The Well Woman Podcast with Dr Frances Pitsilis - Winter Wellness

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Dr. Frances Pitsilis hosted the Well Woman podcast to discuss winter wellness strategies, focusing on how to boost immune health and prevent respiratory illnesses like colds and flu. She outlined key lifestyle factors including adequate sleep, exercise, stress management, and a plant-based diet with adequate protein while avoiding gluten and dairy when problematic. Dr. Pitsilis detailed important vitamins and minerals for immune support, including vitamin C (200-2,000mg daily), zinc (best taken at night and tested via blood work), iron (carefully monitored due to common deficiencies), magnesium (200-300mg twice daily), selenium (75-150 micrograms daily), and vitamin D (often requiring prescription strength 50,000 IU monthly in New Zealand). She also covered herbal supplements like echinacea, astragalis, Siberian ginseng, and olive leaf extract for both prevention and acute treatment of viral illnesses. The podcast concluded with specific information about COVID-19 management and substances that can help reduce viral shedding, including resveratrol, quercetin, probiotics, lactoferrin, and N-acetylcysteine.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Well Woman Podcast with me, Dr. Francis Pitsillis. Today I'd like to talk to you about winter wellness because in the Southern Hemisphere winter is coming. But I think that because people still get viruses in the northern hemisphere, that this is relevant for everyone. And you might be wondering what you can do to help yourself become more resilient. Now, this podcast is for education and entertainment. And for your health needs, please consult with your healthcare professional. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. Now I see a lot of people with chronic illnesses, and one of the things that they say to me is, I always have bad winters and I seem to get everything that's going around. And then when we've corrected a few of the deficiencies, they come back and say, I've had the best winter ever. So that's what I'd like to show you today. I'm going to share my screen and give you a little talk about winter wellness by me. So the statistics that we have tell us that adults have two to four colds a year and children can have a lot more, and then the adults get it from the children. But what's important about this is that viral respiratory illnesses are 40% of the cause of lost work and 30% of lost time off school. So this is very, very important. If you can avoid getting these respiratory illnesses, colds, flu, and even COVID that is now endemic everywhere, it would be a good thing for everyone. So the influences on your immune health include what you're doing with your lifestyle, your diet, your sleep, your exercise, and even your stress management, because even controlling stress does make a difference. Stress causes you to become drained of vitamins, minerals, and hormones, even. So we're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about the important vitamins, herbal support, and other things that you can do. Lifestyle factors. Be in bed and asleep by 10:30. Why? Because your own body will make melatonin, and melatonin has some antiviral activity along with a lot of other benefits. Exercise is good, so is stress management because both of them increase natural killer cells in your body which fight viruses and cancer. Any sort of relaxation technique is good. Yoga, meditation, focusing on something, any sort of thing that you can do to relax and be in the moment is helpful. So what's the ideal diet for your immune system? Well, it really depends on your makeup. I think most people do well on a highly plant-based diet with adequate protein. I think everybody should avoid gluten, but definitely the people who have allergy, autoimmune disease, thyroid problems, and in a good percentage of people, avoiding gluten can help irritable bowel syndrome. So we see that a lot. Avoid dairy if it upsets you, but really you need adequate plant-based diet and adequate protein. And of course, we then have to fix up any vitamin and mineral deficiencies that are important for protecting you against viral illnesses, and they include vitamins D, C, iron, selenium, and zinc. So we're going to talk about vitamin C, zinc, and iron and vitamin D first. So vitamin C has many, many actions in the body. It gives energy, it helps with stress, but when it comes to viral illnesses and immune protection from viruses, it acts as an antioxidant. It also has antihistamine actions and it also prevents your own body, helps to create your own body's antibody production and it improves immunity. Now there have been studies that tell us it can help prevent a cold, but also reduce severity of a cold. Depending on your size, it can be anything from 200 to 2000 milligrams daily for prevention. I suggest that adults take about a thousand milligrams daily and then increase their dose if they're sick or stressed. Vitamin C has antiviral activity, it reduces hay fever, and it is successful given intravenously for influenza in some medical conditions, including repeated respiratory infections and even helpful with fatigue. Zinc is important for 300 reactions in the body. It's the number two mineral in the body after magnesium. It is very number one for the thyroid, and after that, it has many antiviral actions. It's an antihistamine, and we know it can reduce pneumonia, colds, and bronchiolitis when given prophylactically. Now, in the shops, you can do something called the zinc taste test, but this has been phased out to a degree, and it's much better to have a blood test. Now, the blood test should not be zinc on its own. It should be zinc and copper because they affect each other. In my clinic, I find that most of my patients are low in zinc, but some of them are also low in copper. So that must not be missed because if you inadvertently just go out to the shops and buy zinc and take it, you might be suppressing your copper. So it's important to have a blood test for that. And zinc is best absorbed away from food. So I suggest people take it at night. You can get a prescription in some countries, or you need to purchase it. Probably one of the best absorbed forms of zinc is zinc picklinate. But there are a