The Dr. Hyman Show - Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Ask Mark Anything: Cellulite, Carpal Tunnel, Vitiligo, And More

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

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Hey podcast community, Dr. Mark here. I'm so excited to offer you a seven-day free trial of my revolutionary new platform called Dr. Hyman Plus. For seven days you get special access to all the private content included in Dr. Hyman Plus entirely free. It's so easy to sign up. Just go to Apple Podcast on your phone and click try free button on the Doctors Pharmacy podcast. You'll get exclusive access to ad-free Doctors Pharmacy podcast episodes and functional medicine deep dives where a practitioner dives into topics like heart health, muscle health, insulin resistance, and more to help you understand the root cause of specific ailments and walk you through the steps to improve your health today. You'll also get access to all my Ask Mark Anything Q&As where

I answer the community's biggest health and wellness questions. Because I'm so sure you're going to love this platform, I am offering you free access to all of this content for seven days and a teaser of my brand new Ask Mark Anything episode. Head on over to the Doctors Pharmacy podcast on Apple podcast and sign up for your free trial. Okay, here we go. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Ask Mark Anything. My name is Herschel Perth, I'm the Dr. Hyman Plus Community Manager, and I'm joined by Darcy Gross, who is one of the producers of the Longevity Roadmap documentaries. Hi, Darcy. Hi. And of course, we are here with our expert, Dr. Mark Hyman. Hi, Dr. Hyman.

Hi, everybody. Thanks, everyone, for submitting your questions for this month's Ask Mark Anything. So let's go ahead and get started. Our first question is about uric acid. So what is uric acid and what are the causes of having high uric acid levels and what should you do to reduce it? Why is it important to reduce it? Well, you should first listen to my podcast with Dr. Richard Johnson. He'll answer all your questions or you should read my friend's book, David Perlmutter called Drop Acid, not about LSD, but about uric acid. So that's important because there's great resources out there. The second is that it is a molecule in your blood that we can check on a regular blood test. I check on all my patients that is increased in the process of what we call insulin resistance. Now, for anybody who knows me, who's listening to the Dr. Hyman community,

you know what that is. It's when your body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin from too much sugar and too much starch, and it's connected to diabetes and insulin resistance. What we now know is that it's really driven by fructose. Fructose is somehow uniquely affecting the body by increasing uric acid production. There are other ways to do it.

Obviously, gout, we know gout, when you get a big swollen toe, that can be caused by high uric acid. There can be genetics involved. It can be caused by eating too much certain organ meats, which have high levels of purines or purine-rich food, like certain aged cheeses or wine, for sure can cause elevations of uric acid. But for the most part, it's caused by sugar and starch and particularly fructose. Table sugar is called sucrose, which is a combination of glucose and fructose. Now they're bound in sugar with a special chemical bond that makes your body work a little bit to dissolve them and then you have to absorb them. And so now we're getting high fructose corn syrup, which didn't exist when I was a kid and was based on the advent of the increase in corn production,

it being turned into sugar, high fructose corn syrup. And that may be anywhere from 55 to 75% fructose, but it's different than regular sugar because it's unbound. It's not like a bound together in a chemical bond with glucose, it's free fructose. And then, so it just rushes into your body, you know, tons amount of energy to get absorbed and it goes to your liver and it turns on this metabolic disaster, which causes inflammation, fatty liver, elevated uric acid, and it has huge impacts on energy production cells and your mitochondria and inflammation on gout. And so it's one of the sort of central biochemical processes that goes wrong when you eat too much fructose and high fructose corn syrup. Now, if you're having fruit, it's a little bit different because it gets absorbed slowly. It's not highly, it's highly, you know, mixed in the matrix of fiber and vitamins

and minerals, a little bit different. It's not all fructose, but it's this high fructose corn syrup that is just super dangerous. So if I could say to you one, you say, Dr. Mullen, what is the one thing I could do to improve my health? I would say never, ever, ever eat anything with high fructose corn syrup, no matter what. Now, when you do that, all of a sudden you're immediately cutting out almost everything in the grocery store because everything that's sweetened today is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. In fact, the corn industry wanted to change the name to corn sugar and sort of deceive us by changing the name or corn syrup, which sounds okay. But high fructose corn syrup we know

is one of the most dangerous compounds known to humankind. And I wrote an article years ago, five reasons you should avoid high fructose corn syrup, including things we mentioned. It causes leaky gut. It causes fatty liver. It causes all kinds of problems. But what's interesting, I'll just say a quick story, is that I had a friend who was a doctor who wanted to research high fructose corn syrup. So they call up the makers of Archer Daniel Midland, which is one of the big ag companies that makes high fructose corn syrup. And they said, Hey, we want to do some studies on it. Can you send us something like absolutely not as proprietary secret, blah, blah, blah. So they, they called them back and say, Hey, we're coming up with a new beverage. We want to use high fructose corn syrup. Can you send us

some? But of course, sure. I mean, it's not a big barrel full of the stuff and they tested it and it was full of mercury. They're like, what is going on here? And it turns out that in the process of actually making high fructose corn syrup, they use something called chloralkali that is contains mercury. And so they, in the process of actually making it, they use it something that contains mercury and some of that gets in the high fructose corn syrup. So it gets another source of mercury poisoning. So aside from the sugar, it's just bad news. And if you want to actually learn more about my views on it, just read five reasons to avoid high fructose corn syrup, or I think maybe it's five ways high fructose corn syrup will kill you or something like that. Just

