Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to Episode 33 of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and cravings, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and all sorts of other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for quite a while now, and Mike also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. Today's episode is part three of a three part series talking about blood pressure. If you haven't listened to part one and two, definitely make sure to check those out. In part one, we discussed mineral balance and energy in relation to regulating blood pressure and why these are really the keys as far as blood pressure regulation goes. And in part two, we discussed the causes of hypertension and how we can use nutrition as a solution. And today, in part three, we'll be continuing that conversation and also be discussing how improving thyroid health will improve blood pressure regulation. We'll be talking about the best supplements for managing blood pressure and vascular health. We'll be talking about the role of the fat soluble vitamins, that's vitamins A, D, E and K, and heart health and blood pressure regulation. We'll be talking about the relationship between stress and blood pressure. And we'll also talk about how you can ensure that you have enough cellular energy to optimize your vascular health and optimize your blood pressure regulation. And as a disclaimer, again, for this episode, none of this is medical advice, so if you are going to make any changes, make sure to discuss those with your healthcare professional. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where I'll be linking to any of the studies or articles or anything else that we discuss throughout today's episode, and if you are struggling with hypertension or other issues as far as blood pressure regulation are concerned, or if you are dealing with low energy and fatigue, chronic pain, weight gain, gut issues, constant cravings and hunger problems with hormonal imbalance or poor sleep and insomnia. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I will help guide you through some of the main things that you want to do in regard to optimizing your cellular energy availability, which is really the key to correcting all of these symptoms and all sorts of chronic health conditions as well. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

Mike 2:59
So the next place is making sure that you get enough nutrients, particularly vitamins, and you can cover that. You can go into those if you want.

Jay Feldman 3:06
Yeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, talking about eggs, they're pretty dense in the healthy fats and also cholesterol, which is, you know, I'll say a healthy, very protective nutrient that we discussed in those previous cholesterol episodes of you're having some I don't know if you're recoiling at the idea of cholesterol being beneficial. You might want to listen to those episodes. I'll link to them in the show notes, but yeah, the so the fat soluble vitamins, especially, are very well tied with heart health, and of course, in that case, blood pressure. And so that would include vitamins A, D, E and K, which all have various properties and effects, a multitude of effects. But one thing that is pretty consistent is that they're all having adequate amounts of all of them is pretty well associated with good heart health, you know, lowering cardiovascular risk, improving vascular health, which goes along with, you know, having normal or healthy blood pressure regulation. So I mean, the the most important things there would be to be getting these as much as you can from diet. So eggs are a good source. And basically, and because these are fat soluble vitamins. They're found in in the fats of mostly animal foods. And so as long as you're eating good quality fats from good quality animals, it's a really good source for these vitamins. So that would include eggs, dairy, the ruminant animals that you mentioned, you know, beef, any red meat, including

Mike 4:39
Specifically, organ meats. Organ meats are very high and the fat soluble components, particularly liver.

Jay Feldman 4:46
Yep, yep, exactly. And there's a balance to be had here as well, but as long as you're not like overdoing it in any of those areas, it should be fine, and we'll talk more about that in future episodes. But for the most part. These are generally very healthy vitamins, and in their proper forms, especially, and so those proper forms are typically in kind of the animal forms. There are often, like plant based forms of these vitamins, like vitamin A, for example, you have beta carotene, which, in order for us to use the plant form of these vitamins, they have to go through an extensive conversion process that's not very efficient. So yes, you you will see that there's vitamin A content in plant foods, but that doesn't mean that it's really usable. And the same goes with vitamin K, where it's vitamin k1 in those plant foods, and we do convert that to a couple of the, you know, Vitamin k2 forms, but it's, it's a pretty inefficient process. So we want to be focusing on the high quality animal foods for the fat soluble vitamins.

Mike 5:45
Yep. And then as far as, as far as, just like general effects of them, vitamin vitamin D and vitamin A and also vitamin K, affect calcium homeostasis and have properties affecting or regulating or modulating immune function. And then they also end of in maintaining so while also affecting calcium, they also affect magnesium and phosphate, which are important for signaling different components of different stress systems like parathyroid hormone or even the RAS system, and then the the RAS system coming from the kidney. So it's really important that there's adequate amounts of those nutrients and that they have a balance. So like taking ridiculous levels of supplementary amounts of these vitamins can cause issues. It's important to note that, and then eating ridiculous amounts of liver might cause issues. So that's what we talk about with basically maintaining a decent amount of moderation with some of these vitamins. And for liver, something like, I don't know, four to six ounces every two weeks or once a month is fine for most people. I mean, obviously there's depends on your context, but that should be all right.

