The Most Important Antioxidant - 018

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. SPEAKER B Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. What is the price of a good night's sleep? A marketing analytics firm projects the sleep industry could reach an astounding $32 billion this year in the United States alone. But that's just the dollar figure, not the cost to our health. Dr. Eddie Ramirez has many proven sleep solutions, including a surprising one from a recent research paper. Stay tuned. SPEAKER C Healthy Living is a 13 part production of 3ABNAustralia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER B Here to talk to us about sleep solutions is Dr. Eddie Ramirez, who travels a lot, going through many time zones. In fact, last year he visited 25 countries, yet managed to avoid jet lag. Welcome, Eddie. SPEAKER D Thank you. SPEAKER B You have our full attention. SPEAKER D Yes, this is a big hot problem today. In the clinical consultation, I see many patients that complain that they have issues with their sleep. So if you're one of those, I invite you to go and get a piece of paper and a pen, as you will be getting some very important information today. In fact, I have even had people in the airline industry, like air attendants, come to me and say, what's your secret? Can I do what you are mean? Just recently I had a television interview in Norway flying from mean. I flew coach and got it off the plane and went to the studio and recorded a few programs know. So I know that if you understand the principles, you can also are able to implement this in your own life. SPEAKER B Even if you're traveling through different time zones. And your body clock, that's major. Yes, a lot of people have sleep problems when they don't do that just ordinarily they have sleep. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B But you even manage to get good sleep when your body clock should be telling you something else. So very, very interested to see what you have to say about this. SPEAKER D So the key here, it's going to be a very important substance that your body secretes that is called melatonin. So the melatonin is going to be the important substance. And see, we know by research papers that melatonin is so important for healthy living. In fact, it has been called the most powerful antioxidants. SPEAKER B That's impressive. We hear a lot about antioxidants. SPEAKER D Yeah, people pay a lot of money for this antioxidant, this other one, and they neglect their own melatonin. So we're going to learn today how we can optimize that melatonin. Melatonin also helps decrease aging because melatonin plays a special role during the night to repair your organism. So every night that you are sleeping, that melatonin has been active repairing your body and so forth. There's some interesting research that suggests that melatonin may help us fight certain cancers as it has that antioxidant activity in the body. SPEAKER B Well, that makes sense because that's what antioxidants do. Yeah, this is sounding better and better. SPEAKER D And also we know that it may help decrease blood pressure and also may improve immunity. That's why every person needs to learn to have optimum levels of melatonin so that their health can be improven. SPEAKER B Excellent. SPEAKER D I used to be in the hospital and doing rotations and so forth when I was in medical school. And I remember I would get in the conversation with some of my attending physicians and I would tell them, look, what kind of hypocrites are we? I would be doing this 36 hours long hospital duty and I would tell them, here we are trying to help people and here we are killing ourselves in the process. So I had that knowledge when I was in medical school and that's the reason why there was not a single night I spent the whole night studying. See, melatonin will also help you retain information. So if you have a lot to do, if you are a student or you have that type of work that is labor intensive, instead of cutting corners and staying late, what you need to do, you need to go to bed early and wake up early. And in that way you get that amount of melatonin. SPEAKER B Okay, so you're saying that melatonin is produced more in the pre midnight hours. SPEAKER D In the early hours. Exactly. In fact, research show that before midnight you're going to get one of the highest amounts of melatonin. That's the reason why if you go to bed at ten or nine and wake up early, or if you go to bed at one or 02:00 a.m. And you still sleep your 8 hours, you still don't feel the same because you have lost most of the melatonin of the night. And there's a fascinating quotation that was written more than 100 years ago. We can see that quotation in the screen. It says sleep is worth far more before than after midnight. 