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Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP180117A
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00:14 Have you ever sat down to taking medications
00:17 and wondered - "How did I get here?" 00:19 Do you wish you could reduce 00:20 your need for prescription medications, 00:22 and prevent further disease? 00:23 On today's program, Dr. Marcum will be answering 00:26 some of the most commonly asked questions that he receives, 00:29 and sharing ideas that you can use to improve your 00:31 health today no matter where you're starting from. 00:34 "The Ultimate Prescription" starts now... 00:56 Thanks for joining us today on "The Ultimate Prescription," 00:58 a program dedicated to helping us better understand 01:01 God's design for our lives and experience better health 01:03 by following His plan. 01:05 I'm your host, Nick Evenson, and I'm joined by 01:07 Dr. James Marcum for an excellent program today 01:09 in which we're going to answer some of the most 01:11 commonly asked questions that 01:12 you receive through the website, right? 01:14 Um hm, and Nick this is going to be a fun program. 01:17 It's always fun to answer people's questions and I do 01:20 this in the office every day as a practicing cardiologist, 01:24 and I get some very interesting questions... 01:26 And I'm going to write a book someday about the most 01:29 interesting questions I've every received, okay. Yeah! 01:32 This is sort of off of the beaten path here, 01:36 before we answer the questions that come in. 01:38 But one of the questions asked said... 01:41 "The nitroglycerin patch that I was prescribed by my doctor 01:45 doesn't seem to be helping me very much. 01:48 In fact, I've had lots of sickness at my stomach 01:50 since taking it," and he says, "Do I have to 01:54 swallow this thing every day?" 01:57 And you assume people understand and know things, 02:00 but I had to explain to him that this is a patch - you wear it, 02:04 you don't swallow it. Right. 02:06 So his doctor did not explain to him that the patch was 02:09 something you wore on yourself and you didn't swallow. 02:12 So, unfortunately, he was swallowing the nitroglycerin 02:15 patch and becoming sick at his stomach. 02:18 So every question is important and every question 02:22 has value, and we could learn from every question. 02:26 I pretty much learn something from every question I receive. 02:29 Sometimes I have to look it up in the medical books... 02:33 Well now, we don't have books, we have the internet now, 02:36 and sometimes I have to go to multiple sources, 02:38 and people that I really trust and people that I 02:41 don't trust because, like I say, I have to learn as we go. 02:44 So people go into our website, HeartwiseMinistries.org 02:49 and after doing this for so many years, 02:51 I get the same questions frequently... 02:54 So that's why I thought maybe we could have a "Frequently 02:57 Asked Questions Program," and I can help some people 03:01 out since these questions are asked many times, 03:04 and they are important questions. 03:06 But I assume... never assume! I try never to assume, 03:10 and questions are the way we learn, so ask questions! 03:14 And I try to apply that to my spiritual life too. 03:17 I don't understand things and I ask God... I say, 03:20 "God, I don't understand this, 03:22 I don't understand this medically," and I pray for my 03:24 patients for wisdom. 03:26 I say, "God, can You help me understand this?" 03:27 And sometimes He says, "Well, I can help you understand it." 03:30 Sometimes He says, "Well, no this not the time or you're too 03:34 feeble, I'm not even going to try this." 03:36 Remember that text in James, "If any of you 03:38 lack wisdom, let him ask of God." 03:43 I lack a lot of wisdom, so I'm asking God 03:46 a lot of the times for help. 03:48 But when He answers my prayer, I'm pretty excited! 03:52 You know, because I see things a little bit differently now 03:54 and I can apply that to my practice and sometimes I 03:57 can use it to help other people out. 03:59 So that's pretty neat, so that's why we're talking 04:01 about frequently asked questions today, 04:03 and I know we can't get through all of the hundreds 04:05 we get but maybe we can get a few that apply 04:08 to a lot of people today. Yeah! 04:10 Well let's jump right in here... Yeah! 04:11 The first question on our list is: 04:13 "What's a good treatment for migraine headaches?" 04:15 Ooo, that's a good one and I get the migraine headache 04:18 a lot and first of all... 04:20 You get the headache or you get the questions? 04:21 Well I get the questions a lot. 04:23 So when a person has a migraine headache, first of all... 04:27 I want to ask - "Why do they have migraine headaches?" 04:29 And sometimes there can be a 04:31 food trigger - that's very common. 04:33 Food triggers - sometimes it's dairy; sometimes it's things 04:36 like MSG. 04:38 Different things in our environment can trigger 04:39 migraines but if you can't figure out a trigger, 04:42 you can't reverse it - one treatment that works very, 04:44 very well is ginger, okay? 04:47 In fact, they've done some studies that compared 04:50 ginger versus the most common medical prescription, 04:54 Imitriptan and they found that 04:57 ginger works as good as Imitriptan for migraines. 