Ask Your Herb Doctor, September 2020

00:00 The views and opinions expressed throughout the broadcast day on Redwood Community Radio are those of the speakers and not necessarily those of the station staff or underwriters. So, have pity for us all, or I mean have patience for us all, and chime in with what you want to say. So, thank you all so much for listening to us, and it’s time for Ask Your Herb Doctor. 01:00 Music Welcome to this month’s Ask Your Herb Doctor. My name’s Andrew Murray. My name’s Sarah Johanneson Murray. Can we just get the mic turned up for me, thank you. Okay, great. So, welcome to KMU de Galvo 91.1 FM. It’s the third Friday of the month, and every third Friday of the month we run the program Ask Your Herb Doctor, where we typically have Dr Pete on the show, and he’s become a stalwart here for the last, oh gosh, 10 years or more. For the last, I don’t know, 5 or 6 months, the COVID crisis has certainly been on the front burner. 02:05 We’ve been discussing some of the facts surrounding the do’s and don’ts of protocols, the approach to it, what it means to the general population, and I guess there’s been quite a bit of push and pull in terms of individuals’ comments about certain things like mask wearing, sanitization, and the effectiveness of some of the strategies documented to be preventive and or compromising to our security or our individuality from a lockdown perspective. Let’s all love big economic bowl of wax, but anyway, so this evening we’re going to be outlining some of the therapeutic advances and some of the strategies to mitigate any potential coronavirus infection. So, you’re listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor KMU de Galvo 91.1 FM from 7.30 until the end of the show. 03:10 You’re invited to call in with any questions, either surrounding tonight’s subject of the strategies and herbs and other compounds used to mitigate the inflammation associated with severe infection. The number if you live in the area or out of the area, it’s the 707 numbers, they’re just dial 707-923-3911. So once again, we’re very pleased, very proud to have Dr Pete joining us on the show to share his expertise with them. And let’s just get straight into it. Are you there, Dr Pete? Yes, hi. Hi, Dr Pete. Thanks so much for coming again. I appreciate your time. For those people, as always, who perhaps have never listened to you or have just heard you for the first time, would you just outline your academic and professional background so people can get a feel for where you are and where you’re coming from? I studied and worked in the humanities for the first ten years or so after college. Then I went back to school in biology for a PhD at University of Oregon in 1972. 04:18 Since then, I’ve been working on the way the humanities culture in general interacts with science. That continues to be very interesting that science is heavily influenced by the general background culture. Television, newspapers, as well as medical journals have a strong influence on the way science is practiced. Yeah, for sure. It’s a little bit of an exercise in, gosh, I want to say manipulation, but it always sounds so subversive to mention those kind of words like coercion or manipulation or control. But obviously the media, whether it’s written media or spoken audio-visual media, is a very powerful weapon in terms of shaping people’s consciousness about certain subjects. 05:24 I know that is a pretty active exercise by some entities to use certain language to mould our beliefs around certain things. I know you’ve bought out many, many times about the dogmas or the repeated dogma and or straight out lies through poor research that’s continually propagated and fed into the mainstream and how people, for the fish oil example, for years and years and years and it still is, I’m sure now, that fish oil is still perceived as being helpful and there’s overwhelming evidence to show that it’s not, the same really with sugar even and salt, and we’ve mentioned those in previous broadcasts. So Dr. P, I think what I wanted to do was run through some of the therapeutics and just wanted to kind of break them down in terms of their cellular activity and the mechanisms by which they are acting physiologically because there’s certainly quite a wide range of products that have the effects we’re looking for 06:27 and I think the main thrust of what we’re discussing is anti-inflammatories, anti-histamines and the anti-inflammatory is working against the immune modulated or immune stimulated cytokines, etc. that are brought into play by viral attack and bacterial attack and platelet aggregation factors and other components of the immune system that kind of go awry when they meet invaders. So I think it’s interesting to note though and not downplaying it at all because obviously if anybody’s lost a loved one through COVID, it’s extremely heartbreaking and it’s a real shame. But of the small percentage of the population that have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus and even smaller number have actually died from it and in every case it’s the airways difficulty that’s been the reason. Many first-hand ER Doctor reports mirrored the video report that we talked about in March and April this year by Kyle Cameron Sidell, the ER Doctor from Brooklyn, New York, who is treating critical care patients 07:29 suffering from the cytokine storm inflammatory events of COVID infection and a small subset of patients focused on the damage induced by the ventilators themselves and we mentioned the ventilator damage. The ventilators were used to perfuse the lungs of patients with low oxygen saturation who were being treated and he said that the disease resembled way more high-altitude sickness in its presentation, much more so than a viral pneumonia, which is what they thought they were treating initially. That recognition leads to the idea which is backed by a lot of facts that too much oxygen is creating the inflammation, making it worse instead of better. Interesting. I know you’ve always said that the CO2 is a beneficial gas and that oxygen really, as much as it’s counter-intuitive, should be considered more of a poison because it is. And Kyle Sidell mentioned that his patients were very low in CO2 and that’s exactly what happens in mountain sickness or in ventilation sickness. 