Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000099A
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00:17 With the rising cost of health care, and disease being more
00:19 prevalent than ever, more and more people are starting to 00:22 pay attention to what they eat and drink. 00:25 Stay tuned to today's program where we're going to be talking 00:27 about food as medicine. 00:29 The Ultimate Prescription starts now. 00:32 I'm Dr. James Marcum. 00:34 Are you interested in discovering the reason why? 00:37 Do you want solutions to your health care problem? 00:40 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:43 Well, you're about to be given the Ultimate Prescription. 00:49 Hello, and thank you for joining us here today at the 00:52 Ultimate Prescription, a program dedicated to helping us better 00:55 understand God's design for our lives. 00:57 I'm your host, Nick Evanson, and we're talking here with 00:59 Dr. James Marcum today about medicine as food. 01:02 And, Dr. Marcum, welcome to the program. 01:03 Well, it's nice being here, Nick. 01:05 And I'll tell you, I had a great night's sleep last night. 01:09 That's wonderful! 01:11 I went to bed early listening to some music, and the next thing 01:14 I knew it was midnight, and I said, Man... 01:17 And you're still listening to the music? 01:18 Yeah, I was listening to the music. 01:20 I turned it off and went to sleep. 01:21 You know, sleep is so important. Yeah. 01:23 When the body's rested and renewed itself, sleep is one of 01:26 the most valuable treatments. 01:27 I know we're talking about food as medicine, but I'm going to 01:31 divert for a little bit, and talk a little bit about rest, 01:35 and how important that rest is. 01:36 You know, there's so many stressors in the world, 01:39 from all over, whether it be our food, or the climate, 01:43 or worries that we see. 01:44 A lot of people now are stressed even by politics. 01:47 Are you? Do you watch politics? 01:48 I try not to watch too much of it, but if you watch the news 01:51 at all you can't help but see some of it. 01:52 You know, why is the news always, it seems like it always 01:55 has negative stories. 01:56 I wish they required you to have just as many positive, 01:58 and feel good stories as they do negative. 02:01 That would be good for us. 02:02 Anyway, so a lot of people are stressed out these days. 02:05 Well, I'm diverting, but the opposite of stress is rest. 02:08 And I frequently, in addition to nutritional things, 02:11 there's other aspects of health, I frequently 02:14 prescribe rest to people. 02:16 And the three different types of rest: there's the physical 02:19 rest, and I did really good with that last night. 02:22 There's also the mental rest. 02:24 You know, some people are busy 24/7. Right. 02:28 And they're just doing stuff all the time. 02:30 And their brain actually needs some down times, 02:33 like turning your computer off lets it reboot, so you can rest. 02:36 And everything comes back on better if you rest. 02:39 A lot of people feel guilty for doing fun things. 02:42 You know, going out and doing something that 02:44 you'll really enjoy. 02:45 But, you know, I was in Europe not too long ago, 02:48 and some of those people in Europe don't have 02:50 the best of habits. 02:51 And yet I noticed that their health, especially their chronic 02:55 disease, was much less than what we have in the United States. 02:58 And they take time off every day just to rest and have fun. 03:01 Yeah, just enjoy life a little bit. 03:03 That's important. So that's the second type of rest 03:05 to counteract the stress of the world. 03:07 And the third type is found in Matthew. 03:10 The text in Matthew 11:28 that says, Come unto Me all you who 03:14 are weary and heavy laden, the ones that are stressed out, 03:17 and God gives us rest. 03:19 So our worship is a treatment for stress. 03:22 And now we have studies that show when we're in worship our 03:26 stress chemistry goes down, our brain improves. 03:29 It helps even our DNA do better. 03:32 So that's why I had a good sleep last night. 03:34 My stress level has come down a lot, and I'm wearing 03:37 comfortable shoes today. 03:38 That's important, too. 03:40 So when your feet are happy the whole body's happy. 03:41 So we're talking about food and beverages today. 03:45 Yeah, so rest is something that will benefit everybody. Yep. 03:47 Nutrition is as well. Uh huh. 03:49 But I imagine there might be one specific type of patient who 03:53 benefits the most from nutritional 03:56 attention to what they eat? 03:58 Well, we're talking in this series about 04:00 nutrition as medicine. Uh huh. 04:02 Remember foods have chemicals in them that 04:05 changes our physiology. 