Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000096B
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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. |
Revised 2017-04-04