08:37 Too much oxygen lowers your CO2. That creates a very powerful systemic inflammatory condition. So would it have been better if they gave them a proper mixture of carbon dioxide and oxygen instead of just pure oxygen? Yeah, and those products are available already mixed, 5%!C(MISSING)O2 and 95%!o(MISSING)xygen or slightly varying percentages. So if you were having difficulty breathing and you felt some relief from breathing in some passive oxygen, would you use that mixture of 95%!o(MISSING)xygen, 5%!C(MISSING)O2? Definitely. Some of the mountain high-altitude studies, they were putting people who were collapsing with mountain sickness, putting them in a big plastic or rubberized bag and zipping a shut, letting them breathe the relatively pure oxygen. 09:39 And it was helping, but someone noticed that the plastic bag was accumulating a high level of CO2 by their breathing. And so they tried, instead of putting them in an oxygen bag, giving them a CO2 supplement and that worked very effectively. And it works in hospitals too to ventilate people with a supplement of around 5%!o(MISSING)f CO2. Okay, so looking then at inflammation, that seems to be the overriding mechanism of this form of acute respiratory distress syndrome, as it’s known as. And it’s the mucus buildup from the inflammation, which I think is certainly something that needs addressing. And I think from the perspective of certain chemical compounds as well as some well-known antihistamines from the herb world, these will be things that we want to discuss and let people know about that are freely available. 10:44 None of these are prescriptions as far as I know. But the antihistamine, anti-mucolytic type of benefit from some of these compounds is what I want to first explore with you. There are many, many compounds that have been discovered very early on in the treatment of respiratory disease from the initial pneumonias that were very common place in the winters, especially in places like the north, northern Europe. And then obviously with the emergence of things like TB and those other lung pathologies. Mucus was certainly well known as a compounding problem upon which a viral condition could become a bacterial secondary infection. And obviously with the mucus there’s a kind of breeding ground for bacterial infection and also reducing the capacity of oxygen diffusion, which I think is an important thing. 11:45 And in terms of when patients are lying in a hospital situation with oxygen, whenever they’ve tried to withdraw the oxygen from these people, and I know Kyle mentioned this, that they were extremely anxious and distressed when this happened obviously because they’re getting a feeling of total suffocation, that the mucus buildup in the lungs is something that if we can reduce this quite easily with herbs and other substances that work as agents to either break down the bonds between the mucus or cause excessive watery secretion to thin the mucus. These are definitely strategies I know we learned when we were studying herbal medicine as a part and parcel of treatment of respiratory disease. So you had mentioned, and I found that this compound, bromhexene, actually comes from an Ayurvedic plant named Adhota Vasica. And so Dr. P, do you know much more about Adhota’s use or the extract that they’ve produced from it, the bromhexene? 12:55 It has been compared with glyphenosine as a mucolithic and I think was about twice as effective at breaking down and thinning viscous mucus. And the mucus normally functions as a barrier against irritants and infective things, but when the inflammation of the tissue that’s producing it becomes extreme, the osmolarity of the tissue increases and dehydrates and concentrates and makes the mucus much more viscous. One of the functions of the mucus is not only to bind toxins from the outside, but it binds and supposedly carries away things like histamine produced by the inflamed tissue. 13:58 But if the inflammation leads to dehydrating the mucus, it becomes more and more dense, accumulates the histamine that should be lost to the environment and becomes itself a very powerful, not only irritant, but a contraction of promoting agent causing constriction of the small tubes of the breathing system. And that not only causes a mechanical barrier to breathing, but the stress and inflammation to the lungs acts systemically on the body because the lungs are, for many chemicals, they rival the liver and the detoxifying system. And one of the side effects or effects of the coronavirus has been known for many years, but it has been re-emphasized recently that the infected people tend to have a higher serotonin. 