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Vitamins Dr. Gordon Recommends to Boost Immune System re: COVID-19

PowerfulJRE15:29

Transcription

The Jurgen Experience

So if you're going to put someone on sort of a preventative protocol for Covid, you would recommend quercetin. And you can get it; we just—I just bought some on Amazon after you brought it up because I wasn't taking quercetin.

Yeah, quercetin at what dose? Well, what we started off just for, you know, for daily use because the benefit of quercetin is it drops the inflammatory cytokines; it increases mitochondria, so you produce more cells, so you produce more energy ATP. That was what we were using for, and it was 500 milligrams twice a day. And zinc was 15 to 30 milligrams twice a day. And in the past 20 years, I've been sick 13 days. And what I started seeing in our population, because we do a monthly questionnaire to our patient population, and we have two questions about allergies and about infections or colds, and we started seeing years ago that the number of colds people were having were dropping, and their allergies were improving. And honestly, I didn't understand why until Covid and start looking at how the immune system is influenced by things like zinc and certain testosterone. Testosterone stimulates the CD4 CD8 cells, which are the immune cells that help to defend us against infections, viral, bacterial, innate immunity, as well as it increases uh, something called interleukin-10, which is an anti-inflammatory product, and it drops the inflammatory interleukins. These are the cytokines or produced by our immune system to help fight off infections by sending out an attack against them, which is a biochemical attack other than just antibodies.

So you've got zinc 15 to 30 milligrams twice a day, quercetin 500 milligrams twice a day. That's preventive treatment. And we've had to treat patients outside of our practice is a thousand milligrams twice a day with 30 milligrams—a thousand milligrams twice a day of quercetin and 30 milligrams twice a day of zinc. And this is for someone that has—someone who's active. And what is—what's going on with zinc and quercetin and and Covid, like how—how does it interact? Well, the virus that gets into our cells, it gets into our cells through something called an ACE2 receptor, and that's what the um vaccine is fighting against. They call it the spike protein, so on the outer membrane of the virus are these spikes, so it uses our own system to transport the virus into the cell. Once it's in the cell, the virus releases something called replicase. Replicase is a DNA reverse transcriptase protein that takes over our manufacturing at the ribosome to make more viral genome. Well, it turns out that the replicase has an area on it that if zinc attaches to it, shuts it off. So quercetin is called an ionophore; it carries charged particles into the cell; otherwise, zinc sits outside the cell. So zinc without a zinophore—is that a saline ionophore—ionophore—io—yes, I think without an—it just—it doesn't work.

Correct. Interesting. It's a lot of these people that are just taking zinc on its own; it doesn't get something all right; it doesn't go into this. Yeah, generally speaking, it won't get into the cell at a high rate; it will, over time, get in because we have things that we take in like bismuth in our system from fruits and vegetables; we have EGCG from green tea if people are drinking green tea; we've got curcumin from food. That's why in India they don't get it, so they're getting some form of ionophore. But if you want to really jam the zinc into the cells, um, use a quercetin or turmeric or—and then move on to D3. I'm taking 10,000 IU a day. What do you—I personally take a little bit more than that.

How much you take? 50,000.

Jesus Christ. Mondays, and 10 or 20,000 on every other day.

That's a lot. Why?

I don't know. Yeah, that's right. Most people say I don't know. Is there any negative aspect? Yeah, there are negative aspects to high levels of vitamin D, but not due to vitamin D, due to what it does. What vitamin D does, as I said earlier, is it brings calcium in from your nutrition and takes phosphorus in so it can build bone calcium. If it's too high, hyperkalemia will cause the nausea, vomiting, and can cause irregularity of the heart. So if you're taking high dosing of calcium for whatever reason and you take high dosing of vitamin D, you would be at risk for developing nausea, vomiting, and toxicity. A study that was done, which is also on the paper I gave you, they did 113,000 hospitalized people, and they looked at their vitamin D levels; they all had been taking vitamin D; they only found I think it was four people who had toxicity from elevated levels of vitamin D, and it turned out it was the liquid form of vitamin D that created the problem. So from that standpoint, vitamin D is very safe, and I'm talking up numbers that are 60 to 100. I try to keep my range at 80 to 100 because of studies that are showing—you take calcium—no, you don't. I have to—my nutrition and I monitor my calcium every six months of my blood work. So if my levels are where they should be, I'm fine.