Google high fructose corn syrup, Mark Hyman. In fact, the sugar industry is hysterical. The sugar industry reached out to me and wanted me to testify in court about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, but saying how much better sugar was. And I was like, no, thanks. And they're going to pay me a lot of money. And I was like, oh my God, this is just so bad. Following up on that, what are the consequences of not reducing your uric acid levels? Well, basically death. I mean, if you want to avoid heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, and dementia, which are all caused by insulin resistance, you should avoid things that cause your uric acid to go up, particularly high fructose corn syrup and sugar and starch in general. And two, high uric acid levels will cause often something called gout, which is no fun. And also

they can cause kidney stones. We call uric acid kidney stones, which are, if anybody's had a kidney stone, well, I haven't, and I haven't given birth, so I can't give you firsthand experiences. But apparently it's said it's the closest thing to the pain of giving birth and that you'll ever experience. So I would say that those should be enough reasons for you to never eat high fructose corn syrup again. Definitely. Thank you for that. Darcy, over to you for the next question. Yeah, I've never passed a kidney stone, but I have given birth. And so if it's anything similar at all, no, thank you. All right. Yeah. So switching gears, the next question is about cellulite. So basically, is there anything that we can do to reduce cellulite or reduce the

appearance of cellulite or even prevent it in the first place? Yeah, I mean, cellulite is often a condition of lymph stasis and fatty deposits in the skin. And so, you know, I'm 62. I don't have any and many people who take care of themselves and exercise and don't eat sugar and, you know, have good lymphatic flow and do yoga and get massaged typically don't have cellulite. So taking care of yourself is the first and the best preventive strategy for it. In terms of treating it, lymphatic massage can be very helpful. There are different kinds of laser devices and therapy sort of technologies that actually dermatologists use to get rid of it. But it's not easy. So I think the best is prevention. Yeah, for sure. That's super helpful. Thank you, Dr. Hyman. And over to Herschel. So our next question is about carpal

tunnel syndrome. And so we have a lot of community members that are asking about this. And so what is the best way to treat it or support it if you have it? Well, first of all, what is it, right? What is carpal tunnel syndrome? Essentially in your wrist, you have a little tunnel, which a carpal means wrist, so a little tunnel that goes through your wrist that carries the nerve. And this nerve can get crunched if there's swelling or inflammation. And we're all on our computers, devices. So often it's a kind of work-related or we'll call it an occupational hazard of certain activities. So making sure you have good ergonomics, particularly on your computer when you're working, really important. It can come from various kinds of sports or for certain kinds of work-related things like reading jack cameras or things like that. It often can be to do inflammation from other causes. So if there's

fluid retention and any inflammatory conditions, that can often be a factor and it can be an inflammatory diet and so forth. In terms of treatment, you know, often it's treated with surgery, which is to release the carpal tunnel and open up that space and leave room for the nerve. So it's not because crunched and scrimped and it's not causing pain. And usually notice it because the thumb and the forefinger and the middle finger tend to get numb and tingly. Often there's splints that people use, you know, carpal tunnel splints to make sure you don't actually compress the nerve. If you do this, sorry, if you do this, like you kind of put your wrist together upside down and stuff like that, then you can test for it. And if that hurts and

it reproduces symptoms, then you're probably have it. But so you want to hold your wrist sort of in a neutral position, like in a splint. And that often can relieve it, especially at night, people will sleep on their arm funny, or, you know, if you wear it at night, it can often help. But often you'd be surprised vitamin B6 at high doses, like 200 milligrams a day. Now you make sure you add up all the sources of all the vitamins you're taking. So you don't want to take 200 on top of another hundred on top of another hundred and some other vitamins. So you got to be careful, but about, you know, cause it can cause other problems, but it can be really helpful. Vitamin B6 can often really be helpful for, for carbotunnel syndrome. And I don't think we exactly know why, but it seems to work. So those are the kinds of basic ideas about it,

but it's often really, you know, an ergonomic issue or inflammatory issue. And it's the same thing we do for all inflammation. Great. That's super helpful. Thank you so much. Darcy, over to you. All right. So the next question is, what is vitiligo and what's the functional? Vitiligo. Vitiligo. I practiced before we read this question. What is vitiligo and what's the functional medicine approach to treating it? Well, Darcy, I forgive you. You're not a doctor and it is one of those weird words that you don't know how to pronounce. And honestly, there are actually medicine words that I don't know how to pronounce. And honestly, there are actually medicine words that I don't know how to pronounce even. So it's like, is it tinnitus or tinnitus? You say tomato, I say tomato. I don't

