YouTube Livestream Q&A Transcript, February 17, 2026

Question
“I hear lots of talk about peptides. What can you tell me about them? Do you recommend? Thanks.”  [0:03:44]

Answer
All right. So, peptides are short snippets of proteins. So, they could be two amino acids, three, four, five. These very simple linkages of protein messages are able to communicate with cells, dock on them, and be recognized by the cell to have an impact. That is, for instance, the rage right now is the GLP-1 peptides that people are injecting to mimic or settle into the receptor sites in your body for the GLP-1 receptors, which tell your body you're full, you're not hungry, and it slows digestion down. So that is an example of engineering peptides that have physiologic activity on the human body. You can make an argument that insulin is peptide therapy, and that was a wonderful therapy developed when they discovered how to isolate insulin. Of course, that's a bit of a longer chain. But peptides are also involved in signaling from tens of thousands, if not millions, of activities throughout human physiology. There are peptides that are, BPC-157 Seven is a popular one that patients are starting to come in taking to promote energy, muscle growth, and repair of the human body, but that sequence of amino acids, short peptides, can be achieved through exercise and fasting. The peptides can also be produced by eating a very high amount, at least relative to what Americans have been doing. It's not really appropriate, maybe to say hi, but since we've been frightened from eating egg meat for so many decades by the incorrect medical advice, now they're lightening up, and they're not telling you not to eat eggs because of saturated fats, and they're not telling you not to eat red meat. When you eat that, you're going to get digestion of the proteins and the fats, and these will be a resource for your body to make all these signaling molecules, if you exercise, if you do intermittent fasting, which is a normal lifestyle in a healthier time. People didn't have access to drive-in food. They didn't have access or means in the form of flying and cars until about a hundred years ago. Pretty much, you were stuck walking somewhere, horseback or buggy, or bicycling, and the impact of the availability of a general store having something to get and eat was much more of an effort. So, people ate far fewer refined carbohydrates, junk food, processed foods, and hydrogenated foods, and they ate much more of a rich protein and healthy fat diet. And they had longer periods of fasting. They had better sleep cycles with day and night. They didn't have the light pollution and many other things challenging them, like pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, heavy metals, chemtrails, and just the stress of the daily news, electromagnetic air waves. 

And so, our ability to repair and to eat those things, digest those things that make these signaling peptides for all the repair activities is what the new marketing field for peptide therapies in various aspects of human physiology is banking on, that you're going to use it. And I really think that there is a challenge to taking a peptide and thinking you're going to get a benefit. If you're not eating enough protein, getting enough good sleep, and if you're not stopping eating early enough so that your own vagus nerve will shut off, repair, signaling somatostatin peptides in your body for repair, your lifestyle can defeat what that peptide is trying to do. You could theoretically overeat against what the GLP-1 shots are doing. And then, not to mention all the potential side effects and loss of muscle mass with the GLP-1 Wegovy and Ozempic products. And there are just so many natural things that you can do, but I am not in general support of all of this. I do understand the research for cell physiology and signaling. But to jump on and make a market without having enough doctors out there to explain a good human lifestyle and physiology control to make a peptide have a chance of being beneficial. So, I'm not recommending them at this point in general. So, I'm going to say, let's have self-control, and let's understand our bodies. You know, because I come from a Christian worldview, I think humans are intelligent and remarkable and capable of self-governing, and it is that wonderful capacity that gives us the ability, I believe through the Holy Spirit, to help others and to discipline ourselves into trying to use our bodies that were created by God to bring glory to Him and His creation. That's how I approach my patients, inspire my patients, and really, we've done just fine here as a clinic for the past quarter century. 25 years we've been here just doing wonderfully with probably some of the healthiest Medicare populations you'll find in the whole, maybe in the whole world, but certainly in the United States after I went through that Medicare study for having effectually reduced the Medicare costs of my whole population of people who are at that age just don't seem to need all the interventions, doctor visits, specialty surgeries, medications because they're using their agency to self-control themselves, get a good sleep, get circadian rhythm, get light, get water. You know, and all the things that go into living a healthy life, without the expense of buying yet another marketed product. 

