The Dr. Hyman Show - Why You Keep Getting Sinus Infections, Colds, Urinary Tract Infections, And Other Recurrent Infections with Dr. Elizabeth Boham

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Many of us wonder why we keep getting sick and repeatedly suffer from recurrent infections—whether it be sinus infections, ear infections, urinary tract infections, cold and flu, or a range of other infections. While conventional medicine typically treats these infections with antibiotics, Functional Medicine digs deeper to determine the cause of the infection and what can be done to eliminate it. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman is joined by Dr. Elizabeth Boham to discuss the Functional Medicine approach to breaking the cycle of recurrent infections and how to make ourselves more immune resilient.  Elizabeth Boham is a physician and nutritionist who practices functional medicine at The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, MA. Through her practice and lecturing she has helped thousands of people achieve their goals of optimum health and wellness. She witnesses the power of nutrition every day in her practice and is committed to training other physicians to utilize nutrition in healing. Dr. Boham has contributed to many articles and wrote the latest chapter on Obesity for the Rankel Textbook of Family Medicine. She is part of the faculty of the Institute for Functional Medicine and has been featured on the Dr. Oz show and in a variety of publications and media including Huffington Post, The Chalkboard Magazine, and Experience Life. Her DVD Breast Wellness: Tools to Prevent and Heal from Breast Cancer explores the functional medicine approach to keeping your breasts and whole body well.  In this episode, Dr. Hyman and Dr. Boham discuss: Strengthening our immune system to break the cycle of recurrent infections. COVID-19. How antibiotics can disrupt the balance of bugs in our microbiome, affecting the immune system, and leading to a cycle of infections. A 10-year old patient Dr. Boham treated who was consistently getting sick from cold and flu. Dairy as a common cause of congestion and recurrent ear infections. Boosting the immune system with zinc and vitamin C. How heavy metals, such as lead, interrupt gut function and affect the immune system. Using probiotics and supplements to personalize treatment for recurrent infections. Supporting the detoxification system to improve the immune system. Treating recurrent bladder infections. Common causes of urinary tract infections (UTIs). Breaking the cycle of recurrent bladder infections by drinking a lot of water, urinating frequently, wiping from front to back, wearing cotton underwear, and urinating after sex as well as with probiotics, cranberry, D-mannose, and herbs. Rejuvenating the immune system with sleep, exercise, stress reduction, a whole foods diet, getting off sugar, and eliminating ultra-processed foods. For more information visit drhyman.com/uwc  This episode is sponsored by AirDoctor. We need clean air not only to live but to create vibrant health and protect ourselves and loved ones from toxin exposure and disease. Learn more about the AirDoctor Professional Air Purifier system at a special price at www.drhyman.com/filter Additional Resources:  “Five Tips for Building a Better Immune System” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2020/02/08/five-tips-for-building-a-better-immune-system/ “5 Steps to Break the Cycle of Chronic Urinary Tract Infections” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2017/09/15/5-steps-to-break-the-cycle-of-chronic-urinary-tract-infections/ “Getting to the Root | Episode 3 | Supporting the Immune System” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2019/04/23/getting-to-the-root-episode-3-supporting-the-immune-system/ “Top 5 Foods to Support Your Immune System” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2018/11/12/top-5-foods-to-support-your-immune-system/ “The Wrong Gut Bugs Can Make You Fat and Sick (and How to Fix Them)” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2017/09/21/the-wrong-gut-bugs-can-make-you-fat-and-sick-and-how-to-fix-them/ “How To Feed Your Gut” https://drhyman.com/blog/2018/04/13/how-to-feed-your-gut/ “Are You Still Consuming Dairy?” https://drhyman.com/blog/2017/07/27/still-consuming-dairy/ “Stuffy Nose, Headaches, and Honey” https://drhyman.com/blog/2017/04/21/stuffy-nose-headaches-honey/ “Heartburn and Candida: What is Your Gut Trying to Tell You?” https://drhyman.com/blog/2017/04/06/heartburn-candida-gut-trying-tell/ “Here’s the Downside of Antibiotics Your Doctor Might Not Tell You”  https://drhyman.com/blog/2017/01/25/heres-downside-antibiotics-doctor-might-not-tell/ “A Functional Medicine Approach to COVID-19” https://drhyman.com/blog/2020/04/01/a-functional-medicine-approach-to-covid-19/ Dr. Hyman’s 10 Day Reset getfarmacy.com Dr. Hyman’s 10 Day Reset free resource guide  getfarmacy.com/free Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. We'll see that somebody gets an infection, right? For this kid, it was his ear infection, or for somebody else, it might be a urinary tract infection or a sinus infection. They are given antibiotics, but those antibiotics get rid of the infection, but they also can get rid of all that good bacteria.

Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and this is a special episode called House Call with my colleague and friend and partner at the Ultra Wellness Center, the medical director, Dr. Elizabeth Boham. And this is a conversation that you should all pay attention to because it's about how to prevent infections. And given our current situation with COVID-19, we should all be paying acute attention on how to boost our immune systems, how to make ourselves more immune resilient, and how to, as my friend Dr. Jeffrey Bland says, how to create a process of immunorejuvenation. Oh, I like that.

Which is a great word, which is how do we make ourselves immune warriors? So our immune system is functioning on all cylinders. So one, we may be able to resist getting infections. And we'll talk about some cases on how we do that, not with COVID, but in general. And two, how, if we get something, we might not get that sick. And I think that yesterday I was talking to a physician's assistant who worked in the emergency room in a hospital in Massachusetts. And she was saying how they saw probably 30 to 40 COVID patients a day. Most of them came in for testing with mild symptoms. And then there was a few that were very sick who came in really short of breath, really struggling and unable to sort of manage, who had to be admitted to the hospital or intubated. And I said, how many of the patients that end up getting admitted to the hospital or in the ICU or on ventilators, how many of those were metabolically healthy? In other

words, how many of those who came in were overweight or had some chronic illness? And she said there wasn't one, and this is her, this is her, you know, N of one sample, right? But it's, you know, it's literally hundreds of patients over, you know, weeks. She said not a single one who came in that was metabolically healthy needed to be admitted to the hospital. They all had more mild symptoms. So that's a really important clue of how we can become COVID resistant in a sense, right? How do we become immune resilient and COVID resistant? So we're going to talk about how to break the cycle of recurrent infections, whether it's colds or flus or bladder infections or ear infections. How do we make ourselves more

immune resilient? So welcome to the podcast, Dr. Bohm. You're probably the most regular guest I've had. And we're going to have lots more of you because we get into such great conversations about common problems with uncommon solutions based on functional medicine that really work. And it's what we do here at the Ultra Wellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. And it's so exciting now. We can treat so many more patients because we're doing virtual visits. We're doing virtual consultations.

So even new patients we can do virtually now because of the expanded telemedicine rules. And it's really great because we can take care of people all over the world virtually. And it's super fun and easy. And people can get help, especially now people have time to take care of themselves. They're at home, they can cook,

they can practice more rhythmic lifestyle, they can exercise more and they can get into actually a better pattern of living. And it's so important to now, right? I mean, I had a patient the other day who's like, I am motivated to really make this stick now. I am, I mean, she was working hard before, but she's like, I have more motivation

to really take your advice because I know that when I'm eating that refined processed sugary food, it's not good for my immune system. I know that when I'm not doing my exercise, that's not good for my immune system. Right. I know that if I'm really stressed and not giving my body time to rest and do my my breath work and relax my body, we know that's not good for my immune system, right? So she's like, I'm really motivated now to take this advice and to really focus on self-care because like you say, we can't always control the virus, but we can control the host somewhat, right? There's a lot that we can all do to really strengthen our immune system. And, you know, I've been interested in this topic for so long because I see a lot, both with myself, but with a lot of my patients of these chronic cyclical infections, right?

People get, you know, everybody's kind of got their Achilles heel, right? As if that one person, it might be, they get these sinus infections every winter or a couple every winter or somebody else. It might be, they get urinary tract infections all the time or that kid who's always getting every cold or flu that's floating around. Strep throat. Strep throat, right? And certain people are so much more susceptible. So I've been working with patients on this for a long time.

And now that we've got COVID-19, it's so important that we really take these principles and say, okay, what can we do to break the cycle of always picking up everything that's floating around? What can I do to really improve the functioning of my immune system? So if you go to the doctor and you say, hey, doc, I don't want to get these infections anymore. What do I do? They go, I don't know. Well, next time you get sick, come in, I'll give you an antibiotic. It's not something we were trained to do. It's not their fault. They just don't have the knowledge or the tools or even the insight that, wait a minute, there's two things when it comes to an infection. There's the bug and there's the host, right?