05:00 So at the onset of a migraine, throw some ginger down, 05:03 that can help that symptom out and continue to search 05:07 what might be the trigger for your migraine. 05:09 Now, you mentioned a lot of times it can be food. 05:11 Is this something you can get tested for to see if it's... 05:13 Is it like an allergy? 05:14 No, it's not an allergy, it's different than allergies. 05:17 But certain types of food can trigger a migraine headache. 05:20 And people that have tons of migraines, sometimes they 05:23 can figure out what foods to stay away from, 05:25 sometimes they can't. 05:27 And sometimes stress and the combination of food will do it, 05:30 so it's lots of different factors and the current 05:33 theory is - migraine is a vascular event that causes the 05:37 vessels to change the way they 05:39 dilate and that triggers all the pain. 05:41 And migraines can be devastating for people - you get sick 05:44 at your stomach; sometimes you can't function; 05:46 sometimes it even mimics a stroke, you know, 05:49 so people think they might be having a stroke. 05:51 So migraines are very devastating - so that's sort of 05:53 a pathway that might help some people that are 05:56 with chronic migraines. 05:57 And some people that have chronic migraines, 05:59 I might tell them to take some ginger every day as a 06:02 way maybe to prevent migraine headaches, 06:04 especially if they can't find out what's 06:07 triggering the headache. Yeah. 06:08 All right, there are some good answers in there, I'm sure. 06:11 "What can be done for muscle cramps?" 06:13 I know sometimes I get exercise-induced muscle cramps. 06:16 It's easy to figure out how to stop that - just rest and 06:19 don't exercise so much but for 06:20 other folks, what's a good solution? 06:21 Well, again, it's find out the cause and this is 06:25 a common sense thing, okay. 06:27 For instance... My feet cramp sometimes if I 06:31 wear tight shoes, so it might be the position 06:35 your putting your muscle in. 06:36 It's not a natural position, so the muscle goes, 06:39 "I'm not happy," so it wants to be relieved of that position 06:42 so a nerve is fired and says, "I'm cramped." Okay? 06:45 It might be something like not having enough water, 06:48 since 70% of your muscles are water. 06:52 You see that in a football field, you know, 06:54 "He's dehydrated," he is pulling up with a cramp. 06:56 Sometimes it's because they're dehydrated. 06:58 It might be from a deficiency, an electrolyte deficiency 07:02 like magnesium, potassium - some of the trace elements 07:06 because their muscles need that. 07:07 It might be some more complex medical issues, 07:10 but for people that have cramps, a couple of things: 07:13 Make sure your clothes are nice and comfortable, 07:16 especially your shoes; do some stretching exercises 07:19 to loosen the muscles up; try drinking more water; 07:23 and eat some fruits and vegetables every day 07:25 to get some of those electrolytes and see 07:27 if it doesn't improve. 07:28 Those are some simple things we can do that will 07:31 take care of most muscle cramps. 07:34 Now, I had one person that had lots of muscle cramps, 07:37 and he was causing it by his exercise that he was doing. 07:40 He was putting his muscle in such a position that it was 07:42 causing the cramp. Yeah 07:44 And when we pointed that out, the cramp always seemed 07:46 to be under this situation, that did it. 07:48 Another person said they were always getting a cramp 07:50 in their neck and it ended up being the position they were 07:53 putting their neck in at night. 07:55 They got in a funny thing, it caused a cramp; 07:57 they got that changed and it got much better. 08:00 So there are lots of different things. 08:01 One person I run into had leg cramps at night, 08:04 and it ended up being sleep apnea. 08:06 They weren't getting enough oxygen to the muscle, 08:08 and, therefore, it cramped. 08:10 So there are lots of different things that cause leg cramps. 08:13 Those are some of the more frequent ones I've seen. 08:15 So the key is to identify the cause and then make a change. 08:18 Exactly! All right! 08:20 We have another person who writes in: 08:23 "How can I improve my memory as I am getting older?" 08:28 What? Memory? Memory! Yeah, yeah! 08:31 Can you repeat that question? No, no, I'm just kidding. 08:34 I'm just kidding, good. 08:35 There are lots of little memory aids we can and the thing 08:39 I tell people - "If you don't use it, you'll use it." 08:43 What does the mind need to function optimally? 08:45 It needs good nutrition; specific foods that help 08:48 the brain as are antioxidants. 08:51 Berries - blueberries have been 08:53 studied very well - of helping the brain. 08:56 Omega 3 fatty acids can help, you know, like nuts, 08:59 walnuts and almonds can help because it gives 09:01 the substrate the brain needs. Right. 09:03 Improving the circulation with exercise. 09:06 Seventy percent of the brain is water - make sure you 09:09 get enough water. 