know. Anyway, so this is a horrible condition where you get deep pigmentation of the skin. And essentially, it's like where you basically look like you're an albino person in one area. So it can be blotchy on your face. You've probably seen these people. They look like they're piebald. They have like white areas that are blotchy. You have them on your arms, on your body, on your legs. It's really common. It's an autoimmune disease actually of the skin which attacks the melanin producing cells, the melanocytes, which is the ones that give you suntan. So if you go in the sun, you get a suntan because you increase melanocyte activity and that's great. And it

protects you from getting a sunburn. But if you don't have the melanocytes in some areas of your skin, like vitiligo, you'll get a really bad sunburn. So for example, if you're albino and have the gene that doesn't produce melanocytes, well, you're sort of white everywhere. So it's kind of like being an albino, except it's an acquired autoimmune problem. And guess what the number one cause is. Can you guess? Sugar and starch. What? No, come on, guys.

Gluten. Gluten is, you know, if you have an autoimmune disease, gluten should be the first, second, and third thing you think about. And so it's leaky gut, it's gluten. And sometimes it's reversible if you heal the gut and you get rid of gluten. It can be other causes of autoimmune disease. And we've talked a lot about on the Ask Me Anything podcast, and we have some of our expert doctors who for sure they talked about autounities, but it's usually the things you think about toxins, allergens, microbes, leaky gut, stress, poor diet. So, so I, I find, you know, it's a little bit hard to treat, but it is a really unfortunate common condition and, and it can really be mitigated. But so the

best thing to do is if you start to notice it, then immediately get on it on it. Cause once your whole skin is depigmented, it's hard to repigment. I think we're going to find ways to do that through stem cell treatment, through exosomes, through versus various kinds of treatments that we may be using in the future. Plasmapheresis, which is where you filter and clean your blood. So I think there's hope for people,

but it sometimes requires a little bit of extra work, but it is a horrible condition. But make sure if you start to see these blotchy patches one you get checked two you get checked for gluten uh and and you got to check properly because a lot of doctors don't know how to check or they'll see elevated antibodies that are light like a little elevated uh but you know the level of gluten antibodies become anti-glide antibodies the range is zero to twenty now uh what's the normal level of mercury in your blood is the quiz none zero zero zero zero like there's no you should have no mercury it's not a bylaw right what is the normal level of gluten antibodies in your blood zero why because if you have gluten antibodies in your blood it

means one that you're eating gluten two that you have a leaky gut, and three, that your immune system is pissed off at some level. Now it could be just a little pissed off or a lot pissed off. If it's a lot pissed off, it's called celiac disease. If it's a little pissed off, it's called non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and you don't have to have full-blown celiac. So if you have any antibodies and they're not zero, and also even regular antibodies, we only check the two different kinds, trans contaminants and anti-glycan antibodies. They're like over 20 different proteins and gluten and wheat, and we check all of them. So, so there's other tests that are more sophisticated. We use Cyrex three. Also there's cross-contamination with other grains. So we look at that, but I think it's really important to look at all these factors as you're beginning to kind of survey what's going on with your body and really discover

what's happening with this. So you got to dig a little bit. And then of course, you have a leaky gut, you know, you need to heal your gut and that's really important. And so it means eliminating foods that are triggering inflammation like gluten, but then you have to rebuild your gut. And often I see this often with patients who have celiac come in and they're leaning gluten, but they're still not healthy and they still don't feel great. And I'm like, Oh, has your doctor told you how to reboot your gut and heal your gut? And they're like, no, they just told me to get off gluten. I'm like, okay. So then we go through how do we reset their microbiome? How do we heal their gut? And that's really why we created something called gut food, which is a product that I created with all my whole team focused around

healing the gut because I had colitis as a result of having a bad tooth and an antibiotic that called C diff. And then I got full blown ulcerative colitis and I was miserable. And I'm like, you know, like, I don't know why, but somehow God chose me to get sick and figure out how to heal myself so I could tell everybody all about it. Hopefully I'm done with that. I'm ready to be done with all that. And so this product we call Gut Food is full of prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols,

which are important plant compounds that the microbiome loves. So it's like a multivitamin for the gut. So you need to do all these steps to kind of heal yourself if you have something like vitiligo. Well, I hope you enjoyed that teaser of exclusive content that you get every single month with Dr. Hyman Plus. If you want to listen to the full episode and get access to ad-free podcast episodes, plus Ask Mark Anything episodes, plus monthly functional deep dive episodes, I guess that's why we call it Dr. Hyman Plus, then head on over to The Doctor's Pharmacy on Apple Podcasts and sign up for your seven-day free trial. Hi, everyone. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical

professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.