Ultimate Prescription

Blue Berries

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum

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Series Code: UP

Program Code: UP000096B


00:01 Welcome back to the Ultimate Prescription.
00:02 Today we're talking about food as medicine.
00:05 And specifically we're talking about blueberries and how
00:09 they have such great antioxidants in them,
00:11 and how they improve brain function.
00:13 Dr. Marcum, have you ever been somewhere where you picked
00:15 blueberries right off the plant and ate them?
00:17 Yeah, I have. Actually, I think at one time I was doing a
00:21 Vacation Bible School in Maine, and I found
00:25 some blueberries there.
00:26 But there's also some big animals in Maine, too.
00:28 They're walking around, too.
00:30 You're not the only one that likes the blueberries.
00:31 The loons, you know.
00:33 But, yeah, I had some blueberries.
00:34 And right off the bush they're good.
00:35 And how about yourself?
00:37 Yeah, I've been, actually been camping.
00:38 In North Carolina there's a place.
00:40 And if you know the right time of the year you can just grab
00:41 a handful right off the bush and eat them.
00:42 They're delicious!
00:44 Yeah, and when you're doing that it helps the
00:46 entire body's chemistry.
00:48 Very interesting, these blueberries,
00:50 how they're so powerful
00:51 And there's another berry that I picked one time when
00:53 I was out on a hike.
00:54 They were huckleberries.
00:56 They're very similar to the size and color of blueberries,
00:58 but maybe a little more purple.
00:59 Very delicious, too.
01:01 But what gives these berries their nice rich dark blue color?
01:04 Yeah. Well, they have a pigment called anthocyanin. Okay.
01:09 And that's very interesting, because we've talked about
01:12 you know, how food changes your chemistry. Uh huh.
01:16 Remember food is made up of all sorts of different chemicals.
01:19 Right. Just like, for instance, a prescription.
01:21 That's made of chemicals.
01:23 Well, these are foods that have different chemical makeup's
01:26 that do different things in our body. Right.
01:28 Well, we've noticed that, you know, we talked in previous
01:31 programs about the pigment of turmeric, which is curcumin,
01:34 which is a yellow pigment that has medicinal help,
01:37 now anthocyanins and antioxidants.
01:40 Well, we're now learning that the different colors,
01:43 the different pigments of different vegetables and fruits
01:47 tend to have great things that help our bodies.
01:50 So that's why when we eat different foods we want to
01:53 have different colors.
01:54 And I think we've heard numerous times, you want to
01:56 have different colors.
01:58 Well, we've talked about blueberries being one of the
01:59 only blue ones. Uh huh.
02:01 But we want to have different colors.
02:03 We want to have, you know, oranges, you know,
02:05 you now, different oranges.
02:07 That means orange color, not oranges.
02:09 Yeah, right, orange color.
02:11 Like eating carrots, we have greens, we have blues,
02:14 um I can't think of anything that's pink.
02:17 But I can think of different...
02:19 Grapefruit, the inside is a little pink.
02:21 But we want to have different colors, because there's
02:23 something valuable about those pigments that helps our body.
02:27 And as technology develops, and as people study these
02:31 different pigments, we're going to figure the exact chemical
02:35 mechanism that would help.
02:36 And a lot of studies are on blueberries because, you know,
02:39 the blueberry industry has funded some of those. Right.
02:41 They also have studied the antioxidant's in blueberries,
02:44 and they're way off the chart.
02:45 This is very good for antioxidants.
02:47 And as people wanted anti-aging techniques, they wanted ways
02:52 to protect the brain.
02:53 Do you know with Alzheimer's Disease, and people getting
02:55 older and living longer, the want to prevent this oxidative
02:58 stress that's happening in our brain,
03:01 which is so metabolically active.
03:03 So this is something that people can add to their regimen,
03:06 to not only help their brains do better, but to prevent some
03:10 of the memory problems, and maybe some other diseases
03:13 of the brain that we might be incurring as we age.
03:15 You know, that reminds me; you're talking about all the
03:18 different colors that we should be eating.
03:19 Did you ever see that Skittles commercial with the tag line,
03:22 Eat the Rainbow? Oh, yeah!
03:24 They stole that. You know, God really gave us the rainbow,
03:27 and gave us all those colors, and wants us to eat all those
03:29 different colored fruits and vegetables.
03:31 You're right! And that's so unique.
03:33 And, you know, we think of all the different...
03:35 That's a good point.
03:36 It's a great slogan, but don't eat the actual Skittles.
03:38 Just go out and find foods that are those colors.
03:40 You eat those and you'll be better off.
