The Dr. Hyman Show - Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Ask Mark Anything: Homocysteine, Gallbladder Health, And More

Episode Date: June 28, 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 Porth. I'm the Dr. Hyman Plus Community Manager, and I'm joined by Darcy Gross. Hi, Darcy. Hi. Who's one of the producers of the Longevity Roadmap docuseries. And of course, we're here with our expert, Dr. Hyman. Hi, Dr. Hyman. Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us today. And so, of course, we've collected all of your

questions this past month, and we're here to ask Mark anything. So let's go ahead and get started. Our first question is about homocysteine. So what is homocysteine? And if someone has elevated levels, what should they do about it? Great. You know, first I would say to the community, you know, the questions you're putting forth are really great. They're impressive. They kind of reflect the high level of knowledge and intelligence

and curiosity. And it's fun for me to answer them. So I actually am really grateful for this and keep up the good questions. So it's awesome. So what is homocysteine and why should we care? And if it's up, what do we do? Okay. This is like, this could be like a whole hour lecture. And I, what I would encourage everybody to do in the link to it is to go Google or maybe we'll link to it. The article I wrote on methylation, just put in hymen and methylation, which is a big mouthful, but it's M E T H Y L T A O N. Okay. So basically in your body, think about your body as this big, you know, soup of chemicals

and chemical reactions and pathways. And essentially there's a core hub of your biochemistry that has to do with this process called methylation and sulfation. And if that's not working, everything gets screwed up. So you might've heard about biological clock, for example. I just did my biological clock. I'm 62, but my biological age is 43. How do they know that? It's through patterns of DNA methylation. Methylation is the process of transferring methyl groups,

which is a carbon and three hydrogens. And this happens bazillions of times a second, all throughout the body. And it's involved in energy production, detoxification, neurotransmitter formation, DNA function, reading genes, turning genes on and off, dealing with inflammation, dealing with oxidative stress. I mean, it's just everything is connected to this, right? So when the system isn't working, then you end up with a lot of biochemical mess. Homocysteine is a marker of a functional marker of a problem with methylation involving key vitamins, B6, B12, and folate. Now, why does this happen? Why is there problems with methylation? Why are there problems with a high homocysteine? Homocysteine elevations are not

uncommon and it can be partially genetic. So for example, one third of our entire DNA codes for enzymes. Those enzymes are catalysts for chemical reactions. And these happen all like, you know, millions of times a second. So, or more, probably billions. And these chemical reactions are going on all the time. And all of these enzymes need helpers. All the helpers are vitamins and minerals. And these enzymes are not all the same in everybody. So there's variations in the enzymes we call polymorphisms, which means a different shape or a different kind, right? A different form. And so if you have, for example, an enzyme gene that produces an enzyme, one third of all your DNA codes for enzymes. So one of them codes for an enzyme called MTHFR or methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase. Say that five times fast. Come on, come on harshall let's go but no just kidding um

you don't have to but anyway uh this particular enzyme uh if you have a version of it it may not work as well as another version which means you may need a higher level of the catalyst right the vitamin let's say folate that actually turns this enzyme on or makes it work. But you can, for example, take higher levels of folate, or you can take methylfolate. You kind of skip the step. So you add a methyl group to the folate and you can take that as a supplement. And it's really important because if homocysteine levels are high, it's linked to heart attacks, to cancer, to strokes, to dementia, depression, so many different things that are critical. Birth defects. You know, I had a, I think I might have told this on a different podcast, but I had a patient who had done Fed Up with me. Did I talk to you guys

about this? You might've on a podcast, but not on a NASMARC anything episode. So feel free to tell us. Okay. I do so much talking, so I don't remember. But anyway, I was in this, I did this movie Fed Up years ago. And there was a director of the movie who I got to meet and then it was about obesity in America. It was really good. It's on Netflix. You should for sure. Check it out. Watch it. Watch it with your kids. But she, she was with me on the book tour. I mean, on the movie tour, on the, and, and, and she had a baby with her and she was breastfeeding.

We're like going to the different TV shows and all that. And she was in the backseat breastfeeding. And she said, Mark, I have to tell you a story. I'm like, Oh, what? She's like, well, uh, I had so many miscarriages, like, like, I don't know, six, seven miscarriages. And I ended up also, um, having this baby that had anencephaly, which means there was no brain. So it was like a baby with no brain doesn't last. And, uh, I read your article on methylation, the one I just talked about. And she said, I went to my doctor and I said, I think I have this problem because it's linked to miscarriages. And it actually was discovered in birth defects, like spina bifida. And the doctor was like,

she's like, I want you to do this test for this enzyme, MTHFR for this gene and see if I have this problem. And sure enough, she did. He's like, oh, just take folic acid. It's like, no, no, no. Dr. Hyman said, I have to take methylfolate. Can I take that? She's like, he's like, okay. So she takes that. And then she has this perfect, beautiful baby, which she'd been trying for years and years. And I first learned about this actually phenomena when I was in China in 1994. And I heard this scientist talk about the researchers who studied birth defects because in Northern China and Harbin, which is North of Beijing, it's kind of near Mongolia, it's freezing up there. They're like, and it's not, you know,

