Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones (45 page)

SS:
What about women and PMS problems?

LW:
PMS, irregular menstrual periods, heavy bleeding, miscarriages—these can be corrected most of the time by putting women on bioidentical progesterone and thyroid. One female patient of mine had had five miscarriages, and after thyroid therapy, she had a successful pregnancy and gave birth to a little boy last year.

SS:
What about bloating? So many women complain about this problem.

LW:
I think it has much to do with the estrogen–
Candida albicans
(yeast infection) connection. This is usually a problem when the progesterone is dropping down, creating estrogen dominance. Some studies have made a connection with an increase in interleukin-6, a protein inside cells that is often considered a “bad actor” of the immune
system because of its association with inflammation injuries and malignant diseases. In this case, the inflammation is estrogen yeast, or
Candida albicans
overgrowth. One of the first things I would do for a woman with this condition is knock the yeast out of the body.

SS:
Does everybody have yeast?

LW:
Absolutely. Most men think yeast is only about vaginal yeast and, therefore, doesn’t affect them. Not true. Take a look at the number of cancer and AIDS patients who are male and dying of yeast. Eighty percent of people with these diseases are dying of
Candida albicans
and other associated fungi.

SS:
How do you get rid of yeast?

LW:
Most important, as you have said in your books, Suzanne, eliminate sugar. With too much sugar, you develop insulin resistance. Not only does that throw off progesterone and estrogen ratios, it can also feed fungi and bacteria. In addition, insulin resistance can adversely affect a woman’s ability to get pregnant. Not only that, too much insulin shunts fat into the peripheral tissues of the body, where it accumulates around the waist—a situation that produces excess estrogen.

In addition, there is a strong association between mercury toxicity and yeast. They feed each other. When I see a woman who has been treated with a strong antifungal like Nystatin and she continues to get fungal infections the minute she eats anything with sugar, even a white potato, I start wondering about mercury. Fungus and mercury have a pathological association; more than 95 percent of my patients have tested positive for toxic mercury levels.

SS:
Is this happening as a result of the fish we eat?

LW:
Yes. Fish and pesticide runoff, which has basically destroyed everything, including the ocean. Seven years ago, when I was working out with a strength coach, I was in great shape and eating a fair amount of fish. Even though I was working out regularly, my heart was beating quite heavily. Then I noticed that my blood pressure had soared from 140/90 up to 160/110 in just a few months. I used kinesiology (muscle testing), which basically said that electromagnetically, my body had dangerously high levels of metal toxicity. So I did a chelation treatment on myself. This involved infusing the body with
an amino acid that actually grabs onto the mercury and removes it in the urine so that it can be measured. The results showed that I had forty times the accepted levels of mercury in my body. I had been eating only orange roughy, which is supposed to be a safe fish. So that shows you that even the safe fish can be contaminated.

I was able to reduce the levels in my body through chelation and amino acids. With this treatment, my blood pressure came down, too. Now, do you think this approach would have been applied in traditional medicine?

Mercury is a killer because it is an inflammatory and a free radical. It will block all the energy at the cellular level and in the mitochondria, which are the little packets in the center of your cells that generate most of your energy.

SS:
As you were talking, I was thinking that we all eat out so often—I know I do—and it’s hard to find healthy food you can count on in restaurants.

LW:
Yes. Restaurant food is rarely organic, so we are ingesting tremendous amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and chemicals—not to mention the lack of nutrients in our foods. All of these toxins are beginning to interfere with our metabolism at the cellular level. When you have inflammation, your cortisol is going to knock out your thyroid production or interfere with its efficiency. You will have a problem with the conversion of T4 to T3 thyroid. Also, estrogen dominance can occur. Everything is tied together hormonally. Overwhelmed by all the pollutants you’ve ingested, your liver has to detoxify your body.

Most people are not digesting their food properly, either. Much of poor digestion is a result of the food we’re eating. Take chickens, for example. A report broadcast on ABC’s
20/20
found that a number of different brands of chickens contain salmonella and
Helicobacter pylori
, a bacteria that has been implicated in ulcers. When people ingest this bacteria, it disrupts the GI tract. It also kills the cells in the gut that produce digestive acids. Inflammation in the gut is the result. I believe the major cause of acid reflux disease is related to
Helicobacter pylori
. When we take people off chicken and treat them with an herb called mastic, their acid reflux gets better.

SS:
So they don’t have to take Nexium or whatever?

LW:
No. Knocking out the acid of the stomach with a drug like Nexium creates another set of problems. For one thing, it interferes with the production of a normal stomach substance called intrinsic factor, which facilitates absorption of vitamin B
₁₂
in the small intestine.

SS:
So as a society, would you say we’re generally in a state of
dis-ease?

LW:
Right. We’re not getting the nutrients in our body that we need. We have inflamed guts because of all the pesticides, herbicides, and adverse chemicals that we are ingesting, along with all the bacteria and the fungus. Due to these problems, the gut is suffering. We’re developing something called hyperpermeable gut, which refers to a gut that allows substances to pass into the bloodstream that shouldn’t be there, from yeast to large undigested protein molecules. These are producing many of the allergic responses that we are now seeing in patients.

SS:
What can do we do about this condition?

LW:
Number one, give your body adequate nutrients to support your hormonal system. To get nutrients into the body, I use intravenous therapies; these bypass the gut so it starts to function better. This is why I have been able to heal people who cannot take anything by mouth because their gastrointestinal tract is so inflamed and defective.

