Hello and welcome to the Tuesday webinar series “Chiropractic Economics” webinar for doctors of chiropractic. I’m Rick Vach, editor in chief of “Chiropractic Economics.” Today’s webinar, How to Develop a Strong Immune System is sponsored by Dee Cee Laboratories. And as always, our program is being recorded and will be archived at Chiropractic Economics website, www.chiroeco.com/webinar for one year. Our expert is on board here today to speak with you. And when his presentation is complete, we will follow with a Q&A period. You can submit questions throughout the presentation by clicking on the appropriate icon on the right side of your screen.
Our presenter today is Dr. Robert Silverman who graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Bridgeport, College of Chiropractic, and holds a Master of Science in Human Nutrition, and is a diplomate with the American Clinical Board of Nutrition and the Chiropractic Board of Clinical Nutrition. He is also certified as a sports nutritionist, certified sports nutritionist, and certified clinical nutritionist. He specializes in the diagnosis of joint pain and soft-tissue management and treatment with an innovative, well-researched approach to non-surgical care while incorporating proper nutrition protocols. He’s certification include but not limited to ART, Graston Technique, cold-laser therapy, Sound Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization, and he is a strength and conditioning specialist.
Dr. Silverman, thank you for taking the time to participate in our webinar, and for sharing your expertise with immunity and immune systems, and helping our audience get a better understanding of such an important topic during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before we get started, Dr. Silverman, can you please give us a brief background of some of your work?
Dr. Silverman: Sure. Rick, it’s really a pleasure to be here. I love working with Chiro Economics. You guys, without question, share the most leading-edge information, not only in science and chiropractic application but also in the business aspect which is so needed. So I do appreciate all that you allow us to do and how you support the field. And thank you for that.
I’ve been practicing about 21 years. And I started out doing all musculoskeletal work. I expanded within that to start to do the soft tissue, as you mentioned before, instrument assisted, exercise rehab, taping. I incorporated a lot of modalities like low-level laser, very excited about that. And I always had my eye towards nutrition because I believe that nutrition with chiropractic enabled everybody to fix the body from the inside out. So 21 years after graduating, I take a lot of vantage points inside the body. If people ask me how do I practice chiropractic, I like to match the mechanical with the biochemical.
So I think the two hands meet, and through the different mixed methodologies, I’m able to hopefully get a better outcome. It has never been more pertinent to look at the body from the inside out since the advent of COVID-19. I have done more immune work in the last, let’s say 3 and a half months than I did in the previous 20 plus years. So again, I’m excited to be here and I really wanna cover how to develop a strong immune system for all the docs, the docs friends and families, and of course, their ever-growing patient base.
Rick: Well, thank you, Dr. Silverman. And thanks for being here again, and we’ll now hand it over to you to begin the presentation.
Dr. Silverman: Thanks again, Rick. I really appreciate it. So clearly, we’ve gone through a portion of what we call a health pandemic. And in this health pandemic, people’s immune system have been compromised. They’ve been challenged. So what you’re gonna see now for me with no vaccine, with no drug, how chiropractic really can come to the forefront on how to help the population develop a strong immune system. We’re clearly a great answer.
And I’m gonna talk mostly about the nutritional aspects, those functional nutrition concepts that are gonna enable you, your friends, your family once again, and your patients to strengthen their immune system. And then we’ll go through what it is and why. And I do really hope to imbue you with enthusiasm to ask some questions at the end because I’d love to have a conversation with everyone.
One of my more favorite lines is you can’t control the virus but you can control the host. We have to remember the virus is not live. It’s inactive or active. It is looking for a hospitable host. It wants a host that it can feed off, it wants a host where it can stay. It wants a host where it can populate, leave, destroy the house, i.e. your body, and find another person. So without question, you can control the host yourself. How do you control the host? Well, you wanna make yourself an inhospitable host for the virus.
One, you clearly don’t wanna let it in, you wanna keep the door closed. And we’re gonna go through different ways on closure in that, how we can improve our barriers to viruses. You can control your host yourself by keeping your immune system strong. Get chiropractic care all the time, have a different lifestyle, exercise, try to avoid these comorbidities that I’m gonna list. And these comorbidities really pose a problem in that the comorbidities aren’t just your ability to get the virus, it’s your ability once you get the virus to ward it off all. Or, if you would, your inability.
So why does SARS-CoV-2 spread so easily? Well, SARS-CoV, the previous virus, and SARS-CoV-2 share approximately 86% of the same genome. What makes it so infectious is that a few genetic studies have investigated the microscopic structure of the virus. There is a key protein on the surface and receptor in human cells that may collectively explain why the virus can attack and spread so easily. These are spiked proteins, they’re spike proteins. That’s why they call it corona like a crown. It’s actually a triple spike.
These spike proteins are what coronaviruses used to bind to the membrane of human cells that they infect. The binding process is activated by certain cell enzymes. Interesting these SARS-CoV-2 has a specific structure that allows it to bind to about least 10 times more tightly than the previous corresponding spike proteins. Partly this is due to the fact that the spike protein contains and recognizes and becomes activated by an enzyme called furin. The spike protein and furin activation sites are not the whole story, the human cell also contains elements that make it vulnerable to the new coronavirus.