Question
“Also, what are your thoughts on genetic testing?”  [0:11:44]

Answer
Almost every week, I get that question. And I had one patient today who flew in from San Francisco. He likes to come and see me. And you know, he's in his early 60s. And he wants to live long. He recently became a grandfather of two children, and a third one is on the way. So, he wants to be a successful man, live and be healthy, and have an impact on his children and his grandchildren, and even maybe great-grandchildren. So, he wants to live a long time. So, he's saying, should I do all these tests for genetic snips and evaluations? And he's doing self-discipline with his life, with his exercise, his diet, the timing of his eating, his hydration, his circadian rhythm, sunshine exposure, and certain nutrients supportively. And now he's worried that maybe we're going to miss some screening genetic snips to predict a disaster of cancer or some disease. And I told him I don't recommend it. And I gave an example of just last week I had a patient who did a total body scan, a middle-aged or a young man in his 40s still, and there were minor non-specific findings from his pituitary, he had something in his spinal cord at the T-12 area, and then we're talking 2 mm, 2 mm of something on this general screening MRI. And then he had something in his left femur, distal femur, an enchondroma, and then I forgot what the fourth item was. But the long and the short of it is none of this was in a man who had any complaints or anything wrong with his labs or anything wrong with his physical exam. He was a healthy man. And so, now we're dealing with possible 2-mm to 4-mm lesions, and what do you do with them? Well, you make money if you do studies like this, and you refer to a specialist, to the neurologist for the pituitary and the spinal cord, and you refer to the orthopedic for the femur, little finding, all these things not considered on their own, and it would say non-specific, non-specific. 

So, I'm against these screening tests. I am for raising a population of very good, well-taught, and experienced general practitioners, internal medicine, and family doctors, who will stay put in one area for decades to watch the patient over time and always be there. And then you'll have a doctor who knows you, who's keeping up with the sciences, who's available. And I told the gentleman, I have no prediction that any of this will be significant because you have no symptoms. Of course, the place who did it recommended a repeat in one year, and I said you could see the specialists because the minutia of it all, I could not be predictive in any one specialty area without any symptoms, or you could just choose to wait, but medicolegally, I had to recommend that he be seen by specialists in the two or three areas of concern. So, you know, he took the personal responsibility that he's not going to do anything, that he probably shouldn't have done that total body MRI, and we're going to spend all our time being available, living a healthy life, not eating a high carb diet, drinking enough water, exercising, getting sunshine, staying away from processed foods, taking a few nutraceuticals, doing labs every six months with a good body exam, hear how he's doing, see if he has any complaints. And that's called good medicine, that's called the best preventive medicine – to have a general internal medicine family practice doctor in one place, that's Semper Fidelis, always there, and you can make a follow-up with them. God willing, they stay healthy and alive themselves, and they know you. So, that doctor is not someone out for money and growth and fame and all this kind of stuff. They're there to take care of a population of people. 

And so, no, I don't recommend genetic testing. I don't recommend these total body scans. I don't recommend these screening ultrasounds or intimal thickness scans. I think your doctor and you should come to a plan or an understanding for cardiovascular prevention studies and lifestyle, for cancer prevention and lifestyle, and just general well-being, and then that's how to practice medicine. Remember that out of the roughly one million doctors that are licensed to practice in the United States at the current time, that’s about how many there are, about 800,000 of those doctors are specialists. 800,000. And so, you're left with about 200,000 that are family practice, internal, general practice, primary care. And very often that's an evolving group that's just an abused entity, the general family practice, internal medicine. They're not regarded by their colleagues as valuable. They're like a triage, like a triage nurse in an emergency room. Rather than that doctor saying, "I'm here. I'm going to look into you. I'm going to read a little bit about you." I can't tell you how many countless times I've had a patient and they had a symptom, or they had a lab, and I had to go back and stud study, refresh. I had to look back at my books. I had to do some YouTube study, get some PubMed articles, and think about that patient for the next visit. And it just makes you a better doctor. It makes you more informed, more capable. This is what we need, people. But we have a population and an ethos as a society; we've degenerated into medicine as a business instead of a ministry. And that you have to make a certain amount of glam and money as a doctor, or else why do it? Well, you know why you do it? You're called by God to love your neighbor as yourself. You're called to serve your family; this is why you do it. This is why you're there. 

