Five Steps to Jump Start the Keto Diet

Five Steps to Jump Start the Keto Diet

In this post we will take a look at how Heads Up Health can help you successfully navigate the challenges of implementing and maintaining a ketogenic diet. In particular, we will introduce tools that can help you track your progress, fine tune your approach and find exactly what works for your own body as you adopt a low-carb ketogenic lifestyle. (more…)
Episode 32 – EndoCanna Health – Personalizing Medicinal Cannabis with DNA testing

Episode 32 – EndoCanna Health – Personalizing Medicinal Cannabis with DNA testing

Have you ever tried medicinal cannabis for your anxiety, pain, achy joints or other condition, experienced cannabis side effects and written it off as a natural medicine that won’t work for you?  Were you aware that cannabis works on the endocannabinoid system within the body, and with some personalization, through genome testing, you can have help finding cannabis that works for you? EndoCanna Health uses your genes to determine ways in which your system interacts with cannabis.

Personalized genomics in the context of medicinal cannabis can help you to understand which cannabis is right for you. We know that certain strains or terpenes are better for particular ailments, however, if you’re a slow metabolizer, or if you have a predisposition to anxiety, for example, you may have a different experience than your friend or even family member using the same amount/strain of medicinal cannabis.

Listen to Dave Korsunsky of Heads Up Health interview Len May, Co-Founder of EndoCanna Health about genetic testing for cannabis. Learn more about the endocannabinoid system and how your genetics can help you to find the right cannabis for you, to help with things like anxiety, mood, sleep, pain, and more. EndoCanna takes its privacy very seriously, so if you’re not happy running a 23 and Me for genetic information, you can order a kit directly from EndoCanna Health who can run your results on their own secure system(no sharing of genetic data and they are HIPAA compliant).

Click here to learn more about testing with EndoCanna Health.

Listen in iTunes!

This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up Health, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!

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In this podcast you’ll learn:

