Intro:              00:00          Podcasting from the base of Lake Tahoe in the Eastern Sierras comes the medicine wheel. We are a group of progressive physicians seeking solutions and enlightenment while surfing the seas of big data and summiting mountains of research. In an effort to make the practice of medicine more personal and medical knowledge more accessible and empower you, the listener and viewer to be as healthy as possible. Now The Medicine Wheel.

Dr.Devlin:          00:34          Welcome to The Medicine Wheel. Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon whenever and wherever you're at. I'd like to welcome you to another session with the medicine wheel today. I'm excited to share with you my partner and friend Dr. Michael Gerber, with over 50 years of experience in practicing medicine and involved in medical education he is decided to embark on a audio visual encyclopedia in which he'll describe integrative remedies from A to Z. So whether you suffer from asthma or Zenker's diverticulum, I encourage you to listen. Ultimately he'll be sharing hours of information based on his expansive experiencing practicing medicine. So it's my hopes that you'll take some time out to take some notes and learn a little bit from my colleague and peer, Dr. Michael Gerber.

Dr.Gerber:          01:31          Good day listeners, Michael Gerber here, and I want to thank Dr.Devlin for the kind introduction and head into the repertoire of integrative medicine. And we've been blessed to learn many, many tools in including regular drug and pharmaceutical, medical practice that we all learned in medical school and our postdoctoral training, and many things from many other disciplines. So we'll head in. So today I'm going to do the "A's" . . . Have to begin with vitamin A, the anti infection vitamin and the beauty vitamin. It's been made into drug versions of it. Retina, Retina oleic acid, and many skin peels have been made with vitamin a, but it is excellent for all bodily linings, especially the linings of the respiratory tract in the mucus membranes. So it's great for the lungs. It helps prevent colds and flus. It's good to help treat pneumonias and bronchitis', it's great for acne treatment and prevention and eczema and all skin lesions are helped by vitamin A. It's actually good to prevent and treat ear infections. And it's good for a whole host of things. I first became aware of the power of vitamin A when I was on the board of the threshold foundation back in the late 1970's. And the threshold foundation worked to treat and prevent xerophthalmia: X, E, R, O, P, H, T, H, A, L, M, I, A, which is the leading cause of blindness in the world. So at that time we were dealing with the Landsat satellites, so that takes you, takes you back. And we were identifying little villages in Bhutan and Nepal that were cut off from more civilized parts of their country. And with using helicopters, they would drop in and give all the children 500,000 IU's of vitamin A, international units of vitamin A at one dose, and this would prevent, for the rest of their lives, xerophthalmia. As xerophthalmia is a pretty terrible disease. The eyes dry out in the corneas get ulcerated and become, then become infected and it causes permanent blindness. So, that was my first introduction to high dosage units of vitamin A. Now vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin and we have to be careful because it can cause side effects. All the side effects resolve over time. There are no longterm damage from vitamin A overdose, but too much vitamin A can cause a headache or a nose bleed or chapped lip, and at that time it has to be discontinued for awhile. Vitamin A should always be given intermittently, and we use vitamin A from the lemon grass, it's not cod liver oil based, and the lemon grass is especially good of course for our vegetarian population. So vitamin A is great stuff and it really helps us with our infection and our skin infections and skin. Another "A" is aesculus hippocastanum, and this is of course horse chestnut and it's very good for the peripheral vascular system and for veins and varicose veins. And it also is good for cold hands and cold extremities. Then we have apis mellifica, which is honeybee; and honeybees, given homeopathically, are really great for allergy. You know, homeopathy is very counter-intuitive, we use many poisons. So if somebody appears to have been poisoned, but wasn't, then you take the poison and dilute it infinitesimally to make a remedy to give back to the patient. So if people have hives, swollen eyes or red skin or shortness of breath or difficulty swallowing, a lot of times we would use apis mellifica as a remedy. Now aurum metallicum, which is gold metal is another homeopathic that is wonderfully helpful for depression, and these are the strongest homeopathic anti-depressive remedy. If all that the patients can do is think about suicide, they're hopeless, nothing