Okay, so what do you look for in nutrition to get your calcium from? What are you getting from, um, you know—I eat cheese; my daughter pulled me off of cow's milk and tried me on uh, goat cheese. Goat cheese; she gives me all that stuff, so um, in my cheese, I get it, and then you know there are foods that I eat. I chew on bones, so I get a little calcium that way.

Chew on bones? No, I'm just kidding. But um, because I take bone meal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Allison makes uh uh bone broth. Yeah, she makes bone broth at home, so it has good bone marrow, you know, protein and uh, some calcium. I don't know how much calcium you get from it, but I monitor—I'm getting it someplace in my nutrition. So for someone who has osteoporosis, let's—let's look at point to them; they're uh recommended to take calcium, right?

Correct.

Now they're taking calcium and they have vitamin D3.

Correct.

Then they must be careful about what the levels of vitamin D3 they take.

Correct.

And the—what do you recommend to someone who's taking calcium, like what—what levels? See, I use the science; I use the laboratory to tell me how much, you know—I get ridiculed by my colleagues because I'm giving everybody a baseline of 10,000 units, and they say, "Oh, that's toxic; it's going to go—" You go and do the blood test, and you see—giving them 10,000, they get a, you know, still sub-optimal level of vitamin D. It's because they're not absorbing it, so I can't assume that 10,000 is going to give them toxic levels, you know, calcium absorption. So I—I start at uh, 5 to 10,000. 10,000 seems to be the amount, and then their calcium—they get—they have a a prescribed product which has calcium and vitamin D in a balanced combination already.

So um, who makes that? I don't remember which pharmaceutical; I don't use it, you know—it's right—what's the issue with the liquid vitamin D? Yeah, the only thing is with liquid vitamins. Yeah, but why you think? Because the absorption rate? Because it gets absorbed so well. Capsule—encapsulated, you know, it's fat-soluble; you take it after a meal; it gets absorbed, and based upon how good the gut is—dysbiosis—it will regulate how you absorb it. So I don't assume anything; I'll put a patient on a protocol, and then three months later, I'll go and test them and see where their levels are at. If they're at a great level on that amount, that's perfect for them. How do I know that whatever I'm giving them is going to be too much, too little, or perfect? And then the level of absorption, which will indicate in their blood, will—will indicate like what levels are shown in the blood is directly related to their diet as well.

Correct.

And the other nutrients are taken—it's related to the status of their gut, the lining of their gut; it's relative to if they took it before food or during food—with food; it's a fat-soluble—fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin E, um, vitamin D or hormone D uh, or DHEA, they all need um, food to optimize the absorption. Okay, so so we got D3 uh, which you take at very high levels, but what do you recommend? 10,000—um, you need to have a blood test before we put anybody on vitamin D; we don't just abstractly, you know, put them on a number, right? We check their levels, and I've been absolutely amazed at not only the frequency of deficiency of vitamin D, but the fact that I've got surfers who have deficiency of vitamin D. How can you be a surfer out there in the sun and be vitamin D deficient?

Wetsuits, right. Well, they wear maybe the top, but their arms and legs below the belly is exposed four hours. I'd see a lot of guys with full wetsuits out there because that [ __ ] Pacific Ocean—it's cold [ __ ]; it's cold; it's cold. Yeah, but when they get out, they lay down on the beach. You know, I think human beings need a lot of sun. Uh, I think that genetics are changing.

Yeah?

Are they? Yeah, I think so. Look at—why did we develop this whole system of vitamin D? The vitamin D receptor stimulates hair growth to cover our body with hair to avoid the ionizing radiation that our ancestors—neolithic ancestors—used to have. They were getting cancer; they were getting exposed to high levels of—because the air was clear; there was no smog back then, so they were getting full strength of the radiation from the sun, and they were dying. So the body is—dead smog is protecting us from cancer. Uh, is that what you're saying?