Jay Feldman 6:53
And a lot of people, or even weekly, I think that's fine. You know, four to six ounces a week, yeah, yeah.

Mike 6:59
And then as far as Vitamin E goes. Vitamin E doesn't function quite as much in the calcium metabolism pathways as the other vitamins do, but it functions as a lipid soluble antioxidant. So while Vitamin C is, is the main vitamin C and glutathione are, I think, are the main water soluble antioxidants of the cell. So they function the they function any anything dealing with water, essentially the lipid soluble vitamin E functions mainly with fats, and this becomes very important with polyunsaturated fatty acids, which Vitamin E has shown to be largely protective of, not completely protective of. And with a lot of highly polyunsaturated fats, like a lot of some of the vegetables, not all of them, they tend to come with a lot of vitamin E. But the thing to point out here is that you can have your sunflower oil come with 100% of your daily record recommended amount of your vitamin E, but you don't the that that vitamin E is not necessarily usable for you, because in research, they basically looked at and showed that there's a ratio between polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamin E, and excess polyunsaturated fatty acid consumption actually depletes vitamin E, and they've even seen this in certain some fish oil studies in humans. And so it becomes really important that when you have, well, basically, you want to limit polyunsaturated fatty acids as much as possible, but having Vitamin E on board can be protective, and you can get there are sources of vitamin E in animal foods, but a lot of them do come with with some plant foods as well, whereas the other fat soluble vitamins tend to be Ideally from animal foods. So for vitamin E, even macadamia oil has a decent amount of vitamin E. Coco cocoa butter has some vitamin E. And then basically, olive oil has a little bit of vitamin E. And then different fruits and different different specific vegetables that we talk about, some of the leafy greens, some of the not so much, the root vegetables, they all have a little bit of vitamin E, but they're not going to have as much as the other oils or nuts or seeds, because it's not necessarily required as much, because there's less polyunsaturated fatty acids, and so that's why you see a less amount of vitamin E in some of those foods. And vitamin E can can also be supplemented, um, it can be supplemented directly on the skin. And again, you don't, you don't, there's, there's for all of these different vitamins, depending on your context. There is a Goldilocks zone, per se, where there's other amount that's too much, and there's also amount that's too little. So, but it's for vitamin E. It's important to understand that it's dependent upon your polyunsaturated fatty acid consumption, not only currently, but previously, and its level of importance or its requirement, the more polyunsaturated fatty acid you have, the more vitamin E you're going to require. At the same time, vitamin doesn't fully protect from polyunsaturated fatty acids, and this is important specifically with a. Vasculature, because the polyunsaturated fatty acids, as previously mentioned, actually directly damage the vasculature and are found large are largely found in the plaques. So and vitamin E does have some protective effects there and then. As far as the other fat soluble vitamins, they help with different electrolyte particularly calcium, phosphorus and magnesium, balance and regulation throughout the body, which, as we've discussed throughout this whole previous episode, is extremely important in maintaining healthy blood pressure and vascular compliance and different processes within the body. And for vitamin D, obviously, the best source is getting exposure to sun. And in getting exposure to sun, there's other there's not only vitamin D that comes with the sunlight. There's many other components, many other hormones, steroid components, whatever, whatever you want to call them, vitamins, that I think they have. There's like 12 known so far, something along those lines, that are created with exposure to sunlight, not to mention the red light component of sunlight, and any and things along those lines, and then Vitamin A and Vitamin K, the best forms of those tend to be animal foods. Specifically for vitamin k2, it's animal foods for k1. It's your cooked leafy greens. So that would though that's the best place to get those, those fat soluble and that the those are the importance or the general overview, a 20,000 foot view of of the nest, the needs and the importance of these fat soluble vitamins.

Jay Feldman 11:29
Yeah, absolutely. And I wanted to add also we were talking about, we, you know, we talked about vegetable oils, and just to clarify, again, olive oil and coconut oil. Coconut Oil, especially is very low PUFA, so mostly saturated fat, and no concerns there. Olive oil has a very small amount of polyunsaturated fat, but for the most part, it's It's fine as far as vegetable oils go. So

Mike 11:52
just I wouldn't cook. The only thing I would say is I wouldn't cook with olive oil or macadamia nut oil or palm oil. I would keep cooking to things like beef tallow or coconut oil or butter or or butter. I mean, I would tend to cook my op. My first choices for cooking would be beef towel or coconut oil, because those not only do they have some of the least amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids, but they also have the least amount of cholesterol, which can oxidize with cooking. And so while butter doesn't have a lot of polyunsaturated fatty acids, it does have a decent amount of cholesterol, and the cholesterol can be oxidized with cooking. So that's something that's important to keep in mind. And then after so you have sort of the beef tallow and coconut oil and maybe cocoa butter. You can cook with that as well. Then here you have butter, and then after that, you have your olive oil, your macadamia oil, or your avocado oil. And the reason those you don't want to necessarily cook with those is because they have a very high amount of monounsaturated fatty acids. And while they are much less susceptible to oxidation than the polyunsaturated fatty acids, they are more susceptible to oxidation than the saturated fatty acids that you would find in cocoa butter or coconut oil or butello, yeah.

