Paused at 54:37.
Well, welcome to this month's Ask Your Herb Doctor. My name's Andrew Murray. My name's Sarah Johannison Murray. For those of you who perhaps have never listened to our shows, which run every third Friday of the month from 7 till 8pm, we're both licensed medical herbalists who trained in England and graduated there with a degree in herbal medicine. We run a clinic in Garboville where we consult with clients about a wide range of conditions and we manufacture all our own certified organic herbal extracts, which are either grown on our CCUF certified herb farm
or which are sourced from other USA certified organic suppliers. So you're listening to Ask Your Herb Doctor on KMUD Garboville 91.1 FM and from 7.30 until the end of the show at 8 o'clock, you're invited to call in with any questions either related or unrelated to this month's topic of bowel endotoxin. So, the number here if you live in the area is 923 3911 or if you live outside the area, the toll free number is 1800 KMUD RAD and we can also be reached toll free on 1 888 WBM HERB
for further questions during normal business hours Monday through Friday. So, this month we're again very pleased and fortunate to welcome Dr. Ray Peat back to this show and we'll be exploring the emerging revelation concerning endotoxemia and how unsaturated fats further burden our bodies in ways we could never imagine. So, welcome to tonight's show Dr. Peat. Thanks. Okay, perhaps for those people that are tuning in this evening, if you could outline what is endotoxin, how is it formed and how is it harmful to our health?
I'm not sure that people really know what it's doing in the bacterium but it's been known since 1892, it was called endotoxin to distinguish it from the older known bacterial toxins that the bacteria in effect secrete to poison something in their environment and supposedly the endotoxin only comes out when the bacterium is broken apart but I think actually it leaks a little bit all the time. So, I wouldn't say that it's strictly an endotoxin like the textbooks used to say but it's somewhat of a structural protein but it's a medium to smallish molecule
that can leak out in the process of growth and cell division and so on and its other name is lipopolysaccharide because its structure is a chain of sugar molecules with fatty acids attached and that gives it kind of a soap-like behavior that is part of why it's toxic so generally and they are so common in the environment that organisms have their basic defenses against them. One of our basic defenses is the high-density lipoprotein and they talk about it in terms of carrying cholesterol but I think really its historic main function
is that it's our first defense against endotoxin once the endotoxin gets into the bloodstream but normally the intestine is a good barrier against absorbing the endotoxins and if some of it leaks through the wall of the intestine into the blood vessels and gets carried to the liver, the liver enzymes break it down and so it shouldn't normally reach the bloodstream in significant amounts but it's a matter of tens of milligrams that can circulate into the bloodstream every day.
Do you know, as an aside, do you know if there is a value, a picogram or whatever value associated to a "acceptable level"? Yeah, it stimulates defense reactions and so it's kind of like a toughening up reaction to have a small amount of it. If you're born in a germ-free environment, your first exposure to bacteria is likely to be lethal but absorbing a little bit of the endotoxin toughens up the system. Okay, this would be, and again this is an aside, it's not something I was planning on going through with you
but perhaps this harkens back to the, as you said, the kind of germ, yeah I'll say germ-ridden but the germ prevalent society maybe of a hundred years ago producing children that had better immune systems and did not have autism or any of the other syndromes maybe associated with the sterile environments of today. Yeah, I think the ups and downs when you try to be too sterile and then are exposed inevitably to germs the sudden shock is probably a lot more stressful. Right, okay, well getting back to endotoxins then and you mentioned lipopolysaccharide
and some people will have heard of LPS or lipopolysaccharide. How is it harmful to our health if the bacteria, if I'm right in thinking that these bacteria are the main source of this endotoxin and we are exposed to varying amounts of it daily, how is it harmful to our health? It triggers a whole series of reactions and it seems to be a physical chemical process that sort of stirs up a cell to recognise a threat and set off a chain of reactions
and it's the things that it sets into action that really cause the chronic accumulating damage, degenerative damage. It's one of the first things that does on exciting a cell is to cause the cell to take up calcium and to activate the synthesis of nitric oxide and the nitric oxide and the cell excitation that goes with absorbing calcium trigger other reactions and a small amount of endotoxin can stimulate the intestine to contract more but if the cells are getting overloaded with it that and possibly other irritants can cause cells to produce so much nitric oxide