Relative—relative to sun jokes, just piece it all together. Yeah, so Hong Kong—like not Hong Kong—like uh, what—what are the Chinese cities?

Beijing.

Beijing, really bad. I would say yeah, I used to work there.

That's right, the Olympics there, and they said it was like the worst air quality we've ever had for the Olympics, and the only way they got the air clear there was shutting down all the manufacturing that's in the one of the inner circles. See, Beijing grew so rapidly that they have 10 rings around it, and I think in the fourth or fifth ring is where they have all the manufacturing. So when the financial summit happened, they shut them all down; air was clear, absolutely clear. The silliest thing—I was there for New Year's one year in February, and they shot off 45 million dollars worth of um, rockets and fireworks and firecrackers and all that added pollution; you couldn't breathe, and I was on the 27th floor of a building; couldn't breathe up there.

Really?

Yeah, it was pretty bad; pretty bad. So okay, so um, D3—yes, we—so we got quercetin, we got uh, zinc 30 milligrams twice a day, um, or that's the—that's a therapeutic—therapeutic—a thousand milligrams twice a day with 30 twice a day of zinc, um, then D3—figure out what the levels are, but what you're taking is somewhere—I—I'm taking uh—what about uh, 120,000 a week? If someone doesn't have like a good place to go, they don't—they don't have a good doctor to go—how do they find a doctor that could read their vitamin levels on—on their blood work? Like what do you look for, like if someone's listening to this, like, "I should get my blood work done," who do they go? Right, well, functional medicine is big now, and in functional medicine, they're looking at your amino acids; they're looking at your vitamin levels; they're looking at your mineral levels, which need to be done. We're not getting our minerals anymore because we're getting bottled water. How many minerals are in here?

Zero of them.

Oh, right. Zero. Is—well, that's hard water, right? Like well water—that's what people call it—hard water—runoff for the mountain. I know, but that's what hard water is, right? When you get—that's high in calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide, whatever it is—calcium minerals in the water, right?

Yeah.

And uh, you can buy the minerals and put a couple of drops into the bottle and take—colloidal—colloidal—that's it. Um, so you got your D3, you got your quercetin, you got your zinc, uh, what about vitamin C? Uh, vitamin C helps with the immune system. Um, how much do you take? I don't take uh, vitamin C really.

No?

What do you take? I have two or three pieces of citrus fruit that I grow in my backyard every morning. Every now and then uh, Allison will bring in some of the uh, from here—it's called strawberry Texas grapefruits—phenomenal—sweet as can be—a strawberry grapefruit; they call it strawberry because of the color. The usual one is the pink grapefruits from Texas, not the yellow ones from Florida, but the pink ones, and they're very high in vitamin C. Also, I grow compquats, so I'll eat the whole thing, so they have a lot of natural compounds, and I get two cycles a year, so I'm always with natural forms.

Okay, so you just get it—I get it all naturally. Yeah. What other uh—some—I mean, this is all we're talking about like during this Covid, right?—pandemic where everybody's really concerned about their immune system and protecting themselves from—yeah, DHEA is also an immune stimulator. DHEA, you know, studies that came out of Massachusetts Male Aging Study showed that DHEA is extremely important for protecting the heart. When they looked at, you know, quartiles—the lowest 25 percent of the range versus the highest—you saw a significant loss of heart attack deaths and a significant decrease in hospitalizations due to heart attack, and that's DHEA. It also stimulates the immune system, so it up-regulates the ability of our system to defend itself, so it's a higher quality of defense. And another issue with vitamin D—I mean, with DHEA—is DHEA is important for allowing DHT—dihydrotestosterone—into the cell. And why is that important? DHT is a byproduct of testosterone because it's the combination of DHEA getting DHT—dihydrotestosterone—in the cell that allows for sugar to be brought into myocytes—into the muscle cells. So there are articles out there talking about if you want to get the optimal benefit for muscle growth, you need to make sure your DHEA levels are optimal to get the DHT to increase glycogen in the muscle cells, so use that for energy and for growth.

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