15:21 The lungs are not detoxifying the serotonin. That leads to clotting, so the traditionally influenza was known to cause strokes and other blood clotting problems that is currently being recognized. But that really largely derives from the fact that irritated lungs don’t detoxify the histamine and serotonin and the serotonin activates the clotting system. Interesting because we’re going to get into some herbs in a minute that have one of them, platelet activation factor blocking agents. And so you mentioned the platelets in the clotting forms or the kind of sequelae of pneumonia or influenza disease. Clots are an issue and you mentioned there was stroke being one of them from blood clot. 16:23 So things like ginto and fever-few would all be path, we call it blockers of path platelet aggregation factor. Yeah, potential. So in terms of those agents then that would have mucolithic, we talked about breaking the bonds between the bonds that make up the mucous themselves to lyse them and to make the mucous thinner by producing more water. And then the kind of mucociliary escalator, which is something I remember from videos, there’s a small child at school watching the dangerous effects of smoking. And the mucociliary escalator was one of those things they showed little hairs wafting from the lungs up and out through the trachea to wave foreign objects with dust or whatever particles of bacteria or other things. It shouldn’t be there up out of the airways and so smoking was one of those things obviously that destroys those mucous ciliary escalator hairs. 17:29 So those things that improve either the breakdown of the mucous so it’s not as tenacious and thick or those things that cause a reflex action in the gut. And we’ll get onto that where the gut lung axis works so that things getting into the gut, stimulating the gut can actually have a reflex action on the lungs to produce an expectoration. They’re called reflex expectants. And then other agents that actually improve the mucociliary escalator. So I think I wanted to start with something that probably most people who are totally interested in herbs have probably heard about has been, I think it’s but a fairly good sales in the market is quercetin. Are you familiar with quercetin at all or? Oh yeah, that’s one of the reasons I recommend fruits, especially citrus fruit. And it works with the sugar content of fruits as well as other anti-inflammatory things. 18:32 The sugar itself can be mucolithic. Okay, because the sugar itself, will it have any kind of osmotic effect? Anti-inflammatory. Just anti-inflammatory. Anti-inflammatory, the inflammation in the variety lowers the stress hormones. And isn’t that how cortisol shots work when you have lung disease and they’re giving people cortisone? Yeah, it raises your serum glucose. Alright, so quercetin is a compound as you mentioned, found in fruits, especially citrus fruits. there are other things that I more associate with the anthocyanins and the pigments in dark berries but they lots of dark berries are implicated to have fairly high levels of quercetin and things from blackberries and blueberries and bilberries fairly high in quercetin and then we also mentioned ginko which 19:34 has a platelet aggregation factor blocking compound. Did you forget nettle? Nettle leaf is very high in quercetin. I know, we’re just going through the berries but nettle leaf obviously is one of those things and again nettle leaf has been used in allergy and allergy in histamine and that we’ll get onto that in a little bit because another tack of approaching the inflammatory pathway and calming it is an anti-histamine approach. So you’re listening to ask your doctor K.M.D. Garberville 91.1 FM from 7.30 until the end of the show at 8 o’clock who invited to call in. The question is related or unrelated to this month’s discussion on the anti-inflammatory agents that can be used to suppress inflammation, domain driving force of the real problems with people that contract COVID and get into respiratory difficulty. The number is 707-923-3911 so from 7.30 till the end of the show Dr. Pete will be there and available to answer questions and or if other questions need to be asked that 20:38 are outside of tonight’s scope it’s probably fine too. So getting on to expectorants then as a method by which respiratory disease period can be approached whether it’s bacterial or viral it doesn’t really matter or indeed if it’s an allergic type of response. That expectorants are things that as we’ve mentioned either cause the increase of thin watery production in the mucus cells in the lungs to raise this kind of liquid level to be wafted up by the mucus ciliary escalator up and out of the trick here so it can be relieved that the kind of diffusion can happen more easily in the lungs between CO2 and oxygen and I wanted to mention Ella campaign now Ella campaign is a fairly tall perennial herb it’s in the composites and contains a volatile or underfixed oil and it’s long been used 21:38 as a what they call a warming expectorant and it’s actually part of our formula our new formula. I’m not trying to say anything here but it’s actually within our time licorice and other campaign syrup and that brings me to licorice. Now licorice is one of those herbs that I’ve read quite a lot of PubMed articles and other articles online that are by the thousands now concerning COVID and whether it’s Chinese medicinal herbs or it’s Native American herbs or Ayurvedic herbs or you know just looking at the medicinal herb arsenal in general there’s lots of published research now and licorice comes up time and time again. We’ve always used well not always used but licorice I look at licorice mainly for things like gastric ulcers as a good soothing kind of dimulsant but licorice actually has quite a bit of antiviral activity and I’ve never really think about it licorice as an antiviral. Most 22:39 of the research that’s done on it has looked at things like the compounds called glycerycin and glyceretic acid and glycerycin itself as a compound breaks down into glycerotennic acid in the digestive tract and both glycerycin and glycerotennic acid exhibit a mineralic corticoid, our Dostron like action on the body and I wanted to ask you Dr. P if you could just go