that the nitric oxide becomes a major metabolic disruptor and will cause the intestine to lose the ability to contract and it will poison the respiratory apparatus so that cells can't make energy to fight back and at that point with increased nitric oxide and reduced energy and taking up calcium the cells also take up water. And then they become basically non-functioning to a degree. Yeah, they're under stress and if the body can deliver enough energy to them quickly they can excrete the water and the calcium and turn off the nitric oxide
and return to normal functioning but when they swell up another place that the textbooks give a very simplified mistaken idea of what is involved in bowel damage from endotoxin, they talk about the leakage between cells as if the cells lose the glue that holds them in contact with each other so holes open up between cells. That does happen but it isn't necessarily the worst way that the endotoxin gets into the cells and passes through the cells. The whole structure of the cell, the cytoplasm, as it takes up water
instead of being fat-like and tending to exclude water and prefer to absorb fats the introduction of this sugar connected to a fat acts like a soap and makes the cell tend to admit not only more water but pretty much anything that is in its environment so the whole substance of the cell becomes kind of spongy and leaky. When this starts affecting the whole organism that kind of change occurs all through the body once the stuff has passed through the lining of the intestine and crosses across capillaries
and gets into the bloodstream then the endotoxin starts doing the same thing to any cell it comes to and so it will leak out of capillaries no matter where it is in the bloodstream if the liver hasn't filtered it. So if it happens to reach the brain it will cause the brain capillaries to leak whatever is in the bloodstream so it can contribute to multiple sclerosis and the endotoxin leaking into the brain does the same thing it triggers the release of nitric oxide and a whole chain of chemical reactions
that every organ has its particular way of responding to the endotoxin but there's a generality no matter what the organ there are basic defense reactions that will occur not only to endotoxin but to any radical threat to the survival of the cell so that x-rays and gamma rays will produce essentially the same kind of change in brain cells or bowel cells that endotoxin does and so if you're overexposed to x-rays for example you'll get constipated the same way that overexposure to endotoxin will cause constipation. Okay so there's a kind of saponification going on then?
Yeah and opening up, loosening up of the cell structure so it becomes instead of like if you imagine a lump of gelatin dipped, soaked in oil it'll stay stable in the presence of water but if you mix a little bit of lecithin with it, it'll quickly start taking up water and then the whole thing is on the road to dissolving and breaking up. Okay, well perhaps this would lead me on to my next question for you which was that many of our listeners perhaps have heard the term "leaky gut" or "leaky gut syndrome"
can you outline again, perhaps you've already done that in part but can you outline what causes a leaky gut then and how a leaky bowel wall may lead to this translocation of bacteria and/or endotoxin into the bloodstream? Yeah, endotoxin is always present in the intestine and it's always the first thing to defend against but many other stresses and toxins like radiation or heavy metals or estrogenic substances or too many polyunsaturated fatty acids and so on all of these things tend to loosen up or saponify the cell structure
and cause the cell to take up water and let junk enter from the environment into the cell substance itself and getting into the cell substance then it can just as easily go out the other side of the cell into the underlying extracellular material and from there across the capillary cells and into the bloodstream and that is essentially what the leaky gut is it's leaky cell substance which involves leaky capillaries and ultimately it can cause leakiness of any tissue in the precancerous states for example you see substance leaking out of the characteristic cell
and those indicate a tendency to develop cancer in that organ because that organ is most stressed and is leaking its substance for example the prostate specific antigen is just a normal prostate protein that leaks out because the cell is under stress and the same protein leaks out of breast cells when they're under stress and characteristic proteins leak out of any cell when it's under stress so it literally is the cell is falling apart it's breaking down, it's leaking and something as simple as vitamin E can tremendously strengthen the cell and help to hold it together
so it doesn't leak its protein substance out into the environment and what would be the mechanism behind that? oh no one really knows but partly it's stopping the free radical damage that nitric oxide is producing and it helps to keep calcium from overloading the cell and keeps the water from associating too closely with the proteins and a lot of protective substances will do that the natural hormones progesterone and testosterone help to toughen up the cell and keep it from leaking the factors similar to vitamin E that are associated with energy production