So, that's a long transfer again to genetic testing and these screenings. Let you and your doctor decide, do you really need that? Maybe the standard of care is to do something, such as screening annually. Well, maybe you shouldn't expose yourself to so many X-ray mammograms or invasive testing. Maybe you should have another plan and another monitoring methodology, or honor the patient's history, which is so healthy, they are very unlikely to need as much screening. So, that's what the practice of medicine is all about. And your patients should get healthy. They should be better than the average patient population. They should have a healthier, longer lifestyle. 

Question
“I have a CT heart scan soon. What are your thoughts on this test, worthy to get as a benchmark of heart health?”  [0:20:28]

Answer
Okay. So, you're probably getting a coronary artery calcium score done. Yes. I'm going to say, in general, yes. And there is a gentleman who was part of the development of the coronary artery calcium score. I think it was 1996 when they were first starting to really market this here in the United States. And the name of the scientist, he's an engineer, he's a biomedical engineer, who worked with, maybe it was a cardiologist, and they put the scoring for the coronary arteries on a CT scan. It'll show up as little, like a bone, like the calcium in a bone, it'll show some calcium in the coronary arteries. I think the first time I ever ordered one was around 1996 or 1997 here in Newport Beach, when I was with Whitaker Wellness. So I've been watching the whole field of coronary artery calcium score testing, and I found that, I'm going to say, what was more important was a relationship with a do a doctor and an accountability, and that doctor holding the patient responsible not to eat late at night, not to eat processed refined carbohydrates, to get healthy real food in their diet, enough protein and healthy fats, to have a certain degree of weightlifting exercise and cardio, to drink enough water, to take enzymes, to find out their blood type, to learn about inflammation, and to check those markers, their triglyceride, their HDL, their insulin, hemoglobin A1c, their weight, maybe their body mass, lean mass, fat mass, and get a good exam, you know, once a year physical exam with their doctor or twice a year. And then set out a plan for keeping their insulin closer to 4 fasted, their blood sugar closer to 85 fasted, their hemoglobin A1c closer to 5.2 in the fasted state, and a triglyceride level around 50 to 75 with an HDL that nearly matches it at 55 to 70, 80. So, when the HDL -triglycerides are matching, that means you're exercising enough to what you're eating, you're balancing it. So, those were the parameters that cost pennies compared to the coronary artery calcium score, and of course, you don't get the radiation of the CAT scan. 

So, I have mixed feelings about it. I've gone through all these years, and I've had people come to me with established coronary artery disease. We do chelation, we get their inflammation down, and we hydrate them. We take their inflammation down with the enzymes, looking for food allergies, and they just don't get more heart attacks. They don't get more strokes. They don't do anything other than learn to exercise and do better and pass any of their treadmills – because I do refer to a cardiologist as necessary to get functional stress tests and so forth, and I just have wonderful healthy patients who adopt healthy lifestyles rather than keeping on looking for a test as how bad is it yet, how bad is it now, how bad is it in five years, how bad is it in 10 years? I don't, I just don't want it to get worse. So, the coronary scores, even if they come to me at the 300, 500, 900, 1000, if we can level them out, because normally these coronary calcium scores gradually rise year over year, about 25% of the base count. When we can see it's not rising, then we know we are doing the right thing, and we're not worried. 

So, that's my thought on the coronary artery calcium score. I'm not against doing it because I have ordered them myself, but normally I've been deferring to the cardiologist that I use, who is Dr. Kelly Tucker, who is a very sound and sober, good cardiologist, and he monitors it for the large number of patients that I refer him to. But again, he likes my patients because my patients are the best patients, and they're very obedient with taking personal self- responsibility. And that's the dream of a doctor, to have good self-care and manage patients. 

