Health for a Lifetime

Natural Remedies For Geriatric Concerns

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Don Mackintosh, Kevin Bryant

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Series Code: HFAL

Program Code: HFAL000041


00:51 Hello and welcome to "Health for a Lifetime"
00:54 I'm Don Macintosh, your host, and today we're joined with
00:57 Dr. Kevin Bryant from Wichita, Kansas
01:00 He is a specialist in family practice,
01:02 and focuses on helping the older adult or geriatric concerns,
01:07 and one of his special things that he likes to study
01:10 are natural remedies for many different concerns...
01:14 and also with those who are
01:15 getting older, isn't that right, doctor?
01:16 That's right since my area of practice is for the elderly,
01:21 in the geriatric population, looking at something
01:26 in the area of natural remedies,
01:27 has always been an interest of mine.
01:30 Now, natural remedies, when we talk about natural remedies,
01:34 some people probably get a little frightened...
01:36 that sounds alternative, sounds kind of,
01:38 you know, maybe on the fringe.
01:40 You are a medical doctor, correct?
01:42 That's correct, and we do want to say right at the beginning,
01:48 that any of the things we're going to be talking about
01:51 ...if someone listening says, "That sounds like something
01:56 I'd like into further," it's important that they
01:59 do talk to their physician,
02:01 because some of the herbal preparations that we're
02:05 going to be talking about may interfere or interact
02:08 with medications they're on, and they need to
02:10 be sure that their physician is aware of that.
02:13 You literally see hundreds of
02:15 patients a year... isn't that right?
02:16 You have many nursing homes,
02:18 and many patients you see. Right
02:21 And many of them are on medications,
02:24 but what's the difference between pharmaceutical,
02:26 or a medication that's made and then sold in a pharmacy,
02:31 and a natural remedy?
02:34 Well, one thing that has been interesting to me
02:39 as I've looked at this area is looking at the difference
02:42 the way plants produce chemicals,
02:47 and the way they're produced in a chemistry lab.
02:51 When they're produced in a chemistry lab,
02:54 the chemical compounds that are made there,
02:58 the drugs, the pharmaceutical agents,
03:02 have what we call left and right-hand forms.
03:06 They're like our hands, and they can't be
03:10 superimposed on each other, but they're mirror images.
03:13 So, in any given drug, there's a right hand,
03:16 there's a left hand...
03:17 Right... left and right hand form of that drug.
03:21 So you have a right-handed aspirin,
03:23 and you have a left-handed aspirin... whatever
03:25 Now, the importance of that is that our bodies
03:30 ONLY interact with the left hand form.
03:34 And so, pharmaceuticals produced in the lab,
03:37 produced a mixture, a 50:50 mixture
03:39 of left and right hand, so half of the drug
03:44 is not interacting with the body and producing the effect
03:48 that it's designed to produce; only the left hand.
03:51 So what... I mean, to use a simple, you got this pill,
03:54 only half of it is working, is what you're saying,
03:56 and what's the other half doing then?
03:59 The left hand form is the one that's actually active
04:01 and producing the effect that the drug is designed to do.
04:07 In the plant kingdom, when plants produce compounds,
04:12 that are effective in our body, they only produce
04:17 the left hand side 100%
04:20 Some people think that may have something to do with
04:24 a difference that we see in the amount of side effects
04:28 that are evident.
04:30 You only have to pick up a Physicians' Desk Reference
04:33 which is the manual that goes over all the pharmaceutical
04:37 drugs and look through the section on adverse reactions,
04:42 or side effects to realize that they do cause side effects.
04:48 So that pill, whatever it is we take from the pharmacy,
04:51 half of it really works; the other half we're not sure
04:54 what it's doing, but it's that right hand versus left hand.
04:57 That doesn't mean you're saying to people...
04:59 Do away with your medicines,
05:01 or stop them, or anything like that. No
05:02 It's just kind of a way of thinking... Understanding
05:06 Understanding why it is that the herbal preparations,
05:09 by and large, seem to have a less number of side effects.
05:13 What are some of the things you're going to
05:15 talk to us about today?
05:16 We're going to talk about some of these natural remedies.
05:18 What are some of the things you're going to be covering?
05:19 Well, we want to look at some of the concerns that our
05:22 geriatric population are facing.
05:25 And, we've talked about the difference between
05:28 pharmaceutical agents, and herbal preparations.