04:07 Well, you know, we know certain foods that we need just to stay 04:10 alive and give us energy, and our proteins, our carbohydrates, 04:14 some fats in our diet. Right. 04:15 But now we're learning that there's specific chemicals 04:18 in certain foods that can treat disease conditions. 04:23 Now are these chemicals similar to chemicals found in say 04:27 prescription medications? 04:28 Well, yes they are. 04:29 You know, they're all chemical compounds made up of carbon, 04:33 and nitrogen's, and hydrogen bonds hooked 04:35 together in fancy ways. 04:36 Then when they get into the body, some enter and 04:39 do different things. 04:40 Some are broken down by the body to do certain things. 04:43 God has just made us so complicated biochemically. 04:47 It's just amazing how all these chemicals interact. 04:50 Now we've, of course, developed chemicals and 04:54 the physiology of medications. 04:55 Okay, I went to medical school. 04:57 We spent a lot of time learning about those. 05:00 But remember, a lot of times those just treat 05:02 one chemical pathway. 05:03 But now we're looking at nutrition as a way to treat 05:07 specific disease conditions. 05:09 You know, to actually change our physiology. 05:13 Now is every plant good? 05:15 You know, and that everything that we eat good? 05:17 Not necessilarly, you know. 05:18 Have you ever had poison ivy lately? 05:21 Not lately, but as a child I had it quite bad. 05:24 Well, that wouldn't be something you would use as a 05:26 medication, you know. 05:27 Not that I'm aware of. 05:28 But now we have studies on certain foods, the chemicals of 05:31 certain foods, and we actually studied the amount that can 05:34 actually change our physiology. 05:36 So some people that come to the office that have certain 05:39 conditions we now can say, Listen, we now have certain 05:43 foods you can eat that will change your chemistry, 05:45 and treat this condition. Right. 05:47 And some people choose to have a medication for their ills, 05:52 to treat a symptom. 05:53 Some people choose a nutritional aid, and sometimes there's other 05:57 things that we can do. 05:58 Sometimes I can just prescribe rest and it helps a person out. 06:01 Right. You know, rest is a treatment for something 06:04 like high blood pressure. 06:05 Rest would be something for treatment; it's a treatment for 06:08 inflammation, so it helps different things as well. 06:11 So all these different things that come into 06:13 our body have changes. 06:14 And we've actually studied these. 06:16 And what I've done in this series is I've specifically 06:19 looked at the literature. 06:20 Now there's lots of things that have not been proven 06:23 and might be helpful. 06:24 But they also might be harmful, just like eating poison ivy. 06:27 You wouldn't necessarily want to do that 06:29 as a nutritional treatment. 06:30 There's lots of plants that are good. 06:33 There's some plants that aren't so good. 06:34 And I've actually looked through the studies that have been done 06:38 on certain plants, and these are studies that have been done, 06:42 and proven, and repeated, and replicated. 06:45 And these are things that I think would definitely be used 06:49 to treat certain disease conditions. 06:50 And I wanted to bring those to our audience, 06:52 just so they could start thinking about these. 06:54 And this might be something that they might want to apply 06:57 to their life to treat certain conditions. 07:00 That makes sense, but I think there's a perception out there, 07:02 and I could be wrong, but I think people look at 07:05 medications, let's say, this is just water, but let's say 07:07 it was a medication. 07:08 People will think, This is going to heal me. 07:09 The doctor gave me this prescription. 07:11 I have faith that this is going to work. Right. 07:13 And I think sometimes when we're talking about nutrition, 07:15 people don't expect that nutrition can have a dramatic 07:19 effect on their health. 07:20 Is that right? Are people?... 07:21 Yeah, I agree with you that we have some slick 07:24 marketing out there. 07:26 Lots of people want something that will fix them, you know, 07:30 or they think, when it's been marketed as it's going to fix 07:33 you right now, where it really just treats a symptom, 07:36 at least in chronic diseases. 07:38 The chronic diseases, medicines really don't fix the problem, 07:43 they just treat the symptoms. 07:44 And in chronic diseases, I mean things like type 2 diabetes, 07:47 high blood pressure, obesity, joint pains, not sleeping well 07:54 at night, maybe even anxiety depression. 