Question
“I am 60 years old, a TLC patient, and trying to eat well and drink enough water each day. Is it normal to wake up once during the night to urinate, anywhere from 1:00 to 4:00 am? Other than avoiding liquids in the late afternoon, are there any other things that would help to prevent getting up to go to the bathroom?”  [0:25:54]

Answer
Well, there are quite a few. At 60, the lining of the female tiny short urethra and the thickness of the surface membranes of that area and the muscles are starting to recede and get flabbier or patulent. It's harder to squeeze and do Kegel and stop the urine flow stress signal. So, natural hormone replacement therapy, using some testosterone with estriol vaginally a couple times a week, three times a week, is very helpful to many women. But having good sleep hygiene, meaning if you go to bed, you know,  and the best healing time is to go to bed around 9 o'clock, and then to get up before the sunrise, so that you can wake up and do a few things and get ready for the morning sunrise and you can be out there in your bare feet for a couple of minutes letting those Infrared rays come and go through your skull, through your eyes, through your clothes, and energize up the electrically structured water around your cell membranes, and literally deliver increase membrane potential energy across all your membranes of your body. Then take a 15-minute walk outside. Get your circulation going. And then come back and have some healthy protein. Be well-hydrated with electrically structured water. Dr. Gerald Pollack has a YouTube channel on Electrically Structured Water, well worth your time to study. 

Another thing is glycine. If you take 2 or 3 grams of powdered amino acid glycine half an hour before bed, that helps. Taking melatonin helps. But that light in the morning sunrise, the infrared waves, circadian-wise, speaks to your optic chiasm mind, certain area, nuclei centers in your midbrain to give you a circadian rhythm sequencing, so that you start to get appropriate cortisol bumps around 4 o'clock in the morning to wake you up, and then let that sunshine come in, so your cortisol is a high spike and then goes away, rather than a long prolonged stress sequencing. And then in the evening, you will get around 8:30, 9 o’clock your first melatonin spike, which should start making you say, you know, I'm tired. You really should not fight that and go to bed. So, little things like glycine, the hormones, natural, to help the urethral muscles around the urethra, the light, and then the melatonin circadian rhythm will help you get into a deeper sleep. If you use natural progesterone, that will help you sleep more deeply and get more REM sleep. If you're on your natural estradiol, that will help you with your brain and your tissues and the thickness of the skin and the urethra in the vaginal area. So, there are many things that you could do that would be helpful. Those are just a few of the beginning things we would do. 

Question
“I have heard you recommend not taking calcium supplements. What are your thoughts on taking a mineral complex supplement that includes calcium and magnesium?”  [0:30:03]

Answer
Bingo. That's the way to go because, remember, over the 45 years I've been practicing, I remember, you know, in the 1980s, the bone densities were starting to be done and we were seeing the drop in the mineralization of especially women and the hip fractures. And so, I recall they would say, have them take 500 mg of supplemental calcium. So, there'd be a calcium pill we would prescribe. I remember this clearly at Whitaker Wellness. And then, the recommendation went up to 750, and then it went up to 1,000 mg of calcium, and then it went up to 1,500 mg of calcium. So they were making higher and higher recommendations because it looked from the 250, you know, back in the mid-80s, all the way through the 90s, early 2000s, it was not doing anything, and yet I have all these older women, including myself, 70s for me, 80s, 90s, and they have normal bone densities. Why? Because we start them younger, right around perimenopause. I don't think I ever really went through menopause because I always used hormones. So I never went through that big swing of loss of hormones. I knew as it was happening, I started using it. But we give natural hormones even if you go a period of time after menopause, and you can build back up and then we check the vitamin D levels, and we just put the calcium in a very good amino acid chelated multi-mineral, which will include calcium, magnesium, molybdenum,  potassium, zinc, boron, you know, all these various healthy minerals. And ours is called TLC Multimineral. The standard dose is three capsules. We'll give you about a standard, higher-end dose of each of these minerals. Copper is in it as well. No iron. And, I tend to use a double dose of that, because the older I get, my membranes, I start to have weaker membranes just with aging, and my minerals will leak out, and I will tend to get cramps and so forth. 

But yeah, I think it's normal to often wake up once to start peeing, but if you do that, you start taking minerals, so you don't get your cramps in your muscle groups, and then natural hormones with your exercise, weight-bearing exercises, you'll do better. So, yeah, take multi-mineral, not these individual calcium supplements that are God- awful high. Plus, we believe that separate high-dose calcium actually will deposit on your coronary artery, or your soft tissues, and you'll get calcifications in your breast tissues wherever there's little tiny micro traumas throughout your body. 