Jay Feldman 13:10
yeah. And, you know, you had, we were talking a little bit about, a little bit about calcium metabolism, and earlier, we were talking about calcification being one of the kind of primary pieces of the the cascade of vascular damage. And so one of the best ways to actually prevent calcification and reduce it is to make sure you're getting enough calcium. And so that's kind of part of this calcium paradox that's or if there's a few calcium paradoxes that are actually talked about, but that's kind of one of them where getting enough dietary calcium is actually very protective, and actually prevents have, prevents you from having too much calcium in your cells, essentially. And so that's why it's so important to make sure you're having those fat soluble vitamins that help to regulate calcium. And also why it's really important to be getting enough calcium, which has also, you know, there was also research that was showing that calcium intake has more to do with or has greater effect on blood pressure than sodium intake does. So just, you know, kind of circling back there, but calcium intake is definitely pretty important as far as all of this goes, and it's regulation and metabolism, which involves the other minerals, like magnesium and then also those fat soluble vitamins as well.

Mike 14:23
Yeah, and the reason for the calcium paired and anytime something's labeled as a paradox, I mean, it's not really a paradox, right? But with the calcium paradox, essentially, when you don't have enough calcium on board, your body, starts to use a hormone called parathyroid hormone to liberate it from your store of calcium, which is your bones. When that occurs, it also activates other processes, especially with inadequate fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K, that lead to the deposition of calcium in soft tissues over time. So it's secondary to the. Calcium deficiency from the excess of parathyroid hormone with that calcium deficiency. So it's not really a paradox. It makes sense once you it was initially a paradox, if you didn't, until they elucidated what the mechanism of parathyroid hormone was, or the involvement of parathyroid thyroid hormone in the process. So it's it is important to get, again, enough soluble vitamins and enough of the electrolytes and minerals. And then also, in general, just the water soluble vitamins are important, and those are your general B vitamins for any type of metabolic processes, particularly cellular respiration, which is dependent upon having adequate amounts of the B vitamins, thiamine, vitamin b3 which is niacinamide, b2 which is riboflavin, all of those are extremely important in the functioning of the electron transport chain and mitochondrial respiration. So again, it's, it's having adequate nutrition on board, and all of the foods that we mentioned so far will provide decent amounts of all of these vitamins and these minerals, and this is, this is literally why the diet was constructed as it is. It was constructed to provide the most easily digestible foods with the highest amount of nutrients and nutrients, including not only micronutrients, which are your minerals and your vitamins, but also your macronutrients, which is fat carbs and proteins, and then the fat carbs and proteins of the least toxic and most available forms. So the the was constructed around these principles to a large, to a large extent, and also, and then after that, basically the the the choices were all chosen based on these principles to a large, to a large extent, and from these pathways, and from the understanding of these pathways, and from the understanding of what is inhibiting digestion, what's promoting digested and what's causing issues, what's not causing issues, and that's where we basically got the basis. And then it just found out that the foods that we tend to like the most also happen to line up with, you know, fruit juice and sugar and fatty dairy and butter and steaks and and things like that.

Jay Feldman 17:01
Yeah, what a crazy concept that we're supposed to also enjoy the foods that are healthiest for us.

Mike 17:06
Yeah, I know it's mind blowing. You don't have to struggle to do it.

Jay Feldman 17:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't have to get into too much of a tangent there, but it is worth mentioning, just that there are reasons for and you know this, this ties in closely with what we were talking about as far as salt or sodium and water balance, where there are reasons why we have tastes for sodium, or why we have thirst for water, and why we don't need to force ourselves to drink water when we're not thirsty, or we don't need to, you know, force ourselves to avoid salt if, uh, even if, we have a taste for salt, and the same thing goes for carbohydrates and food as a whole, and concentrated calorie dense sources, where those are all vitally important to everything, and of course, including blood pressure regulation and vascular health. So this whole idea that we need to be fighting against our our body's cravings and desires for, I mean, especially in nutrition, but also for everything. Really doesn't end up playing out too well. It's kind of based on this, this view of our human body as as, again, as a machine and almost and also as unintelligent. And we've kind of talked about that throughout these episodes too, about how, like, increasing blood pressure is not just this. It's not a mistake. It's it's an adaptive response, just like increasing cholesterol or increasing, you know, any other sort of adaptive response where it's allowing us to best handle our environment. And so by the same, you know, thought process, our hunger signals are not mistakes either. And of course, it's always worth considering whether the food that we're taking in or evaluating should have that relationship with our with our hunger, you know, if it's as you talked about, you know, roasted nuts that are salted, what is it that we're actually enjoying? There? Same thing with french fries, are we is it the pie and saturated fats that are fried that we're actually liking, or is it just the fat content and salt content. So, yeah, and starch. So we still want to make it, you know, better choices there, but we shouldn't have to force ourselves to not eat a lot of food, even if we're hungry for eating, you know, for to eat enough, or, you know, to avoid salt and all of those things. And that's..