coenzyme Q10 and vitamin K are closely associated with vitamin E and energy production and they are extremely powerful at defending the respiratory apparatus from nitric oxide and endotoxin when you mentioned a few moments ago when you were talking about the influx of water into the cell and the cell not having sufficient energy would thyroid be a part to play in raising the energy of the cell? yeah the thyroid is essential for making the enzyme that essentially allows oxygen to absorb electrons out of the mitochondrial system the mitochondria takes up electrons from sugars and fats
and it drives energy from those electrons as they are passed along to oxygen and thyroid is the essential factor for making that happen and there are other supporting factors a system called the uncoupling proteins that simply make the electrons run more quickly to be taken up by oxygen and what that does is produce carbon dioxide more quickly which turns off the formation of lactic acid and that turns off basically the nitric oxide forming system so if you can run the system fast enough with plenty of thyroid
then you'll make the carbon dioxide and inhibit lactic acid formation and pretty well defend against producing nitric oxide and that gives you relative immunity to the lipopolysaccharide ok, is that what they call the electron transport chain? yeah the NADH and that other cycle yeah, the electrons pass from that down to oxygen but they can't do it without thyroid and the temperature is one of the factors when you run the electrons through the system you produce heat as well as carbon dioxide and ATP and keeping the temperature up is one of the things
that helps to turn off the production of nitric oxide and other free radical destructive factors so all of these harmful x-rays, LPS from the bacteria in our intestines excess of estrogen that our own bodies can just be producing not necessarily from what we're taking as HRT or other forms of oral contraceptive pills but all of these things are essentially free radicals that are damaging our oxygen usage is that correct Dr. Peat? yeah, and not all free radicals are toxic but nitric oxide, the one that is so widely produced in response to stress
it increases greatly with aging too just because aging involves the progressive stress reactions I remember the, I think they were called poppers weren't these chemicals or drugs of some kind that were nitric oxide based and were becoming and they were very damaging and that's probably why just explain the... yeah, nitroglycerin has been used as a drug to open the circulation to the heart and nitric oxide didn't really get much interest scientifically until Viagra came along and that's basically doing the same thing as nitroglycerin but it's extremely toxic it's just like eating toxins and getting irradiated
and getting old ahead of time wow, quite a price to pay so it's just a very potent, powerful free radical that people don't really realize the damage that they're creating by depleting their bodies of oxygen yeah, and some free radicals can actually defend against the toxic free radicals when the thyroid and oxygen are working properly the electron transport chain involves lots of free radical activity but it is all productive and protective the faster you run oxygen through the mitochondrion under the influence of thyroid the less free radical damage you have
to the structure of the cell and the mitochondrion ok, alright, well... if you are low thyroid or somehow lack oxygen acutely the electrons, instead of being safely passed through this chain of free radicals the free radicals wander off and attack the fats that make up the mitochondrion and then those fats become peroxides which are sort of a randomly destructive kind of free radical so these would be the polyunsaturated fats that you're talking about which, just for our listeners to clarify includes the common vegetable oils available like corn oil, sunflower seed oil, safflower seed oil, canola
also includes fish oil, hemp seed oil, flax seed oil cotton seed oils and a lot of pre-processed packaged foods yeah, and all of those tend to accumulate in the tissues and when they are given acutely as an emulsion for example, they used to do it in hospitals to fatten people up now they do it to suppress their immune systems if they are transplanting a kidney they not only suppress immunity they create sort of an instantaneous diabetes and inability to respire and use sugar so it's like if we eat food that's fried in these oils
then we're essentially ingesting a free radical well, very quickly, yeah an experiment I did illustrates how even at room temperature they spontaneously oxidize I took a rubber hose in a bottle of I think it was safflower oil and put the other end in a glass of water and just at room temperature over a few hours the bottle was in effect respiring it was sucking oxygen up and drawing water up into the tube and the oxygen was combining with the unsaturated fats and in the process forming lipid peroxides which are toxic free radicals
and the situation is even worse in our body when it's at 98 and above degrees yeah, much faster at that temperature and we have catalytic amounts of iron and heavy metals moving around to accelerate the reaction well, ok, you're listening to Ask Your Ob Doctor on KMUD Galbraithville 91.1 FM we're very pleased to have Dr. Ray Peat join us again and this month's subject was the topic of bowel endotoxin so the number if you live in the area is 923 3911 or the toll free number is 1800 KMUD