The spike protein needs to bind on a human cell called ACE2. Research has shown that ACE2 allows SARS-CoV-2 to infect humans. What you’ll see is those who have an issue with their ACE2 have more of an affinity to having Coronavirus. The presence of these furin enzymes that I mentioned before in all cell surfaces cleaves and activates the SARS-CoV-2 into a wide range of tissues and organs. Unfortunately, all at once. Activated, it unleashes the NLRP3 inflammasome initiating a flurry of immune reactions that can result in what we now call cytokine storms. The furin allows the virus entry basically into all cell types making COVID-19 easily transmissible at rates that are higher than we initially thought.
The tropism of the Coronavirus is to dive and open up the furin cleavage site in the spike protein. This is not present in the previous SARS-CoV. Ultimately, not to get too technical, after you go through the furin you get to 3CL protease. Once they have entered the human cells, coronaviruses produce damage and spread to other cells by creating an enzyme, as I mentioned 3CL protease. Although several enzymes may be involved in viral replication and spread, a 3CL protease is the most important for the coronavirus.
Cytokines, the double-edged sword exploited by these coronaviruses, this has been the conversation piece. Cytokines are interesting in that, you know, aka cytokine release syndrome, macrophage activation syndrome, is the result of immune system gone wild. Those T-cells are often defective resulting in increased production of inflammatory proteins that can lead to organ failure and possibly death. The takeaway real simply is cytokines are inflammatory immunological proteins that are there to fight off infections. But when they’re out of the control, they can typically make you very ill.
Most patients with severe COVID-19 exhibit substantially elevated serum levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin beta 1, interleukin-18, and the big one, interleukin-6. Bottom line is cytokines are inflammatory markers. Most chiropractic patients who are on a chiropractic lifestyle do not suffer from the cytokine storm because our patients as they adhere to our protocols are not previously inflamed. These comorbidities that we’re gonna list are speaking to people that are previously inflamed.
And as we look at this, this activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome, there’s a signal it stimulates the NF-κB. And there’s a second signal that also stimulates the inflammasome. Combine these two signals lead to the release of interleukin-1 beta, and interleukin-18, leading you down a path of the elevation of inflammatory interleukins, leading to this proverbial cytokine storm.
So here are the factors that make us more likely to contract COVID-19. Let’s make note of where they may originate from. CVD, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and if I can skip down, autoimmunity. They all may come from what I call obesity or lack of a good quality lifestyle. So five of these major comorbidities pose an issue. Age, we know that age provides what we call immunosenescence, the dying of specific immune cells. And then we have some other specific conditions. Maybe most prominently because June is brain month, chronic neurological diseases.
Some of the underlying conditions that have led adults to be hospitalized from 18 to 49, and from 50 to 64. So combining them, they’re 18 to 64. The number one reason for hospitalization in that age group is obesity, over 65, it’s hypertension. So the number one reason why people get hospitalized with COVID-19 is hypertension. A close second is obesity. They are without question interrelated.
Obesity is linked to severe coronavirus, especially for younger patients. It’s a tremendous predictor of severe coronavirus. The U.S., we’re number one of the highest obesity rates in the world. And unfortunately, our younger generation poses an issue. So imagine if we wanted to adapt into our chiropractic armamentarium the idea of weight loss and lifestyle, we would theoretically be busy because obesity…if they’re obese, they may have already had a compromised respiratory function. They may have some abdominal obesity, which is typically more prominent in non-pregnant men.
That obesity can cause compression of the diaphragm, the lungs, and the chest capacity. When you’re heavy or fat, you have enlarged fat cells. Fat cells are depositories for toxins. They actually can cause chronic low-grade inflammation and increase in circulating pro-inflammatory cytokines, which do play to a worse role in COVID-19 outcomes.
So the concept of obesity and COVID-19, it’s really the role of visceral adipose tissue. In this study, we found out that 30 patients were positive for COVID-19 if they had increase in visceral fat. Visceral fat is the fat over your viscera, which can infiltrate different organs like your pancreas, your heart, your liver, and the such. If you have an increase by one square decimeter, you have a 22.53% fold increase for being in the ICU and 16.11 times increase for mechanical ventilation. If you compare and contrast with just upper abdominal increases, you have a 1.13 ICU, a 1.25, respectively with mechanical ventilation.
Conversely, no increased risks with subcutaneous fat or BMI. BMI is height over weight. Subcutaneous fat is the pinch an inch, it’s that outer fat that you see, and you always kind of wanna lose. It is that inflammatory, you can’t see it, hard abdominal fat that poses most of the inflammation. So the real question was posed is the coronavirus and a lot of the issues are more preventable lifestyle disease. Well, let’s look at the numbers. 42% of Americans are obese and rising. 75% of Americans are obese or overweight, 6 out of 10 Americans have one chronic illness. 4 out of 10 of Americans have more than one chronic illness. Obesity increases the risk of death three times. All of these are tied to an increase in inflammation.
To continue and to piggyback on what I said earlier about preventable lifestyle disease, belly fat metabolically active. The takeaway here is very simple, 12% of the American population is metabolically healthy, that’s 1 in 7.5 people. And we see just a little bit more than that. I think that we need to increase our reach and start talking about lifestyle with our patient base. So these were lifestyle for strong immune systems, four questions that we would recommend, myself and Chiro Economics, to ask your patients.