lot of abilities to access zinc sulfate, but with this one, some people get nausea with it. So rather than taking it the zinc sulfate completely away from food, you might have it with a small snack to prevent nausea. So iron. Iron is the most common deficiency in the world, affecting 30 to 50 percent of the population. And it's more so in menstruating women and in young children that keep getting infections. The deficiency of iron causes defects in all aspects of the immune system. And researchers have found that supplementing anemic children reduced the incidence and duration of upper respiratory infections. Iron must be tested before just going out and taking it because too much iron causes oxidation, so it can actually increase some diseases and organ damage. Iron is not very well tolerated by a lot of people. People can get diarrhea or constipation, and it interacts with many drugs and foods, so it needs to be away from some foods and drugs. Iron needs to be taken, it doesn't have to, but if it's taken with vitamin C, the vitamin C increases its absorption. The normal iron that I will prescribe is 100 milligrams per tablet. But because a lot of people react to that, I've asked people to look at something called carbonyl iron, carbonyl iron, and they can tolerate that, although it's a smaller dose. Magnesium is not specifically antiviral in itself, but it is the number one mineral in the body, with being responsible for over 600 reactions. Now, in respiratory illness, it acts as an antihistamine and opens up airways in asthma. So it's really something to help you, but not specifically antiviral. The doses are 200 to 300 milligrams twice a day with a higher dose at night. Certainly magnesium calms you down, helps you sleep, gives you energy, and does many, many other things. The best absorbed magnesiums are magnesium citrate, amino acid chelate or glycinate. Some people get diarrhea with magnesium citrate and avoid magnesium oxide or oxalate, they are designed for people with constipation. Magnesium in the body is reduced by alcohol and some drugs. Selenium. Often selenium is included in a multivitamin, so you don't necessarily have to take it separately. The World Health Organization has told us that New Zealand adults have 3 milligrams of selenium in their bodies as compared with 14 milligrams in some Americans. Low selenium has been associated with asthma, Atop, which is allergy asthma, eczema, and compromised immunity. The sort of doses that you might consider are often the amount that's in a good multivitamin, which is 75 micrograms, but you may want to have a little bit more, so you can often buy that as a drop. And the safe legal dose at the moment is 150 micrograms daily. You may get a similar amount of selenium in two Brazil nuts a day, and in asthma, the dose is 100 to 200 micrograms daily. Now vitamin D is massive. It's mainly from the sun. And this is a simple diagram if you're watching, showing us that apart from the sun, you will get vitamin D in some supplemented foods and in fish. But you need your liver and your kidneys to be working properly in order for you to make the vitamin D that's available for your body. Not only does it prevent andor treat viral illnesses, but it has anti-cancer actions and basically helps all of the organs of the body. So we know that it's very common for people to have a vitamin D deficiency, especially if the person is in a country where they have really cold winters. Now in New Zealand, we know that people who live in the South Island will never get enough vitamin D. So in those people, you should test and supplement. So vitamin D is important for regulating a thousand genes. It prevents or helps all causes of mortality by 26%. I know that it helps to prevent 17 cancers and it's important in many diseases. Interestingly, vitamin D has a special role in pain and particularly body pain in women, including fibromyalgia and chronic pain conditions. Vitamin D improves lung function and immune function, and it's helpful in asthma. The people who are more vulnerable to vitamin D deficiency are females, darker skinned people, the elderly because they don't make vitamin D as easily, diabetics, smokers, and overwhelm overweight people. Now I've mentioned South Island of New Zealand dwellers. Some drugs can do this. And people with gut absorption problems like celiac disease. Non-breast fed babies will be on the back foot with vitamin D, but if they're breastfed and they have a vitamin D deficient mother, they'll still become deficient. So I think it's important to check pregnant women and make sure that they have adequate vitamin D. So I'm trying to sort of give you some more specific action for respiratory illness with vitamin D, and it includes antiviral, antibacterial, anti-DTB, anti-pneumococcus, which often is responsible for pneumococcal pneumonia, anti-meningococcus, which is a bacteria that causes bacterial meningitis, anti-group strep A bacteria, which gives you a strep throat, vitamin D reduces the severity of respiratory illnesses. It helps the steroids work better in asthma. And we have learnt that good maternal vitamin B levels protect the child from asthma. So at the moment, when you go to the shops, the only dose you can find is a thousand international units daily. We know it's safe in pregnancy. But in most people, 1,000 international units is not enough. So it's a good thing to test it because having too much vitamin D is very damaging. And you need to work with your doctor on this and decide what your dose of vitamin D is going to be. In New Zealand, you can obtain on prescription a capsule which contains 50,000 international units, and many people can have that prescribed to take one, two, or three at the beginning of every month. Now most doctors will only prescribe one at the beginning of every month, but then you can test again and see how that's working, perhaps five or six months later, because vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin and it takes quite a while for it to level out. Now there are some conditions where you wouldn't use vitamin D because it can actually cause harm, and that one of those conditions is sarcoidosis. That's because the tissues make more vitamin D within the tissues. Here's a, we're now going to talk about some plant-based supplements that can be