05:31 We want to spend a few minutes looking at
05:33 some natural remedies for ophthalmology or eye concerns.
05:39 Many of the elderly population are facing cataracts,
05:43 or blindness due to macular degeneration.
05:46 We're going to spend a little bit of time on prostate problems
05:51 And then something that many of the older population fear
05:56 is the diagnosis of Alzheimer disease.
05:59 What can we do to maybe prevent or treat it
06:01 with natural remedies.
06:03 And then lastly, focus on osteoporosis.
06:07 Sounds very interesting.
06:11 I know my grandfather lived with me the last
06:13 3-1/2 years of his life.
06:15 I was able to... had the privilege of taking of him.
06:17 And he did have problems with cataracts and whatnot.
06:21 What can you tell us about natural remedies for cataracts,
06:24 and the other big word, I think you used, was
06:26 macular degeneration, right.
06:28 Let's talk about cataracts first... Okay
06:31 Some researchers in Baltimore did some interesting
06:36 studies on a geriatric population where they
06:40 did something simple as looking at the amount of
06:45 fruits and vegetables that were in their diet,
06:49 and then they followed them to see how many of them
06:52 developed cataracts.
06:54 And what they found was that if they divided the group
07:00 into 2 groups; one group eating 3.5 or more servings
07:06 a day of fruits and vegetables, versus the group that
07:09 ate less than 3.5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day.
07:13 The difference between those 2 groups in developing cataracts
07:17 was incredible!
07:19 In fact, the group that ate less than 3.5 servings a day
07:23 had 13 times the risk of developing cataracts.
07:29 So development of cataracts is not necessarily just
07:33 something that's in a person's fate.
07:35 Something as simple as eating more than
07:38 3.5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day can help
07:41 reduce that risk.
07:42 So if you don't have cataracts, and you're watching today...
07:45 Hey, start eating those fruits and vegetables,
07:48 and you're going to avoid those... Right!
07:51 That's good news... I mean, I thought you were going to say
07:55 that it was helpful, but I didn't know it was THAT helpful.
07:58 That was a phenomenal finding in that study.
08:01 Now the other aspect they looked at was
08:03 macular degeneration.
08:05 Which means... what does that mean?
08:06 That's a deterioration of the retina.
08:09 And they found, again...
08:10 Just a minute, what is the retina?
08:11 What does the retina do?
08:12 The light comes in the eye, and then what...
08:15 And it is focused on the back of the eye...
08:17 So these are the cells on the back of the eye that
08:19 the light is focused on.
08:22 And the area that's most important is called the "macula"
08:26 The macula is part of the retina
08:29 where the light focuses on. Right
08:31 And deterioration of that area causes a considerable
08:35 amount of the blindness in America.
08:37 They found a similar type of thing where those that were
08:42 low in the fruits and vegetables had twice the rate
08:48 of this disease process occurring.
08:51 So fruits and vegetables...
08:53 Was mother right? Eat your carrots?
08:55 They do help! They really do.
08:58 So maybe if you're watching,
08:59 you'll want to go and get a carrot, that would be great!
09:02 Let's go on and ask what kind of things can help in
09:08 these other areas you mentioned.
09:09 I think the other one you mentioned was prostate.
09:11 Yeah, for men, by the age of 75 in America today,
09:16 50% of men are having problems with their prostate,
09:21 and one of the newest herbal preparations that is
09:27 finding some real help in this area is one called...
09:31 "saw palmetto"
09:34 As the name might indicate, it's taken from an extract
09:38 from the berry of a palm tree...
09:41 And they found that in various studies where they compare it
09:49 against a drug, a pharmaceutical agent called "Proscar,"
09:57 the studies looking at those 2, comparing them,
10:01 we find that it's just as effective.
10:04 Just as effective, but less side effects,
10:08 although it does have some small amount of side effects
10:12 with headaches, nausea, dizziness.
10:14 One other thing we have to mention about this
10:19 it does affect what we call "PSA" level.
10:23 What's that? A fancy name for...
10:26 "Prostatic assay" which is measuring for
10:31 the possibility of prostate cancer.
10:34 So if you take this, it could mask a problem?
10:38 It can mask a problem. Right
10:40 So that's again coming back to the reason why it's
10:43 important to let your physician know if
10:46 you are taking some of these herbal medications
10:49 because of the effect they can have on lab tests,
10:52 and it's also important to mention here that
10:56 saw palmetto is really only to be used for
10:59 prostate enlargement problems;
11:01 it's not really useful for prostate cancer.
