Welcome back to Conversations with Pam (CWP), a bimonthly Q&A symposium open to members of Wellness Forum Health and hosted by Dr. Pam Popper, an internationally recognized expert on nutrition, medicine, and health.
A few of the topics discussed in a recent CWP discussion were fluoride and clickbait, protein and nutrient assimilation and Lyme disease.
As usual, the Q&A lasted 90 minutes and consisted of general health questions both from the live audience, as well as “write-in” questions that were submitted by members beforehand. We’ve provided a condensed and paraphrased recap of the discussion below and have included excerpts from articles written by Pam in the Health Briefs Library. Please feel welcome to contact us if you would like to find out how to participate in the conversation.
INTRO: Pam always has a delightful and organized way of running the show during CWP. Her warm greeting and friendly reminder about maintaining the boundaries set within the discussion creates a comfortable atmosphere for Wellness Forum members. CWP is more of an informal educational discussion with friends and colleagues at a local coffee shop, than a lecture hall-style discourse. It's relaxing, there's humor involved and sometimes even a quick visit from Sir Winston, Pam's jet-black Maine Coon cat (who is a celebrity in his own right). Throughout the conversation, Pam alternates back and forth between live questions from the group, and questions from the write-in that are emailed to her in advance. After a brief intro, it's time to jump in!
Pam: Welcome everybody!
Members: Hi Pam!
Pam: Hello! Welcome! You guys all know the drill, I think. We go back and forth between questions from the write-in and questions from the live group. Let’s keep the questions general in nature. Try to stay away from getting into great detail about your own or other people’s specific personal health problems, especially because I have no idea what medications or supplements are being taken, what the health history looks like, etc. But general questions on just about any topic are fair game! So, who would like to throw out the first question? Yes, I see your hand is up. Go on right ahead.
Member: Hi, Pam! My question is about fluoride in the water. I have city water, and it’s treated with fluoride. Will boiling fluoridated water make the fluoride worse?
TOPIC 1: Fluoride and Clickbait
Pam: I’m actually teaching an entire workshop on fluoride at the end of the year, so you’ll want to stay tuned for that and click here for more info: Wellness Forum Health. But what I can tell you about fluoride is that two things can be true at the same time. You’ve probably heard me say this before.
Okay – Many of us agree that it was a bad decision to start fluoridating the water in the first place, because I’m not sure we want the health department or the water department making decisions about what we decide to take into our bodies, fluoride in this instance. I’d say most of us have reached our limits with public health officials and the government deciding what is and isn’t good for us. I’m sure everybody here is ready to be done with that – am I right? I know I sure am!
Audience response with muted groans, eye rolls, thumbs up and nodding heads to indicate a “yes” on that last general question from Pam. She knows her audience and knows most of them are not fans of nonsensical public health policies or government mandates.
Pam: On the one hand, there seems to be a strong argument against the decision to ever have fluoridated city water in the first place. And I really do agree with people who say that it never should have been done because it really hasn’t been helpful to anyone’s health in any measurable way. Having said that, it has also become one of the naturopathic and holistic quackery group’s favorite things to blame every health concern and symptom on. And I’m not very concerned about fluoride in general because one of the reasons we have deteriorating health in this country is that we try to pay attention to every little thing, which is impossible in reality. We have got to start paying attention to the stuff that really matters. This fluoride in the water business, in the grand scheme of things, just isn’t something that really matters. So that’s what I think about it in terms of boiling it, freezing it, microwaving it, etc. Does that make sense?
Member: Yes. It does. Thanks, Pam. It’s just that you see all these health articles floating around, and you think you’re doing the right thing, but then you see something that makes you question everything that you thought you were doing right. It’s confusing. Frustrating even.
Pam: Oh, I know. And look. A recent example of this, and it isn’t fluoride, but I think it’ll help make my point more clear, and hopefully ease some stress. This research about xylitol that’s gone viral recently – about it elevating one’s risk for heart attack and stroke?
It’s been all over the news. Does anyone know what I’m referring to here?
A few members either raise their hands, give a thumbs-up or nod.
Pam: Yeah - So, I had to pull up the research to look at it myself and found that the vast majority of it was done on rodents. There were only 10 human subjects in the research, and they only measured a mechanism. They didn’t measure anybody’s health, and it was for a short period of time. So, here’s the thing. You give horse-like doses of something (in this case xylitol) to animals, and then you test a particular blood marker after that, and say, “oh, this is bad.” And then you give it to 10 humans, and after three days you test that same particular blood marker, and say, “oh, this is bad,” and then the media runs away with it. We talked about this in our healthcare bootcamp last night. The journals as well as online health content in general is all about clickbait. Certain topics or research goes viral as clickbait because right now that’s what keeps these publications in business. Their advertising rates are dependent on getting people to click, and how many clicks they get determines how much they get paid, making it imperative that they lead with a sensational headline. And the “Natural Sweetener will cause Heart Attacks,” headline is perfect clickbait. Everybody clicks on it. Unfortunately, I had to click on it, too. But it’s just a ludicrous claim.