  • About Len May’s history of involvement in the medical cannabis regulations and acceptance as a medical treatment since the early 1990s [4:10]
  • About Elvy Musikka who is legally blind due to glaucoma – a participant in the NIDA program that allowed the federal government to cultivate cannabis in the University of Mississippi and send to a location to roll into cigarettes that even comes in a tin with a USDA label. She could light up in front of Federal rangers…in the 1990s! [4:25]
  • Len started in California in a dispensary where patients were using medical cannabis for various reasons and his experience was that while they recommended certain strains for certain conditions, he began to see that within those ailments people would have wildly different experiences of the same strain/profile [7:20]
  • Your DNA dictates your personal experience.  Len and his team spent 2 years to evaluate every gene that has a direct or indirect connection with the endocannabinoid system, knowing that it’s an ongoing thing due to emerging science – they continue to study genetic info as it comes out in relation to how it affects the endocannabinoid system [8:55]
  • EndoCanna Health has developed a direct to consumer kit ($199) similar to a 23 and Me, with a simple mouth swab that they genetically sequence that to find out which cannabis would work best for you and help regulate the entire endocannabinoid system. You can also bring your own raw data over to run through their system for $49 [10:00]
  • Genetic conditions that are affected by a gene expression help them learn what the optimal ratio of cannabinoids and terpenes for their particular genetic expression of symptoms [12:20]
    • The 8 genetic expression symptoms that are affected by which are:
      • Anxiety
      • Pain
      • Metabolism
      • Psychosis
      • Sleep
      • Cognition
      • Dependence
      • Depression
  • While they can use 23 and Me or other data that you have already their interpretation is only as good as the array that the original test included. (23 and Me provided more genetic data prior to August 2017, so older tests may offer more info) The more genes tested will give a better interpretation to give better suggestions based on your genes. They do not make recommendations but instead provide suggestions of what may be beneficial to you [13:50]
  • That the endocannabinoid system is a regulatory system that supports digestion, immune, hormones, and more.  We are all born with this system and the ability to produce our own endogenous endocannabinoids within our bodies, and it regulates based on our body needs. Lifestyle, stress, lack of sleep, poor nutrition can create deficiencies in our own endocannabinoid system and our immune system responds because we don’t have enough of our own endocannabinoids to support everything it needs to, which is how cannabis can support the endocannabinoid system [15:10]
  • There are receptor cites built into our bodies which turn on in response to the cannabis plant. CB1 effects the central nervous system and THC.  CB2 is activated by enzymes through CBD and has a lot to do with immune and digestive systems [16:55]
  • Info about how to look for a cannabis medicine from a dispensary- from state to state it can be different in what information they publish on terpenes. EndoCanna Health gives you the profile that you’ll want to look for, and then you’ll need to locate the product within your state. You can also take the profile to your local dispensary and ask them to help you find what you’re looking for [17:55]
  • About why some people have a great experience, while others taking the same amount and strain of cannabis can have completely different experiences [21:20]
  • Have you ever tried medicinal cannabis and gotten anxiety?  If you have a predisposition of anxiety due to your genes (FAAH), then you are more likely to experience anxiety in a threatening situation.  Because anandamide is lower and cortisol higher, giving that fight or flight feeling, THC exacerbates that. There are terpene profiles like limonene that are dominant in Savita hybrids that can trigger that gene to express itself. If you know this ahead of time, lower your THC, increase your CBD and modify your terpene profile to decrease chances of having an issue with anxiety, for example, include linalool instead of limonene for a more calming effect [22:16]
  • People call up or go to the ER, and think they’re dying, but you cannot have a toxic overdose of cannabis. What often happens with edibles that rely on the liver to convert the THC is that it actually becomes more potent, and due to the delayed impact, people often eat more and then end up with way more than they need. They could use less or take it sublingually and have a much better experience [25:15]
  • Len talks about how individuals can empower themselves with these reports and take them to their doctors to support them with this wealth of info. He mentions that if you have a doctor who doesn’t support the use of cannabis for treatment, there are other doctors out there with this cutting edge information that will [28:30]
  • EndoCanna Health takes its security and how they handle it very seriously.  Their DNA is in one server and the reports are in another server, and an encoded keycode associated with each.  They are HIPAA compliant so they can’t show a sample report due to their high level of security [29:30]
  • Using Heads Up Health with a service like EndoCanna Health reports can help you track to see whether your inflammation is coming down or other markers you may be interested in following [31:00]
  • EndoCanna Health is in a partnership with a company in Australia called WARD Management and is in 6 clinical trials to track data markers that show the effectiveness of your treatment with cannabis [31:40]
  • About drug to drug interaction with cannabis, and how things like CBD can be an uptake inhibitor which can reduce the effectiveness of your prescription depression medications. It’s important to know how one affects the other [32:50]
  • How using their service is like GPS in guiding you to know where you want to go and how you’re going to get there using cannabis [34:00]
  • Dave mentions research that’s coming out on how cannabis can be used with opioid addiction because it can bind to some of those opioid receptors and help you titrate off of medications. Make sure you understand interactions if you’re on meds [35:20]
  • Opioids bind to those CB1 receptors for pain as an analgesic and their test can tell you if you have a predisposed dependence to opioids and if you’re likely to have more unfavorable results to opioids than most people SUPER USEFUL to know beforehand [35:45]
  • How understanding how your genes work with opioids and cannabis can affect how you live your life and even potentially prevent you from traveling down a road you never want to go down with addiction as well [38:00]

References

About Heads Up Health

Heads Up Health is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!

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Episode 31 – The Top Functional Tests: What to Look For (Pt. 1) | Dr. Justin Marchegiani

Episode 31 – The Top Functional Tests: What to Look For (Pt. 1) | Dr. Justin Marchegiani

Dr. Justin Marchegiani is a licensed Chiropractor in the state of Texas, with postgraduate studies in the area of clinical nutrition, rehabilitative exercise, and functional medicine. With a holistic approach, Dr. Justin Marchegiani offers testing options such as the urine heavy metals test to help his patients improve their health, and prevent future issues by taking a proactive approach.

This is the first in a series of interviews with Dave Korsunsky, founder of Heads Up Health, where they’ll dive into the specific lab testing used in functional medicine: ex. the testing of heavy metals, organic acids and/or IgG antibodies.

In this episode, Dr. Justin Marchegiani reviews Dave’s heavy metals test (watch the forthcoming YouTube video) and talks about the dangers of mercury in our environment and how it can have detrimental effects when it builds up in our bodies. Though each person will need a customized approach to safely remove the heavy metals from the body, which can take some time, it is well worth the investment in your healthy future.

Listen in iTunes!

This podcast is brought to you by Heads Up Health, a web app designed to help you centrally track all of your vital health data. Instantly synchronize your medical records, connect your favorite health devices and apps and use your data to optimize your health!

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial. Or, read on for more information about our latest podcast episode!