11:06 All right, many of these things you can get over-the-counter,
11:10 in a health food store, or some place...
11:13 How do you now whether or not you're getting a good
11:16 source of palmetto.
11:19 And that's an important point.
11:21 In Europe, herbal medications are used extensively.
11:30 In Germany, 90% of the prescriptions written by
11:33 physicians are for herbal medication.
11:36 Is that right, 90%! Of medical doctors!
11:40 Of medical doctors in Germany
11:41 are writing for herbal preparations,
11:43 and so they've developed a much better regulatory system
11:48 for making sure that it's standardized in quality control.
11:53 We don't have that yet here in America,
11:56 and so there is some concern that some preparations
12:00 may not be as quality controlled.
12:03 One important helpful point on that is if
12:07 on the bottle, and you're looking at the
12:11 active ingredient portion,
12:13 if it says "standardized" in the dosage area,
12:18 that this is standardized, then that is indicating
12:22 that they've had some quality control,
12:25 and that you can be a little more sure that
12:27 that's the amount that's in there.
12:30 Another question about that over-the-counter business...
12:33 You find out it's standardized and whatnot,
12:36 but REALLY, what you're saying is, you could help yourself,
12:40 but you could also endanger yourself if you're not
12:43 communicating with your physician. Correct
12:47 Well, we've talked about saw palmetto for prostate.
12:54 We've talked about fruits and vegetables
12:57 for cataracts and for macular degeneration.
13:02 We've been talking with Dr. Kevin Bryant,
13:04 he's a specialist in family practice from Wichita, Kansas
13:08 He has a real interest in using natural remedies
13:11 for the things that affect older Americans
13:14 and we hope that if you joined us,
13:17 you'll come back and listen after the break.
13:19 We're going to be talking about some other
13:20 fascinating discoveries, and things that we
13:23 think can be of help to you, and perhaps your physician
13:26 as you work together, and we hope that you join us!
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14:55 Welcome back, we've been talking with Dr. Kevin Bryant
14:58 from Wichita, Kansas
15:00 He's a specialist in family practice,
15:02 and he focuses especially on the older adult,
15:05 and different health concerns...
15:07 And he's NOT telling you to go away from your
15:10 normal doctor in any way, but to work with your doctor
15:13 and to look at some natural remedies that can address
15:16 some of the problems that older Americans deal with.
15:18 Doctor, we've talked about cataracts...
15:20 We found out that if someone eats fruits and vegetables,
15:24 they can decrease their risk of having a cataract by 13%.
15:28 You've talked to us about macular...
15:31 Or 13 times the... that's amazing!
15:34 And then we talked about macular degeneration.
15:37 If you eat those same fruits and vegetables,
15:40 it's 2 times... 2 times, right,
15:43 and then we also talked about prostate enlargement;
15:46 not prostate cancer, but enlargement,
15:49 and we found out this herb called "saw palmetto"
15:54 can help us not have that enlargement,
15:56 and all the problems that come with this.
15:58 But you also said, "Hey, be careful it can throw off
16:01 your PSA test, and those of you that have experienced
16:04 or know someone that's had prostate cancer,
16:06 know what that's all about.
16:07 We've come back now, we're going to talk a little bit
16:11 about another problem that many older Americans face,
16:16 and that's Alzheimer's.
16:18 What is Alzheimer's, just to give us an idea of what it is,
16:21 and then what can you do to help us
16:22 from a natural remedy standpoint?
16:25 Okay, some interesting things here...
16:27 In Alzheimer disease, it's simply put as a
16:32 brain degenerative disease that affects one's memory,
16:37 and ability to make judgments and process information.
16:42 For many elderly in this country they would almost rather
16:47 hear the word "cancer" than Alzheimer disease.
16:51 I think for most people, that's true.
16:53 And so, a couple of things that we want to look at
16:56 that are very interesting, and in the area of
17:01 natural remedies; and in this area of
17:05 Alzheimer disease, there is mounting evidence that
17:09 what we call "free radicals" are causing some of the
17:13 damage to the brain cells leading to this disease
17:17 we call Alzheimer disease.
17:19 So, just a minute before you go...
17:22 to finish with that, when you say, "free radical"
17:25 I mean, that sounds like some weird person running around,
17:28 but what does that mean exactly, a free radical?