through this I know we have a couple of quarters on the line hopefully they can sit tight for a few minutes here before we get to the 730 but Dr. P I’d like you because I know you’ve got this you have this very I won’t say simplified because it’s not all simple but a very simplistic mechanism by which people that are listening can understand the I call it in controversy really because as practitioners of herbal medicine we were always anti steroids okay when people came to see us with eczema or psoriasis and they’d been 23:41 on steroids they were either no longer getting response from it or the you know that they’ve been on steroids for so long they were getting other problems whether it be asthma or other situations were that revolving around a kind of immune dysregulation but I saw this and I know you’ve mentioned this before and the frame Framingham study but this may be a different Framingham study showing that elevated out Dostron was positively associated with the instance of new onset hypertension or high blood pressure which is something that we were taught about for some individuals using the licorice in large quantities so how do you see the the line as it were distinguishing the positive steroid effects from the negative effects the tissues that are most involved in the inflammation happen to have taste receptors and bitter herbs and sweet things like licorice have signaling effects to activate some of 24:48 the anti-inflammatory mechanisms I think that’s how licorice among other herbs can act on our system to inhibit histamine and serotonin for example but in large amounts that increase the tendency towards hypertension the of steroid is inhibiting an enzyme that prevents the accumulation of too much mineral corticoid such as aldosterone and aldosterone itself is a major promoter of degenerative inflammation so that that’s one of the reasons that I think progesterone is a better anti-inflammatory except maybe for one or 25:55 two days of acute lung inflammation dexamethasone is probably a quicker acting thing but for prolonged use a progesterone is not only supporting the cortisol like anti-inflammatory effects but it has a powerful anti-aldosterone effect preventing the increase of blood pressure from excessive accumulation of sodium and blocking all of those inflammatory degenerative fibrosis producing effects of aldosterone so I think it’s something like licorice the time and licorice syrup that we just produced is not something we’d want people to be on at very high doses for a long period of time but in an acute situation for you know a short period of time to get over your chest infection 26:56 you’re saying that that amount of licorice in there is is anti-inflammatory enough to help which is what we obviously see with our clients yeah I think one of the effects of just sugary things like orange juice is that it too activates those sugar taste receptors it isn’t sugar and licorice but it is something that activates the sweet sensors yes okay I guess we’ll hold it there that’s why the children like it so much I’m gonna ask you another question about dexamethasone and the steroidal anti-inflammatory from a sugar perspective after the calls but let me try to remember that as we take these first couple of callers and see where we’re going with this caller you’re on the air where you from and what’s your question I believe on the earth and I’ve been studying in myself you know as I come to the other environment in medicine that’s more white lab medicines 28:05 that a few of them don’t work in my system because I know more about the earth what they can do and in this pandemic with this inflammation that I found golden steel a kinesia golden steel a thousand milligrams and you can buy that through a computer but I found the best anti-inflammatory after that and I’ve been using a kinesia golden steel for many different reasons in my life and past the years when I was in school in college in San Francisco the bad weather a lot of buyers and I start using a kinesia in golden steel so I can be up in the morning with the energy real early to be 6 a.m. in that class yes 29:11 at the golden steel is very very good to help with the mucus production of your mucus membranes helps regulate normal mucus production and echinacea is also very anti-inflammatory for the immune system okay well let’s take this next caller and see where we’re going with this next caller caller you’re on the way from where was your question hi I’m from Fort Bragg and I know some of my friends are listening to me and I hope my oldest son isn’t because I don’t think he realizes the health problems that I’m incurring now because I used to be called the bungling private eye I did help law enforcement when I could and I also was almost murdered three times my nose has been broken five times two times by me by accident when I was working and three times I can’t even begin to tell you oh wow I’ve got a big polyp like I see my right nostril and my sinuses for 30:15 moving into an apartment seven years ago is they are so infected all the way up into my head that I get headaches and all this stuff comes out this is gross over the phone to tell you but it comes out in like rope rings of yeah mucus stuff and sometimes it’s colored like cream and white or clean cream and clear golden seal would be very good for you golden seal is a great I’ve been doing that but I can’t take licorice I’ve got fiber my also that and the carpet where I’m at is 33 years old it’s got mold and bacteria in it and I was told that I’ve got pandemic sinus sinus along with my fiber my alga and the C1 C2 S C1 C2 in my neck L5 L4 L5 and S1 in my low back and one disc in the middle of my back and degenerative disc disease I don’t know what to do for