Yes. There was a very famous debate between Louis Pasteur, who discovered the bug, the pathogen, and this guy named Claude Bernard, who was a scientist at the same time, another French scientist who said, no, no, no, it's the biological terrain. It's the host that matters the most. So it was this host, you know, pathogen debate, but it's kind of a silly debate. And at the end of Pasteur's life, he says, it's not the pathogen, it's the host. And I think that's what we're finding with COVID-19 is that people who are not healthy are the ones who are getting really sick and dying.

80% are mildly affected or have no symptoms, which is part of the scary part because people can be walking around shedding virus and they feel great. And so that's why the governor of New York said, put a mask on, right? Everybody's got to wear a mask. It's law now. But I think we have to sort of think differently about this and say, wait a minute. What do we know about how to create immunoresilience? How to create immunorejuvenation?

How to make ourselves an unfriendly host to the microbes that we're exposed to? Because we're all exposed to them, right? I mean, people with AIDS don't die from the HIV virus. The HIV virus cripples their immune system, which means that they are going to die from things that we all live with in our bodies, whether it's pneumocystis pneumonia, or whether it's cytomegalovirus, or whether it's a different bacteria like mycobacterium avium tuberculosis. So we actually are living in a soup of bugs that live in us all the time. Yes.

And it's not a bad thing. We're just imbalanced with them. And so when we get out of balance, whether it's a virus like HIV hijacking our immune system, or whether it's the fact that we have a crappy diet and are stressed and don't sleep and have nutrient deficiencies and, you know, don't take care of ourselves. Well, there's a lot we can do about it. And that's what's so great about functional medicine is it gives us a method of evaluating people and where they break down and where they're struggling and where their immune system might not be working optimally. And there's so many different reasons for it. And we're going to get into that in today's podcast. So tell us, Liz, about some of your patients that you've discovered how to actually work with. Because this is something

I also have seen in my practice. People get sick over and over again. And you're just going to see these people like, why are you always getting sick? And then you start digging. And what are the kinds of things you find? What are out of balance? What's out of balance? So for the first person I wanted to talk about, he was a 10-year-old boy, and he was coming in because he was getting every cold and flu that was going around, right? So his mom was getting frustrated because he was out of school almost a couple weeks a year, if not more, because he kept getting sick. And she, of course, had to take off work, and it was causing some disruption in their house. But she was also really just worried about him. Why was he picking up every cold and flu going around?

I got a good detailed history from him, and he had multiple ear infections as a younger child. So when he was, you know, his first few years of life, even up to five, he was getting lots of ear infections. And often treated with antibiotics, right? So he would get an ear infection and he would take antibiotics and then he would get another ear infection and he would take more antibiotics. He had a lot of congestion in his nose and nasal passages. Even when he wasn't sick. Even when he wasn't sick, he was dealing with it.

And that's an issue we know because when there's a lot of congestion floating around, sometimes it gets stuck, right? So kids that have a lot of congestion in their nasal passageways and their eustachian tubes, more likely for it to get... They have more inflammation and it's more likely to get stuck. And then another infection grows and you get an ear infection, for example. So he had these recurrent chronic ear infections. So wait, wait.

So this is just to break it down a little bit so what you're saying is essentially is that if you're living a lifestyle or you have food sensitivities or something that's causing congestion and inflammation in your sinuses and your nose and your throat that that sets the stage for recurring infections yeah right so maybe the treatment isn't to fix the infection it's to figure out why there's this problem right because the the congestion gets stuck and then there's a breeding ground for a virus or bacteria to overgrow and an infection to take hold and for it not to be able to get out of the system, you know? And for him, you know, for him, he had these chronic ear infections, but now is getting

everything. So when he had the chronic ear infections, it's important to note that he was given lots of antibiotics. So for his first five years of life, he was on multiple rounds of antibiotics, two, three times a year getting antibiotics for these ear infections. And that is something we often see, right? We'll see that somebody gets an infection, right? For this kid, it was his ear infection, or for somebody else, it might be a urinary tract infection or sinus infection. They are given antibiotics, but those antibiotics get rid of the infection, but they also can get rid of all that good bacteria that's lining the sinus passageways, the digestive system, the bladder area, right? The microbiome. The microbiome, right? And we know that those good bacteria,

they're like the first line of defense. They're like that army on the front line, right? They can say, okay, virus, don't get into my body. Okay, another bacteria, don't come into my nose, right? Those good bacteria are lining all the passageways in our body. They're part of our defense system. Huge part of our immune system, huge part of that innate immune system, that immune system that's going to attack right away when something new or different comes into the body. And so when we've been on a lot of antibiotics in the past, we will often see people whose immune system is not working as well as we'd like it to. So, and I to. So what you're saying is that antibiotics, even though they treat infections,