can help, they're despondent, and by taking this gold and diluting it one to a hundred, perhaps 200 or a thousand times, it can shake loose people in the depths of despair and depression. It's a wonderful remedy to have in your arsenal. Now on the drug side of things now, albendazole. Now albendazole is an anti parasitical drug. And about every second or third one of us have parasites. And many of them cause digestive disturbances and gas and bloating. And sometimes there are no symptoms at all. Some of them can cause weight loss. So it's the killer of many parasites, especially roundworms are very common; ascaris lumbricoides, tapeworms are very common, as well as pinworms which can cause a itchy bottom; and a lot of times children have this as well as adults. And pork worms; trichinella. And these come from under cooked pork and can cause residue in various organs like the liver and the brain. And albendazole is a wonderful killer of these parasites. So from stool analysis or from a computer aided analysis, we can diagnose these parasites and treat the patient. And sometimes it's kind of dramatic and patients can watch these parasites come out in the stool, and so it's a little dramatic sometimes. Now arnica, is arnica Montana; and it's a very famous homeopathic, and it's the healer of all wounds and damage. So when people have head trauma, any pain or injury, arnica in homeopathic dilution can be very helpful, as a SAB or a cream that can be placed on a painful, irritated joints or a bruising or any damage to the skin or the joints. It's also wonderful for healing strokes and old strokes, and as we get further into the alphabet over time, we use a lot of it in injectable form, especially in old strokes where in neuro therapy we do a crown of thorns, little bubbles in the skin, and it can really wake people up from strokes and neurological damage. So this is an old German treatment that's been around since about 1905. So arnica is the generalized healer of all wounds in damage and strokes. Another big A, and this is a big, big A, are the adrenal glands. Now the adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys. They're little pyramidal shaped pyramids on top of the kidneys. And this is the stress gland. And in Chinese medicine, all chi, all energy comes from the kidneys, but they really mean adrenal. Now the adrenal gland has several parts, that the inside is where adrenaline is made, and the outside is the cortex, where more of the hormones are made. Now this is the stress gland and the hormones are made in there such as hydrocortisone, pregnenolone, in DHEA, dehydroepiandrosterone, as well as progesterone. These are all adrenal hormones. And when these are worn down by stress, life stresses, death, grief, loss, any stress where a loss as well as chronic viral infections like Epstein BARR virus infections or parasitical infections or Lyme infection or any of Lymes co-infections, they wear down the adrenal gland. And when the adrenal gland is worn down, it doesn't store blood sugar very well in the liver, it's one of it's jobs. So if you don't have blood sugar in your liver, in the middle of the night, the blood sugar will drop and the brain becomes disturbed and signals down to the middle of the adrenal gland and stimulates adrenaline to flow into the bloodstream. The adrenaline goes after fat from the fat stores and takes the fat to the liver and the liver converts fat into blood sugar and the blood sugar goes up and we don't die. But here's the big adrenaline rush, the heart races, the mind races, anxiety and people are awakened from sound sleep. This anxiety can happen all through the day and people with terrible anxiety, almost always their adrenals are compromised. So we like to give adrenal a complex, we do it by shot, we can . . . there's an old feel good shot who has adrenal complex in it with B12 and folic acid, B number nine, which has been around from Hollywood since the 1950s and it's in a base of Sesame oil, so it's time released. And this will give people blood sugar and energy for up to a week. So this, we have used this since 1975 I believe, and it's a very big patient favorite. Supporting the adrenal gland can also be done by bio-identical natural progesterone, which is high in the cascade of adrenal hormones for the outside of the adrenal gland, and as well as bovine and other adrenal support. Now in the adrenal department and stress department. This weakness also causes brain fog and difficulty in concentration because when we're running on our adrenaline, it inhibits the blood flow to the brain and it makes focus in concentration and memory more difficult. So progesterone which we'll get to down around the P's I guess, is not feminizing, when I always thought it must be, progesterone for the pregnancy, wouldn't you expect? But it's not feminizing and you can give it to boys and young children for ADD, ADHD, and it calms them right down in about three to