So number one, are you on a regular vitamin or supplement regimen? They’ve got a great nutritional counseling. You hit the link, you’ll be able to get there. But are you on a vitamin or a supplement regimen? If you’re not, it’s something to consider. Who wouldn’t benefit from Vitamin D? Who wouldn’t benefit from Vitamin C? Who may not benefit with this COVID-19 from one of the protocols that we’re gonna share with you? And by the same token, some of our patients will be taking a lot of vitamins.
Well, vitamin sales is a $47 billion industry in America, many of which are now sold online. They may be taking the wrong vitamin, the not good quality vitamin. Clearly, we have here Dee Cee Laboratories is without question a good quality vitamin. They’ve been here since 1962. Can you describe the amount and quality of your sleep, Mr. And Mrs. patient? Sleep is a critical element because as you’ll see in some succeeding slides, we’ll talk about how it’s immuno beneficial. What type of exercise do you do on a weekly basis? Do you exercise? What kind? Are you doing high interval intense training? Are you doing steady state? Are you walking? Are you weight training? Are you doing the right exercise to optimize your health?
Are you on any medications? Well, let’s just think about a pain opiate. That obviously we know has lost its way. Without question, two adjustments in chiropractic decreases your incidence of pain opiates by 55%. NSAIDs, non-standard anti-inflammatories, Aleve, ibuprofen, and Advil, they decrease pain and they impair healing. It’s a no way. I get my patients off those NSAIDs right away, and we talk about nutraceuticals.
So here’s the immune system. And most people don’t realize that there are three levels of defense against disease-causing organisms. Barriers, you wanna prevent entry. Your skin and your mucous membranes do so. Stomach acid and digestive enzymes. And finally, the beneficial bacteria, your gut microbiota, all prevent entries. They are barriers.
Number two, you then get into this second tier, your innate and your acquired. There are two different tiers. Your innate immunity is your general defense. It’s your search and destroy guys that were since day one that the human species was created. They’re neutrophils and macrophages, and again, they damage and invade all cells.
Then you’ve got something that the human species acquired, we call it acquired immunity or adapted immunity approximately 10,000 years ago. And they are your recognize and memorize. And recognize and memorize are your B and T cells. Your T cells come from your thymus, your B cells come from your bone marrow. The B cells are what recognizes and remembers, and it remembers making antibodies with that big antibody conversation that we’ve had with the never-ending news cycle of COVID-19.
So just expand upon that, you have the humoral and cell-mediated branches of the immune response. Interestingly enough, here the B cells are gonna make antigens, the T cells are going to kill the infected cells. Having said all that, those antibodies, they are made in response to a virus, however, they persist in the blood acting like sentinels and rallying an immediate response should the virus try to invade again. The antibodies are unique signatures, different protectors modeled after encountering different viruses. So finding them is a signal of a past contact with a particular virus.
The two of note, IgM is the first antibody to produce in response to any foreign particle invasion, while IgG is the most abundantly found antibody in the human body. IgM is the largest immunoglobulin while IgG is for human immunity. And because it’s a smaller antibody, it has the ability to travel through the bloodstream. Ultimately, with these antibody tests, and if anybody wants to have a conversation about them, feel free to reach out to me, you’re looking to stimulate and release IgG.
So certain terms I want everybody to have immuno support. Immune support is interesting in that we wanna support the immune system. You really wanna call it immune support and immune balance. You want a balance between your innate and adaptive immune system. Immune-boosting. What happened was, that’s now sort of not such a popular word because when you boost you’re thinking about boosting maybe the innate and decreasing your adaptive. Immune senescence, mentioned it before. Refers to the gradual deterioration of the immune system brought on by natural age advancement. The adaptive immune system is affected more than the innate immune system.
Senolytic. When you break the word down, it’s cell death. Immuno-rejuvenation. Immune-rejuvenation is interesting because your cells can grow back. We’re gonna talk a little bit about Autophagy. And with your cells coming back, your cells can come back rejuvenated to provide a stronger immune system.
Immunophenotyping is a term that just came up. It’s actually a test to identify cells on the basis of the types or makers or antigens present on the cell surface nucleus, or the cytoplasm. One that I didn’t put up there, which is very popular now in the vernacular, is immuno resilience. It’s our body’s ability to ward off pathogens and to prevent us from getting infections when getting exposed to different microbes in our environment, whether it’s bacteria or viruses.
So what would you do to support your immune system? Number one, I’m a big proponent of avoiding certain foods. Those foods adhere to an acronym, or a couple of acronyms that I use. Number one is GPS, no gluten, no processed food, no sugar. The second one is DNA, take care of your DNA. Have no dairy, no nicotine, no artificial sweeteners. Follow an anti-inflammatory diet, so a low sugar, low carbohydrate, no trans fat diets. And never been a better time to detect or avoid food sensitivities. Right now if you’re sensitive to a food, it will increase your inflammation, leading you down a path of increasing the proverbial cytokine storm.
You wanna have a diet for immune resilience. We defined that earlier. Proper diet equals enhanced immunity. A poor diet equals impaired immunity. To continue supporting your immune system, you wanna make clean eating a priority. So you wanna eat wild smash fish, smash, salmon, macro anchovies, sardines, herring. Eat a plant-based diet. They’ve become very popular. Plant-based with good quality grass-fed beef and wild smash fish. Fruits and vegetables are always a great choice, especially the green leafy kind. You wanna consume high fiber foods, nuts, and seeds. Everybody’s penicillin chicken soup. If you’re gonna snack nothing’s better than organic dark chocolate. Herbs to cook and add would be ginger and turmeric.