seem to mess up your immune system. I think they do. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's good studies to show that. Sometimes an antibiotic is necessary, but there's definitely been multiple times with lots and lots of people, and of course all the antibiotics in our food supply,

they're damaging a lot of that good protective, good bacteria that are our first line of our immune system. So absolutely. And then make you even more susceptible on the next round. Exactly. And that's, I think, one reason why we see these chronic infections with people, because they take the antibiotics, but then it gets rid of a lot of the good bacteria. So it's easier then next time for that virus or bacteria to take hold and to become an infection again. And so we see this sort of cyclical thing going on with people. And so I think that's important for us to pay attention to and say, okay, let's step back and say, do we absolutely need to use this antibiotic this time for this situation?

And I think we, you know, as physicians, it's important that we are, we are making that, we're being more careful with the use of antibiotics. And we, but I think that's an area that we see, we see issue with. And I think one reason for him, one of the reasons why he was more susceptible to these colds and flus. But I don't think it was the only reason. Yeah, what was the other thing you found? And I think that that's important to note, right?

We always want to find one thing. We always want to say, oh, it's the one reason why somebody's immune system isn't working as well. But many times it's multiple things coming together. And I just want to stop you for a minute there because in traditional medicine, we were trained to think about the one thing. Yeah.

We call it Occam's razor. What's the simplest explanation that can explain all of it? And we sort of do that a little bit in functional medicine, but the problem with traditional medicine is very reductionist. It's like this, you know, this is one thing. And the truth is, the body is complex. It is a system. Yes.

And it's many things. It's more like a web than a razor. Absolutely. Right. And many times there's, you know, 10 different things going on that are contributing to why this person's immune system wasn't working well. So their microbiome, their diet, nutritional deficiencies, all sorts of things. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Hyman here. Now, I know we're all focused on being as healthy as possible during this unprecedented time. And that

means drinking clean water, eating loads of anti-inflammatory foods, and it also means keeping our homes clean. Now, I've been doing my best to keep my family safe while indoors, and for me, this means using an air filter. Now, we know that toxic air particles can contribute to cardiovascular disease, lung disease, and even neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. These toxic particles come from cleaning products and stoves and pet dander and air fresheners and house paint and furniture and so much more. And that's why it's super important to filter our indoor air with the highest quality filter around. And a few years ago, I found Air

Doctor, which is an air filter that's made by Ideal Living. And I loved it so much that I bought it and brought it into my home and my clinic. The Air Doctor is the first affordable air purifier that not only removes a hundred percent of the particles but also the vast majority of volatile organic compounds and gases. It features an ultra HEPA filter which is a hundred times more effective than ordinary HEPA filters. The Air Doctor is a hundred percent more effective than ordinary HEPA filters. The Air Doctor is a 100% sealed system to ensure that all the air you breathe is pure and filtered. Now I've teamed up with the makers of Air Doctor to give the doctor's pharmacy listeners the best deal yet on this amazing filtration system. Right now if you go to drhyman.com forward slash filter to access the Air Doctor

filter for $329, and that's $300 off the normal price of this filter. And this is their biggest deal yet. You definitely want to take advantage. So head over to drhyman.com forward slash filter to access the deal. Thanks for tuning in. So for this child, you know, we realized also because of all of this congestion and frequent infections and a lot of ear infections as a kid, I said, well, you know what? Maybe we need to think about some food sensitivities that may be causing a lot of congestion for this kid and putting him at increased risk for these ear infections as a kid and infections now. Because we do know, we do know that dairy and cow's milk is associated with increased risk of ear infections for some kids. And also mucus production, congestion.

I mean, I know if I eat dairy, I might immediately get a runny nose and congestion. It doesn't affect everybody by that way, but it does affect a lot of people that way. Yep. And he was willing, he was willing to say, okay, I'm going to, uh, the kid, he was, uh, he was ready to say, I want to, I want to stop getting sick all the time. And so he was willing to go off of, uh, you know, to do an elimination of dairy from his diet. And so that is one of the things we, we really focused on and we worked on and, and it really did help his congestion decreased. He wasn't getting as sick as much,

but we did more than that because we also realized that he, I did some nutritional biomarkers. I realized he was a little low in zinc, which is not uncommon to find. Zinc is so important for your immune function. In fact, in COVID-19, they're finding they're actually treating patients with zinc

because it helps to interrupt the viral replication and the viral binding to this sort of cells and the insertion into the host DNA. So I think it's really interesting to see that just even in this crazy, horrible infection of COVID-19, we're going back to basic principles of what's required to help the immune system, zinc and vitamin C, which are being used intravenously in studies. Yes. And so for him, you know, we added in like 20 milligrams of zinc and 500 milligrams of vitamin C a day. And, and that was very helpful too, to help him break this cycle. In addition, we found out, we found out that he had some elevated levels of heavy metals. So his lead was, was, his lead was a little bit high. He was living in a home.