they don't have a whole food. It's like basically winter comes and there's not a single green thing to be seen. Right. And folate comes from the word foliage, right? So it's in greens and a lot of other things. So they don't eat any of that. And then of course, in the Chinese new year is when everybody gets married apparently. And so they found that, you know, of course, when you get married, you know, things happen and then babies come like nine months later. And, and, and the, and they had this huge increase in those babies in spina bifida and neural tube defects, which is terrible. And that's kind of how they figured out that folate is something that we have to give to pregnant women or women who are even prenatally

or antenatally before they even get pregnant to protect against birth defects. So you think about like a vitamin that is powerful enough to prevent miscarriages and birth defects. Also, if it's elevated, if homocysteine is elevated, you know, at 14, for example, your risk of dementia is up by 50%, but it's linked to everything from depression to cancer to DNA problem. It's just, it's such a critical part of our biology. So you need to be sure you're taking a good B complex. This is just, it's just a good insurance.

There's no risk to it. Ideally methylated forms. You can bypass this step. Not everybody needs it, but we do genetic testing. We can look at all the methylation variations and, you know, some affect B6, some affect B12. So B6, there's something called CBS or cystothionine beta synthase or MTR, which I think, I know it's MTR, I forget what it says. Anyway, it's basically a B12 pathway. So all these different steps in the methylation cycle, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a, like a, it's like an assembly line. So all every step

is needed and there's different vitamins that activate different enzymes at each step to actually make the whole thing work. So you really need to, to, to take this seriously. And, and I, I, I, I have a problem with it personally. And it you have high levels, it's hard to detoxify. And that's probably why I got heavy metal toxicity. So now I got under control, but it's like, you got to measure it and you got to test it. And you got to take the right nutrients from it. Thank you.

That's so helpful. Thanks for that detailed story. And that was amazing to hear about the um director there the lady that was on you know on your tour and then read your article how incredible yeah thank you darcy over to you i i know you're working you guys for a long time but i still haven't told you all my stories so i got to keep you entertained well yeah i feel like i learned something new every time and i think what i'm learning every time is that all these things that like kind of happen to you and then you then teach the rest of the world about it so thank you for sharing your journey okay okay but but you know what I think I'm over this like I don't want

to get any more illnesses yes I don't get any more problems I'm good I'm like I can read I can read the science and I can translate it I don't need to actually get the thing anymore. That's true. Well, that's why you're working on it. I've had mercury. I've had mold. I've had Lyme. I've had Babesia. I've had gut issues, colitis. I mean, you know, I've had the whole thing.

And, you know, I guess that's what God wanted me to do, was to sort of really know this from the inside out. So it made me a better doctor, but it was not fun. No, definitely not. But, but now you're going to be writing about longevity. So everybody's looking to you. So there you go. All right. Yeah. All right. Well, um, the next question is all about your gallbladder. Um, so of course, uh, what does the gallbladder do? And then specifically, what are the implications of having your gallbladder. So of course, what does the gallbladder do? And then specifically, what are the implications of having your gallbladder removed? Is there anything that

you should do to supplement in that case? Is there anything that you should be mindful of, i.e. like fats or fat-soluble vitamins, things like that? Anything else that you should consider for gallbladder health, but also if you've got your gallbladder removed. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, gallbladder is rampant in America. The biggest cause is, I'll let you guys guess, what's the biggest cause? Process food. Sugar.

Sugar, yeah, sugar. So, you know, diabetics have extremely high rates of gallbladder surgery. So eating crappy food causes, you know diabetics have extremely high rates of gallbladder surgery uh so eating crappy food causes you know just trouble with your liver and increases gallbladder disease so your gallbladder basically takes the bile your liver makes uh and and it stores it in the gallbladder there's like a little tiny tiny sack. And then when you have a meal and you need to squirt out some bile to digest the fat in the meal,

it squirts it out through the bile duct and you end up digesting your food, and it's great. When you eat a crappy diet and all that, you're gonna get gallstones. And gallstones can cause inflammation of the gallbladder. They can be small and get stuck in the gallbladder duct, the common bile duct, and then cause really bad problems. They can cause liver failure, pancreatitis. I mean, it's not fun. And you get gallbladder inflammation, cholecystitis, you can get infected gallbladder

and it can be bad. And so a lot of people need gallbladder surgery. Again, if they took care of themselves, they probably wouldn't, but let's just say you need the gallbladder surgery, then what? Well, your bile still is being made by your liver. It's still going through into your small intestine through your, your, your common bile duct. The gallbladder was removed. You're not removing the bowel function completely, although you might have less about stores and function. So some people do need to take, uh, digestive enzymes, uh, like lipase and protease,ase. Ox bile is something I'll prescribe,

which is extra bile. So that can often be helpful if people are having trouble digesting fats and so forth. I wouldn't eliminate fat or anything like that. I would try to figure out how to eat in a way that's a whole foods, healthy diet, avocado oil, olive oil, nuts, seeds. You don't restrict fats, but you wanna eat in a way that is in combination with the right supplements or adjustments to sort of make it work. Well, I hope you enjoyed that teaser of exclusive content that you get every single month with Dr. Hyman Plus.

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