Bone broth. Bone broth has been on the consciousness of America for the last five or six years. Bone broth is a great choice. You’re getting collagen. Collagen one and three is great for skin, hair, and nails. Collagen number two is good for cartilage. Appropriate fluid intake. Hydration is a critical element to stimulate and balance one’s immune system. Organic drinks. Organic coffee and teas are excellent. Coffee is one of the most sprayed beverages in America today, so an organic coffee is an absolute option.
The oils that you wanna consume are EVOO which is extra virgin olive oil, avocado, macadamia nuts. Mushrooms are immune-boosting, shiitake, turkey tail, and Lion’s Mane. Always wanna include nuts, avocado, olive oil in your diet because you can get oleic acid from these foods which stimulate SIRT1, your defense enzyme.
You do wanna consider what we call intermittent fasting and time-restrictive eating. Intermittent fasting is a terrific regulator of the immune system as it controls the amount of inflammatory cytokines that are released in the body. Studies have shown that fasting reduces the release of interleukin-6 and TNF. Intermittent fasting actually technically means you’re not gonna eat for a day, the more correct term is time-restrictive eating. Time restrictive eating means that you’re gonna fast for a window of 12 to 16 hours, preferably 16 hours, and eat in a window of approximately eight hours. So when you hear 16 and 8, the first number is the fast, the second number is the amount of time in which you’re gonna eat.
And what that does is it allows for your body processes to stimulate something called autophagy. Autophagy won a 2016 Nobel Prize. Autophagy is self-devouring. Your body is able to break down its own cells, take that energy and eat the cell and make new cells, leading you to immuno-rejuvenation.
Get sufficient sleep. Aim for seven to eight good quality hours of sleep. Sleep allows your immune system to reset. A good exercise plan whether it’s home outside or getting back to a gym if you’re allowed, depending on the part of the country you’re in is a great option. And humidity. Interestingly enough, relative humidity is 50%. So we want a relative humid room.
So here are some of your immune support supplements. In your immune support supplements, we’ve got some Vitamin C. Vitamin C is excellent because it supports healthy oxidative stress and immune function, supports cognitive function, supports healthy neuronal processes, and collagen synthesis.
Zinc. Zinc is a forgotten mineral. Zinc promotes immune function, helps healthy cellular metabolism, supports DNA integrity, promotes reproductive function, and can actually work to help the gut. Now your mushrooms are without question have shown to have specific health-promoting properties. I’m gonna go into D3 with K2 probiotics. I’ve got some slides on that. Liposomal glutathione is a great choice. Gluthione is the body’s master antioxidant without question. It kills and eradicates more free radicals than any other antioxidant.
Liposomal is a nanotechnology that enables you to bring glutathione into the body. NAC is also a great choice. A lot of literature on that to really show the improvement in upper respiratory issues. One more I wanna talk about. Everybody knows all about Vitamin A. Selenium omega-3s and elderberry, I’m gonna cover in some of the succeeding slides.
Antiviral support. Interesting in the antiviral support. Quercetin. Quercetin is found in fruits and vegetables and has a wide range of benefits including decreasing viral growth. Melatonin, you’re gonna be shocked at what melatonin does, and it’s one of my favorite nutrients to consume. Lipoic acid, I’m gonna have some slides on. Pomegranate actually helps with gut health. And omega-3 fatty acids are fabulous because they help with gut health, and they’re great for cell membrane health. One thing about Vitamin A that I do wanna go back to, it has an anti-inflammatory property, enhances immune function, and supports the lining of the respiratory tract.
And let’s get into what I call the NLRP3 inflammasomes. Great slide coming up on EGCG. We’ve talked a little bit about Quercetin. Resveratrol, a natural compound found in red grapes has many beneficial health effects and has been shown in a lab to attack relative of the COVID-19 virus. Curcumin or turmeric, if you will, another great choice has shown to decrease inflammation and decrease viral activity for COVID-19. Ginger is great for the gut. Boswellia decreases the epoxygenase pathway. Aloe Vera is an immune-boosting. Sulforaphane increases an antioxidant pathway called NRF2. And as I said, the rest of them are coming up in some of the succeeding slides.
Having said all that 18 compounds were compared with 2 FDA drugs used in COVID-19. They checked docking sites of seven proteins. The two drugs were chloroquine and remdisIvir. EGCG was a lead compound that fit well into the binding docks, it blocked the attachment of the spike protein. So the conclusion very simply was EGCG should be explored as a drug candidate for treatment of COVID-19.
Here, we’ve got Vitamin D and receptor Vitamin D. There are two main sources to get Vitamin D, sunlight, foods, and the third one obviously is supplemental. A big proponent of a supplemental Vitamin D, D3 5000 is a great choice. This slide is really depicting D3’s help on what we call the gut and there’s a direct access called the gut to lung axis. Vitamin D receptor inhibits the NLRP3 inflammasome and everybody go get your D3. It blocks the association, it allows for NLRP3 inhibition.