03:41 And you can make a rainbow out of them.
03:43 That's right, that's right.
03:44 Make a rainbow out of your food.
03:45 Well, we're going to go to a question from our website at:
03:49 You can log on and click on the Ask the Doctor page.
03:52 And Dr. Marcum, or someone from our medical board will reply
03:55 with a suggestion for you.
03:56 But we're going to go to a question that's coming about
03:59 someone who's afraid of having a stroke.
04:01 It consumes my thoughts, they say.
04:03 And what can I do to get over this impending feeling of doom?
04:07 Well, you know, stroke is a concern. Yeah.
04:11 It's one of the leading causes of death, you know, behind heart
04:14 disease and cancer.
04:16 It's right up there.
04:17 And a lot of strokes happen because we
04:20 have vascular disease.
04:21 You know, the blood vessels get blocked.
04:23 Some of it happens because the brain just ages.
04:26 We have cognitive decline.
04:28 Some of it comes because of oxidative stress on the brain.
04:31 And sometimes the brain just wears off. Sure.
04:35 Sometimes it's genetic as well.
04:36 So if you can know the cause of cognitive decline...
04:40 But if we're just talking about stroke, the causes of strokes
04:44 are blood clots, blockage in the arteries, and bleeding.
04:47 Well, to help with some of those one of the things we can do is
04:51 eat a whole food plant based diet. Right.
04:53 That will help get fat out of our bodies,
04:56 get fat out of our arteries.
04:57 There's specific foods that can help that we've studied.
05:00 Greens can make the arteries bigger.
05:03 We've now talked about berries, especially blueberries.
05:07 They have a chemical called polythenols that
05:09 might help as well.
05:10 So there's many things that we can do from a nutritional
05:13 standpoint to lower the risk of having vascular
05:16 problems in our brains.
05:17 But not only will it that, but it also, as we saw this time,
05:20 it helps us oxidate our problems, and that might help
05:23 our brain not to age as quick.
05:25 So those are just some things that people might
05:27 want to think about.
05:28 Another thing that helps very much is
05:30 adding fiber to the diet.
05:32 A lot of people don't... It's been estimated that 97% of
05:35 people don't get enough fiber.
05:37 So fiber tends to help a lot of things in the body as well,
05:40 especially with inflammation; changes the good in bowel flora.
05:44 I think as time goes on we're going to see a lot of the
05:46 beneficial effects of fiber, even more
05:49 on our vascular system.
05:51 Do Blueberries have a bit of fiber in them?
05:52 Blueberries have fibers in them?
05:54 Yes, they have the pigment in them.
05:55 They have lots of good things.
05:57 They have the polythenols.
05:58 You know, we sort of grew till we call these phytonutrients,
06:01 or plant nutrients.
06:02 A lot of the chemicals we have...
06:04 What's interesting is you just swallow a blueberry
06:07 and it has chemicals in it.
06:08 But when it gets in the body it interacts with your good and bad
06:11 flora, it changes even chemical composition
06:14 numerous other times.
06:16 So you might have something that's a chemical structure
06:18 here that's changed to something even more valuable once
06:21 it gets in the body.
06:22 Yeah, that's incredible.
06:23 So our bodies, the biochemistry of the body is very complex.
06:26 There's many interacting forces that are going on.
06:28 And we're just beginning to understand.
06:30 But what I've learned, Nick, is all the things that God
06:33 says in the Bible, there's chemistry and technology
06:36 behind it whether we can prove it or not. Right.
06:39 And I'm very interested to ask God about the biochemistry.
06:43 You know, how when we swallow a blueberry these phytonutrients
06:47 when they hit our digestive system it breaks them down
06:50 to different things.
06:51 And how when it sees our good and bad flora, the good flora
06:54 turns it into something else.
06:56 It makes certain chemical called butyrate, which lets more of
06:59 of the good stuff get in, keeps the bad stuff off.
07:02 It changes it to certain things that can get into the energy
07:04 part of the cell called the mitochondria.
07:06 It changes the different things that effects the
07:08 very DNA of the cell. Uh huh.
07:10 It's just, we are truly fearfully and wonderfully made.
07:13 We're going to one more question here.
07:16 Someone writes and asks, My ibuprofen is no longer helping
07:19 with my arthritis. Any suggestions?
07:21 Yeah, we talked about so many things that can help
07:23 inflammation in the body.
07:26 And we want to turn down that immune system.
07:28 We've talked about how berries can turn down oxidative stress.
07:33 We know things like ginger, we know that things like turmeric
07:36 can all turn down inflammation in the body. Right.
07:39 Moving the body parts can turn down, drinking enough water
07:42 can turn down inflammation, getting enough rest.
07:46 You know, anything that turns down stress in general can turn
