Bombshell: Explosive Medical Secrets That Will Redefine Aging (11 page)

SS:
Why?

MG:
Because the body needs to rest. The GI system needs to relax. So many people eat a huge meal late in the day, eight or nine
P.M.
, and it stresses the liver, the key organ in getting the toxins out. The first four letters in liver are “live” for a reason.

SS:
Most people don’t even know where the liver is located. And because we can’t see it, telling someone their liver is stressed doesn’t ring a bell until it becomes liver cancer or some other terrible disease of the liver. I know a person with a diseased liver, and his quality of life is poor. He is in and out of the hospital, and each time I see him he looks older and sicker and more worn out.

MG:
Right, traditional medicine only looks at the liver with ultrasound, or doctors test for elevated liver enzymes to show that the liver is already diseased. Antiaging medicine says that most livers are sluggish, and part of what we do is to increase toxin elimination from the liver, thus reducing tissue acidity.

SS:
Makes sense. Detoxify it; clean it out before there is a problem. Sounds like a no-brainer to me. How do you detox the liver?

MG:
Herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, nutrition, and there are supplements that help the liver, such as N-acetylcysteine, alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin C. Basically, if you looked at nothing else in the body but went after cleaning up the liver, you could be very, very successful in helping people feel better.

SS:
Let’s discuss hormones and hormone levels. I am sure that most people who come to you are declining in hormones. It’s happening so early to so many people now. You mainly concentrate on the major hormones initially, right?

MG:
Actually, I work with all hormones because hormonal decline in the body is so important, but especially the adrenal gland,
which is one of the major hormonal glands, and basically our survival organ. It helps us deal with stress and allows us to respond adequately to stress.

SS:
Most people are stressed. All you ever hear is how stressed out everyone is.

MG:
When the adrenals are weak, we no longer view stress as a challenge; we view it as a threat. This is why at that point we overreact to the little stressors; then we can’t differentiate between big stress and little stress. Weak adrenals set the stage for a move toward illness and disease.

SS:
Ah yes, reminds me of a fight I had with Alan over almonds! Ha ha ha … afterward, I wondered how almonds could have been so important. Little stressors! But aren’t weak adrenals triggered by an inability to sleep? Isn’t it a cascade … toxins, weakened liver, inability to sleep, and then acute stress; they trigger high cortisol output so that person can’t sleep at all? Isn’t it all interconnected?

MG:
Yes, and everyone thinks the doctor can fix poor lifestyle and diet habits and unmanaged stress. The patient is responsible for his or her health. We’ve become too acidic as a culture: too much of the wrong kinds of fats, sugar, cigarettes, and alcohol, not enough exercise. The word “emotion” has
motion
within it; if we can’t move our bodies, we can’t feel well. We must also know our purpose in life, and have fun.

Everyone talks about heart attacks being related to high cholesterol. But when you look at it from a deeper level, the two main causes of heart attacks are not being happy and not liking our jobs. When I was in the ER, I frequently worked Sunday night through to the Monday morning shift. Monday morning is when more heart attacks happen than any other time of the day. Why? I believe it’s because many people really don’t want to go to work. People aren’t very happy; we don’t live with passion, we stop being grateful, and we get into this belief system that looks at aging being a downward spiral. We need to change our beliefs, and it’s great that you are out there pushing people to change their beliefs.

SS:
Making sixty-five cool?

MG:
Sixty-five
is
cool. In 1954, Roger Bannister was the first person to run a four-minute mile. Before that nobody believed it was possible. Then in the next five years, thirty or forty other people ran a four-minute mile. Once the belief system begins changing on a
large level, all sorts of things start happening. So with patients I try to change their belief systems and help them get rid of fear.

SS:
What do you mean by fear?

MG:
I think fear is holding everybody back. We are afraid of poverty, criticism, ill health; we fear old age, we fear death, and most importantly we fear cancer.