Question
“Hi Dr. Rita, what are your thoughts on the difference in creams vs oral bio-identical estrogen?”  [0:33:32]

Answer
I like creams because they're much more manageable. When you take an oral tablet, you're dosed; you get the total dose in milligrams. I think oral estradiol comes as a 0.5 mg, a 1 mg, and a 2 mg. And I like the creams because you can find them, whether it's on the inside of your wrist, applying it, or to your face, or behind your knees, or in your groin. There are so many places where you might get good absorption by using the smaller doses. Now, some women don't absorb well through their skin. We're all different. I would say most women do, 80%, I would say in my experience over the decades. But some women are just not good skin absorbers. And even though I'll take them up a little bit on their creams, if I can see they're not even absorbing with vaginal mucosal applications, which is right around the lips, the vulva, then I know they just don't absorb well, and then I go orally. I do not like patches in general because of all the plastics. At some point, we have to start drawing a line and say, anywhere we can stop plastics from being absorbed through our skin, and the skin tends to be a big absorber of chemicals. So, I don't like the patches. I do use them because patients really lean on me and say, “No, I want the patch. I like the patch.” And I tell them the risk of the plastics, and they say, " Give it to me anyway. 

So, that's what I think about that. So, I don't see any danger with the oral estrogens. Over the decades I've been doing this, I've never seen a problem. What I see is that doctors who give hormones don't take the time to talk with their patients enough and explain, look at, I don't want to give you hormones if you're going to live a lousy lifestyle. Suppose you're not going to take personal responsibility to exercise, to drink your water, to get a good night's sleep, to get some sunshine, to eat healthy proteins and fats, and to take systemic enzymes. I want every woman that I have on hormones, including myself, on systemic enzymes because young girls have all kinds of enzymes. So, yeah, safe. 

Question
“Is it true that you need some carbs to make testosterone?”  [0:36:23]

Answer
Absolutely not. No, there's no truth in that. I've never heard that. If it exists, I'm ignorant of it, and you would have to give me a reference, an article, or a lecture that I could listen to, but I have never ever seen that. Now, there is a genre around the people who take testosterone, in that they usually are men who are building up their muscles, women who are more physically active and exercising, and they link it with libido. Although it is for men, the libido is testosterone; it's not really for women. It is the estradiol that really makes the woman have a good libido. And in that sense, you have all this weight building decades of weight builders talking about pumping carbs before a workout. And I think that's where the story gets confused about carbs being necessary when you're using testosterone. I don't think they're related. 

Question
“Hello Dr. Rita, this morning I had two eggs, and I added a can of sardines. I hadn't consumed sardines in decades. Do you recommend them? Should I be concerned about the mercury or the aluminum can?”  [0:37:48]

Answer
“I hadn't consumed sardines in decades. Do you recommend them?” - Yes, I think they're fine. 

“Should I be concerned about the mercury or aluminum can?” - Well, yes, we should, because we live in an industrialized society and all the waters of the sea have mercury now. Lead is in about 4 cm of all the top soils and sands ever tested on the globe. So, we're in a toxic world. So, we thank the Lord that we can do some chelation therapy. We can take the IV and get the heavy metals, gadolinium, from an MRI scan with contrast. We can take the mercury out. We can take the lead out of all the dust that gets into the plants from the ground. We breathe it. We drink it. So, we're so thankful that we have chelation. But the value of eating small fish like sardines compared to the mercury in a shark or a big fish like a swordfish is infinitesimally higher levels of mercury exposure with the bigger fish that are eating the smaller fish. So, I would say sardines are a low-risk choice, a high-value protein, and for satisfying you, and I’m all in favor of it, and have had it and have them in my house right now. 

Question
“I began taking creatine a few days ago. Half the prescribed dose to start. Within an hour or so, I began to feel lightheaded and dizzy. After I slept for an hour or more, I did feel better. Is it safe for me to continue taking it? Will the side effects reduce? Thank you for your help.”  [0:39:37]

Answer
The standard start is 5 grams up to 20 grams. So, she must have taken 2 to 3 grams. I usually never, and I don't think I can recall anyone who started using. What we use is creatine monohydrate. That's the powdered form, tasteless white powder mixed in your water or your food. I put it in my yogurt, I take 5 grams a day, and I don't think I've ever had a woman say she felt lightheaded on it or dizzy. I'm not sure that that was the creatine that you took. There are different kinds of creatine. There are different manufacturers, some high-quality, some with junk in it. The one I have here is from Ortho Molecular, a very high-quality nutraceutical company that's been around for 40 years, God-fearing-based, so I trust them. I've been to their plant a few times, so I know their quality of work. So, I use a high-quality creatine monohydrate. And I'm just going to say, I think you should try it again. And if your product is suspect, come and use ours, a known, clean, high-quality, non-foreign-based sourcing for creatine monohydrate, because that's new to me; I really haven't heard people complain of that. So, give it another try, most likely. 