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In this podcast you’ll learn:

  • Dr. Justin Marchegiani’s introduction of why and how he uses functional tests to evaluate symptoms, systems and underlying stressors [1:50]
  • How Dr. Marchegiani helped inspire Dave to develop the Heads Up Health app [4:30]
  • About some of the tests that are very useful but not offered as standard labs by most doctors [6:00]
  • About the Doctors Data test for heavy metals, which is used to tell the tissue burden of heavy metals.This test uses DMPS to pull metals into the urine for testing, showing a better representation of what is stored in the body’s tissues, rather than a blood metals test that shows only for acute exposure to metals. The reason for running this for Dave was lowered WBC and lowered platelet counts, which could mean either an underlying viral infection or mercury being burdensome on the immune system [6:40]
  • Hear what Dr. Marchegiani recommended for Dave to address the things that came up on his Doctors Data heavy metals test [8:15]
  • How people get exposed to heavy metals, like bomb-making for example…or, more realistically dental amalgam fillings, thermometers, barometers, batteries, some Ayurvedic herbs (the cheap ones), fluoride, pesticides, fungicides, old coal burning methods that have gotten into fish, flu vaccines that are high in Thimerosal [8:56]
  • That Dr. Marchegiani doesn’t recommend heavy metal testing until the gut has really been cleaned up and supported because a large part of detox happens in the hepatobiliary system (liver-gallbladder), and GI tract. You don’t want to re-toxify yourself [11:05]
  • Why binders are important with heavy metal detox [11:45]
  • Why Dr. Marchegiani recommends doing the heavy metal testing for monitoring annually, especially if you’re on municipal water supply, and why you shouldn’t trust the water supply [11:55]
  • Top three things to help prevent heavy metal issues
    • #1 – “The solution to pollution is dilution!” [12:45]
    • #2 – Good access to an infrared sauna [13:06]
    • #3 – Really good access to, and digestion of, sulfur amino acids — animal proteins are the richest source, whey protein, organic green vegetables
  • Don’t expose yourself to the heavier sprayed pesticide-laden crops, and avoid mercury fillings and Thimerosal in the flu vaccine [13:25]
  • That having low glutathione levels makes it harder to excrete mercury, which can be tested for in an RBC glutathione test or an organic acids test, and can also inactivate lymphocytes or be immunosuppressive (Dave’s low WBC could be from this) [14:05]
  • How proactive Dr. Marchegiani is in running tests that might be helpful in uncovering potential issues [15:15]
  • That we want to look at the levels of mercury in the test, but also we have to look for the exposure or source of where it came from. We don’t always find an answer, but it could be from inorganic foods, for example [16:15]
  • Tips to reduce accumulation of mercury: [16:20]
    • Sweat a lot
    • Drink plenty of filtered, healthy, mineral-rich water
    • Eat organic foods
  • Consider lead-based paints as a factor in homes built before 1976 [16:55]
  • What symptoms people might see or diseases that might occur over years of exposure or burden in the body that haven’t actively been trying to reduce it [17:10]
    • An increased stimulator in autoimmune conditions
    • Neurological issues
    • Lack of physical endurance (mitochondrial suppressor)
    • Activation of the sympathetic nervous system – overtaxing the adrenals
    • Thyroid issues and other system dysfunction
  • The lethal dose of one for mercury, or the lethal dose of one for lead is the amount of that metal that is required to kill the first rat out of 100 fed the metal. If you combine the lethal dose for one of mercury with the lethal dose of one for lead, ZERO rats will survive. Metals have synergistic effects making them even more toxic when combined [18:30]
  • How to get this heavy metal test, which is around $150 with the DMPS, which Dr. Marchegiani recommends annually. If you know you’re exposed to these metals, then test more frequently or if you have a high level on your first test you’d want to test more frequently to monitor the progress of the protocol. You can order a test at www.justinhealth.com [19:45]
  • You can schedule a consult via Dr. Justin Marchegiani on his website from anywhere in the world. Or ask your own doctor about the functional tests [20:40]
  • IgG antibodies, and organic acids functional tests coming soon on the Heads Up Health podcast with Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Dave [21:00]

References

Topo Chico water

Heavy Metal test with DMPS

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

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About Heads Up Health

Heads Up Health is a website designed to empower individuals who want to take a self-directed approach to managing their health. Instantly centralize your medical records, connect your favorite devices and apps (e.g., Oura, MyFitnessPal, Keto-Mojo, FitBit, Apple Health, MyMacros+, Withings and many more) and use your data to optimize your health.

Click on the button below to start your free 30-day trial now!

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