so in 5 minutes or so we'll be opening up the number sorry, 1800 KMUD Rad beg your pardon ok, I had another question for you Dr. Peat I think just very briefly then perhaps if you want to outline again what free radicals are and what foods promote or prevent the formation free radicals and/or endotoxin yeah, since the polyunsaturated fats are the main material that causes sort of an explosion of free radicals once the process starts with endotoxin and nitric oxide simply minimizing those in the diet is a basic way to defend yourself
there have been, for essentially 100 years there have been studies showing that a fat free diet if you give the required nutrients a fat free diet extends life span and reduces cancer and other degenerative diseases 1927 study showed that there was no spontaneous cancer in rats on a fat free diet and that has been repeated thousands of times in different ways there are roughly 100 studies that show the tremendously beneficial effects of even a short term deficiency so called of the polyunsaturated fats
when a rat is made deficient according to the way they define the deficiency they simply don't feed them any polyunsaturated fats but give them purified nutrients those animals can stand tremendous physical trauma that would kill a rat on a normal diet and they can be given cobra venom and survive where a normal rat doesn't toxins that would produce diabetes in normal rats doesn't hurt the so called deficient rats basically any kind of abuse that they can think of the fatty acid deficient rats are much much more able to tolerate and survive without harm
so why are we so brainwashed in this day and age to the point that these fats are called essential fatty acids the people, the burrs who in 1929 through the 1930s were promoting that idea were working for one of the big fat businesses, lard and then vegetable shortening businesses and when independent researchers checked their claims in the 1940s they found that what they had done was simply produce a vitamin deficiency because when an animal is not eating the polyunsaturated fats which poison the thyroid function their metabolic rate is about 50% higher than the normal animals
and if they feed them only a normal amount of vitamin and protein they become nutritionally deficient so these researchers at the University of Texas lab in the 1940s had been working on vitamin deficiencies and they recognized that the burrs had simply produced their vitamin B6 deficiency and so they gave a fatty acid deficient diet to rats and then gave them extra vitamin B6 and it cured the syndrome so the whole issue was settled in 1946 but in the 1950s the nutrition textbooks said that it's a controversial topic whether they're essential or not
because people were still promoting the idea that we need lard or vegetable shortening and then the industry went through a big change when they discovered that first they had economized on food consumption by pigs and chickens by poisoning their thyroid gland with a chemical that turned out to cause cancer in humans and so they looked for another way to poison the animal's thyroid so it wouldn't eat so much but would get fat and what they found was that the polyunsaturated fats just as the burrs had demonstrated in 1932
suppressed the metabolic rate and that was when the feeding pigs a diet of essentially pure corn and soy where the polyunsaturated fats took off. Before that they had fed them vegetable waste and whey industrial waste which was very good for the pigs but they ate a lot of it and didn't get fat. They weren't good for marketing. The agriculture industry found that they could tremendously increase return pounds of pig per pound of food consumed and since they were at that same time the paint industry discovered how to turn petroleum into paints and plastics
so they didn't need linseed oil or safflower oil anymore and so there was this big industry, soy oil and so on, that wanted another market besides feeding pigs and chickens and so they convinced people to eat their production that they couldn't sell as paint. And the story continues into 2009. Then after 50 years the original data which was that the vegetable oils caused softening of the brain and infertility and cancer and so on, that was known in the early 1940s. Finally that became too public that the essential fatty acids known as linoleic acid mainly
everyone was catching on that those were carcinogenic and caused heart disease. So about 20 or 30 years ago there was this gradual change of marketing as the fish industry was being pressured by the Environmental Protection Agency to stop throwing their waste skins and heads and so on in the bays or in the landfills because they were causing tremendous pollution. That was when fish oil came on the market. They were making fish protein out of the skin and the head to sell to Africa as a food supplement
and the oil spoiled so fast they marketed it for human medical use. It's a lesson through history that wherever there's a waste product there's always an agency or an industry to turn it into a profitable product. Yeah, shrimp shells are now a medical product and I'm waiting for used tires to come out of the whole food. Rubber, it's good for you. Oh my gosh, I don't laugh, it'll probably happen but it'll happen so covertly that we won't know it for another 50 years. Oh my goodness.