five minutes, in a kid, can be used for people to put them back to sleep in the night when they awaken. Now for the adrenal glands also, we have many adaptogens. Now adaptogens are herbs from around the world. We use cordyceps and rhodiola from Russia, ashwagandha from India, maca from Peru and South America, as well as eleutherococcus senticosus Siberian ginseng, and these are adaptogenic herbs. They make people happy and they make us strong and more able to withstand stress. So this whole concept of stress was brought forward in the 1950s by Hans Selye, who was a famous Canadian physician in Montreal, and he first established the three-phases of the Selye stress reaction. Phase number one, the tiger is chasing you through the woods. Phase number two, the tiger continues to chase you through the woods. Phase three, the tiger is no longer chasing you through the woods, but your brain thinks it is. So the hypothalamus and the pituitary are cross talking to keep us in a state of stress. So these adaptogenic herbs soothe that process, and people do like them, and it helps keep everybody happy and they're also good for physical endurance and anti-aging. Working down the A's now is Acetyl-L-Carnitine. Now carnitine is an amino acid, when you acetylate it you put an acid group on it so we can cross into the brain more easily and it is a precursor of acetylcholine. N ow acetylcholine is a brain chemical neurotransmitter responsible for memory. And as we age, memory can become a problem or can be a problem at any age, and acety-l-carnitine is an oral capsule and it can be taken several times a day with, with other Choline precursors to help protect our memory. Now the- it also enhances dopamine and dopamine is another brain chemical that makes us happy. Dopamine is the chemical that is increased by all addictions, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, all bring up dopamine and make people feel good. So Acetyl-L-Carnitine can turn up dopamine as well, and it also turns up serotonin, the other feel good neurotransmitter brain chemical. So Acetyl-L-Carnitine is a marvelous 'A' to help with our memory and good mood. Now, alpha lipoic acid, is a liver rescuer, it's an antioxidant, which we'll mention in a minute, and it helps the liver, rescues the liver. And one of the very famous stories about alpha lipoic acid was recounted by Burt Berkson, MD of truth or consequences, New Mexico, and when he was in his residence training, his staff man in his residency told him to take care of a patient who had just eaten some poison mushrooms, Amanita Phalloides, and this is widely known to cause liver failure and death. So his staff physician basically wanted him to Chronicle the demise of this patient. So being a curious guy, he went to the library and found that in Russia they had used alpha lipoic acid intravenously to treat poison mushrooms' poisoning. And so he did, and within two weeks the patient was back to normal and discharged. Lore has it that his staff physician was not very happy about this, but we are sure the patient was very relieved. Now, antioxidants and oxidation in the body is a very, very important process, all of our energy and all of our cells is made by oxidation, and these byproducts of oxidation, however, if they build up too much can cause damage, aging and disease. So oxidants, oxidizing molecules, it's a little hard to describe, but these are molecules that are missing an electron in their outer orbit, and when they're missing these electrons, then they go looking for electrons to complete their orbit and they go smashing into other cell membranes, and this sets off a cascade of free radical damage that can age the system. So antioxidants are substances in foods and in vitamins that can normalize and complete this ring. So oxidants, or o2 minus, dot, Oxygen missing an electron, or O minus dot singlet oxygen or O H hydroxyl free radical missing an electron. So by taking antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin A and vitamin E and alpha lipoic acid and many other antioxidant herbs and supplements, you can slow down this rusting of the body, this free radical damage. I always like to recall the liposic pigments spots or liver spots that you can see on people's hands, now these are oxidized, damaged fats, and they're then sequestered in little lysosomes, and you get the brown spots or the liver spots. Well, this is not only cosmetic, but this is also happening in the brain and in men in the prostate, these other fatty organs, so these can be a signal of free radical damage that's available for all to see. So this is an important process to understanding a free radicals. And of course, back in the early days, we thought these were Berkeley students, but free radicals are damaging molecules and they incur millions of times in our body through the course of our natural energy production in our cells. So having an adequate supply of free radicals will extend