2 hours of good sleep before 12:00 is worth more than 4 hours after 12:00. So, as you can see, there is an important timing issue here. So you need to learn to go to bed early. Maximum 10:00 p.m 930. Wonderful. Nine. Fantastic. SPEAKER B And what about if you went before that? Or is that that's right. SPEAKER D Those days that you feel very tired and that you feel that you need more rest, what you should do, instead of staying late in the morning sleeping, you're literally wasting your time. I'll tell you why. In a minute, you need to go to bed early. And in that way you will get more amount of melatonin so that your body can be repaired adequately and you can function correctly. I know as I talk to patients, some of these patients like to go to church and so forth. And if you are staying in bed late and cutting corners, you're actually not getting that benefit. You're tired, go to bed that weekend, little bit earlier. In that way, you will get your proper amount of melatonin. SPEAKER B Right? So the hours before midnight are the important ones. SPEAKER D Are the important ones. SPEAKER B Not enough just to have not just. SPEAKER D The 8 hours, but when you when you do it. So let us examine a little bit of how this melatonin is produced so that we can understand how to optimize this melatonin. SPEAKER B Yes, this is something we need to know. SPEAKER D The first step that we need to learn is a keyword called tryptophan. There are many amino acids. Many amino acids form the protein. Think about them as the Legos. You know how there's Legos that are square, circle, long, so forth. In the same way, there are different amino acids. The combination of amino acids compose protein. Well, one of those amino acids, it's called tryptophan. And tryptophan is essential for you to have good melatonin in your body. Let me tell you why. Tryptophan, when you eat, the tryptophan combined with bright light generates something that is called serotonin. If you are that type of person, and I know there's many, because depression is a huge problem here in Australia. If you're listening to me and you're that type of person that goes to bed and then wakes up at two, three in the morning and you cannot go back to sleep, I can tell you, you probably have a deficiency of melatonin secondary to low serotonin in your brain. So let us understand how we can optimize that. See, tryptophan is not just because you read in the ingredients, nutritional facts that this food has tryptophan. That is not enough. You need to get your tryptophan from a plant source. See, animal products are rich in other amino acids that look like tryptophan. They are not tryptophan. They're a different amino acid. But chemically speaking, they are similar to tryptophan. So the issue is this in your brain, very little tryptophan actually can make it through. So if you are eating your tryptophan of animal products sources, you're sending all these competing amino acids. And very little tryptophan in the first place was coming in. But now these competing amino acids try to also go in there. So they end up going in the brain instead of the tryptophan, as they need to pass through the blood brain barrier. Also, that little door that you have to put that tryptophan inside your brain, it's dependent on insulin. There needs to be a little bit of insulin spike in order for that little door to function. Animal products don't give you that insulin spike, while plant based foods give you that tryptophan. That insulin spike that will help that tryptophan go inside the brain. That's the reason why in our very successful depression program, you actually can increase that tryptophan amount to the brain because we switch all of our patients to a full plant vegetarian diet. If you're interested in the topic, just google the word netley Nedley and hypothesis. There's a whole paper that I wrote about explaining our hypothesis. SPEAKER B Okay, that's very good. This is one more reason. You've done a number of programs with us and all kinds of reasons why a plant based diet is helpful. And now we're finding it's helpful for sleep. So that's another reason to go for the plant foods. Excellent. SPEAKER D So people are asking, okay, but which plant foods? So which plant foods has some good sources of that? Yes, among the foods you can easily acquire, the king of the tryptophan is actually tofu very high in tryptophan. If you don't know how to use Tofu, just go to the internet. There are so many recipes there. Tofu has that characteristic that it can acquire sweet, it can acquire a salty taste, it can acquire different tastes depending on what you put on. So tofu things like pumpkin seeds, things like beans, wheat, flour, walnuts, things like linseed. These types of foods are nice and rich in this tryptophan. So make sure that you're eating them, especially if you are having problems sleeping. So we said we need two things. Number one, you need that tryptophan inside your brain. Number two, you need bright light. So what I want you to do if you are having trouble sleeping, I want you to wake up at the time that the sun is coming up and you go outside and expose yourself to sunlight between 30 to 45 minutes. So what I suggest you why don't you go for a walk? See, it may sound mean, but in our depression program we have the key of every single one of our patients. And when the morning comes, if they didn't sleep enough, they may say, oh, I want to stay longer in bed. No, that's not an option. We go open those doors and we put our patients to expose themselves to bright light and in that way they get that benefit. There was an interesting study that showed that those people that say that they're night owls, they put them in a tent far from a city and suddenly every single one of them became a morning person. SPEAKER B Is that right? SPEAKER D So that is actually not an excuse. SPEAKER B That's interesting. SPEAKER D That's fascinating, isn't it? SPEAKER B So they change from owls to fowls. SPEAKER D That's right. Okay, so especially older people. Yes. SPEAKER B How long would that take, like for. SPEAKER D Them to in a matter of a couple of days, the person becomes a morning person. And I can tell you from our patients that come to our depression program. SPEAKER B You put them in the tent, out what we do. SPEAKER D Also, if you don't have access to the bright sunlight of the sun because of work and so forth, I would encourage you to get a medical grade bright light which