07:56 Some of these chemical changes that happen chronically, 07:59 if we can get at the cause, that is really much better 08:03 than just treating symptoms. 08:05 But everyone wants a quick fix. 08:06 It's been marketed that way, and we've done it 08:07 for years and years. 08:09 The pharmaceutical industry is making a lot of money; 08:14 billions of dollars. 08:15 They have lobbyists. 08:17 They hit us in medical school. 08:19 You know, they don't call it physiology school, 08:23 they don't call it nutritional school, 08:24 they don't call it lifestyle school, 08:26 they call it medical school. 08:28 We're taught about these chemical pathways. 08:30 So you're right in that perception. 08:32 And that's what we're trying to do here is give people some 08:35 alternative things to think about, show them the evidence 08:38 behind it, and let them know that this is something they can 08:40 incorporate into their lives. 08:42 There's evidence based behind it. 08:43 This is things we can do to ways to get at chronic disease 08:46 if people want to do that. 08:48 Now some people say, No, I just want to treat the symptom. 08:51 And that's their right to do so. 08:52 But we want to give them some truth and let them 08:55 know what's out there. 08:57 That's right. And some of these chronic conditions, 08:58 if they're taking a medication for it, they're going to be on 09:00 these medications for the rest of their life potentially. 09:02 Right, and every medication has some side effects. 09:06 And you have to deal with that as well. 09:07 And those medications are treating one path, 09:09 whereas the nutritional alternative might benefit a lot 09:13 of areas of your life. 09:14 Yeah. So we've looked at some specific foods and beverages 09:17 that change our chemistry that we can use just as effective 09:21 as a prescription pill. 09:23 Right. And on today's program we're going to talk about 09:25 hibiscus and other beverages that might have 09:29 some healing powers. 09:30 And this is a hibiscus tea here that we've steeped a little bit, 09:34 and it's got a nice rich red color. 09:36 It looks delicious. Yeah. 09:38 What can you tell us about hibiscus, Dr. Marcum? 09:40 Well, you know, before I talk to you about the study... 09:43 Is hibiscus a flower? 09:45 What is hibiscus?... What is the background on hibiscus? 09:48 Here's a fun fact... 09:50 I think it is a flower. 09:51 Everybody knows commonly about the flower, 09:52 because it's very beautiful. 09:54 But hibiscus is actually the name given to more than 250 09:57 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees of the mallow, 10:00 or Malvaceae family. Yeah. 10:03 How about that? There's over 250 different items that 10:05 are labeled hibiscus. 10:06 You know, and so taking different herbs and things 10:09 in us, you know, we have to talk to our doctor, 10:11 because certain herbs are not good. Right. 10:14 Certain herbs have been studied, certain herbs 10:16 have not been studied. Right. 10:17 Okay, well this is one of the teas that's been studied 10:21 very well, hibiscus. 10:22 And actually Tufts University, they actually studied this. 10:27 And they had people drink three cups of hibiscus tea a day, 10:32 and they showed that it lowered your blood pressure, 10:36 the sostolic blood pressure about six points, okay? 10:40 Then another thing that they wanted to study; 10:43 they took people having two cups in the morning. 10:46 They found that was as effective in lowering blood pressure 10:50 as a medication we prescribed called taking 10:53 captopril twice a day. 10:55 Wow, that's significant. Yes. 10:56 As effective as using the medication. 10:58 Yes, they studied that. 10:59 And the point is is this has been studied. 11:01 You know, of course, hibiscus has a few side effects, too, 11:05 you know, if you use it as medicine. 11:06 The main one is the chemicals in it are a little bit acidic. 11:10 Now you've done some background. 11:12 It has quite a few different acids in it, doesn't it? Yeah. 11:15 Yeah. And you do have to brush your teeth, because it can hurt 11:19 your enamel afterwards. Sure. 11:21 And, of course, you don't want to take too much 11:23 of any good thing in. 11:24 So you don't want to do that. 11:25 But you do have to rinse your mouth afterwards. 11:28 But hibiscus is something that people can add to their... 11:31 If they have high blood pressure they might want to use 11:33 hibiscus tea instead of a medication to lower 11:36 their blood pressure. 