useful. Now, one of them is echinacea, which you can take prophylactically because it reduces the incidence and the duration of a common cold. If you're taking it prophylactically, it reduces the incidence of colds by 65%. And most of the evidence in the literature is for Echinacea perpura, one of the specific ones. It's generally regarded as safe, but there's not enough evidence to say that it's safe when you're using it with cancer treatments, pregnancy, or lactation. Astragalis reduces the incidence of cold and influenza by stimulating immune system activity. It also works as an antioxidant and it's generally safe. If you're using it in cancer, it must be medically supervised because of the worry of taking it if you're immunosuppressed by having treatments or you're very sick. So, really, only generally well people should take this. Siberian ginseng was given to the Russian cosmonauts for endurance. It's also often placed in adrenal-type support supplements because it helps with the endurance and the resilience. But Siberian ginseng also prevents colds and flu. There's a lot of research on olive leaf extract. Obviously, if you're eating olives, it's a good thing. And we do know that the Mediterranean diet is responsible for reduced all-cause mortality, including cancer and heart disease. So the active ingredients in olive oil are even higher in olive leaf extract. So olive oil contains monounsaturated fatty acids as well as oleopurine, hydroxo, hydroxyrosinol, and tyrosinol, flavonoids, beta-carotene, and other nutrients. But of all these ingredients in olive oil, oleopurine is the one that has the best strongest action. So the actions of oleopurine are multiple: good for the skin, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging. It has antiviral and antibacterial effects, anti-cancer, specifically with HER2 breast cancer. It's also had activity with gout, diabetes type 2, the heart, blood pressure, and reduces blood clots. I've mentioned the antibacterial action. It's got some antifungal action, can work with TB, malaria. Now its antiviral action is against influenza A and para influenza in test tubes, as well as rhinovirus, which is, you know, nose, rhino is for nose, one of the cold viruses, and mixovirus, which is another cold virus. It also works against herpes simplex type 1 and 2 and HIV. So it's generally safe, although some people don't tolerate it. Take it with food to avoid stomach upset. There are no studies in pregnancy and lactation. You need to beware that it has a theoretical interaction with blood thinners because of its anti-platelet effect. So you must check with your doctor before taking it, especially if you're on blood thinners. So what do you do? Well, you need to look after yourself generally, get enough sleep at the right time, be in better than asleep by 10:30. Look after your diet, do some exercise, do anything that helps you manage stress. Look at getting a good multivitamin that has good B vitamins and selenium, and you want methylated folic acid in that multivitamin because that's better for you. Take vitamin C all the time. The things that are therapeutic that actually help reduce the virus symptoms when taken at the beginning are vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, and selenium. Herbal preparations include olive leaf extract, and olive leaf extract can do some preventing, along with astragalus that can do some preventing. And acute herbs that you can take at the time are olive leaf extract and echinacea. So let's talk about COVID because that's been with us for quite a few years now. So, what would you do with COVID? Well, you would do everything that we've just been talking about, but we also have more information about natural things that can be helpful. So quercetin is available in red onions, red apples, capers, and berries. It's from plants. We know quercetin is used in allergy and asthma to help the immune system there, but it also has some protective benefits for anti-cancer, heart, and brain. When it comes to viruses, we know it also helps to reduce flu, hepatitis B, dengue fever, Ebola, and Zika virus. That's quercetin. Now, melatonin has many benefits, including anti-aging, but melatonin, as well as reducing COVID, also has action against RSVV virus, Ebola, influenza virus, dengue fever, and others. N-acetylcysteine is the precursor of glutathione, our master antioxidant in our body. And Nacetylcysteine is given to people with cystic fibrosis to break up the mucus. And it's also the antidote for panidol or paracetamol in New Zealand, and can't say it, acetanomethan, the painkiller in the USA and other places. So it's used as the antidote for an overdose of this painkiller. But NAC also has action against influenza A and B and HIV 1, as well as COVID. NAC is also used to reduce appetite when you're wanting to lose weight and for diabetes and a whole lot of other things. So I hope this is useful. So while I was looking at all of this, I came across some of the things that help reduce viral shedding, and I thought this was intriguing. It's a lot of the things that we've talked about, but also resveratrol, which is found in peanut skins and grape skins, and a lot of plants. So resveratrol has a lot of protection against cancer heart and brain problems, along with quercetin, and zinc help shedding. Probiotics, specifically Lactobacillus plantarum, helps prevent viral shedding, lactoferrin, which is in milk, vitamin D and N-acetylcysteine again. So why would you want to stop viral shedding? Well, you'd want yourself to get better, but you wouldn't want people around you to get this. So this is very interesting. I think this is something that you can think about. So if you're listening, it's resveratrol, quercetin, zinc, probiotics, specifically lactobacillus phantarum, lactoferrin found in milk, vitamin D, and Nacetylcysteine. So what I'll do is I'll put this in the notes for you. So I hope you found that useful. I hope your friends might find that useful so you can share this. In the Southern Hemisphere, winter is coming. So perhaps being prepared is better and prevention is better than cure. So as always, don't take my word for it and don't use this for your own personal health. Always consult your health professional. So please share, like, comment, and subscribe. And see you at the next one.