all this but mostly 31:20 my sinuses they’ve got me on pregab pregabalin for Lyrica you know instead of Lyrica because that was so expensive all right I want to try and keep on keep on focus here with your question man and understand that probably a sinus infection type issue is your most important thing so for those for those things for sinus infections that we’ve definitely has a very very good feedback over time we’ve been using it as a formula that we produce which is based on well-known sinus herbs obviously the main one a golden seal and horseradish root is another excellent compound for disinfecting the nasal passages and the sinuses also has chili in it and yeah and plantain that are those are both mucolytics like we were talking about that they help dissolve mucus and then the secretions and disinfect them so there’s quite a quite a wide range of herbs that are used basically be either antibacterial or mucolytic and so I 32:25 would definitely give definitely give some of those a try I wanted to get a fairly quickly let in a bit here to mention onions onion syrup it’s actually a very very simple remedy and you can try that at home without buying any of our products you know so you just get an onion and cut it into eighth of an inch or thereabouts slices and then set them on a saucer and basically cover cover the onions with honey and just let the honey pull out by defutement osmotic kind of pull and pull out the actives within the onion which are more of a kind of sulfur containing products like horseradish and take that internally and obviously it’s metabolized but it’s excreted through the respiratory tract so that will have an effect on your sinuses I would definitely give that a go and then also fresh horseradish is a very good alternative so let’s get to these next callers that we’ve got on the air caller you’re on the air what’s your question away from hello I’m Andrew Ray and Sarah my name is Hallie I am from BC I just wanted to ask Dr. Pete about the amazing facelift effect that he got from Pregnanoa 33:37 so I’m only in my 20s but I’m aging prematurely for the past few years I haven’t really figured out why and the doctors don’t know either but it the difference is very shocking and anyway I’m trying to find a way to like reverse this and look normal again like a young female and so I’m just wondering if the facelift effect is a common occurrence with Pregnanoa and also is there a way to determine the safety of Pregnanoa because I am afraid to try it because I’ve heard other reports of women who’ve taken it and they said that they’ve developed like facial hair and stuff. What was the last phrase they developed? Facial hair. Which I don’t think is possible. Well yeah it’s very impure in recent years I’ve been hearing all kinds of symptoms associated with using I think it’s mostly from new small Chinese factories that don’t know how to 34:43 purify it and they’re getting symptoms like breast pain, uterine contractions, showing an estrogen-like effect as well as possibly the androgen-like effect but Pregnanoa when it’s pure doesn’t if a person is healthy they can take a cup full of it with no noticeable effect. All it does is lower the stress hormones so until you’re about 45 years old you usually don’t feel anything from pure Pregnanoa and so all of these symptoms that are being talked about on the internet I think are evidence that there’s a lot of very impure Pregnanoa going around. Okay thank you and then is there a way to determine if Pregnanoa is safe like should I just get the batch 35:46 tested at? It costs thousands of dollars to have a good test so well you can I do fairly regularly send off Pregnanoa to be assayed by gas chromatography so there’s a lab up in Washington there’s quite a few you got to do is Google them but the test is about 250 dollars. Dr. Pete are you aware of a brand that you feel is fairly pure? No not for 20 years. Out of interest Dr. Pete just to mention this like I said I’ve had several batches here and the last two years at least tested by gas chromatography and it’s come back as a 99.9%!p(MISSING)ure Pregnanoa. Do you think when this is put into a chromatograph and goes through an atomic absorption spectrum calibrated machine that should give you a peak if there is a peak and then that defines whether or not it’s 36:49 pure do you think there’s any other? Well they should look for a very small peak for estrogen or other steroids but because one part per thousand of if it’s estrogen that can have very powerful effects if you’re taking tens of milligrams of Pregnanoa and one thousandth of that is estrogen that’s a powerful dose. So in general this caller is asking about the facelift effect from taking Pregnanoa alone and she’s in her 20s what sort of dose would you think would be a safe dose to try if she feels like she has a pure product? Oh it’s safe in any amount. It was tested on rats in the early 1950s and the equivalent of a cup full at a time had no effects at all and I’ve for a year I took three or four 37:51 thousand milligrams every day just to test whether there were any side effects and many people in their 20s and 30s wanted to try it and even with the heaping spoonful none of them could feel the slightest effect but people in their late 40s and 50s those are the ones who experience an overnight tightening up of their loose skin especially on their throat and over their eyes. So do you think that would be something that this 20-year-old would benefit from? No at that age very very unlikely. I will say that I’ve taken Pregnanoa before like years ago because I’ve been following you for a while but I took it and I think I took maybe 15 milligrams and it made me very sleepy after and I took a nap. I don’t 38:55 know if that’s