Second, go organic, if you can. Organic food is the best defense, because it contains virtually no pesticides. What’s more, organic meat is not injected with hormones like conventional meat. Did you know that the United States can’t even sell nonorganic meat to Europe? It’s sad when a whole continent won’t accept our meat, yet we’re eating it.

Third, digestives enzymes are crucial. So is L-glutamine, an amino acid that cuts down the inflammation of the gut wall. I recommend psyllium, a natural bulk-forming product, to patients with constipation, often a symptom of low thyroid. Once I can regenerate the thyroid, the GI function improves. Everything interrelates. I have to be careful, however, and not overtreat the thyroid, because doing so can overstimulate the adrenals. Overstimulated adrenals can put a person
into a hyperthyroid, or overactive thyroid, condition. A patient with hyperthyroidism can’t sleep, and his or her heart will be pounding like crazy.

I also have to be careful with vitamin B
₁₂
supplementation. If vitamin B
₁₂
is given prior to clearing out the yeast in the gut, the vitamin will overstimulate the growth of yeast. Again, everything is connected.

SS:
Luckily, there are quite a few of you doing this work. Medicine is changing out of necessity.

LW:
Sometimes my patients say to me, “Well, I’m gonna die anyway, so why do I want to go to all this effort?” I always answer: “It’s about quality of life. And don’t you want to participate in the next generation? Don’t you want to see your kids and grandchildren grow up?”

As a doctor, it is so uplifting to see somebody who says to me, “You know, I had no life before, and now I can enjoy life for the first time.” I see thousands of patients, so when people have an interest in their health and a commitment to it, I will do anything for them to obtain their goal. Everyone deserves a worthwhile life in a very meaningful sense—in mind, body, and spirit. Each one of my patients is significant, and it is on them that I put my focus. Although it does not get written about in the newspaper, my work is my contribution to the world. Each and every one of us can do the same with our talents and gift.

SS:
You are a beautiful person. Thank you.

DR. WEBSTER’S TOP FIVE ANTIAGING RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Men should definitely consider testosterone replacement. There are more testosterone receptors in the heart than anyplace else in the body. Testosterone protects the heart. For that reason alone, testosterone levels are important to check. But testosterone is about vitality and clear thinking. It also builds bone and muscle, so for a man who wants to get great results from his workout, replacement would help tremendously.

2.
PMS, irregular menstrual periods, heavy bleeding, and miscarriages can be corrected most of the time by putting women on bioidentical progesterone and thyroid.

3. Eliminate sugar. With too much sugar, you develop insulin resistance. Not only does that throw off progesterone and estrogen ratios, but it can also feed fungi and bacteria. In addition, insulin resistance can adversely affect a woman’s ability to get pregnant. Not only that, too much insulin shunts fat into the peripheral tissues of the body, where it accumulates around the waist—a situation that produces excess estrogen. Plus, there is a strong association between mercury toxicity and yeast. They feed each other.

4. Go organic, if you can. Organic food is the best defense, because it contains virtually no pesticides. What’s more, organic meat is not injected with hormones like conventional meat.

5. Digestive enzymes are crucial to a healthy gut. So is L-glutamine, an amino acid that cuts down the inflammation of the gut wall. Another good supplement is psyllium, a natural bulkforming product, for patients with constipation, often a symptom of low thyroid. Acid reflux gets better with an herb called mastic.

PART FIVE
A
GELESS
L
IVING

Just before the funeral services, the

undertaker came up to the very

elderly widow and asked,

“How old was your husband?

“Ninety-eight,” she replied.

“Two years older than me.”

“So you’re ninety-six,”

the undertaker commented.

She responded,

“Hardly worth going home, is it?”

CHAPTER 24
D
IET AND
S
UPPLEMENTS

G
ood nutrition is essential to health. I have written extensively about the positive effects of eating real food in all of my Somersize books. But the moment you mention the words
healthy eating
to people, you can almost hear the inward groans. It conjures up diets of haylike food that is dry and tasteless. Not so! Healthy eating is simply eating
real
food. Real food is the food we grew up with: meat, chicken, and fish,
not
loaded with synthetic hormones and antibiotics; I’m talking about real fats like butter, cream, full-fat cream cheese, and olive oil,
not
man-made fats; fresh fruits and vegetables, but
not
sprayed to death with pesticides and chemicals to make them grow larger and more beautiful. By the way, have you noticed that since we’ve made our vegetables more beautiful and more colorful, they have also lost their taste? If you have ever visited Europe, did you notice the difference in the way their food tastes? It’s not that they are better cooks; they just have cleaner, fresher, less-tampered-with, and therefore better-tasting food.

How did we get so far off track? How is it that we now have as many overweight people as we have underfed people? The answer is processed foods. We have gotten far away from real food, and we are paying the price. It’s the sugars and the refined carbohydrates that are making us fat and affecting our health. We fill ourselves and our families with foods that are processed and refined with all the nutrition sucked out. Bad food is cheap, heavily promoted, and loaded with chemicals that make it taste really good. Healthy food is harder to get (you have to drive to the market, shop, and cook), and it is not
promoted, plus it’s more expensive. We have soft drinks and vending machines at schools and offices. Our portions are too large. We eat out more and cook less at home. Mom has stripped off her apron and grabbed her car keys to get to the closest, fastest, and most inexpensive restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat. Even our soil has been leached of its nutrients, rendering our fruits and vegetables less nutritious than ever before, even though they look “more beautiful.” Add to all these things the overabundance of fast food in this country, TV, video games, and an intensive marketing campaign to get kids and adults to buy chemically sweetened products, and you have a perfect recipe for an epidemic.