our lives and reduce the incidents of disease. Now arginine, now that's an amino acid, and amino acids are small pieces of protein that our body puts together to assemble our protein structure in our body. And Arginine is a precursor of nitric oxide, NO. Now nitric oxide is a vasodilator, it dilates all of our arteries and it helps to control blood pressure. And it also is important that the nitric oxide to help our bowels to move properly, the peristalsis of our bowels, is a nitric oxide process, so it's important. Arginine is found a lot in peanuts. And arginine also can suppress lysine, and lysine is an amino acid, when it's suppressed can sometimes cause herpes virus outbreaks. So one has to be a little careful with Arginine, but it's- can be supplemented and can help blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Now, another good 'A' here is absinthium. Now absinthe is absinthium, is sweet wormwood, It is used around the world to treat malaria. It also is, was used in Europe at the turn of the last century, particularly, it was very fashionable to go out to restaurants and have absinthe drool onto a sugar cube, usually with a cordial, and it caused mild hallucinations. So this is not that strong of course, but it's also absinthe, and absinthium is a great digestive, it helps the body to make good stomach acid. It also helps to rid the body of little parasites and worms. So wormwood has been used for centuries for this process. Absinthe in the modern age is being used also in integrative oncology by using absinthium, artemisia annua in IVs, you can grab in a sequester iron in cancer cells. So there's a lot of iron in cancer cells, so by removing the iron, it can inhibit cancer cell proliferation. So it's a great substance integrator and it has many, many uses. So there are lots of other A's, but for now let's end this with our admonition, to stay healthy and learn as much as you can about your nutritional and herbal supplements. This is Michael Gerber wishing you health, wealth, and happiness.

Outro:              22:37          The medicine wheel encourages all of our listeners to subscribe to our newsletter and podcast as we continue to explore the world of medicine, bringing you up to date, health and science information. The medicine wheel invites our listeners to email us any news where these stories are topics they wish to explore further and discuss on the podcast. For more information about the medicine wheel, please visit us at our website www.themedicinewheel.com and on Facebook and finally on Twitter and Instagram at the Med Wheel. In an effort to support access to integrative medicine and functional medicine options for those in need, And education for those who need information, please consider donating to project OM Care. 501c3.org please go to our website, www.the medicinewheel.com to learn more. Thank you again to all our local sponsors, Grateful Gardens, Lighthouse Coffee and Dorinda's chocolates which represent some of the best organic and advertising options in the Reno Tahoe area. Lighthouse coffee shop is a proud sponsor of the Medicine Wheel. We are a family owned and operated local coffee shop. Our goal as a business and a family is to cultivate community wherever we are. All of our coffee is ethically sourced, organic and farm fresh. It's roasted in house daily, guaranteeing you access to the freshest cup of coffee on the planet. We cared deeply for our community and everyone in it. We strive to provide you with the best ingredients and most comfortable environment. Come and enjoy coffee with us. We are family and we would love for you to be part of it. Gerber Medical Clinic is proud to support the medicine wheel and medical education to improve health quality, nurturing the lifestyles of our listening community enhancing wellness for all. Thanks again to Wyred Insights and their talented team for making our podcasting dream possible. In closing, we would like to remind all of our listeners if you have a medical concern or diagnosis, you need to see your personal doctor without delay and if needed, obtain a referral to a specialist. If ever you feel the health issue you have is urgent or an emergency, please call 911 and go to your nearest emergency room. Please do not take any of our positions, commentary or our guests' opinion as medical advice and always seek out medical care from fully licensed and appropriately trained medical professionals in your area. The information shared in this podcast is for general information only and should not be construed as medical advice and understand that no doctor patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and educational materials link to this podcast and website are employed at the user's own risk. The content of this podcast is not meant to be used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This is the medicine wheel. Signing off for this week with reminder to live love, listen and learn.