a coincidence or anything but it does lower cortisol if that is abnormally high. Okay interesting all right well thank you for all this information all of you and thank you for the show. Thank you for your call. Okay let’s take this let’s take this next caller, caller you’re on the airway from and what’s your question? I’m calling from Portland and my question is does chamomile T reduce estrogen? Chamomile T reducing estrogen well its main use is a gut anti-inflammatory so… But it does have epigenin. Yeah nurse of the gut. An epigenin is a known estrogen counter. Antagonist. Right Dr. Pete? Right. So potentially yes it could be an estrogen lowering sedative and gastrointestinal 39:57 calming herb. Yeah anything that makes your intestine happy is likely to reduce estrogen effect. Would there be other herbal teas that would have that effect? What kind of tea? Other herb teas? Oh I think aspirin is the most practical general aromatase inhibitors. Yeah liver stimulants would certainly speed up liver clearance and or bowel things like cascara would certainly prevent reuptake and reabsorption of bowel estrogen. Those are things to consider if you’re considering any estrogen load you want to get rid of then obviously excretory pathways. If you can speed up the excretory pathways that will be certainly helpful but there are other estrogen blocking agents probably. A lemon balm because it’s also the essential oil and lemon balm is very calming on the gastrointestinal tract. That might indirectly lower estrogen. 40:59 Okay you’re listening to Ask Europe Dr. K. M. E. D. Galbapool 91.1 FM. From now until the end of the show at 8 o’clock you’re invited to call in with questions and the number here is 707-923-3911. So once again 707-923-3911. So we’re just going through some medicinal herbs and other compounds that would be useful if anybody does contract COVID. And or any other foods that might be circulating around as well. Or influenza or colds. I just want to say at this point in time I know it’s not indicative of the general population of the United States of America but I only know one person in this eight months and I didn’t only found out about this person two weeks ago who actually just contracted COVID and I think they’re getting over it pretty well. And it was actually their son who came up from a meeting with other people in Southern California, a 19 or 20 year old son who actually contracted it and he basically when he got tested he tested positive and not downplaying COVID-19 for one minute but he had a day 42:02 or so feeling uncomfortable and he was back to normal. But so yeah I’ve just started to I’ve always said at the beginning of this quote unquote pandemic that where are they? I know we see them on TV and I know they talk about mass, mass hospitalizations and we’ve seen it all over Europe and not saying it doesn’t happen. But it’s taken a long time to come across anybody and I think there’s just two million people so far that have contracted it. A proper diagnosis. Had problems with it I should say. Should look for other causes of the symptoms. In some cases they’re saying that if you have a positive test for the virus which in most people isn’t associated with symptoms but if you have one symptom in association with a positive test they’re putting that down as a verified case of COVID-19 infection. But you don’t know that unless you 43:05 test to see if they also had influenza or a thousand other agents that could cause that one symptom. And then of course there’s people that have COVID and test negative or people that test positive and don’t have it because the tests are unreliable at this stage as well. There’s a wealth, it’s a huge pool. Some of it’s politicized, some of it’s yeah I can’t go there I guess it’s just too much. I just want to make sure that we do get out some of those herbal strategies for combating influenza and or COVID. I know the phones suddenly started going crazy there and I think what we’re going to get into perhaps is next few calls is COVID related in terms of in terms of actualities but I wanted to mention astragalus before we take the first of two callers here. Because astragalus of another Chinese herb but we use a lot of astragalus and they know that from doing studies in China especially that it decreases the inflammatory side of 44:09 kinds like tumor necrosis alpha interleukinate and it increases the level of anti-inflammatory side of kinds like interleukin 10 so therefore has this anti-inflammatory activity. One of those herbs that they’ve definitely used in traditional Chinese medicine as part and parcel of a formula for treating COVID. So anyway I guess let’s take these next two callers. Caller you’re on the airway from and watch the question. Yeah hi hello. Hello you’re on the air. Yeah hi Sarah Andrew Dr. Pete. Of course I have so many questions I’ll ask that two important questions. One would be the first one would be what does Dr. Pete recommend for somebody who’s had cancer in the past kidney cancer and had surgery to be removed and what kind of diet does he recommend for somebody that you know has recovered from that. Yeah and what was your other questions there? And the other question was about the eucalyptus humidifier. My son’s had a few you know cold or flu’s in the past and we always put the eucalyptus 45:15 humidifier and it’s really help so I just wanted to get your feedback. Yeah well let’s start with the kidney cancer and the diet. Dr. Pete what would you what would you suggest if a person’s had kidney cancer been treated do you think from a dietary perspective there’d be some foods that would be potentially less of a renal load or if that’s what you’re even thinking about? Watching for intestinal inflammatory symptoms because