09:10 I also think reading the Scripture out loud 09:13 for 10 minutes a day; some people have said 09:15 that helps quite a bit as well. 09:17 I would also like to add worship to that study since 09:20 worship turns off the stress. 09:22 Stress chemistry causes brain inflammation and if you 09:26 think about it, anything that lowers stress in the body 09:29 should help the brain improve to some degree. Yeah! 09:32 So those are some simple things that we can do 09:35 to help our brain to slow down the ageing process. 09:37 All right, now I've got to ask you... 09:39 Not long ago, I heard on the news about, I think it was 09:43 an online brain game and it was exercises that were 09:47 supposed to help you be able to improve your cognition 09:49 and memory and that kind of thing as you age, have you heard 09:52 about those kind of things and what do you think? 09:53 No, I haven't heard about them, but I would think anything 09:56 that would exercise the brain, keep the brain working, 09:58 and figuring out things, I've heard people that 10:00 play games like chess, put together puzzles, 10:03 those are useful - I'm sure that follows the same lines. 10:06 I think one of the worse things you can do is do nothing 10:08 or paralyze your brain. 10:10 I have some people that say, "Well Uncle Joe is losing 10:13 his memory," I say, "What does Uncle Joe do all day?" 10:15 "Well, he sits in his chair and he watches the same TV 10:18 program over, he doesn't interact with friends 10:20 and neighbors; he eats a lot of inflammatory 10:23 foods; he doesn't exercise." 10:25 Well that's going to accelerate 10:26 the ageing process and the brain atrophy. 10:29 Another thing that will make the brain worse is 10:31 alcohol; certain drugs can make it worse. 10:34 There are lots of things that hurt the brain too; 10:36 falling down - I have some elderly people that 10:39 fall down a lot and bump their brains. Yeah. 10:41 That can sort of hurt things as well as far as the memory. 10:44 So there are lots of different practical things we can do 10:46 not only to protect the brain, 10:48 but help it slow down the ageing process. 10:51 All right, here's another common question that you get: 10:53 "I have a lot of aches, pains and just general inflammation, 10:57 what can I do to reduce this?" 10:59 Yeah, inflammation is a problem. 11:01 Sometimes inflammation can be genetic-related; 11:05 sometimes it can be trauma- related; 11:08 sometimes it can be pain- related. 11:11 So lots of things can cause the inflammation in the body. 11:14 It can be an injury - sometimes inflammation 11:17 can be a sign that we're sick. 11:18 You know, for instance, you catch a cold and you have 11:20 inflammation in the nose and 11:22 you start running and that kind of thing. 11:23 Well inflammation can occur in joints and other parts 11:26 if sometimes we have conditions like arthritis; 11:29 we have conditions like lupus, Sjogren's; it's medical 11:33 things that have happened... 11:34 But sometimes people just get 11:35 old and have diffuse inflammation just from the 11:38 wear and tear of life. Yeah. 11:40 I have inflammation in my body, so what I do to help 11:43 inflammation is - I make sure I get enough water; 11:47 I go through my stretching every day; 11:50 I make sure I don't eat foods that cause inflammation, 11:53 and acidic foods tend to promote inflammation. 11:57 Now, I don't eat acidic foods but people eat lots of 11:59 animal-based products that tends to make inflammation; 12:03 processed foods turn on inflammation. 12:06 There are some supplements that are anti-inflammatory. 12:09 We know that, of course, fruits, vegetables, 12:11 nuts and grains help, but also there have been studies 12:14 with things like ginger helps with inflammation; 12:17 turmeric helps with inflammation. 12:19 Those are two supplements I take to treat a specific 12:22 condition of inflammation in my body. 12:25 So everyone has a certain degree of it that we get 12:29 with our ageing - some people have more than others. 12:32 The dangerous thing about inflammation is sometimes 12:35 it keeps us from doing the things we need to do most 12:37 which is move! Yes. 12:39 So as you get inflammation, what you don't want 12:41 to do is quit moving. 12:42 You know, people with arthritis, they have to keep moving 12:45 the joints and sometimes that in itself helps the 12:47 stiffness of life go on. 12:49 If you don't move a party part, you lose it. 12:52 It malfunctions quicker, so everything in our body 12:55 we have to be smart about and keep moving it. Yep. 12:58 Sounds like some good suggestions there on 13:00 keep moving and reducing inflammation through that. 13:02 We're going to take a quick break, but if you have a 13:04 question like some of these that we have been going 13:06 through here, go to: HeartwiseMinistries.org 13:09 and ask you question there and be sure to sign up 13:10 for our newsletter at the same time. 13:12 You'll receive a free monthly message of hope from 13:14 Dr. Marcum and lots of encouragement 13:16 to live in better harmony with God's design for our lives. 13:19 Stay with us... we'll be back in just a moment. |
Revised 2019-04-11