And then creatine will tend to help you retain water a few pounds when you start it. So, I can't see it dehydrating you. I just don't think, I don't know of a physiological biochemical pathway that creatine would be responsible for making you feel lightheaded. So, let us know how that goes, or talk with your doctor about that, and let them – you know, I don't know what your other symptoms are or who you are. So, maybe there are other issues going on. 

Question
“Hi Dr. E., is it ok to take L-glutamine daily long term, or should I take a break? It makes my digestion better.”  [0:42:16]

Answer
It should be fine to take the amino acid L-glutamine. We use it here in a product from Ortho Molecular called GlutaShield. Metagenics makes a product called, what is the name of their product… But they have an amino acid glutamine-based product. I think they put in some aloe and some zinc carnosine in it, or other products like that. But they're excellent. They're safe. I've used them for decades. I've had people using it for decades. I've had it in my house. I don't need it regularly, but no, I've never heard of a problem with it long term. 

Question
“It's been said that 'high' doses of vitamin C can be conducive to kidney stone formation with the oxalates. If true, do you consider that when recommending doses to patients who have such a history?”  [0:43:13]

Answer
I know the theory and the science and the biochemistry of oxalate formation and vitamin C, and yet, in the totality of the human being, in my experience since age 7 and 72 now, so that's 63 or so plus years, I have never seen a kidney stone generated in a human being from vitamin C administered intravenously. I just haven't. Hydration, drinking enough water, especially the new structured water. You know, I hound my patients to drink half their weight in pounds as ounces of water every day. And I think Americans are notoriously marketed to drink and eat anything that entertains their mouth and lips and throat, and they're just entertaining this hole all the time. And instead of getting the things they need, they'll drink a diet soda or a soda pop or some smoothie or Slurpee. It's foolishness – the seed milks like coconut water, coconut milk, almond milk, soy milk. And everything's got to be a gimmick. Let's stick with what we're made of – water. And so, most Americans are dehydrated. And so, what will happen is they will move toward eating, let's say, potentially having a kidney stone because the American diet is so acidic and full of other irritating, inflaming components, that the inflammation in the dehydrated state will tend to produce oxalate crystals in the kidneys. So, no, I haven't seen it in all the decades of the tens of hundreds of thousands of high-dose vitamin C’s I've given. And all the colleagues from all the conferences I've attended, no, I just don't see it being a concern because I hound my patients to stay well hydrated. 

Question
“Do you agree that every health professional isn't always correct about every piece of advice all the time? If so, have there been times in your 42 years when you had to make alterations to your advice?”  [0:45:52]

Answer
I agree, all the time. Correct. In fact, I suppose if these doctors are going to be honest, and I am, many of the professors in the 1970s were telling me in medical school, half of what you are being taught in medical school for research and proclamations of care recommendations will be considered wrong in 50 years. So, I'm right about at that point of seeing medicine over 50 years. And boy, can I tell you, have they been wrong. So, what do you want in a doctor? You don't want a robot doctor who is just following protocols, standard of care protocols. You want an individual thinking, critical thinking doctor who you have a relationship with, who will have time enough reasonably to talk in your appointment about your unique body and self, your stressors, your life, your situation, and how you might modify that to improve your health, prevent disease, you know, all those things. So, yes, you have to have a critical, engaged, personal relationship with a doctor who loves you. And I personally think your doctor has to have fear of God to go home every night, thinking, “I took care of your creation, did I do a good enough job? Did I miss anything?” 