you can expose yourself from 30 to 45 minutes early in the morning. And in that way you can accomplish that. If you still are having trouble after doing that, get yourself a second dosage around three to 04:00 p.m., another 30 minutes. And it's something you can take it to your job and put it there as you are working and so forth and expose yourself to that bright light. So step number one, tryptophan plus bright light. That will increase the serotonin, that will make you feel good throughout the day. Now, melatonin, I need the other opposite, which is darkness. Melatonin is only secreted when we have complete darkness. So make sure your room is completely dark. That's going to be the key to generating enough melatonin. SPEAKER B So you're really resetting the body clock by getting up at the right time and then going to bed at the right time. And these tryptophan and the bright light are actually helping to reset that's right. SPEAKER D And make sure also you have enough vitamin B six. And in things like we call it in America, peppers, you guys call them capsicum. Capsicum here in Australia, okay, that's a very nice, rich source of vitamin B six. And veggies in general are good sources. And also make sure that you're eating enough calcium, okay? Many of the modern substitutes for milk, soy milk, oat milk, many of them have enough calcium there. So make sure you are drinking some of this. That's part of the equation. So you need to have that darkness and you need to have regularity. That's the key. Every night at the same time you need to go to bed, including the weekend. Many people, unfortunately in the weekend, they move that program. And no wonder on Monday they feel horribly terrible. SPEAKER B We have a term for that. It's called Monday. SPEAKER D Itis okay, monday itis or Blue Monday. SPEAKER B We call it in America, the same thing. So it's really caused by interrupting that regularity. Yes. SPEAKER D In fact, I published a research paper and it's going to be coming out in the journal Obesity Reviews, and we can see it on screen. In this paper, we were showing how regularity in eating and sleeping improves the mood. And not only that, it has a positive effect on the weight of the person. So you actually helps to lose weight. It makes you feel better. And your depression actually decreases dramatically once you get into a regular program the whole week, including the weekend. Also, there are many yes, go ahead. SPEAKER B That's such a big thing. Depression is the single greatest cause of disability worldwide. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Also the case in Australia. And so just to be able to get your sleep sorted out is tremendous. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B So this is really important. SPEAKER D And again, if you're interested in the topic, go and Google those keywords. Nedley depression. Ramirez and you will get that paper that we publish it's open. Anybody can read it on the internet. Also, there are some melatonin killers. Please avoid these things if you want to have enough melatonin. And we can see those factors that interfere with melatonin in the screen. Stress. That's why you don't sleep good when you are stressed. Caffeine, horrible habit for melatonin and longevity. Alcohol also, and tobacco. SPEAKER B So you're saying there that alcohol can cut it back by 41? SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B That's massive. SPEAKER D Many people, they say, I need a little drink so that I can relax and I can sleep. Mistake off mistakes. Please don't do that. When you do that, yes, you may sleep, but you cut down your melatonin and you don't repair the body properly. So you need to remove those factors from your lifestyle. That's why before going to sleep, it's better to change your thinking and so forth into a more positive type of direction. Read the Bible, do something peaceful. Turn on to your three AVN. SPEAKER B That's good. SPEAKER D Say that again so you can get something wholesome that would put your thinking in the right direction. And be careful also with bright light in the night. We said you need bright light early in the morning, but not at night. Cell phones, computers and many other big sources of light, they need to be decreased or eliminated, ideally before you go to bed. If you are that type of person that needs to use a computer before going to bed, or your cell phone, you need to install a filter program. The one I usually like is called F Lux Fly. The computer will know when the sunset occurs and it will block the blue light, which is what blocks the melatonin in the night. So hours before going to sleep, that program needs to kick in. It is a huge mistake to wake up in the night and read your messages. You're just shooting all these lights to your eyes and the body says, oh, it's time to wake up, let's wake up. And no, you want to sleep. Don't do that. That's actually one of my secrets. As I travel across zones, you need to be disciplined. So when it's night, as you're going to be crossing night, you need to put something in your eyes. Block your eyes. Even if you are not sleeping. The fact that you are blocking your eyes, it's doing some melatonin in your system and you need to be disciplined. Don't take them off when they offer the food and so forth. Do you eat in the middle of the night? No. So why are you eating in the middle of the night when you're in a plane ride? So if it's night, the food passes by, you ignore that. SPEAKER B And that's one of your secrets. SPEAKER D That's one of my secrets. No caffeine and no alcohol. Those things will block my melatonin and will make me feel horrible next day. SPEAKER B I don't think you have alcohol any day, do you? SPEAKER D That's right. As I understand the physiology of this, I avoid alcohol like leprosy myself. And I always sit on the window seat. The reason why is because as the day comes, if you sleep enough, you make your calculation that you get a good six, 7 hours of sleep in the plane. First thing I do, I open my shade and get myself that bright light that will help shift my time zone to the new zone. SPEAKER B So those three things you do when you're traveling, when you're coming into a country and it's night in the country, you cover your eyes, you're getting the darkness. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B You don't eat because it's not the time to eat. SPEAKER D That's right. Country eating will block melatonin. That's right. SPEAKER B Okay. Eating any, okay. SPEAKER D That's right. So that's why 3 hours before going to bed, you need to have your last meal. SPEAKER B All right, so you cover your eyes for darkness. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Then you don't eat or drink. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B And you sit by the window so that when the sun's coming up, you have control of the shade. SPEAKER D You may drink water, it's fine, but don't drink anything else that will cause digestion, that will block melatonin. And also, I'm just going to say. SPEAKER B If you're a pilot or a flight attendant, that's something that could maybe you do have to be doing things through that time, but some of it maybe you could work. Yes. SPEAKER D And if you are taking blood pressure medication like beta blockers, make sure you talk to your doctor about melatonin. Beta blockers, those medications that end in Lowell, Metoprolol, Athenolol, and these type of medications block 99% of your melatonin. So a wise physician that prescribes this medication will also give some melatonin for the melatonin you're going to be blocking. I don't advise taking melatonin just by itself, unless you really need it. I'd rather encourage you to optimize the level of your melatonin so that you can sleep better. Also, if you're taking more than 3000 micrograms of B twelve, that also can block your melatonin, be careful not to take too much vitamin B twelve. And also medication that are long lasting, like pen medication, long lasting, we don't like to use those ones. Medication for pain that release in long time, they also will block that. SPEAKER B Okay. Slow release medications for pain. SPEAKER D There's another published paper I recently presented in a conference. In fact, I got an award, one of the best studies presented there. SPEAKER B Why don't I get you to say that twice? SPEAKER D And this one had to do with lavender oil and sleep. SPEAKER B Okay. SPEAKER D So lavender oil orally in capsules. We found out that it helped not only with anxiety, but also with sleep. Little side effect that we found was that if you take too much, you may get a little bit of heartburn and so forth. But just to be aware of that. SPEAKER B And also how much is the right amount? SPEAKER D Yes. You want to take two three of those capsules about 3 hours before going to bed, and it may have that beneficial effect. We also have some herbs that can help. We can see those in the screen. And you can find some of these herbs here in Australia. Chamomile, hops, lavender and balerian. There are research papers that show the effectiveness of these herbs in helping improve your sleep. SPEAKER B Well, that's fantastic. Lots and lots of good suggestions there. Do you ever need to take any extra melatonin, despite all your best? SPEAKER D That's right, I don't never take melatonin. I make sure I generate my own. And believe me, I sleep good. I sleep good. SPEAKER B And you look as though you sleep well and you've been doing some traveling. SPEAKER D Just now, because you need to be disciplined. That's what I tell people sometimes you are with your chase, they're in the plane and so forth, and you're not able to sleep. You still need to stay there. The worst thing you can do is to remove it and start watching the little movie they have in front of you. You are putting bright light through your eyes. Yes, you are going to interrupt that. So what I suggest you if you are having really problems sleeping, why don't you tap into spiritual resources? And I want to share with you one of my favorite verses, and you can see it on the screen, proverbs 324. When you lay down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lay down and your sleep will be sweet. SPEAKER B Oh, isn't that lovely? And that is it's beautiful. And I think spirituality is often an overlooked. Well, it's just something we can tap into and that we can benefit from. And I just don't think we always. SPEAKER D Realize when one of our recent patients, we loaned them a bright light and the person had not slept in years, and he said, I'm not giving you back this light, I'm using it from now on. So you can experience that if you wish. SPEAKER B Yes, okay, well, look, that's been fantastic, Eddie. Many of those things you've told us are just valuable. People will probably want to watch them again, and you can do that. And I hope that you will trust you'll enjoy sound and restorative. Sleep, a good quality of sleep to add to the quality of your life. So if you want to watch our programs on demand, visit our website. That's 3abnaustralia.org.au Just click on the watch button and we'll see you next time. SPEAKER D Thank you very much. SPEAKER C You’ve been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia television.