Mike 19:18
yeah, I don't think it's a over. I mean, the general model right now is that it's over nutrition, or it's just eating too much calories or but without a focus on the fact that maybe it's the food itself, that that's the problem. And I think that that's, I think that largely people would love, oh, I can eat whatever I want, as long as I eat within a certain amount. But it really comes down to what the foods are, and understanding the importance of the individual foods and nutritionists and so called, then establish the establishment, or whatever else is going to say, oh, it's, this is a fad diet. It's a fad diet, it it, but at the same time, I mean, you can call it a fad diet, but when you understand the nuances, it actually. Sense that a lot of the rationale behind what's going on, yeah.

Jay Feldman 20:04
yeah. And as you mentioned, like there's this idea of moderation, where you can eat whatever you want as long as it's within certain limits. And we're almost proposing an opposing view, where it's you can eat however much and whatever types of food you want, as long as it's within certain foods that are ideal for our health,

Mike 20:20
within certain principles.

Jay Feldman 20:21
Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Mike 20:22
So it's not whatever foods, but as as long within certain principles, you can eat as much as your body calls for and listen to the signals that your body is providing. So it's there's a much more intuitive aspect to it than just limit what you're eating and eat everything. I mean, that's for me, that's almost a cop out answer, just eat whatever you want, but as long as you only a certain amount, and the arbitrary value is calories. And that's why you see the construction of these diets like Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers or things like that, where people continually wind up going in these cycles of these cycles with these diets where lose weight gain weight, lose weight, gain weight. Lose weight, gain weight. Because as I don't I just think the underlying principle just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't actually work. And then, even when you look at a lot of the systems that are used there, and a lot of the foods that are used there, a lot of the diet foods that are created, it's literally just fiber, fiber with the artificial sweetener in different forms, so that you you have satiety, but you've provided no nutrition at all. It's like you might as well. And a lot of a lot of the foods are like, akin to eating cardboard um so and then the other, the other, and I can see where the element of a fad diet can come in as well, because you have the different um ideologies or dogmas about avoiding one particular, one particular food, it's Oh or group of foods is all carbs, it's Oh no, it's all fats, oh no, it's all animal proteins or animal foods. And it's like those are very, very broad general, just like groups to just discourage without any sort of nuance, I mean. But again, we're getting on a tangent here. So..

Jay Feldman 22:06
yeah, yeah, yeah, we've Yeah, we've really talked through these ideas in previous episodes, and I'll link to them. There's a few on weight loss and talking about intuitive eating and things like that. And one other point, just to mention, real quick, there is just how our intuition gets so thrown off when we are eating foods that we can't actually use to produce energy, or, you know, there are other things going on that are blocking our energy production processes, which is going to leave us, you know, hungry despite the fact that we're still eating food, even if we were eating, quote, unquote enough, if we can't use it, then we're still going to be hungry, and it's not going to work, which is why, you know, we have These recommendations the way they are, so I'll link to those episodes. But it is a good transition to talking about how important energy is and what, what exactly to do from that energetic standpoint. And we've talked through we've talked through it on the micronutrient stance, as far as vitamins and minerals. And then you had mentioned the macronutrients as well, where just at baseline, you we need to have enough fuel in order to be able to produce enough energy to allow for proper blood flow, allow for the protection of our vasculature and allow for proper heart function relaxation, which that relaxation requires energy. If they don't have enough energy, it leads to that constriction. So getting enough carbohydrates is vital there, getting enough fats is vital there. Getting enough protein is vital there, and enough food overall. I mean, if you want to use calories as a as a measure, so And of course, doing all the other things to help make sure that you are actually able to use those nutrients that you're bringing in, which means that you have enough, like you have enough of the vitamins and minerals to produce energy from that fuel, but also that you don't have things blocking or wasting, either wasting energy that's already produced or blocking the energy from being produced. And one of the, I mean, a couple of major areas as far as wasting energy goes, would be excessive amounts of exercise and excessive amounts of psychological stress, both of which use or waste energy that would be much better put to other uses. And so those are huge factors to consider there, and that relationship between stress and blood pressure is pretty well known. And we talked about how from a nutritional standpoint, and water and salt, all those things, can activate our stress systems, but so can psychological stress. By depleting our available energy, it activates all those same stress systems and causes all those same cascades of effect, of effects that cause hypertension. So that's a pretty huge component here, as well, is making sure that our bodies are not under too much stress, either from the psychological side or from excessive amounts of exercise.