And then he goes on to say, “If so, have there been times in your 42 years when you had to make alterations to your advice?” – Yes. I was telling my youngest, my oldest son must have been 4, yeah, or 3, and my son Brighton, the second boy, was newborn or 1. And I was a flight surgeon on the Air Force Base, you know, the airfield, and I took care of Air Force fighter jet pilots, flew with them. I took care of the helicopter men, the fixed-wing flights, the C-130, all of them. Got to fly with them all. Learned how to fly myself. And in that period of time, I was being bombarded to use statins and lower cholesterol, and you know, referred to the cardiologist. And I was on active duty. You have to remember, it's a little different when you're on active duty to be a different-thinking doctor. Like I tried to add vitamin C to my ER patients with a stroke or with magnesium and heart attack patients, magnesium to stop atrial arrhythmias, which often would cause their death from heart attacks when I was the ER doctor. So, I tried to push the envelope then, and my father was pointing out the corruption of the medical system regarding the cholesterol-saturated theory for heart disease. I was torn between my father and the professors I knew at Armour Food Research and what they were saying, which was never mentioned in the news or in the standard healthcare of my training. And I had to realize that truth is suppressed when the people who own the pulpit and the media and the biomedical industry make money off the lie. And so, for a short time there, I'd say about a year while I was a flight surgeon, I was promoting and making my own little slides. I remember you put a slide in those little carousels, and I was doing training with my pilots. I wanted to have the healthiest flight line pilots ready for active duty at a moment's call. I wanted to be known as the flight surgeon who had the healthiest pilots. And I did, it turned out I did. And I was teaching them how to eat healthy. And on these things, I was showing them how I was cooking. My husband and I were doing the Pritikin back at that time, and we were eating very low saturated fat. And I was wrong. And that's when these men had cholesterols of 430 and 380. I mean, I'm telling you, these guys were the healthiest specimens with testosterone levels of, you know, 1400, 1600, and they had beautiful, rich cholesterol levels. 

So, I finally bowed my knee because I just could not get my fingers to prescribe a statin to a man who had not ever had a heart attack or a symptomatic problem, and it turns out the only possible value of a statin was a minor anti-inflammatory action, which my water was well overcoming the enzymes and I told them to take because I started even using enzymes back with them at that time, I was bringing in some natural things. And I gave lectures to my flight and their family and their wives, to live, be healthy, be healthy soldiers. So, yeah, I had to change my view on cholesterol in 1988, I think it was. Yeah. All right. Maybe ‘87. 

Question
“What’s the sugar grams per day before it affects your diet?”  [0:52:18]

Answer
A man should not have more than 9 teaspoons of sugar, and a woman shouldn't have more than 6 teaspoons, which is roughly 36 grams of sugar for a man and about 25 grams for a woman. And you guys in general are busting through that every day when you're eating in general. So, that's their recommendation. It should be much lower. You need to work with a doctor who will say, here's where you're at. You can't follow the recommendations. The improvement would be so slow and so defeating that the patient would start to say, " It doesn't matter, give me a drug. We have to see how much you'll be willing to self-autoregulate your diet, how late you eat, and how much you exercise. And do a test and see a nice drop in the insulin, a nice drop in your triglycerides, and you will feel better, you'll think better. So, you’ve got to work this out. There aren't protocols out there because that's for the mythical 70-kg. man. We're all different. You have to have a personal informed doctor who's going to be there for you through the decades, through the decades, who loves you and God. 

Question
“I don’t want to take pharmaceuticals, but doctors tell me I need to because I have a very high cholesterol of every kind, A, B, etc. My Triglycerides are good, however. I’ve tried every supplement, exercise, etc., to bring it down to no avail. What is your advice?”  [0:53:46]

Answer
You need to watch the video, High Cholesterol is Healthy by Dr. Ken Berry and Dr. David Diamond, PhD. This has been blown out of the water to worry about that. And if you have lipoprotein (a) that's elevated, I have that, just take vitamin C regularly, 750 mg, 1000 mg every day. That'll help bring it down. If your triglycerides are roughly in the 50 to 75 range and your HDL is in the 55 to 75 range and they're equal, HDL is exercise, and triglycerides are eating the carbs. When these are balanced, and your triglycerides are way, way high, then you're going to live well, and I don't really care what your total cholesterol is. Find a good doctor, watch that video, work with them, and see that. I have all kinds of patients, and my old pilots had the highest cholesterol, and they didn't have problems. 