So here’s another slide about Vitamin D. You can’t get enough Vitamin D. Essentially you’re looking at Vitamin D in the idea of the balance between the innate and the adaptive immune system. Immune balancing, immune-supporting. Vitamin D is without question a go-to if you wanna keep your immune system healthy. And studies have shown that the right levels of Vitamin D which are typically 40 to 60 are almost as powerful as any proposed drug to decrease the incidence of upper respiratory disease.
The influence of the microbiota on viral infections. So commensal bacteria, the idea of commensal bacteria means it’s bacteria that can essentially function with foods and a mucous membrane on your gut. The commensal bacteria is very protective. It decreases the incidence of your inflammasome. The commensal bacteria also decreases lymphoid cell proliferation. And it has…we call that an indirect promotion. It has a direct promotion. That direct promotion is that it blocks inflammatory receptor sites that lead you to an antiviral immune response.
Probiotics. In this 12 week study participants that contracted a cold four times in the past year, consumption of probiotics significantly reduced incidence of upper respiratory infection and flu-like symptoms. Curcumin, one of my favorites, you know something that you should without question look at who’s sponsoring here, Dee Cee Labs. Great curcumin shows the suppression of the cytokine release storm. It blocks cytokines pro-inflammatory cytokines like interleukin-1, interleukin-6, and TNF alpha. It plays a significant role in increasing mortality by decreasing this cytokine storm syndrome.
Selenium, I call it the missing mineral. Selenium without question is shown to decrease the effect of the viral disease. COVID-19 cure rates were associated with selenium stats. You know, one thing on Vitamin C because I had mentioned it before, I was fortunate enough to give some early webinars on nutritional support for immune system and viral health. Many of the medical doctors who were on, in one or two of the hospital institutions, then started to give IV Vitamin C and oral Vitamin D. And in their hospitals, they claimed that they saw virtually no one who was in the ICU have to go on ventilation.
So right now is an inflection point. And in that inflection point, these natural supplements, the lifestyle supplements, chiropractic treatments that we purport, are everybody’s best option. So I think it’s a great time for chiropractors and chiropractic to take a step forward. Alpha-lipoic acid contains multiple antioxidant properties. It’s the only antioxidant that can work with [inaudible 00:31:45] cells. It’s shown to enhance intracellular glutathione levels which we talked about being the master antioxidant, and it’s showed to attenuate the increased susceptibility to human coronavirus.
Elderberry, you know what, I feel bad, elderberry got beat up and wrongly beat up. Elderberry is a precious herb, one that I strongly recommend. It does not have nothing negative to do with the cytokine storm. That was one article way back when. It was wrong. Elderberry contains several bioactive compounds, flavonoids, and phenolic acids. These phenolic compounds are potential modulators of immune responses, i.e. inflammation. Elderberry has shown in multiple studies to reduce the production of interleukin-16-6, TNF alpha, and ROS.
Now the takeaway in this sambucus nigra, which is elderberry is some of the people have taken it wrong. What I’ve highlighted is if you take it 24 hours in advance, as opposed to like an aspirin just as you get it, that’s where the sweet spot is. So you have to constantly take it if you’re afraid of the viral infection. Don’t take it if you feel you’ve been exposed.
Melatonin. Melatonin’s main functions interestingly enough are immune modulation, it helps regulate mitochondrial functions, has anti-inflammatory properties, antioxidant actions. It is a vasomotor. We all know about the sleep and it has a regulation of cytokine rhythms. In addition, it’s shown to decrease acute long oxidative injury, decrease pro-inflammatory cytokines, inflammatory cell recruitment, and increase antioxidant protection.
When you’re talking about COVID-19, this is Life Science, June 1st. Here is what you’re seeing. Melatonin actually stops inflammation because it blocks the release of interleukins. It blocks the release of the bulk of interleukins and is shown to decrease precipitously the cytokine storm. This is 20 milligrams of melatonin. Melatonin also decreases reactive oxygen species. We also know that it decreases the cytokine storm as I said earlier and helps with sleeping disorders. A new study, chiropractors, melatonin is also shown to decrease the incidence of migraine headaches. Why we need sleep? Well, two reasons. It’s restorative, it allows for consolidation of memories, and reset synaptic strength, and detox, flush toxins from body that build up during the waking hours.
During sleep, glycemic pathways which are your brain lymphatic systems are 10 times more active at asleep, ridding the body of toxins such as amyloid, tau proteins, and other molecules. Metabolic waste was clearly most efficiently dealt with when people slept, believe it or not on their left side. Some other sleep disorders are sleep disorder impacts, impacts heart disease, diabetes, mood disorders, autoimmunity, obesity, memory issues, immune dysfunction, and micronutrient deficiencies.
A week of sleep deprivation. You guys remember finals week or we had two finals week, we were deprived of sleep. We may have been deprived of sleep before we got to finals week but clearly those…the lab week plus the written week, they altered the function of only 711 genes. Many of which led to stress, inflammation, decreased immunity, and average metabolism. If you’re interested in sleep information, the best guy out there is Dr. Matt Walker.