SS:
I have to say, I am over that one, thank goodness. Writing
Knockout
in 2009 did that for me. I am not afraid of cancer. I can’t tell you how liberating that is. Doesn’t mean I won’t or can’t get it, but if I did, I would know what to do. The more I interviewed doctors who had patients who were managing cancer, and living long lives with serious cancer without the use of drugs, I realized it was a mind-set, that cancer was manageable and that, as Dr. Gonzalez says, if “you give the body what it wants, it will leave you alone. And what it wants is a detoxed body and good nutrition.” That made so much sense to me.

MG:
That is actually a triumph. Every day patients come to me, and every ache, pain, digestive situation that they have convinces them they have cancer. So the cancer fear is huge. Our bodies can be in either two modes: survival mode or growth mode. If you are totally in survival mode, there’s no way you can get yourself into a growth mode or an antiaging mode. So eliminating fears, and fear of diseases like cancer and ill health, is crucial for all people to move into growth mode.

SS:
How important is diet?

MG:
Diet is huge. So many of my patients are attracted to your books, which has made them very conscious about what they put into their system. The body is a Ferrari, and you have to give it high-octane fuel. The major problem with many people is their diet is too acidic.

SS:
Funny, I give the same analogy using a Maserati … same visual. Doesn’t cancer love acid?

MG:
Yes, it does. So I try to teach people about what foods are acid; animal proteins are acidic. If you are going to eat red meat, be sure it’s grass fed and hormone-free. But know that red meat is very acidic and if you have cancer, it’s a good thing to avoid. Also the contaminants in red meat are dangerous; if it’s not grass fed, then you are dealing with antibiotics, hormones, and the poor-quality feed given to the cows to fatten them up.

SS:
I don’t think most people realize the dangers of corn-fed beef; not only does it go against the natural evolution of cows that are supposed to eat grass (which is why they get infections like E. coli), but the corn is also most likely genetically modified, which makes it a completely valueless food and, to my thinking, a dangerous food.

MG:
It’s also the lack of alkaline-based foods that most people don’t consume. Vegetables are your key alkalinizing food, and people should be juicing wheat grass and green juices. The only people who take alkaline food seriously are the ones who come to me who have read your books.

SS:
Thank you. I feel proud of that.

MG:
You should. Tissue acidity equals toxicity. If you have a perfectly functioning liver, you could probably deal with a lot of the acids we experience every day, but most people are not paying attention to their liver.

SS:
What should they do?

MG:
Drink alkaline water if you can get it, eat lots of vegetables, juice green vegetables, and juice wheat grass.

SS:
I have had an alkaline water dispenser installed in my kitchen sink, so I can have it when I want it. Some stores sell alkaline water in glass bottles. What about powdered Paleo Greens? Are they effective?

MG:
They help. But nothing is as good as the real thing. Exercise is also key … it is the greatest stress reducer, and increasing blood flow helps reduce acidity and reduce stress.

The other thing that’s key is vitamin C. If you are traveling by air, there are massive exposures to toxins. I advise my patients to take 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C for every hour they are in the airplane because of recirculated air, and people on the plane with colds and flu. Even the fumes you inhale when waiting on the tarmac are toxic to the body.

SS:
It’s amazing any of us are even walking around. What kind of vitamin C do you recommend?

MG:
I like Lypo-Spheric, 1,000 mg. It absorbs so well that if you had a five-hour flight, you could probably use two or three packets. Vitamin C is also a great detoxifier and neutralizer. At my office we give intravenous vitamin C, which you have had so many times, Suzanne. All the antiaging doctors are giving intravenous treatments, and there are antiaging doctors in every city you might want to visit.
Antiaging medicine is becoming bigger and bigger, and it’s being driven by patients and people who read your wonderful books and want to get more out of life.

SS:
Thanks. And that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Wanting more out of life! Tell me, how devastating is the heavy metal assault?