He'd grown up in a home that was built in the early 1920s or so. So it had more just lead in the water and in the walls of the house. So it had been refurbished, but his lead levels were higher than we'd like them to be. And we know, right, what we know about heavy metals, we know that high, his lead levels were higher than we'd like them to be. And we know, right, what we know about heavy metals, we know that high levels of lead are really a problem for both the neurological system and the immune system. But I think we also know that low levels can result in people's immune systems not working optimally. And also mercury and lead also affect the gut. So they interrupt the gut function and cause leaky gut, growth of bad bugs in there.

So you've got other reasons for this. Yes, right. That's true. That's very true. So we also, you know, not only did we pull away dairy from his diet, we put him on a really good probiotic because he had been on so many antibiotics in the past. And probiotics, there's really, really interesting studies on how well they help the immune system. I mean, we need to do a lot more research here and figure this out a lot

more, but they can really help with breaking some of the cycles for people who are chronically getting sick. I mean, I remember this study I read years ago. It was a pregnant woman who took probiotics compared to another group that didn't. And the women who took the probiotics during pregnancy, their offspring had dramatically less eczema and asthma. Yes. And allergies. Yes. Because the mothers took it.

So same thing when you give it to kids, it also helps dramatically with these problems. Yeah, absolutely. And can help improve the functioning of the immune system for some kids in certain situations. And then, of course, we gave them that zinc and vitamin C. But then I gave them, I put him on a detoxification protocol. I really helped with getting these heavy metal levels down. We did a protocol that had multiple different components in it, but that was because we tested and we found that his heavy metals were a little bit high. So we

worked to really bring them down with glutathione, liposomal vitamin C, some binding agents, things that help support the detoxification system in his body. And that comprehensive approach really helped his immune system improve. And it helped him get out of that cycle of getting sick two to three times every winter. And I think it's really fun to watch and see that because we see that difference all the time. I hear this so many times. I don't get sick anymore.

My sinuses, I don't get... This is the first year I've gone without having antibiotics for my sinuses. I know, right? It's just so simple. I mean, I remember this kid who just reminded me of this story when I was in the emergency room years ago. And I was working in Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mass. And this woman came in with her toddler, who was probably like maybe about two years old.

And it had just so many ear infections, one after the other after the other. And I said, well, when did this all start? And she's like, well, it was about a year old. I said, what happened when he was a year old? She said, well, I switched him from breast milk to regular milk. And I was like, and this was before I knew about functional medicine or anything. I was like, oh, well, that's interesting. Why don't you take him off dairy and see what happens? And the kid was fine. So I think sometimes it's sort of that

simple, but I think often it's more comprehensive because one, you change his diet, you optimize his nutrient levels, and you also in a deeper, to look at his detoxification and his mental burden, which was also a factor. So you did diagnostic tests that can help pinpoint these issues. And you can really create a precision approach to each individual. So this is his problem,

but there may be somebody else who might have a different reason for their immune system not working. I think it's really important to understand that we at the Altru Wellness Center and in functional medicine take a very different lens at looking at these chronic problems and say, what is the cause? How do we get rid of the cause? And why isn't the body

working properly? And when I learned functional medicine, one of my mentors was a guy named Sidney Baker, who was sort of a Yale pediatrician, just brilliant guy. And he was incredibly good at taking incredibly complex ideas and simplifying them into a few principles. And one of the most important principles that guys meet every day, still today, is a very simple question is, what do you need to get rid of in your body that's making it unhappy? And what does your body need to get in order to get healthy? So what are the things that are the problems that can cause disease,

and what are the missing factors that you need to have a resilient system? And so this is for the immune system, so this kid, he had too much dairy that was bugging him, he had too many metals that were bugging him, so you got rid of those things, and then you added in the things the body needed to function. You added in the probiotics, and you added in the zinc,

and the vitamin C, and the body knows what to do. It's like when you take out the bad stuff, you put in the good stuff, it's just that simple. And sometimes it's a tough job to figure out what the bad stuff is that you need to get rid of, and what the good stuff is that you need to get. And that's where the real meat of functional medicine is, is being able to investigate those things properly.