11:38 Also hibiscus has lots of antioxidants, and other things 11:41 that are beneficial that they haven't studied in studies yet. 11:45 So a lot of these plants have studies on them, 11:48 but there's lots of beneficial things that have not been 11:50 studied that they can incorporate into their lives. 11:53 So recap just there. 11:54 You mentioned a couple conditions that 11:56 hibiscus is good for. 11:57 Recap those for us. 11:59 Yeah. Hibiscus is especially good for 12:00 lowering blood pressure. 12:02 And it's been shown in the Tufts University study to be 12:04 just as effective as the medication 12:07 captopril twice a day. 12:08 It also has antioxidants, which might help 12:12 some with inflammation. 12:13 Antioxidants are sort of anti-aging, 12:16 keeps us from rusting; might help our DNA do better. 12:19 So there's less mutations, there's less changes. 12:22 So there's lots of things that we're learning about this tea 12:26 that's beneficial to us. 12:28 And now how to put it in our diet, that's another challenge. 12:32 Yeah. And for that challenge we've turned to our friend, 12:34 Kristina McFeeters, who runs a health food store. 12:37 She helps education people on some of these natural remedies 12:40 that you can use, and she's going to show us how to make 12:42 this hibiscus tea from scratch. 12:44 And so we're going to turn it over to Kristina. 12:48 Welcome to Kristina's Kitchen. 12:50 I'm Kristina McFeeters. 12:52 Today let's explore one of my favorite ways to incorporate 12:56 hibiscus into my diet. 12:58 I'm going to show you how to make ice tea out of loose 13:02 leaf hibiscus flowers. 13:04 You can find dried hibiscus flowers at any bulk herb store. 13:09 Also, if you don't want to make your own tea you can find 13:13 tea bags with hibiscus at any health food store, 13:18 and some grocery stores. 13:20 If you want to make your own tea with loose leaf herb 13:24 one of the things that I like to use is a tea ball. 13:27 It makes it very easy. 13:29 There's very little cleanup. 13:31 If you don't have a tea ball, you can put the herbs straight 13:34 into your cup, and then just pour it through a strainer, 13:37 to strain the pieces out before you drink it. 13:39 We're going to use the tea ball. 13:41 And the most common rule of thumb for most of your herbs 13:46 is about a teaspoon to a tablespoon per cup of water. 13:51 Because the hibiscus flowers are large, and take up a lot of 13:55 space, we do a tablespoon per cup. 14:08 We're going to put the tea ball in the cup, and see if I can 14:14 keep the chain out, so it will be easier to get out later. 14:19 And we're going to add boiling water. 14:22 When I'm making ice tea I like to fill up my cup half full 14:27 with boiling water. 14:28 And once it's steeped I can fill the rest of it with ice cubes. 14:36 We're going to let this steep for five to ten minutes, 14:38 and then we'll add our ice. 14:41 If you like to sweeten it at this point, you can add some 14:45 sweetener while it's still hot. 14:47 But hibiscus tea has a sweet, but tart, tangy flavor. 14:52 And I like it without any sweetener at all. 14:55 So our tea is done steeping. 14:57 We're going to remove the tea ball out of our tea. 15:08 And we're going to add ice cubes to fill up the rest of the cup. 15:37 See how fun and simple that is? 15:39 It's guilt free, full of nutrition, amazing 15:44 antioxidants, and so delicious. 15:46 Be sure and try this at home. 15:49 Thanks, Kristina. That was a great demo. 15:51 And using loose leaf like that, it's probably the most 15:54 economical way to do it. 15:55 But you also, like we have here, you can just use these tea bags, 15:58 and it makes it pretty convenient and easy, but maybe 16:02 a little bit more expensive. 16:03 But if you haven't tasted this, this is, it's rather a tart, 16:07 kind of like a, maybe a cranberry almost. 16:09 But it's very delicious, very good. 16:11 But, you know, if you think about it, you know, the tea bag, 16:13 of course, you know, you get the chemicals out into the 16:16 beverage from the tea bag. 16:18 And we get those good chemicals that lower your blood pressure. 16:21 So, you know, you think about, after you've had a tough day, 16:24 you're really stressed out from work. 16:26 Your blood pressure might be going up a little bit. 16:29 Well, this would be a good beverage to help bring down 16:31 the blood pressure, help sort of calm you, and relax you. 16:34 So that was really great that Kristina 16:36 showed us how to do that. 16:37 Yep. Well, we've got to take a break, but we're going to be 16:40 back in just a moment as there's lots more to talk about 16:42 regarding food as medicine. Stay with us. |
Revised 2017-04-20