Irregular sleep patterns are linked to metabolic disorders. Well, not adhering to a regular bedtime and wake up schedule really runs the risk of messing with somebody’s sleep and is shown to increase your incidence of risk of obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension, metabolic disorders. So I just traveled I went to a zone that was two hours prior. So I went to Utah, and for every hour variability or change, 27% increased chance of experienced metabolic abnormality. And you typically get more of that issue when you’re going from west to east. So when I went…I’m from New York, I went from east to west. That variability wasn’t quite as bad but coming back man, oh man, that’s when the jetlag sets in.
So the takeaway here is healthy sleep hygiene resets our biological clocks. Tips for getting a good night’s sleep number one, make a good sleep schedule. So the theory was I just traveled and I was two hours early, go to bed at the time you normally go to bed. Establish a regular, relaxating bedtime routine. Give yourself 15 to 30 minutes to fall asleep. Lights out, reduce the noise, create an environment conducive for sleep.
Sleep on comfortable mattresses and pillows. Nobody knows mattresses better than chiropractors and nobody knows pillows better. We all know the proper curves and we should all be examining the pillows and the mattresses that our patients sleep on. We talked about sleeping on the left side. Try not to eat always intermittent fast time, restrictive eat. Of course, lifestyle exercise regularly and avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol close to bedtime because they’re stimulants and they will keep you up.
Managing anxiety, stress, and inflammation. I guess we could have done a whole webinar on this. The idea of anxiety and stress, a lot of things have come to the forefront like meditation, yoga. Inflammation. My mantra with my patients is to manage and modulate inflammation. The problem with most of the people when we talk about the COVID-19, the comorbidities is they’re inflamed before they get attacked by a pathogen, and inflammation comes in, and then it overproduces more inflammation. Just remember. The pathogen, the antigen, the virus doesn’t kill. It’s the body’s inability to respond or over-respond with inflammation that damages structures and kills people.
I always like to end towards the end, talking about my doctor Rob’s gut matrix. So this will be the last theme before we open it up in the next five minutes for questions. So my gut matrix. Here we have the gut, 80% of your immune cells are in your gut. It’s where your macro and micronutrients are absorbed. Now, why do you have 80% of immune cells in your gut? Well, it’s pretty easy. When you really think about it, the bulk of pathogens come from what we consume in food. So it’s needed that the immune system goes there. Also coupling with the fact that one of the main ways of getting rid of waste is going through your gut and gut lining.
So when we speak about your gut, we speak about the small and the large intestine. The small intestine is a misnomer. It’s really not small, it’s 20 to 23 feet long. It’s small in diameter. It’s only 1 inch as compared to the large intestine, which is 2.5 inches. It’s also a very thin epithelial layer. So thin, it has the thickness of a wet paper towel. When unraveled, it would have the surface area anywhere from a tennis to a basketball court.
Small intestines functions, slash properties, are depicted by its lymph system, which predicate its properties to absorb digested food particles, water, and nutrients. That is what it’s supposed to pass on through the bloodstream to get everywhere. When it’s compromised, or leaky, or the tight junctions are open, things that shouldn’t pass the gut lining pass the gut linings like pathogens, bacteria, and viruses and the like and undigested food particles. That puts the immune system on alert and that immune system comes in and attacks that antigen/pathogen.
And now you have localized inflammation. If it continues, it’ll circulate through the blood, systemic inflammation. And when it’s overwrought, your immune system, and confused, it starts to attack structures like your joints, your thyroid, and the such, we leave that to call autoimmunity. So, leaky gut syndrome can come from a multitude of things, it can come from all the drugs that people are prescribing in America, bad food, sugar. It also comes from something called dysbiosis, an unleveling of good and bad bacteria. You need about 85% good bacteria to avoid dysbiosis. It comes from food sensitivities.
And one way to determine if you have leaky gut very simply is to see that if you have an expression of LPS. LPS is an endotoxin. When that’s expressed, we know that we have damage and leakage in the gut lining. When you have damage and leakage in the gut lining, it increases your incidence of toxic and chemical overload to your liver, leading you down a path of liver dysfunction. You have a gut to liver axis, there’s more macrophages, innate immune system, in your liver than any other part of your body. If you have an increase in permeability, or leaky gut or intestinal permeability, you have a higher incidence of blood sugar problems, insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, and diabetes.
Couple that with an increased incidence of body composition and poor body composition, and obesity. Leaky gut are an expression of LPS, three times the incidence of heart disease. Let’s talk chiropractic. Increased leaky gut, we now see an increased release of cytokines showing us to increase arthritis and joint pain damaging our very unique, intricate musculoskeletal system.
Step two is the release of MMPS, matrix metallopeptidases, your body’s own proteolytic enzymes released at the time of injury that increase soft tissue injury. And let’s not forget leaky gut, leaky brain, the gut to brain axis. Whatever you do to your gut you do your brain. Whatever you do the brain you do to the gut. You have a leaky gut, you have an increased incidence of inflammatory neurodegeneration and decreased [inaudible 00:42:27], you have a concussion, you’ll have a gut issue. This is a very bi-directional pathway.
And the bi-directional pathway communicates via believe it or not your immune system, your central nervous system, and your GI system. That is your new super subset or your new super system if you will.
So, one more thing before we move on to our later slide, something that just come up is the gut to lung axis. Your gut communicates with your lung through bacteria, it communicates to the Vagus nerve, immune cells, short-chain fatty acid, and environmental products. And last, believe it or not, the virus the infamous COVID-19 virus actually sheds through the poop. 53.4% of patients who had SARS-CoV-2 had that RNA in their stool and 23% tested positive in the stool, despite being negative on a swab test. You will viral shed 28 days with COVID-19 after the abatement of fever.