And figure that out, right? And we don't learn that in medical school. So functional medicine, we learn how to dive deep into being an expert in what are the things that cause disease, and how do you create a healthy human. And I think that's really the power of supplements. Sometimes people are like, oh, you know, what does supplements matter? A multi, is this helpful? Is this helpful? Yeah. But, but when, when you, when you can

identify what deficiencies people have or what, because of their genetics, they need more of, right? When you can really specialize and, and give a personalized program for somebody, it makes a world of difference. You know, I remember, I remember in my undergraduate degree in nutrition, and they were just like, oh, you know, don't bother with supplements. You know, it was really, it was really food first kind of a program. So I never took supplements. I remember the first time I took a multivitamin, I was like, whoa, this is amazing. And it was a good quality one with good methylated B vitamins. I had so much more energy because I needed that extra methylation because of my genetics,

right? So when you specialize and give a personalized approach, it really makes a huge difference for people. So key, so key. So we see recurrent ear infections, recurrent sore throats, recurrent colds and flu. We also recurrent sinus issues, which are very similar. But you had a case of a woman with chronic bladder infections. Oh, this is so common. I mean, this is something we see all the time. And we know that at least 50% of women get one urinary tract infection in their lifetime, but lots and lots

of women get many, many more, right? And a percentage of women have recurrent bladder infections to the point where they're put on antibiotics for prevention, right? They might be taking an antibiotic every time they have intercourse. I remember that. I learned about that in medical school. I'm like, wow, that's such a bad idea. Right, because let's go back to the microbiome, right? We've got microbiome.

We've got all that good bacteria that lines our urethra and our bladder. And so that when we take antibiotics all the time, that is killing off some of those good bacteria, just allowing that bad bacteria to get back in there again. So we've got to work to break the cycle with women all the time with the chronic urinary tract infections. It's something I see so often in my practice. And part of the reason women get it is because of anatomy. They have a very short distance between their outlet of their bladder and the vagina. And then their bladder, it's very short. Whereas men, it's a lot longer.

It's harder for the bacteria to migrate up there. And then it gets easily affected by hygiene and sex and dehydration. The most common cause of a urinary tract infection is the E. coli bacteria, which comes from our gut. And so, like you said, there's not a lot of distance between where the stool is coming out and the urethra and the bladder. So it's a an, you know, it's a common thing that we see, but there's a lot we can do to prevent that bacteria from taking hold. So this woman, she was a 40-year-old woman who had had bladder infections, you know, her whole adult life and was at the point where she was needing to take an antibiotic every time

she had intercourse. And really that was impacting so many other things. Now she was needing to take an antibiotic every time she had intercourse. And really that was impacting so many other things. Now she was getting yeast infections and she was, you know, and, you know, her digestion was getting off. And so we were like, okay, we've got to get to this underlying, we have to work to break this cycle of chronic infections. And, you know, there's a lot of cool things that really help with stopping that cycle of recurrent bladder infections. I mean, you talked about some of the basics, right? Making sure you're drinking a lot of water, you know, urinating frequently. Peeing after sex. Peeing before and after sex, right? Yeah. Wiping from front to back, wearing cotton. I mean,

all the basics. But then there's some stuff that really is helpful, you know, to help break the cycle. And one of those things are the probiotics. There's been a lot of really interesting research showing that there's certain forms of probiotics, the lactobacillus rhamnosus and the lactobacillus ruteri, which are good bacteria for the urinary tract system, right? Like those bacteria are, you want to have a lot of in the urinary tract system. And that when there's good levels of those bacteria, you know, your things are going to work better there. You're might not be as high risk of getting some of those recurrent infections. She hasn't always trained that, you know, your whole urinary tract system is sterile,

but you're saying there is a microbiome in the urinary tract. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so, so you can take these probiotics. You can take them by mouth. We often will have compounding pharmacies mix them and you can apply them vaginally too and make it easier for the... Great for yeast infections and recurrent issues. Yep.

And help those good bacteria climb up the urethra and into the bladder. And so, but taking them by mouth is also helpful to create that nice microbiome or help replete the nice microbiome in the bladder area. We know that cranberry, you know, we've heard forever that cranberry is really helpful because it has a substance that prevents the bacteria from sticking to the bladder lining. So cranberry is really great.