I want to go back briefly to the point that you mentioned about the endotoxin or lipopolysaccharide being broken down by the liver. So we know that the liver is a detoxification organ and I know that on several of our shows over the years we've kept on banging the message home that you need to look after your liver because it's the thing that looks after you very much in terms of metabolically deactivating some toxic metabolites and cleaning us, helping to stay clean.
How do you view liver health or the improvement in liver health and how would you approach that? The liver has several ways to catch toxins but when it starts having to work too hard to detoxify things, the brain is our second most active detoxifying organ. It has very intense enzymes analogous to those that break down toxins in the liver but if the liver is spending too much energy detoxifying, it becomes unable to produce albumin. Albumin circulating in the blood is one of the layers of defense.
When the stuff gets into the bloodstream, the high density lipoprotein made in the liver increases when we're being poisoned and so estrogen and alcohol increase the high density lipoprotein. And this is what the doctors are telling us is the good cholesterol. Well, it is good because it's a reaction to being poisoned. So it helps protect. When we're having a bowel problem. So if you have a low HDL, that may be not such a bad thing because it's indicating you don't have a high toxin load. Yeah, I think so.
And the albumin circulating in the blood binds things preferentially fatty molecules and so between the albumin and the lipoproteins, our blood can hold a lot of stuff temporarily to give the liver a chance to catch up. As it repasses. Destroying them. Right, okay. Because I've heard of the albumin as being one of those factors obviously responsible for that colloidal osmotic pressure. Yeah, and when the liver is starting to be poisoned and estrogen and radiation can do the same thing as endotoxin, the ability to form albumin decreases.
And so looking at the albumin in the blood test is one of the first indicators of a person's basic resistance. If it's high, their prognosis is usually good. And if it's down around 3, where the normal is 4.5, you're going to have to clean out the bowel. I've seen people in just a couple of weeks go from below 3, like 2.5, up to over 4 just by eating fiber and fruit juice. To reduce the absorption of the endotoxin. Do you figure the given reference range to be accurate? Well, yeah.
The best prognosis is in the range of 40 to 50 or 4 to 5. And when it's below 4, they've put the normal lower and lower as people get thicker. 15 or 20 years ago it was considered bad to be under 4. Now it's normal down to 3 point something. As we all get thicker. We have a caller on the line. We have a caller on the line for you, Dr. Peat. So, caller, you're on the air? Yes, Dr. Courtney, I have a question for Dr. Peat. But I'd first like to make a statement.
I'm living proof that this man is saying his real God-sent truth. I have Crohn's and have had for probably about 20 years. I've been diagnosed for about 8 years. And I've had four major surgeries. I've had all but 12 of my intestines removed and have a double ostomy. And by change of diet, I no longer have any Crohn's symptoms whatsoever. And it's along the same lines that Dr. Peat is speaking about. My question is, Dr. Peat, do common doctors understand these things?
And if they do, why don't they tell that to their families if they treat? Sorry, can I interrupt you for a second? Can you, caller, if you haven't already turned your radio off, can you please turn it off? We're having quite a lot of feedback here. Let it go away. The average doctor learns his high school courses very well. And then it happens that the medical school courses on the elementary canal and digestive physiology are really just a repeat of what the junior high and high school textbooks had in.
So doctors get a very superficial picture of nutrition and digestion. I see. So possibly it is how I believe that they're just trained to be drug pushers at a lot of medical pharmaceutical companies. Yeah, I think that's their basic function. I've been running into more and more fairly famous gastroenterologists who are barely better than the junior high textbooks. Well, I thank you so much, sir, for all of your God-sent wisdom and knowledge. And I hope you have a long, long lived life, sir. Thank you.
Okay, I think there's another caller on the line for you, Dr. Peat. And the lights are flashing. So go ahead, caller. Hello. I have a question, but I also wanted to mention that you had spoken last month about raised heartbeat as being preferable. And that was the first I heard of that. But since then I've heard of that in another radio show. So, Dr. Peat, can you explain to us why the standard heart rate we're taught in medical school is supposed to be between 70 and 80 beats per minute, and you've mentioned-- Or less.