MG:
Heavy metals are a huge problem. It starts with mercury fillings in teeth. There is a huge correlation to illness with mercury amalgam fillings that leak over time. Mercury is the number one toxin to the body. We’ve seen this in breast and prostate cancers because mercury behaves as an estrogen; it is called
xenoestrogen
, and it’s a serious player. It’s a huge problem in China. China burns coal, and mercury is a by-product of that; the trade winds blow it over, resulting in elevated mercury levels in the air over the West Coast. There are also very high levels of mercury in people who live in New York.

SS:
How do you test for mercury?

MG:
We do a urine test after giving a provoking agent that pulls mercury out of the tissues and into the bloodstream. When we get the urine test results back, we see that many people have high levels of heavy metals—mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic. We would then give chelation, either intravenous or oral, to reduce the body’s load of heavy metals. We really can’t avoid the toxins, but we certainly can take steps to constantly clean our bodies. We can take vitamin C; we can get colonics; we can do infrared sauna. We can skin brush, exercise more, and juice. We can eat alkaline, and strengthen our livers and hormonal system. All greatly reduce the toxic load in our bodies.

SS:
Makes sense. After all, we just don’t clean our houses once and then forget about it. To keep a house tidy, you have to clean it regularly. This is what you and I have been doing for my body for years; with all the people I meet and exposure to toxins from hotel food, hotel cleaning agents, and the stress of “going on,” I rarely get sick and feel energized most all the time, so I know it’s working for me.

MG:
I often say, if you can get people better in L.A., then you can get people better everywhere.

SS:
Oh, I’d say New York is running neck and neck!

MG:
You could be right. Huge cities have environmental problems—traffic, noise pollution, and pollution in general—as well as mold in those old buildings. Also, you end up with people who are in traffic an hour or two every day, working twelve hours a day, not sleeping, eating on the run, and not exercising. These are all the perfect ingredients for not feeling well. In my practice, I like to see
people every four weeks, and in between they take my homeopathic drops and supplements to keep them going.

SS:
What about exercise—why is it so good for us?

MG:
Exercise increases blood flow; the more blood that flows, the more oxygen gets delivered to the cells, and the more energy gets created. Our bodies’ cells create energy from burning oxygen and glucose together.

SS:
So you are talking about the cell’s mitochondria?

MG:
Yes. The mitochondria are the little energy center powerhouses, the energy factory within the cell. Energy equals health. Antiaging is all about increasing energy production in the body. When you do this, people feel better. The other big thing is supplementation.

SS:
Yes, every single doctor and professional in this book stresses the importance of supplementation. Tell me what supplement you feel gets overlooked.

MG:
Well, we need to have thin blood. People with cancer, people with heart disease, and people who’ve had strokes all have thick blood. People with chronic infections have thick blood. Blood should flow like wine, not like ketchup. When blood is thick, oxygen can’t get to the cells.

SS:
What is the antidote?

MG:
Fish oil helps. Garlic, ginkgo, vitamin E, and nattokinase all thin the blood.

SS:
Yes, I know. When I was in the hospital for that terrible cancer misdiagnosis, they wanted to give me Coumadin to thin my blood because my body was in an allergic shock. I kept saying no Coumadin, give me nattokinase. They laughed at me. I didn’t care. I didn’t take Coumadin. I took nattokinase.

MG:
If you are not going to exercise and you are over fifty, then you have to take these supplements to thin your blood. If you can thin your blood, more oxygen gets to the cells and more energy gets created.

SS:
Well, you must be doing right by me. I was having a manicure yesterday and my manicurist accidentally cut me and she said, “Your blood is so thin, I can’t stop this from bleeding.”

MG:
Well, good, that will ensure that you will live another fifty or sixty years. When I ask patients how long they’d like to live, they always say ninety but “not if I’m in a wheelchair.” Here’s another instance where global beliefs about aging have to change. There is a Japanese doctor, Shigeaki Hinohara, who is one hundred and still practicing. He’s published an enormous number of books since his
seventy-fifth birthday, including one called
Living Long, Living Good
. Amazing guy.