You know, I often don't want to have people drink too much cranberry juice because it's high in sugar, but you can get powders of cranberry and there's capsules of cranberry that can be used. And D-mannose is another substance. But you can get unsweetened cranberry juice, right? Or unsweetened cranberry concentrate. That stuff is sour, but it it really works you can take a quarter cup of that yep you mix a little water and then drink it there's no sugar and it really works and people can do it every half hour every hour two hours depending on the you know and it'll really help break the cycle if they don't want to take antibiotics i've had a lot of women who just

trying to break the cycle and we give them things like cranberry concentrate or cranberry supplements and there's another one you were just mentioning, D-mannose. Yeah. I was going to mention also that other place to put the unsweetened cranberry concentrate is in like seltzer water. It's yummy that way. Yeah. But the D-mannose is also another substance that prevents the binding of the bacteria to the bladder lining. So it's less likely to stick. And they've done studies showing that two grams of D-mannose can be as effective as antibiotics for prevention of a urinary tract infection. So both cranberry and D-mannose can be used for prevention. And then if somebody's starting to have symptoms, they can really increase the amount that they're using to sort of stop that

infection from coming on. So I think those can be really helpful as can the probiotics. And we use herbs too sometimes. We try to avoid people getting antibiotics. Yeah, yeah. I mean, a couple of things you want to watch for, right? If you get a fever, if you see any blood in your urine, if you get any back pain, if it's not getting better, you really work with your doctor on this because those infections can become serious for some people. And they can go up your kidneys, which is bad. Yeah, in certain situations. But some of those things can be really helpful for breaking the cycle.

And I think that's important. And I worked with her, with this one patient. We added in some cranberry and D-mannose. She was taking it on a regular basis, but then she also took it after intercourse. She took it frequently when she was starting to feel some sensation, like an infection might be coming on. We worked to make sure she was drinking lots and lots of water

so her urine was more dilute. You changed her diet too, right? I did, yeah. We got rid of, I mean, she was on a little too much sugar. Am I sugar bad? Because it can feed the wrong bugs in the, in the body, right? It can feed the yeast. It can feed bad bacteria. And, and that is, you know, and also viruses too. Absolutely. Right.

Because we know that when blood sugar is too high, that the immune system doesn't work as well. Right. So for all of those reasons, we cleaned up our diet. We, we pulled in a lot more of the good, healthy vegetables that are rich in phytonutrients that are anti-inflammatory for all those reasons, we cleaned up her diet. We, we pulled in a lot more of the good, healthy vegetables that are rich in phytonutrients that are anti-inflammatory and help can help support the immune system. And, and, and we, we helped her get off of the chronic antibiotics she was using because that is one of the best ways to help break the cycle of getting more and

more infections. Yeah, so powerful. So just to recap, you know, we've had a couple of cases, one of recurrent ear infections and colds and sore throats and flus and other bladder infections. But this really applies to anybody whose immune system is not working, who tends to get sick more often, who gets sinus issues. The treatments are sometimes slightly different, but we look differently at this with the lens of functional medicine. We look at diet, we look at food sensitivities. We look at the gut where 60% of

your immune system is. We look at your nutritional levels like vitamin D. I mean, if your vitamin D level is low, you're much more likely to get the flu. And if your vitamin D levels are optimal, you can reduce the flu by 40 to 70%, just that alone. And we look at zinc levels and levels of your overall nutritional status, like the usual. Vitamin A, right? Vitamin A, yeah. So we really take a deep, comprehensive look. And is there something else that's destabilizing your immune system?

Are there toxins, like in this little boy, that might be just destabilizing the immune system? So we really create a model of a real clear diagnosis through history, a dietary analysis, detailed testing if needed. It's a little bit different than when you get a traditional doctor. It looks at these sort of root causes. And then we kind of apply the method of restoring health.

So we remove the bad stuff, like you remove the yeast and you remove the bad foods and inflammation, dietary factors, maybe dairy, whatever it is. And then you add in all the things that need to rejuvenate the immune system, right? And it's some of the things we didn't talk about, like sleep and moderate exercise and stress reduction and a whole foods diet and getting off of processed foods and sugar. These are so simple and they're so profoundly effective in terms of rejuvenating immune system.

And that's what we all need to be thinking about right now in the era of COVID-19, because most of us don't think much about how to rejuvenate and enhance our immune function. And it's such a great time to really step back and say, okay, what do I need? What are the areas I need to really focus on for self-care? Where am I lacking? What am I not doing in terms of all those things you just mentioned, right? You know, how is my sleep? How is my stress? How is my diet? You know, how am I taking in too much sugar? Am I giving my body time to rest? And really, you know, focus on that right now. It's a great time to do that to help strengthen your immune system.