Question
“Hi, Dr. Ellithorpe, I so appreciate these talks. Last week, you mentioned that raw vegetables were damaging to the one-cell membrane of the stomach wall. I eat dandelion greens blended in the blender with frozen fruit. Would these dandelion greens cause those micro tears in the stomach wall? Also, how safe is lettuce greens to eat? Thanks!”  [0:55:07]

Answer
Yes, they can. In general, all the plant kingdom has what we call anti-nutrients in them, whether they make oxalates like we talked about, whether they're phytates, tannins, whether they're gluten or these products, these are made by the plant kingdom to ward off infections from molds and insects eating them out. Now, compared to a big human body, eating a plant, compared to a tiny insect or a mold infecting them, or a virus infecting them, your body is going to be much more resilient. But we have so much marketing and so much repeat use of these smoothies, I don't like it. And anything you eat every day, most likely if you're eating a standard American diet, you will have that repetitious food leak through your gut wall, and you'll start making antibodies to it. So, we teach a one-day simple menu. You have your meat, vegetable day, have that for your breakfast and your lunch. Then you have your chicken vegetable day, have that for your breakfast and your lunch. Then you have your pork and vegetable day, have that for breakfast and your lunch, have your fish and vegetable day for breakfast and lunch, and then your body is not seeing all these chemicals and spices and variety and wearing out 80% of your immune system. 

Question
“Asian woman, 77, May 2022, had sinus atrial tachycardia, not taking meds; reaction to prescribed beta and calcium blockers. September 2023 – rheumatoid arthritis, RA factor 98, refused methotrexate, managed with diet & exercise. January 2026 – blood test: CBC w/ Diff normal except low WBC count at 3.5, RA factor 55. February 2026 – lipid normal except high cholesterol 205, LDL 131, and non-HDL 148. Should I take Lipitor as per doc?”  [0:57:24]

Answer
I don't know who you are, but in general, I will accept a 3.5. Watch the video, High Cholesterol is Healthy. I don't know you. I don't know your other situations, what your weight, your blood pressure, and your insulin level are, how active you are, but I would say, watch that video with Ken Berry and Dr. David Diamond. And in general, that level range of a cholesterol of 205 and LDL 131 is not concerning to me. But I would have all my patients drinking the water, not eating late, pushing protein in their diet, exercising, weightlifting, getting up in the morning with the sunshine, getting their feet on the grass for two minutes, getting grounded, and taking some systemic enzymes. Those are the things, and then they tend to do well. 

Question
“I eat eggs only occasionally, and only the yolks, because I had heard people with EBV and autoimmune disease should avoid them. I would like to eat them more, but don't know if I should.”  [0:59:21]

Answer
I would certainly talk with your doctor. I see no reason why you can't have eggs. Again, there's the person who eats the standard American wild diet, fast food, any time of day, late at night, you know, they have all their excuses. Life was hard. They came home late. They got to eat. And then they inflame their gut, they get all the glyphosates and the lectins and the glutens and pesticide/herbicide, they get all these things irritating their bowel. So, they're generally inflamed by many things. So, if you eat eggs or foods frequently, it'll leak through this irritated lining, more so the older you get. Once you heal it up, then you can reintroduce these foods because these are usually IgG, which are the slow-reacting foods, and you can heal from this. So you should be able to get back to eating eggs. And there are tests we can do that are specific to it. So have your doctor do that. 

Question
“I have a weak LES, which bothers me mostly when lying in bed. I have tried raising the head of my bed, but it’s not helping much. What do you suggest?”  [1:00:49]

Answer
Am I not getting Lower Extremity Syndrome? I don't know what that's standing for. But you have to have weightlifting and core, you have to get on the machines, do the crunches. You have to push the weight away from you. You have to pull the weight here. You have to do the leg press at your level of tolerance. Leg extension, leg flexion. You have to build up your core. I would get a wrap. You can go to the drugstore and get a Velcro wrap and put it around your lower abdomen to support your core if you have lower extremity problems. But if you would type in what you're referring to, LES, because I don't have another computer, and I have to bring this to an end now. But in general, that's the direction. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and can heal, usually very dramatically. So, see your doctor, maybe physical therapy, or orthopedics. But in general, we have to do muscle exercise, or we lose it, and the weight, the bone, and the ligaments start getting pulled out of place as we age. So, that's what I would say.