Mike 24:42
Yeah, I think it's really important to point out that psychological stress, whether that's time stress, or emotional stress, or pressure from having to complete a certain task or something like that, all of those activate the same path. Ways, as a as a legitimate stress, such as being attacked by somebody or being attacked by an animal, or a traumatic experience like a car accident or something like that, they all activate the same pathway just to certain degrees. So it's important to recognize that continually hammering those pathways, despite eating well or whatnot, will increase the the expenditure or the the activation of stress systems on one side of the of the metabolic equation that we set up. So it while you also have, while you have to provide adequate nutrition, both macro and micro, you also need to monitor how much energy you're putting out and which systems you're activating. And that becomes, that's becomes that's becomes extremely important for the overall picture. And then again, the other the third aspect there is avoiding things that actually limit the conversion of the fuel that you put in to the energy that you put out. And to keep this in mind, if you have things that are limiting the conversion of that fuel to energy, it'll affect your ability to put out energy, and it'll increase the amount of stress systems that are actually activated in the long term. So there's that's it, breaking it down. You can break it down to three parts, where you have the metabolism. In the center, you have on the left side here, going into the metabolism, you have conversion of fuel into energy. On the outside, you have draw on this. On the right side, you have the draw of energy on the system, and then the activation of the stress systems. And then you have a modifying component in the center, which is modifying the ability of the body to convert fuel into energy. And so the general picture to break it down easily. There's more involved, but to break it down in a simple understanding pathway is that you have these three factors, and by addressing these three factors, that you can basically manage the metabolic system and the stress and this is important, because all of them lead to act an issue in any of these pathways lead to an activation in the stress system and and the adaptive systems, which, over time, if chronically activated, lead to issues like hypertension, high blood pressure and heart disease, and diseases within that metabolic syndrome, depending on what your predisposition is, that's where things can tend to lead to.

Jay Feldman 27:19
yeah, and so to touch on a couple of the, you know, we talk this is kind of what our you know, the whole perspective is, is focusing on the things that will support energy production, avoiding things that block it. And so we talk about that throughout all, you know, all the podcast episodes. But just to touch on a couple of the most important things that block it, polyunsaturated fats, which we already talked about, endotoxin, which is a, you know, a product of basically poor gut health, where certain bacterial components are entering our bloodstream. And so the point there is that if you're eating hard to digest foods, if your gut health isn't good, that's going to lead to various toxin production. Endotoxins one of the main ones that will block energy production. So those are definitely things to consider. I'll link back to some of those gut episodes, because there's so much involved there. But if you know, we talked about those foods earlier, the foods that we talked about earlier are all relatively easy to digest. They don't have a lot of anti nutrients, which inhibit our ability to digest various foods they, you know, and so they won't lead to a lot of these gut issues. And kind of go, Yeah, I mean, I would, unless there's something quick to add there, kind of leave it at that.

Mike 28:25
Well, I was just going to say the other component is toxins within specific foods themselves. So for example, eating a bunch of raw kale or raw cruciferous vegetables has basically pesticide in there. And it's, it's targeting effect is to shut down thyroid function. So there's, there's also a reason to avoid certain foods as well that are supposedly considered healthy, because the components that those foods have actually are damaging to the body in and of itself. And so that's, for example, why we mentioned cooking your leafy greens, particularly boiling the leafy greens is to get rid of some of those toxic components, because while they they do have some nutrition, whereas other foods, like vegetable oils or certain grains products and certain highly processed foods actually have just like a damaging effect overall, and that's the reason why we tend to avoid them. Yeah.

Jay Feldman 29:16
Yeah, definitely. And so another, I mean, you just touched on thyroid health, or thyroid function, and that's another huge component when it comes to the energy side of things, where thyroid our thyroid, is basically our regulator of our metabolism and of that energy production process, and having too many things that block that process will lead to low thyroid health. And that's one of the main reasons why thyroid health is also well correlated with heart health and also hypertension. So hypothyroidism and hypertension often go together, and hypothyroidism is just another measure, basically, of our metabolism. And so it's kind of saying low metabolism, low energy availability, will cause hypertension. And so I have seen in people who have an otherwise, you know. Otherwise, their diet has been healthy. They're exercising well, not too much, not too little. Their stress is well managed. Adding in thyroid hormones can definitely help with regulating blood pressure and bringing it down for somebody who does have hypertension. But it's important to remember that hypothyroidism is just a representation of what's going on underneath, and if you try to address it without addressing those other factors, it will also often make it worse.