And gut health is so important in this. I mean, we just know that gut health is so important in resisting infection, even things like colds and flus and getting your gut healthy and leaky gut sorted. You know, I've been thinking a lot about COVID-19 and why people are struggling and people with asthma and people with, you know, chronic illnesses, people overweight. And I think, you know, I came up with this idea that they're pre-inflamed. They're pre-inflamed. So their body is already on fire. And you throw a virus on top of that. It's like throwing gasoline on the fire.

And why people are getting really sick and dying from COVID-19 is because of this thing called the cytokine storm. Cytokines are the messenger molecules of your immune system. And when they're activated, you get inflamed. So these people come in pre-inflamed, and those are the ones who are really struggling with this. So how do you get un-inflamed? That's what we're talking about. That's the whole idea of immunorejuvenation,

is to calm down the inflammation, to remove the things that are driving inflammation, to add things that help to reduce inflammation and enhance your immune function. I mean, we know, like we always talk about, people sometimes think, oh, our fat is just sort of sitting there. It's just, you know,

we just have this extra fat hanging out. But we know that that fat is really an active endocrine organ. It's producing, and it's producing a lot of inflammatory markers. It's an immune organ. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not just holding up your pants.

No. It's actually producing all these molecules. Right. And it's a whole thing., it's not just holding up your pants. No. It's actually producing all these molecules. Right. And it's a whole thing. And it's a huge source of inflammation. Yeah. Obesity and overweight and belly fat is the number one cause of inflammation in our society today.

Yes. And it is why we're seeing so much of these deaths from COVID-19 because people are inflamed from being overweight. And chronic illness is also an inflammatory problem. And it's also caused by this metabolic dysfunction, whether it's heart disease, diabetes, even things like cancer are caused by being overweight or having insulin resistance. So it's all connected to the same underlying issue, whether you're old and you have these diseases or whether you're young and you're

overweight, it's the same problem. So we're seeing so many people who are younger in the ICUs and admitted, but these aren't healthy young people. These are people who are younger in the icus and admitted but these aren't healthy young people these are people who are overweight and they may not have a chronic disease but obesity itself is not healthy it's not right it's not normal and you can and you can shift the level of inflammation in your body immediately quickly by just changing what you're eating quickly i mean it's just amazing how yeah i mean i had a patient once who, you know, wanted to do, she did the 10 day reset diet. You can go to getpharmacy.com and learn how to get off sugar and starch and do the 10 day reset. But she did it. It's just, she was sort of, you know, a little OCD and she wanted to check her labs after 10 days. I'm like, no, don't check your labs after 10 days. It's not going to change.

And she made me do it and I did it. And it was like, holy cow, like the inflammation levels just dropped dramatically in 10 days. It doesn't take 10 weeks. Right. I did it. And it was like, holy cow, like the inflammation levels just dropped dramatically in 10 days. It doesn't take 10 weeks, right? I mean, people see it, right? You can see the inflammation go away because you're not as puffy. You know, you look different when you look in the mirror. Your rings fit differently. You know, your weight drops very quickly.

That's, you know, because the water weight goes away and inflammation. But we also see it with the biomarkers. It's phenomenal. It's pretty amazing. So yeah, so we have really in the midst of all this bad news about coronavirus and COVID-19, we have good news, which is that there is a path to amino rejuvenation, to actually resisting these infections, to being COVID resistant, let's say. And it's a path that everybody can follow. Some of it's just basic stuff. And there's going to be great articles that are posted along with us in the show notes. So

people can refer to those. They can go to ultrawellnesscenter.com and sign up to be a patient. We have great nutrition consults if you just want that. We're doing all virtual consults now. So we can take care of anybody anywhere in the world where you have group visits. So there's a lot of options for people to engage with us. And I just think it's important more than ever now for people to double down on their health so that one, they may not get COVID-19 and two, if they get it, it won't be that bad. Right. Absolutely. If you've been listening to this podcast and you love what you heard, please share with your friends and family on social media, leave a comment. We'd love to

hear from you. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast and stay safe and focus on making yourself immune resilient. And we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Thank you, Mark. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health.

It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health, and I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays. Nothing else, I promise, and all you have to do is go to drhyman.com forward slash PICS to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash PICS, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter.

And I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Now back to this week's episode. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. 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.