So many people ask me about something that I speak about all the time, the super 7R action plan, it’s my action plan to fix the gut. So having put that out, let’s briefly go over how I talk about and what I do to recommend healing of the gut. Number one, reset your diet. Reset your diet, your lifestyle, and your mindset. Diet, get a ketogenic diet, no gluten, no processed food. Eat clean keto, no dairy, no nicotine, no artificial sweeteners. Mediterranean diet, exercise, get a better mindset, meditate. Yoga, exercise appropriately even if it’s 15,000 steps a day.
Two, remove. Remove what? Unwanted pathogens. Well, one you’re going to do that through diet. Two, you’re gonna do that by oregano oil which is gonna take upper respiratory pathogens out. Berberine is a great choice. Garlic and is a nice…never been a more perfect time now than to detox the liver. Three, replace. Replace with digestive enzymes, pancreatic enzymes, and possibly bile.
Four, regenerate, regenerate damaged intestinal mucosa. You know, you wanna heal and seal the gut lining. Five, re-innoculate. Re-innoculate with quality pre and probiotics. Probiotics are critical because they’re pro-life. Prebiotics are the fuel to give the probiotic. And now we have a term called post biotics and post biotics refers to the idea of what’s left which is that great short-chain fatty acids.
Six, reintroduce. Reintroduce certain foods removed in step two. So for instance, if spirulina you were sensitive to through a modified elimination diet or through testing, reintroduce it because you may be able to now eat it. Because if you fix your gut, it’s conceivable that your leaky gut led you down a path of having food sensitivities. And last retain. Retain your health and GI integrity. My suggestion is lifestyle, chiropractic treatment, multivitamin, multi-mineral, omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D,
probiotics, and a good quality greens drink.
So before we get to the questions, Chiro Economics has been great. They’re gonna work with me hopefully on this. My book is coming out anywhere between October and January. It’s been a little delayed because of the COVID. It’s called “The Superhighway To Health: 7 Steps To Optimizing The Gut-brain Connection.” Jim Rome, a fan of mine said “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” If anybody has any questions, they need to get through to me, feel free, it’s Dr. Robert Silverman. And follow me on Facebook, follow me on Instagram. We do a lot of pro-chiropractic, a lot of pro-functional nutrition videos all week long. And I think I’m gonna turn it over to Rick because I think we have some people that have posed some questions.
Rick: Thank you, Doctor Silverman, that was fascinating. Especially, you mentioned, waste and COVID. And I think I saw on Twitter today or yesterday on New York publication posted that now they recommend that if you’re using the public restrooms that you need to shut the lid when you flush because you could be spreading it that way. And then someone commented under that Twitter story and they said, “Well, the joke’s on you because there’s no public restrooms in New York.” Well, public restroom joke there. But that’s…
Dr. Sulverman: Yeah, I think that was good and, you know, to piggyback on the joke. It is frequently orally transmitted. So traveling on a plane obviously, the rule is everybody has to wear a mask on the plane. That’s the law. So you’re trying to protect via droplets. I have to tell you for a four-hour flight I’ve never seen less people use the lavatory than there. So you know, the joke is great, and the information is even better because most people now know they have to be careful in those public type bathrooms, those tightening bathrooms especially.
Rick: So now not only do you have to wear a mask on the plane but you have to hold it?
Dr. Silverman: You got it, my friend. That’s essentially what they told you to do.
Rick: Well, we had a couple of questions that were submitted to us prior. One was as chiropractors, how do you think we should be positioning ourselves now? And hopefully, this will be soon, post-COVID?
Dr. Silverman: Well, I think that’s a great question. And I think with our 2.0 coming now, and I think that’s something that you and I should talk about what the chiro’s do 2.0. I think immune system is the top of everybody’s consciousness, and I think chiros can grab the rein and talk how we are able to support, rejuvenate the immune system through our methodologies at our access. So I have a lot of people calling up, you know, for nutritional supplements. I mean, let’s be real, they’re coming in to get treated because they wanna take better care of themselves. Pain is always at the top of everybody’s mind, but immune health is right there right now.
Rick: How do you feel about the market for supplements as opposed to things that you can buy publicly, things that you can only buy from chiropractors, how those are marketed. It seems like we should be driving people more to get really good specific supplements from their own personal doctors.
Dr. Silverman: You know, I think I mentioned, it was a $47 billion industry. You know, the companies that affiliate with you guys are of the top quality. You know, you walk into a vitamin store, or a G store, or a supermarket, you’re not gonna see the same quality. So the most expensive supplement vitamin you ever purchased is the one that doesn’t work. So the ones that we have access to physician oriented, have been studied, looked at ingredients formula, and stood the test of time. When you’re talking about companies, the ones that are really supportive of chiropractic have been in the business for 30, 40, and 50 years and more.
Rick: And we’ve got another question related to that. What would be your desert island top three supplements if you could only have three, for immune health or general overall health?
Dr. Silverman: Okay, so I’ll give you general health and immune health. General health would be probiotics, omega-3 fatty acids, and Vitamin D. For immune health, it would be believe it or not Vitamin D, turmeric, and, shocking as many people will think, melatonin.