Mike 30:25
And that's the same with other hormonal supplementation as well, where, with a lot of these, a lot of these strong compounds like thyroid or progesterone or pregnenolone or DHEA or any or any of the stronger androgens, DHC, testosterone, using these hormones while they can make a shift in what what's going on physiologically. If your body doesn't have the resources to handle that metabolic shift, then it's just going to further entrench an activation of stress pathways and dig deeper into the hole, because you're basically calling for more more energy in different ways, or more utilization of resources of the body, and if those resources aren't available, it's going to have to activate other pathways. So and I want to mention for thyroid too, if somebody does have extremely elevated cholesterol, I know we talked about that not necessarily being the cause of heart disease, and a lot of times it's indicative of a symptom. If hypothyroidism is one of those issues. Thyroid can actually bring that cholesterol down so and there is a doctor, Dr Broda Barnes, who basically found that in his patients that use thyroid, heart attacks and cardiovascular diseases were severely limited. They completely in the group that he was using. And he did change their diet as well. He did give them some dietary components. But just using thyroid, which is one of the main things that he used, actually limited a lot of the development of cardiovascular disease in these people, or the extreme events like heart attacks. So it thyroid does have a very protective effect. And he was using natural desiccated thyroid, which is a combination of active thyroid hormone t3 and then basically storage thyroid hormone, which is t4 and so in a lot of times, this helped a lot about so thyroid is can is something to use, but it's important to make sure that the diet with micro and macro and stress and activity level are also addressed as well. I mean, if you your diet is on point and you're starting to take thyroid to help you out, but you're only sleeping four hours a night, and you're working out for two hours a day in the gym and working a 12 hour shift at your job. I mean, the thyroid and diet may help, but the underlying the real problems there are the 12 hour shift, five days a week at your job, and working out two days, two hours a day with only four or five hours of sleep, I would say, address your sleep limit, cut down on the working out a little bit, and the job you may not be able to do, but see, do what you can do with that, see how you can manage it from there. So there's really a lot of there's a lot of elements to look in the picture. And again, that's why we you can look at it from the equation, or you could just take a broad view of and say, Well, my sleep isn't doing so hot, but my diet is doing well, and so those it's important to look at the whole picture with it, with everything that's going on, and realize that supplements can help sometimes, but a lot of times, they can make it worse if other factors aren't in line. And sometimes they can actually help if other factors aren't in line. But I wouldn't say using them to solve those other factors chronically would be ideal unless, unless that was literally the only option.

Jay Feldman 33:24
Yeah, no. Those are all great points. And for sleep, for example. I mean, there are people who have trouble sleeping, and we did a couple episodes talking about that, so I'll link to those. But, you know, thyroid hormone is something that could really help there. You know, if other things are relatively in place, but it's also something that can make it worse. So it's, it's understanding that context and and using these things properly within that context. But yeah, I think, yeah, you made a lot of good points there, and in talking about cholesterol as well. You know, we talked about that relationship a little bit between thyroid and cholesterol, and that that's huge. I mean, high cholesterol is very, typically, very well correlated with thyroid and that's a relationship that's been known like thyroid function. And that's relationship that's been known for over 100 years at this point, and they used to give thyroid hormone to bring cholesterol levels down. So yeah, yeah, definitely something to consider there. And in talking about energy production and why it's so vital, we talked about the importance of carbon dioxide or CO two, and that that's one, you know, it's the primary vasodilator. It allows for the proper oxygenation of our tissues. And so having enough CO two, which is produced when we're producing energy, is vital to proper vascular health and and you know, cardiovascular health..

Mike 34:38
Or heart well, and energy function in general, because CO two allows the cells to to it allows hemoglobin to drop oxygen off to the cells that are respiring. So it's a cyclical feed forward reaction. So you want to have energy streaming through metabolism, producing carbon dioxide, not only for heart health, but for just health in general, right?

Jay Feldman 34:57
Yep, and that's that oxygenating effect. Of carbon dioxide, yeah. So exactly yeah. And so on that front, everything that's going to support energy production is going to support carbon dioxide production. Some other things you could do to, you know, increase carbon dioxide would be bag breathing or Buteyko breathing, which are both helpful for increasing carbon dioxide at least in the short term and potentially in the long term, depending on your breathing patterns and things, and using baking soda or sodium bicarbonate is one as well that can help increase carbon dioxide more in the short term. Yeah.

