I have often made the comment, only half joking, that naturopathic medicine is all about risk management and damage control. But the joke of it is in the imagery it evokes, not in the sentiment it conveys. In fact, this captures virtually all aspects of my clinical work. The phrase also should serve as a short checklist for the choices we make throughout our days. I’ll give you my own thoughts about my five top choice daily nutrients to control the damages that daily life can inflict. But first, let’s manage risks, and might as well do it with five daily choices as well.
Risk Management
To a very large extent, the phrases “manage risks” and “manage exposures” are synonymous. In this modern world there are many exposures we have every day that we simply can’t avoid: electromagnetic fields emanating from phones and powerlines and now even toasters and floor fans. Beyond that, various chemicals are embedded in our environments: packaging on food, flame retardants in our air, traces of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water, etc.
Here are five decisions you can make on a daily basis to reduce your unintentional and potentially detrimental exposures, and thus manage your risk:
- Eat organic food whenever it is possible to do so. Chemical residue on food takes a health toll over time if it accumulates in the body. Multiple studies show that, in addition to the chemical exposure, conventionally grown (foods sprayed with herbicides and pesticides) have lower nutritional content than organic food. Beyond that, these chemicals are, for the most part, fat soluble, which means they get stored in fat tissue in the body.
- Avoid processed oils, especially nut and seed oils. But not just those. Cottonseed oil, corn oil, soybean oil, these are all highly processed. Even if they are labeled “organic,” avoid them. Canola oil is no exception. It is derived from a “cousin” of flaxseed. It involves several steps in its refinement, including use of hexane as a solvent to extract it from the seeds. There is no such thing as healthy canola oil.
- Power down. No one knows what the biological effects are of our incessant exposure to electromagnetic fields. Safety levels of exposure are based upon tests run in the 1990s. We are in a bit of a different electromagnetic world since then. There is every reason to believe that some people are more susceptible to their physiological impacts than others. But there is also good reason to believe that none of us are immune. Shut off your wifi at night, turn off your phone, consider EMF-blocking covers to put over your wifi base during the day, etc.
- Make fully-informed decisions about utilizing any medical therapy, including medications, vaccinations, or surgeries. No medical therapy is appropriate for everyone. Every doctor should be doing a risk/benefit analysis for every therapy recommended for a patient. Unfortunately that is no longer the way our medical system works, so patients have to be their own advocate. Don’t simply comply with recommendations. Be skeptical. The industry of conventional medicine is not fundamentally looking out for your best interest.
- Your thoughts are not benign, so don’t think negative thoughts. OK, maybe that’s a bit pie-in-the-sky, but the point is true. Negative thinking should be thought of as an “exposure” just like seed oils and EMFs. And like EMFs, negative thoughts, for some people, can be virtually constant. An enormous body of research demonstrates that those thoughts suppress immune function, promote inflammation, and increase the risk of many diseases including cardiovascular disease and cancer. If you feel like negative thoughts occupy more of your thinking than you’d like, let’s have a conversation.
Nutrients to Mitigate
Those are my top five suggestions for managing risks from day to day. I encourage people to leave comments for other suggestions. Now I will rattle off my top five nutrients that I believe help to mitigate the various damages we are unable to avoid.
- Glutathione – This molecule is the “Godfather” of the body’s detoxification system. It binds to and helps eliminate heavy metals. It renders mold toxins inert so they can be excreted. It helps to detoxify hydrogen sulfide, which maybe you know I happen to be obsessed with as a toxin. It quenches free radicals in every nook and cranny of the body, blunting the impact of the insults inflicted by the modern world. It protects the liver from getting stressed by detoxifying alcohol, medications (prescription and OTC), chemicals, hormones, and much else.
- Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) – This one is less popular than the vitamins and minerals, but I think it is crucial. CoQ10 is a central player in cellular energy production. Every cell needs this molecule to generate energy. So many insults of the modern world ultimately have their impact by impairing cellular energy production. Beyond helping that, CoQ10 specifically helps the heart and muscles generate energy, which is a good thing. Oh, and it helps with hydrogen sulfide processing.
- Vitamin C – I know. Boor-ing. In this modern world, it isn’t just what vitamin C does on its own, but what it does on the team. Every time an antioxidant like glutathione does its job, it gets oxidized in the process. And in order to do its job again, it has to be antioxidized. That’s what vitamin C does, it keeps glutathione (and CoQ10 and vitamin E and lipoic acid, and others) recycled so they can keep doing their thing.
- High-Quality Multivitamin – Multivitamins are like cars: you can buy lemons, or you can buy luxury. There are two things to pay attention to about multivitamins: the form of the vitamins in the formulation, and the “other ingredients.” Take a look at the label of Centrum, for example. Their adult “Over 50” multi contains the worst form of vitamin E, a few food colorings, plus lots of random crap that includes some genetically modified corn starch. Oh, and then it has some vitamins. Instead, take a multi with vitamins in their activated forms, and steer away from the fillers.
- Humic-Monolaurin Complex – This is a product made by Allergy Research. I think it is a great combination of two important antivirals. Humic acid is derived from soil. It binds to viruses and can literally pull them off the surface of cells to prevent infection. Both monolaurin and humic acid can also bind to viruses as well as lipid nanoparticles associated with Covid-19 vaccination. Ample research shows that those nanoparticles are inflammatory, so clearing them out quickly is probably a good thing. Since we don’t yet know the exposure we have to those nanoparticles and associated mRNA, whether via vaccination or through casual contact (e.g. exosomes), this supplement is a possible way to hedge bets against exposure.
It seems to me just common sense to mitigate risk and to control damage. We can’t mitigate it all, nor can we control it all. We do our best.
If you’d like to have a risk management/damage control program created more specific to your situation, please schedule a visit with me by calling 503-719-4806 or emailing info@immersionhealthpx.com. And as a bonus, the clinic will be offering the supplements I’ve recommended in this article at a 15% discount through the end of the year.