there are a lot of toxins that damage the kidneys that are formed only in the intestine and so keeping a clean intestine is the first requirement. Keeping your energy up in general is essential for the immune system to work both in the sense of preventing inflammation and also resisting infection and that keeping 46:18 your energy up involves keeping your daytime temperature up to what used to be the average normal in recent decades the national average temperature is decreasing but what used to be the normal 37 Celsius or 98.6 Fahrenheit that temperature is very important both for preventing inflammation and for increasing resistance to cancer and other degenerative diseases and to infections. So my mother having like one kidney left so that means she shouldn’t when it comes to digestion so saturated fats should be like in small amounts like you know the ruminescent cuts you recommend like even that type of food could be irritating for her so she just like stick more with you know 47:21 fruit and you know like what kind like do you recommend to me when she has like one kidney left or like what what what do you recommend then? One of our natural hormones which is very involved in kidney malfunction is pyrethyroid hormone and that lowers our systemic energy production and so it damages our immune system if that’s elevated and the two things that will prevent excess production of pyrethyroid hormone are a lot of calcium in the diet relative to phosphate and an adequate intake of vitamin D those are both anti-inflammatory and anti-infective agents and protects against cancer. So the milk is okay for her just having one kidney that wouldn’t be too harsh on her? No I think it’s the 48:25 safest thing a very milk rich diet going relatively light on phosphate rich foods like meat and beans are phosphate rich foods right yeah yeah every cost so yeah the meat is high even if you do it among soups like once a week maybe that’s still kind of high? I noticed the you need a certain amount of iron in your diet and so eggs are a good regular source of of of iron that have a moderate amount of phosphate. I wanted to move on to your question about Eucalyptus just for the okay we do have other callers on the line they want to make sure they will get a chance to ask a question. So a milk dairy rich diet with a low meat diet is probably going to be the safest for your mother’s kidney and 49:27 keeping the vitamin D intake yeah keeping the vitamin D up keeping her bowel movement still safe like it because I’ve heard that makes your view that’s not good to take D3 it’s always better to just you know get the sunlight and try to you know stay as natural as possible you know when you have good unavailability well if you live closer to the equator as well. So as far as humidification and the volatile essential oils Dr. Pete so obviously the person’s using a dehumidifier if somebody’s got dry airways and or using volatile oils in them like Eucalyptus from my perspective I think that’s totally totally a good thing to do I know these volatile oils certainly as well as the humidity for soothing some dry airways certainly has antibacterial effects none you know none of which are poorly written about they’re extensively written about so most of those volatile oils contain terpenes monoturpenes, dieterpenes, triterpenes and they’ve all got lots of interesting 50:31 activity from antibacterial, antiviral, many many different papers written on it and Gerard Depardieu and others in France have written fairly extensively on it. Eucalyptus radiata is one of the nicest smelling eucalyptus essential oils to use in a humidifier like that. So when you take the herbs right there you guys recommend is this something that we have to wait for symptoms or does somebody could just you know kind of take them every other day or how do you recommend the doses? I think it’s like anything else if you’ve got a good diet that’s basically the seed that’s the seed of your good health and if you incorporate things into your diet which are also beneficial from a nutritive perspective that’s the start of it I would say definitely from personal experience if you know let’s talk about colds and coughs and influenza’s and that kind of stuff if you know it’s going around not talking about COVID but I’m talking about you know it could be any colds and coughs 51:32 your family’s had a coronavirus incident and you know your grandmother or whatever and you’ve been around them but you don’t have any symptoms start using echinacea. Our echinacea elderberry syrup we designed specifically for that because it has only the echinacea root and the elderberry to really help boost your immune system if you know you’re going to be around someone who’s sick I mean that’s how you’re supposed to use echinacea. You can also use it afterwards once you do actually get sick but they’re very effective in the early stages before your body’s come down with it. Because it takes about 48 hours to transcribe those factors that are responsible for it. If I could squeeze a quick question for Dr. Pete. I don’t think you can. I’m sorry about that but we’ve got somebody else who’s been on the wet on the air for a while here so let’s take this next call. The caller you’re on the way from watch the question. Am I on? Yeah you’re on go ahead. My name is Lily Macy I’m in the Ettersburg area and my 52:34 husband has developed since last January quite a bit of hyper mucusness I mean he’s got so much mucus that he at night he just acts like he’s drowning in it and I keep him kind of up but I wondering if there’s an herb maybe like scenic Greek or anything any kind of herb that could help to dry up that. Sure well first of all is it yeah first of all is it infected or is it. No it’s