Or less, right, yeah, preferably less. Supposedly if you have an athletic heartbeat-- I've always told that low heart rate is healthy. Then you have a pulse around 60, and you're very healthy. You have a very healthy heart. So why do people feel better when they have a pulse above 80? Because the brain needs oxygen and sugar, and just to keep all of the systems warm and respiring actively, unless you have a very, very big heart,
it usually takes around 80 or 90 beats per minute to pump enough oxygen and sugar around the tissues to keep them warm. And over the last 30 years, the normal temperature that doctors look for has decreased considerably. At the beginning of inventing thermometers, normal temperature was around 37 centigrade, 98.6 or so during the daytime Fahrenheit. And in recent years, the average temperature of Americans has decreased considerably, and that means that the heart rate can go slower, and the person feels that they're getting enough sugar and oxygen,
but they don't really feel as good as they should. I've talked to a few people who had temporary episodes of hyperthyroidism where their heart rate went 125 for a couple of months, and they've reckoned consistently they say they never felt so good in their life. Obviously, just as an aside, since we started working with you, we've seen so many people with low temperatures, and it's always the rarity to find a person with the right temperature, and yeah, it's kind of few and far between,
but they certainly do react or respond rather to the protocols that you've outlined. There's another caller on the line for you, Dr. Peat. Sorry, Corin, are you done asking questions? Because I know you wanted to ask a question about whether kelp and iodine-rich seaweeds are good for thyroid health, and I don't know if you're still on the line anymore. Well, I've got in my file, I think it's about 80 articles on the toxic effects of getting excess iodine,
and thyroid cancer is increasing at a tremendous rate, and I think part of it is the polyunsaturated fats, but another part is a chronic, lifelong overdose of iodine. In various studies, taking more than twice the essential required minimum of iodine is enough to increase the rate of thyroiditis and increase antibody attacks on the thyroid and so on. So when you sent me 20 articles detailing the thyrotoxic effects of excess iodine from sea vegetables and other sources, that was just one-fifth of the articles you say you've seen that show this. Yeah.
Right, okay, so we have another caller on the line. And there seems to be a little bit of feedback going on. I'm not sure if that can be managed in the studio or if that's external. Okay, caller, you're on. Hi, I had actually two questions at the same time. The first one was wondering if you could speak briefly about saturated fats and if they're beneficial or not. And then the other question was you mentioned staying away from the polyunsaturated fats
and maybe vitamin E and the field studies that you've done that seem that you can do to help people with OCD. I was just wondering if anybody could help so you could do co-accessories for field studies. And I'll take questions after that. Thank you. Thank you. Could you repeat the question? I couldn't understand it. Okay, well, I could hear it. The caller was asking what are some protective things we can do. Dr. Peat, you've mentioned vitamin E. Oh, yes. Sorry. And also the co-enzyme Q10 and -- The lady wanted to know also about saturated fats.
Yeah, the saturated fats are very protective, but you can make your own saturated fats if you eat enough sugar like fruits instead of bread. There are a couple of groups that are curing cirrhosis and hepatitis with giving more saturated fats and excluding the unsaturated entirely. So they are anti-inflammatory and therapeutic, but you don't necessarily have to eat the saturated fats because you can make them if you get enough sugar in the form of fruit. Okay. And so the other question was what other suggestions do you have to help reduce our bowel endotoxin load,
our free radical load on our bodies? You've mentioned the CoQ10, the vitamin E, thyroid. Oh, anything that speeds transit through the intestine and aspirin or anything anti-inflammatory. The fruit juices contain some of the natural anti-inflammatory chemicals, but in a pinch it can help -- aspirin surprisingly can act as a laxative because it suppresses nitric oxide and defends against endotoxin. And the fibers that are protective and don't support bacterial growth are the basic way to stimulate quick passage through the intestine and minimizing endotoxin formation.
Raw carrots and boiled bamboo shoots are very good fibers because they're germicidal as well as being able to bind the endotoxin and other toxins. So they not only help to kill these bacteria that are producing these harmful endotoxins, but they also absorb them so you can excrete them. Yeah. Excellent. And the other herb we wanted to mention -- oh, sorry, we do have another caller on the line. Yeah. We'll be right back with the herb. Go ahead, Carla. Thank you. Thank you, doctor.