17:32 Well, in our body's metabolism, energy metabolism
17:38 ...sometimes oxygen is metabolized into free radicals
17:44 and our bodies generally, for the most part,
17:48 are able to correct any of the damage that occurs
17:51 from free radicals.
17:52 And a free radical, what does it do, just bounce off
17:54 everything and injure things, is that what you mean? Right
17:57 It's almost like a loose cannon firing away in our cells.
18:02 I didn't mean to get you off your point,
18:03 but what you were saying, I believe,
18:04 was Alzheimer's... they theorize that these
18:08 molecules that are banging off everything can lead to
18:12 actually Alzheimer's.
18:13 Okay, go ahead, what next...
18:15 one of the herbal preparations is ginkgo biloba.
18:21 Now this comes to us from China, the Orient Japan,
18:27 and, in fact, it's from a sacred tree in China and Japan.
18:32 It's been used medicinally there for centuries,
18:37 and the extract is actually a free radical scavenger.
18:41 Looks for the bad guys... Looks for those people
18:44 that are bouncing off the walls ... And neutralizes them.
18:47 Now there's some interesting studies that have been done
18:49 in the recent years in the "Archives of Neurology"
18:52 they reviewed all of these studies,
18:54 and they found 4 studies that met strict scientific
19:00 criteria that they could use.
19:03 And they found that using 120-240 mg a day of ginkgo
19:10 showed a very significant effect over
19:13 a 3-6 months' treatment period of actually
19:16 improving the person, or slowing
19:18 the progression of the disease.
19:22 Another research journal called, "Brain Research"
19:27 I found this very interesting...
19:29 They reported in March 1996...
19:32 These researchers were taking nerve cells and exposing them
19:39 to hydrogen peroxide which is a very
19:41 strong free radical producer that causes oxidation.
19:46 That's a good way to describe free radicals, isn't it?
19:48 If you've had hydrogen peroxide, you know what it does
19:52 ...that's a free radical!
19:53 To put and exposing normal nerve cells to that
19:57 causes a significant amount of damage.
20:00 When they pre-treat it with ginkgo, those nerve cells,
20:05 and then exposed them to the hydrogen peroxide,
20:08 found a marked decrease in the
20:10 damage that the hydrogen peroxide was causing;
20:13 another indication that the ginkgo was protecting
20:17 the nerve cells from that damage by these free radicals.
20:21 Again, probably this ginkgo, you said it in the first section
20:25 of our program today, maybe some people just joined us;
20:28 this needs to be that standardized ginkgo...
20:32 In other words, you know, the type that's really good.
20:34 Look for it to say "standardized" on there.
20:36 Right... finding the best brand out there that you can.
20:39 Another thing, I think that I don't want people to miss,
20:43 but I heard it...
20:44 You did a lot of research on this;
20:46 and you didn't just look at any study that was off the wall...
20:50 You said, "Hey, there's this group that looked at all...
20:52 and looked for those really
20:53 scientifically well-researched claims. Exactly, right.
20:57 What other good news do you
20:59 have for us concerning Alzheimer's?
21:01 Well, back to something we talked in previous programs is
21:06 vitamins... the vitamin C, and vitamin E
21:11 There are vitamins that we know have antioxidant effects
21:16 that are powerful antioxidants,
21:19 and they've looked at the Rush University in Chicago,
21:24 studied a group of patients, 633,
21:28 and they found that those that were using vitamin E supplements
21:33 and vitamin C supplements had a marked reduction
21:36 in the number of Alzheimer dementia or disease
21:42 development among those patients.
21:45 So in other words, they gave them these things,
21:47 they thought they were going to develop Alzheimer's,
21:49 and then they didn't because they got these things.
21:51 It seemed to protect these users.
21:55 When you say, "a marked," I mean what, they studied 20,
21:57 and only... What happened?
22:00 Well, in a group of 27 that were using vitamin C,
22:04 none of them developed it, as were it had been predicted
22:09 ...They use models to predict how many they would expect
22:13 to develop the disease...
22:14 They were expecting approximately 4 to develop it
22:17 out of 27, but NONE developed it during the study.
22:22 So their conclusion was that vitamin C and E
22:25 appears to be able to lower the risk of development
22:28 of Alzheimer disease...