not infected. He did have pneumonia last January and the doctor put him he said he’s got this hyper mucus situation going so he put him on mucinex which is an over-the-counter but it’s not in he’s not infected he doesn’t have any sign of infection it’s just this like he’s drowning in mucus all the time and he any any clears his throat and has used an antihistamine. Has he used an antihistamine I gave him 53:36 something well isn’t that what mucinex is isn’t that an antihistamine? No I think that’s just a mucolithic. So antihistamines like like Benadryl or Diffenhydramine. He’s really quite quite old and he just did not respond well to the Benadryl. Okay so has he tried the mucolithic herbs like plantain, golden seal? Not plantain but we have tried golden seal but we’ll try that again. What do you think of fenugreek? I don’t have any experience or use of fenugreek in terms of drying up mucus. More for digestion, calming the digestion and also increasing breast milk production. Well another thing is Cascara to keep 54:38 his bowels moving really well. Dr. Pete do you have any other ideas to help dry up the mucus? Yeah some of the mild antiseptic fibrous foods such as rock carrot or cooked mushrooms or cooked ambushoots. He gets that kind of food. We’ve been vegan 14 years so he gets a lot of raw and cooked vegetables every day. Well but specifically raw carrot can actually decrease a lot of mucus production if he has about a cup of raw carrot salad a day. And raw lettuce is one of the most promoting mucus inflammatory agents. Raw carrot like grated carrot. Not like grated carrot but don’t use any lettuce with it. Okay just straight grated carrot. Or really really well cooked mushrooms are another fiber that inhibits microorganisms and inflammation in the intestine so then 55:41 it can therefore help with inflammation from the mucus. The inflammation producing the mucus. Okay we better call that it for the evening. Thank you so much. Thank you for your call. Okay so Dr. Pete thank you so much for your time. I’ll spend a couple of minutes just getting people information to you and a bit more information. Did you have anything else to finish up with Dr. Pete? Nope. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for your time. Okay so for those people who’ve listened we do the shows every third Friday of the month. What I did want to mention very quickly before the last few minutes that we have for first things first Dr. Pete’s website which is raypeat.com has got fully referenced articles surrounding a wide variety of conditions that are treated and naturally scientifically with documented case reports etc and or verified references. So go take a look at his website. Our website is Wester and botanicalmedicine.com. I wanted to mention those other few things 56:43 that I never got around to talking about for treating excessive mucus and or for improving the ciliary escalator. I mentioned onion syrup for that lady and then the other syrup which we don’t really see too much of it here in America is coltsfoot and coltsfoot flowers. Same thing using coltsfoot flowers I know probably paces like mountain rose herbs still sell them but in England they’re still pretty popular because I think Albania is one of the main countries they’re coming out of right now but I’m making a syrup from coltsfoot flowers and then marshmallow leaf just working as a reflex demulsant in the gut to stimulate respiratory demulsancy and thin watery secretions so people can cough up mucus. I wanted to mention frankincense obviously everyone knows frankincense for obvious reasons but bosswellic acid is a substance there which is responsible for the anti-inflammatory effect via the enzyme 5-lipoxygenase and I didn’t get a chance to talk to Pete about this but basically promotes the formation of leukotrienes and these are an important 57:44 group of inflammatory mediators in the body but bosswellic acid actually binds and structurally changes in the active site of 5-lipoxygenase and also inhibits inhibits this enzyme and instead of catalyzing its synthesis into pro-inflammatory leukotrienes 5-lipoxygenase produces anti-inflammatory substances by initiating this change under the influence of bosswellic acid so simply put frankincense in its own right can change the inflammatory enzyme into an anti-inflammatory enzyme so it’s not a good thing to remember about frankincense and then woad, woad root I know the Chinese use woad root and in England it’s pretty famous from the ancient Picts and Celts but the root of woad which is isatis tinctoria definitely used has antibiotic and anti-viral activity inhibits the hemagglutinins in the blood and inhibits the viral neuraminidase amongst other activities so to the potential antivirals and then obviously we didn’t get round to mentioning aspirin but 58:47 aspirin definite very very inexpensive very easy to get anti-inflammatory anti-viral it’s plenty of evidence showing it’s inhibiting viral replication it’s got an anti-platelet activity obviously and works definitely in acute lung injury one of those things to remember so until we are on the show in December third Friday of December thank you for your time and those people are called in thank you my name’s Sarah Johanneson Murray thank you very much for listening my name’s Andrew Murray thank you and support comes from the Redwood Coast Energy Authority which wants the community to know there are a variety of resources to help customers pay their bills find the right rate plan and manage their energy use during the current crisis visit redwoodenergy.org for complete details or call 707 269 1700 for more information and Chautauqua Natural Foods in Garberville is 59:49 offering curbside pickup Monday through Friday you can call