07:49 down inflammation to some degree.
07:51 The things that I've used specifically for inflammation are
07:55 things like turmeric, and ginger, and berries.
07:58 All those three can really help.
08:00 Walnuts and almonds, flax is another substance that can
08:03 help inflammation in the body.
08:05 But those might help the inflammation enough.
08:08 And I know several people that have gone on whole food plant
08:11 based diets and they used to have aches and pains,
08:13 and inflammatory process, and they noticed that it goes away.
08:17 So some of the foods we eat can promote inflammation.
08:21 We know that high fat diets, high protein diets, animal diets
08:25 can sometimes promote inflammation as well.
08:27 So not only do we want to eat foods that lower inflammation,
08:30 but we also want to try not to eat as many foods
08:33 that cause inflammation.
08:35 Right. And that sounds like some great advice.
08:37 We want to talk just for a second before we close here
08:39 about Biblical Prescriptions for Life.
08:41 This is a Bible study program that we've produced
08:43 over the last year.
08:44 And to start it off let's take a quick look at a short
08:46 clip by Dr. Marcum.
08:48 I'm Dr. James Marcum with your Biblical Prescription for Life.
08:52 Martha came to the office a few weeks ago complaining of not
08:56 remembering as well.
08:57 Well, many of us also have this problem.
09:00 I suggested a Biblical treatment for life found in Daniel 1.
09:05 This is the story about Daniel and his
09:07 friends in a foreign land.
09:09 They asked for pulse and water; things that grew,
09:11 and water to drink.
09:13 And after a short period of time in Daniel 1 these young
09:17 gentlemen were ten times smarter than all the other
09:20 people that ate the kings food.
09:22 Well, just think, your nutrition helps improve the brain.
09:26 There's numerous studies out there that show foods,
09:28 especially blueberries, walnuts and almonds, improve
09:32 a person's cognition.
09:33 When Martha started eating healthier,
09:35 especially blueberries and other berries,
09:38 she began to improve her cognition.
09:40 I'm Dr. James Marcum with your Biblical Prescription for Life.
09:48 You know, that's some great advice Dr. Marcum.
09:50 And if you would like to learn more about
09:51 Biblical Prescriptions for Life, this small group
09:54 Bible study is available.
09:56 You can learn more at:
10:01 or you can call 3ABN at (618) 627-4651 and ask for your
10:07 copy of Biblical Prescriptions for Life.
10:09 It's designed to be used as a small group Bible study.
10:11 And there's a lot of great information in there;
10:14 a lot of Biblical references about how you can live
10:17 according to God's design for your life.
10:19 And Dr. Marcum, thank you for joining us today,
10:21 talking with us about blueberries.
10:23 Yeah, and if people want to learn more they can get a hold
10:26 of us at our website.
10:28 That's right. Let's start with social media.
10:29 Actually we're on Facebook and Twitter.
10:31 Share our health articles there, share our radio programs,
10:35 anything you read or hear from Heartwise;
10:38 share that with your friends.
10:39 Because this is great free health advice
10:41 that everyone can benefit from.
10:43 And our website is:
10:46 And Dr. Marcum writes regular blog articles there.
10:49 There's radio programs you can listen to, and possibly one of
10:52 the most important things on there is our prayer forum.
10:55 And you can go on there and ask for prayer, or more importantly,
10:59 pray for others who have listed health prayer requests there.
11:03 So we want you to take part in that.
11:05 And thank you for joining us today here on the
11:07 Ultimate Prescription.
11:09 We're going to close in just a moment as Dr. Marcum
11:10 finishes with prayer.
11:17 There have been many people coming to our website recently
11:20 with problems with relationships.
11:22 Remember relationships are part of our health, too.
11:25 And we want healthy relationships.
11:27 So I'd like to say a prayer for all those that are needing
11:30 a little extra help in their relationships.
11:32 Let's bow our heads.
11:34 Heavenly Father, we lift up our desires and problems in prayer.
11:39 Many people are having problems with relationships.
11:42 Father we want to pray especially for them,
11:45 and we also want to pray for those that need to strengthen
11:48 their relationship that we have with You, Father.
11:50 Thank You for giving us this wonderful body that we can serve
11:54 You, and worship You better, is our prayer today. Amen.
11:57 Well, I hope you learned something about
12:00 blueberries today: help with inflammation,
12:03 helps your cognitive function, and it's important treatment
12:08 for the body, and also keeps us healthy.
12:10 Until next time, I'm Dr. James Marcum, and I want to wish you
12:15 the best of health.


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Revised 2017-04-04