22:32 Another researcher, called Dr. Sano, looked at vitamin E
22:40 in a study where they were looking at patients that
22:44 already had Alzheimer disease, were in the early stages,
22:47 and they were wanting to look to see if they could
22:50 slow the progression of the disease down.
22:54 And what they found it was using 400 IU a day,
22:59 of vitamin E, slowed the progress of the disease
23:04 by nearly two-thirds. Wow
23:07 Now you might say, two-thirds of a year...
23:10 But that's still probably significant.
23:12 It was a significant difference between that, and a placebo pill
23:17 Dummy pill, sugar pill or something. Right.
23:20 So in other words, what you are saying with that is...
23:23 Any time is valuable time if someone is losing
23:25 their ability to remember something.
23:26 Right, because the things they were looking at was
23:29 the progression of the disease was someone that
23:33 could do all of their activities of daily living,
23:36 now lose that ability, or have to be moved into a nursing home.
23:41 So these were looking at significant events
23:44 in the progress of the disease,
23:46 and those things were pushed off down in the road.
23:53 One question for you...
23:54 When you talk about vitamin C and vitamin E,
23:57 does this mean the actual supplements in this case...
24:01 it sounds like you're talking about taking supplements
24:02 in this case, or is it fruits again, that you're talking about
24:07 Well in this study, they studied the supplement itself,
24:11 vitamin E, 400 IU.
24:14 Well let's move on...
24:16 We have one other thing you wanted to talk to us about,
24:18 and you've dealt with several different things here,
24:21 but another big thing is brittle bones, "osteoporosis"
24:25 Osteoporosis, and we'll just focus briefly on that.
24:29 The first concept to recognize with osteoporosis, brittle bones
24:37 is that our bones are like calcium banks,
24:44 and from birth until about the age of in the 30s
24:49 we're putting calcium into our bones;
24:52 99% of the calcium in our body resides in our bones,
24:57 1% is dissolved in the bloodstream.
25:02 So they just keep packing it away until you're in your 30s.
25:05 Right. At that point, it's a process of withdrawing calcium
25:10 from those bones...
25:11 And in America, we withdraw too much,
25:14 and by the time someone is in their 50s, 60s and 70s,
25:18 the calcium has been withdrawn
25:21 from the bones too rapidly, and they're brittle.
25:24 So our goal is to slow that process of withdrawal
25:29 or stop it completely. What draws it out?
25:33 Just sitting around, could that be one thing?
25:36 Sedentary lifestyle, a good example are the astronauts;
25:41 when they're in a weightless state,
25:43 they lose calcium rapidly from their bones.
25:47 So sedentary lifestyle, not enough weightbearing
25:51 exercise is important.
25:53 Another one that is little known is the area of
25:57 protein in the diet.
25:59 If we take in more protein than our body needs,
26:04 then the body has to eliminate that protein
26:10 from the body and it eliminates it through the kidneys.
26:14 As they're eliminating it, it takes calcium with the
26:18 protein molecules with the amino acids
26:21 and it actually takes that calcium out of the bank...
26:25 draws it out of the bank from the bones.
26:28 Any other things we should avoid?
26:29 Some of the other things are phosphates.
26:32 Phosphates are found in soda drinks;
26:36 the animal products' meats are high in phosphates
26:39 and they tend to rob calcium from the bones...
26:43 As well as things like cigarette smoking.
26:47 We know that that doubles the rate of someone having
26:51 a hip fracture from osteoporosis.
26:55 Alcohol intake leads to calcium loss from the bones.
27:01 And so, in the area of getting calcium,
27:05 the goal is to get as much calcium as you can,
27:09 but without the protein.
27:11 And there are calcium-rich foods that are high in calcium;
27:16 a lot of green leafy vegetables.
27:19 Green leafy vegetables, broccoli kale, string beans, tofu...
27:26 High in calcium but low in protein.
27:30 We've been talking with Dr. Kevin Bryant,
27:32 from Wichita, Kansas
27:33 We've looked at some health concerns for older Americans.
27:36 We've looked at natural remedies for those.
27:40 We've looked at how we can avoid these things through
27:43 proper medical care...
27:45 Also through proper lifestyle choices,
27:47 but then in addition, looking at natural remedies to
27:51 stop these things from happening or reverse them.
27:54 We hope that today's program has been a blessing to you,
27:57 and that you have health that lasts for a lifetime!


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Revised 2014-12-17