happens. When they did PQQ and pre loaded it and then subjected animals to traumatic brain injury, it was such a valuable component in not only preventing the damage, but if there was damage accelerating the healing of it. Can you imagine how much more effective it is to already have that in your body than waiting till after you fallen had a concussion, maybe had a stroke if you're older? This is how you recover to 100%. Or even at best, maybe just 97% by already pre loading. So it makes total sense people and what you need is 10 to 20 milligrams daily. That's just one little pill. Now you can get it PQQ from foods. Again natto, which we talked about it most Americans will not eat. Parsley, green pepper, spinach, kale, green tea, all of those are foods that can give you some of that. So today, I want to kind of hash all of this, we've got the PQQ feel like if you're 35 or maybe 40 years old and over, you have a budget of supported add PQQ to your list of supplements. Secondly, is we're talking about the SPMs only for people who have really chronic pain that they can't control because it's not the least most least expensive product. And you do have to take a significant amount the first few weeks. And that's another point I want to make. On the bottle it may say take one pill. That will not work people. Listen to my experience, you will need four to six for the first three to four weeks, then you can start dropping, but it will take the high dose to make those off switches come back into the way it should be. And lastly, the vitamin K. If you are on blood thinners do not add vitamin K and nothing I have said today is about treating any disease. It's about preventing disease. That's a totally different conversation. But if you're on medication that has to do with viscosity of your blood, discuss it with your healthcare professional. I would highly recommend finding one who is open minded. Because if not, they probably already have a biased against all of these things. And again, that goes back to the system that we have that is not training them not training them to be open minded. So I encourage all of you to consider these three if it applies to your life, then add them into your program, add them in. And you know I've said this so many times probably the most repeated quote that I have. And I've actually been so altered over the past year because I don't have it in front of me. But I do classify so many people today into into two different groups, the learners and the non learners. I give everyone who's listening to this so much credit because that means you are a learner or you would not have made it this far, listening to me on the holistic podcast. And we will look forward to speaking to you next time. We've got several exciting guests coming up that are going to be lined up for the next eight weeks. So talk to you the next time. This is Edward, the Holistic Navigator.
Brian Strickland 30:04 The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or anyone of the medical profession and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The Holistic Navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials. The Holistic Navigator is not a doctor, nor does he claim to be. Please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.
“We can address the common sense subjects like sleep, exercise, and stress management. But a supplement protocol is huge when it comes to maintaining cellular health.”
-ED JONES, THE HOLISTIC NAVIGATOR