I've suffered from irritable bowel syndrome all my life or ever since I was a child. And then the last three years I became vegan. And then in the last couple, like three months, I took wheat out of my diet. And I used to have irritable bowel problems for at least once or twice a week, and I have noticed no problems. I mean, very few before I took the wheat out of my diet once I became vegan. But once I took the wheat out, I haven't had a problem. And I would like you to address that.
And please, could you explain really what's happening with irritable bowel? Because, you know, they call it irritable bowel, but what is it really? Thank you. It basically is the inflamed bowel, and it can -- the same chemicals that can cause the usual paralysis that develops with aging and causes constipation, those same substances can shift over to causing intensified peristalsis leading to diarrhea. But it's all an inflammatory process that is triggered by irritants. And wheat and other seeds contain chemicals that the plants --
the two major problems with any kind of seed, especially certain grains like wheat, they contain their protein in a storage form, gluten, which happens to resemble a protein that our tissues make under the influence of estrogen or stress. And so if a person has some problem dealing with the control of estrogen, that predisposes them to react violently to the gluten because the same sequence of amino acids exists in our own estrogen response protein and the gluten protein. But besides the problem with the gluten, seeds all are -- they're the next generation of the plant,
and so the plant puts its most intense toxins and defense substances into the seeds deliberately to interfere with grazing animals and such, so that you can take the enzymes that are needed to digest proteins, and the substance in the seed won't affect that type of enzyme in the plant, but it affects all animal enzymes. So they're specifically designed to interfere with animal metabolism. So the vegetarians forget how toxic the plants have to be because they don't have the ability to fight or to run, and so what they use is chemical defense. Chemical weapons. Okay.
Well, Dr. Peat, I want to be a little bit selfish and cut off any more callers at this point. I know the lights are flashing, and do excuse me. I don't normally do this, but I do have one more specific question, which relates to bowel endotoxin and bowel functioning, and I know from a newsletter that you haven't finished. It's something I know you've begun, and I've managed to get a copy of it, that you're a pretty big exponent of cascara, and cascara is a Pacific Northwest native tree called a rhamnus persiana,
and the Native Americans have used it for centuries as an effective laxative, and the main constituents are things like anthraquinones with glycosides of imodin and other alpha-alumodin. So what do you think of -- how do you view constipation as a cause of morbidity, and how do you view the action of cascara? Well, all of these responses to inflammation tend to become progressive and even lead to the death of some of the nerves in the intestine, and so it's better to use any substance such as a plant drug rather than suffer the consequences of inflammation,
and it happens that cascara has structural analogies to many of our own substances. Vitamin K and coenzyme Q and progesterone have structural similarities to cascara, and so what it's doing is reinforcing our defense systems, and it's very unusual among drugs because it basically reinforces all of the good processes and doesn't support any of the inflammatory toxic processes. So it's anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, helps to reduce anxiety, for example, increases energy production the way thyroid and progesterone do. Everything that our own system does, it reinforces, and my newsletter is going to talk about the history of related substances.
Early in the century when free radicals were discovered, a doctor in Michigan, W.F. Koch, began working out the implications for how to defend our cellular respiratory system from these toxins in the environment, and one of the substances he worked with was the anthraquinone. He went to Brazil and the famous Brazil wood, it's red because of the anthraquinone, but he explored all of the quinones that he could and found that they work with vitamin E, vitamin K, and coenzyme Q and thyroid to maintain and protect respiration. Excellent.
Well, I'm going to have to cut you short too, I'm afraid, Dr. Peat, because it's 7.58 and a half. Dr. Ray Peat can be contacted via his website on www.raypeat.org. No, .com. Oops, sorry, it's changed to .com, so raypeat.com. For those of you who would like to consult further, we can be reached on 1-888-WBM-ERB, Monday through Friday. Thank you to all of you who listen regularly and those who tuned in this evening, and thank you very much again, Dr. Peat, I would love having you on the show.
And I know from the wealth of people that phone up and the people that have tried to get on this evening, I'm sorry that we cut you short a little, but I know that you're very popular and I very much appreciate you just spread the good news. And we're hoping that Dr. Peat will come visit us in Humboldt County and do some more nutrition classes. That's right. So keep your ears open for that on a public service announcement. Look to the future, folks, and for those of you who have ears, let them hear. Good night.
Thank you. Good night.