Mike 35:35
Ideally, the ideal production of carbon dioxide is from cellular respiration, right? So these, these strategies can help increase systemic carbon dioxide in general, but the ideal way to increase carbon dioxide in the body is to provide adequate, uh, adequate glucose and or adequate sugars, and then make sure you have adequate micros and macros to power the mitochondrial respiration without inhibiting components. And that's because, and I've seen this a lot, a lot of people will ask on different forums, oh, how do I raise carbon dioxide? And then people will give a list of all these things, all these Oh, you could back grade, you could take sodium bicarbonate, you could take this supplement, that supplement, and it's like, or you can take all those things, and that's fine, but at the same time, you could just eat, well, sleep, well, lower your stress and and make sure that you're that you're not that you're having an adequate activity, and then make sure that your cells are basically respiring properly, and then you'll produce adequate amounts of carbon dioxide through that pathway. And the other thing I want to add this is a little bit back to what we were talking about when you get your diet or your sleep or your exercise or and your stress levels in check certain components that you may not have tolerated before, like thyroid hormone or fat soluble vitamins or anything along those lines. When you get things in order, you may find, oh, wow, I can tolerate it now. And so your just people or an individual's context can always be changing and can be adjusted over time. And a response that you may have at one time may be different at another time. And it's important to keep that in mind.

Jay Feldman 37:11
Yeah, yeah. And you know, in talking about CO two, yes, you can do all these things externally to try to raise it, especially in the short term. But another thing that will happen if, if you're having metabolic issues, is you'll breathe out, you'll end up breathing out a lot of that, CO two, you'll end up losing a lot of it and not retaining it. So yeah, and part of that too can have to do with breathing patterns, which is why I think Buteyko, the Buteyko breathing method, can be really helpful for teaching you to breathe in a way that will help you retain carbon dioxide, if that is a problem for you, but a lot of it does come back to the metabolic side. And if you're under stress, and if you're not, you're the cellular energy production pathways are not working properly, and you're not fully oxidizing glucose, and you're ending up with a lot of lactate, and you're not getting enough carbon dioxide, it will lead to a loss of carbon dioxide. Anyways, so.

Mike 38:03
And then from there, I would say I was going to move into some other supplemental compounds that can help with blood pressure and vascular health in general. Everybody knows aspirin, and aspirin has a bunch of beneficial heart effects. The low dose aspirin is prescribed forever. Now for decades, people are still taking their 81 milligram aspirin. It's still given by cardiologists today because it just works and and it has a general metabolic enhancing effect and inhibits the formation of prostaglandins, which are in and leukotrienes, which are inflammatory mediators that are central to every inflammatory process in the bodies literally has some involvement of the prostaglandins or leukotrienes or some mediators along those lines, so it has a generally anti inflammatory effect. So aspirin is an important one. And then another one is taurine. Taurine is a very important one. It's amino acid. It actually has some functioning with the electrolytes as well as the fat soluble vitamins, and it has a general stabilizing effect, and it helps prevent against oxidation within the vascular the vasculature and the vascular cells. So taurine is generally and supplementing taurine as an amino acid is something that I've done, and I found it, I haven't found any issues with it at all. And some people can have some gut irritation from it. So that's important to note. I don't know what else you want to add with with those.

Jay Feldman 39:31
Yeah, well, you've, you know, I think we talked a little bit about vitamin C and vascular health. That's a good one too. You know, I think the best way to get is from food and food sources. But I think it's worth mentioning too. And yeah, same thing with the vitamins.

Mike 39:44
I was gonna say for vitamin C, they have fruits like camel or acerola or orange juice or pineapple juice or fruits in general.

Jay Feldman 39:53
Yeah and yeah. And as far again, along the simple supplement lines, some of the B vitamins can be really helpful. Niacin or niacinamide. Prefer the niacinamide form, which is vitamin b3 though, has been shown to be generally protective for heart health and has a pretty like a relaxing effect on our vasculature, which can help with regulating blood pressure, bringing it down if you're hypertensive. So niacinamide is another one that's generally very protective progesterone, too. We, you know, we talked about some of the pro metabolic hormones. And again, context is hugely important here. But progesterone is another one which is helpful for supporting energy production and increasing relaxation, which also goes for the vasculature. And, you know, because the constriction, the, you know, the chronic constriction is such a huge problem there, progesterone can be helpful in lowering that.