Rick: Wow . And you touched on melatonin. A lot of people take it for sleep to help with sleep. Is that really the pretty much the only time you can take it because of its effects?
Dr. Silverman: No. And, you know, it’s interesting. For the cytokine storm the literature in “Life Science” June 1st was 20 milligrams. And most people for sleep only do 3 milligrams.
Rick: Okay. On that note, a lot of people maybe my age or older have their pill cases that they open them Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays. What’s in your pill case? How many pills do you actually take a day supplement wise?
Dr. Silverman: I should have taken a picture of that. So I’m probably guys 20 to 25 pills. I definitely supplement. And I’ll tell you why. I had the conversation with my mom the other day, I’m totally convinced that I’m gonna live to 105 and die of hypervitaminosis.
Rick: That’s wonderful. That’s a goal.
Dr. Silverman: Absolutely. Hopefully, it’s attainable.
Rick: And another question. Can you talk more about the diet’s role in immunity?
Dr. Silverman: Oh, wow, what a great question. The diet’s role in immunity. So what we found out was…You know, here you have everybody afraid they’re wearing masks, they’re doing all this understandable, but they’re drinking a frappuccino. 300 calories or more of sugar, and a frappuccino would be in that category, decreases your immune system by 50% for the next two hours. So if you wanna call on your immune system, don’t consume a lot of sugar.
Coupling that, the idea of a lot of sugar and crappy fats actually decrease your adaptive immune system and even can cause cell apoptosis with your antibody memorization theme. So it damages your adaptive immune system. So diet is a potentiator for inflammation. Diet is a potentiator for health information.
Rick: Can you touch on that a tiny bit more for the people that maybe aren’t as familiar with the…they think of the immune system as one system as opposed to a couple of systems, the adaptive and…?
Dr. Silverman: Absolutely, so there’s really three. So let’s start with your barrier, your skin, your gut, what’s inside your gut killing things. And that’s why they talk about the mask because your nose and your mouth are open. Other orifices, for the most part, are closed. And this is oropharynx or oronasal pharynx oriented in the air drops. So that’s a proverbial barrier. We don’t have to get into the discussion.
But the immune system, the one inside of us is a two pronged immune system. Prong number one is innate, in that God gave that to us from day one. Prong number two is acquired, but it’s also called adaptive because it adapts within the immune system. A perfectly functioning immune system has a balance between the two. You don’t want to be able to have to use one more than the other. Unfortunately, when you eat foods, high sugars, and crappy foods, what you’re gonna see is an increase in innate immune system and a decrease in your adaptive acquired immune system.
When your innate immune system is overworked, it’s gonna give too many cytokines to the area. And hence the idea of the cytokine storm, which too many cytokines to a specific area, or for a condition, is a very deleterious to specific structions and organs in the body. Your innate immune system are your marines. They’re your search and destroy guys. They’re supposed to get there, they’re your macrophages releasing your neutrophils and your leukocytes.
Your adaptive, your acquired immune system, are B and T cells. As we age, your adaptive immune system decreases because the T cells come from the thymus. We all know without any proper work, the thymus is basically zero at age 70 in the average person. Your B cells come from your bone, your bone marrow, and they’re the ability to make your antibodies. So there’s synergy, the harmony between these two. The problem with many of the comorbidity patients is twofold. Number one, they’re too inflamed to start, and number two, they have aberrancy in their immune system. If you’re healthy, and your immune system is functioning well, outcomes are gonna be more positive it’s just that simple. And the biggest problem is we have not…Nobody before COVID-19 talked about the immune system as much as we are talking about it now.
Rick: Definitely, definitely. We got time for one more question. Are there any genetic markers to consider for immune health?
Dr. Silverman: Absolutely. So genetic markers. So when you talk about immune health, there’s a kit that I use, it’s called the respiratory resilience. And it speaks to the idea of do people have a susceptibility to having a respiratory issue? Remember, genes are not your destiny. They will load the proverbial gun but the thing that fires the gun is your environment and what you do within in your environment. Also, you can have specific genes that makes you more susceptible to gut permeability. If your gut is permeable, you’re losing one of the more unique areas to have a strong immune system.
apoE4, we’ve now seen that apoE4 before, which leads you down a path of susceptibility to Alzheimer’s has also shown you because it’s a cholesterol transporter, it shows you the ability or leads you to the ability to have more inflammation. So once again, genes are not your destiny. Your epigenetics, what you do in your environment, which expresses specific genes is your leader towards certain inflammation.
So when someone comes in my office, I do my chiropractic exam. I love to do food allergies to see if they’re inflamed. And I take genetic markers, so I can see the starting deck of cards that they had, and as we shuffle the deck if we can improve their hand.
Rick: Thank you, thank you so much. It’s fascinating to see how we tackle this during COVID, and not only figuring out who’s more susceptible but just how we defend ourselves in general. We’ve run out of time unfortunately. At this time, I’d like to thank our sponsor, Dee Cee Labs, and Dr. Robert Silverman for today’s webinar. And thanks everyone for attending. Remember this webinar, including our speakers PowerPoint presentation has been recorded. And we’re gonna alert all participants via email when the webinar is available, and also about a special offer from Dee Cee Labs. Thank you again for attending and we look forward to seeing you next time. Have a great day, everybody.