Mike 40:44
And it has an anti, direct, anti inflammatory effect. And so a lot of doctors with even shock or or any type of process involving endotoxin, they can prevent a lot of the inflat, direct ventilatory effects with cortisol or cortisone, which is basically a synthetic glucocorticoid derivative, or dexamethasone, which is another one, but progesterone also has those anti inflammatory effects, and DHEA has some protective effects against the excesses of cortisol.

Jay Feldman 41:14
Yeah, and pregnant alone used prior to the glucocorticoids for a lot of those things, yeah.

Mike 41:21
So, I think those are, and then the last one that you, I think, you wanted to talk about, was co Q, 10.

Jay Feldman 41:27
Yeah, so, and this is especially important regarding people who are on statins, which we talked about with the cholesterol episodes, where the the those statins, that which a lot of people who are, who are, you know, dealing with high blood pressure, and might be on high blood pressure meds. Are, you know, often on statins as well. And so the statins block the process that produces cholesterol, which is also the process that produces CO Q 10 and Vitamin k2 so those can be depleted if you're on a statin, in which case, and they're very, very important for heart health and muscle health and muscle function in general, right? And that's because they're a huge component in respiration, mitochondrial respiration, or energy production. So if you are on a statin, especially then getting some vitamin k2 MK four form and CoQ 10 would be helpful, yeah.

Mike 42:19
So I just to touch on them, some products to help with heart health, making sure you have adequate fat soluble vitamins, that includes Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin k2, specifically, particularly the MK four version, and then the vitamin E. There's talk about there's Alpha tocopherol, and then there's gamma tocopherol. Those are the major ones that are discussed. And then after that, you have your aspirin. You have making adequate thyroid production or use of a natural desiccated Thyroid Supplement. Then from there, you have taurine usage. And then you have your vitamin What was the last one? CO Q, 10 and oh, and vitamin C, and vitamin C, particularly from fruits. And then, as far as diet goes, you have avoiding the polyunsaturated fatty acids, as we say, ad nauseam on this podcast, and then focusing on mainly saturated monounsaturated fatty acids, making sure that you're eating adequate carbohydrates to provide for energy metabolism and make, again, adequate proteins, important collagen hydrolysate, which was something that I don't know if we necessarily touched upon, provides the building blocks of the vasculature and on the collagen structures of the body. So collagen can be, can be helpful with adequate glycine, which has a synergistic effect with taurine, not only in the vasculature, but in liver health, bile acid production, and then as a calming neurotransmitter in the brain, which taurine also has some calming effects as well. So they combine very well together. And then from there, making sure that you're eating easily digested foods, and particularly fruits and meats and eggs and seafood specific seafood varieties that are that aren't very high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, they provide a lot of minerals and vitamins that are difficult to get from some of the land animals or some of the land grown foods. And then the other thing that I want to point out here in passing is that a lot of the plant compounds that you find within fruits, particularly fruits, fruit juice, dried fruit, have a lot of beneficial effects in multiple studies in affecting the vasculature. So a lot of those foods can be very helpful. Now you don't miss and a lot of the effects may not necessarily be direct absorption of those compounds because only a limited amount is absorbed, but by modulating the intestinal microbiome and limiting endotoxin production and the negative effects of endotoxin, that's, I'd say, a brief rundown of some of the topics that we've covered and or and applicable solutions to high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol. For All,

Jay Feldman 45:00
yeah, yeah. And I know there's a few others that I don't I mean, like, I don't know if you mentioned aspirin, thyroid, b3 I don't know if you mentioned the minerals, specifically, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, but yeah. I mean, we went through a lot of it. I think, yeah, I think there's more than enough to go off of there. So.

Mike 45:19
And because you have to play with that every each thing by itself for a little bit to see how it's how it's affecting you. It takes a little time to stabilize the program for yourself. But yeah, that's those would those would be the general things that I'd say, I think you and I would tackle with if you and I were having high blood pressure or any type of high cholesterol or some or some race indicators of heart disease.

Jay Feldman 45:45
All right, I hope you enjoyed that episode and this series on managing blood pressure. If you did, please leave a like, a review, a comment or five star rating on iTunes. All of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at any of the studies or articles or anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode, and if you are struggling with hypertension or any other issues regarding blood pressure regulation, if you're experiencing fatigue, Low Energy, chronic pain, joint pain, if you're experiencing any chronic health conditions, whether that's diabetes and insulin resistance or heart disease, or if you're doing with weight gain or gut symptoms, constant cravings or hunger, hormonal imbalances, problem sleeping. Head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course where I will walk you through the main things that you want to do, in addition to what we discussed today, as far as diet and lifestyle, stress and exercise are concerned, in order to optimize your cellular energy balance, which is the key to resolving all of these symptoms and chronic health issues. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, I will see you in the next episode.