And another thing that we need to be aware of when we’re digesting information like this is the fact that the National Toxicology Program funds thousands of scientists that are housed in academic institutions, and their academic appointment depends on them publishing a lot of nonsense. And it is nonsense. But the caveat is that if you don’t come up with something sensational that justifies more research, then some of those toxicology grant recipients will be dismissed. And they don’t like attrition. So, they end up scaring the heck out of people. But notice they always have to finish whatever they study or publish with the conclusion that they definitely need more research. That increases the likelihood that the next grant proposal is likely to be funded. Does everyone follow what I am talking about here?
The audience affirms with nods, and “thumbs up” emojis.
All right. And remember this doesn’t mean that everything is safe and that there aren’t some things out there that are bad for us. It just explains why it is so easy to get caught up in a bunch of nonsense that doesn’t matter. For example – your dry-cleaning fluid is going to kill you, so you should probably go burn all of your clothes in the back yard (laughing). Of course I’m being facetious, but there seems to be no end to all the nonsense.
A few years ago, my friend Collin Campbell sent me a study, which helped me understand this issue very clearly. The note attached to the study read, “This is how ridiculous it’s all become.”
Now let me just ask for a show of hands. How many of you agree that hot dogs and bologna are not healthy foods? Yeah. Pretty much everyone here agrees with that statement. Okay – moving on to explain the study Colin Campbell sent me that went viral, which announced that chemicals like nitrates and nitrites in these processed meats were basically going to kill you. So, I decided to read the study, which used rats as their subjects. The researchers fed the rats in the study the equivalent of 735,000 bologna sandwiches per year! And then they declared that would be harmful for humans. Well, I have to tell you something. Seven-hundred-thirty-five thousand bologna sandwiches a year would be harmful, whether they had nitrates and nitrites or not.
And this type of research almost always becomes counterproductive because if people end up taking the time to read this stuff, they’d say, “well, I only eat four or five bologna sandwiches a week, so I must be okay. I’m nowhere near the threshold of danger.”
And isn’t that the worst message you could send to people about bologna and hot dogs? I’ll just wrap up by saying we have got to start taking a lot of this stuff with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, it is becoming easier to publish poorly written, conflicted and misleading information in journals that used to be reliable sources.
I’ll quote Marcia Angel by saying, “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
This sorry state of affairs means that the consumer must take responsibility for becoming informed. This requires learning how to look at information with skepticism and to investigate thoroughly before making any health-related decision.
Side Note: Wellness Forum Health has been helping people to become INFORMED™ consumers for almost 30 years. For information about their programs and how they can help you, please email pampopper@msn.com.
Pam: Okay! Who would like to throw out the next question?
Member: Pam, I have a question.
Pam: All right! Go on ahead!
Member: My question is about finding a well-balanced protein shake. Do you have a suggestion for one that has a good balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates?
TOPIC 2: Protein and Nutrient Assimilation
Pam: No, I don’t. Because I don’t suggest anybody eat something that isn’t real food. You don’t need a protein shake. That’s the reason we make a smoothie mix at Wellness Forum Health because eating all this fragmented crap is unproductive. You want to be eating real food!
Member: So, you have a smoothie mix at your place that’s well-balanced?
Pam: Well, if you can find another one that’s fine, too. You don’t have to buy ours. But what I’m saying is the reason why we make that smoothie mix is because the stores are full of stuff that has something like 87 ingredients in it. I don’t want something that has protein and carbohydrates and fats in it. I want something that has actual food. And I don’t want something that contains chromium and vitamin C and all that. I’ve got plenty of chromium and vitamin C just from eating food. So, just eat real food. You can’t avoid fortified foods entirely, but you’re not going to die from say eight ounces of plant milk that has some fortification in your smoothie in the morning. But just try to minimize your consumption of that type of stuff and get most of your calories from real food. Okay?
Member: That’s what I was actually looking for, was something that is more real food based.
Pam: Yeah – well, ours is just the vegetable powders, and you can get it with or without stevia. I personally like that little extra sweet, but some people not so much. And either way, we’ve got it both ways.
Click HERE to learn more about Pam’s favorite morning smoothie preparation. https://wellnessforumhealth.com/product/wellness-forum-super-foods-smoothie-mix/
Member: All right. Perfect. Thanks, Pam!
Pam: You’re welcome! Who’s next?
Member: I have a question!
Pam: Yes!
Member: Earlier today, I was shopping at Kroger. A guy saw me pick up some baby spinach, and he walked up to me and told me that we absorb way more of the iron from spinach if we consume it with lemon. Is this true?
Pam: You don’t have to worry about all that. What goes in your mouth has less to do with what goes into your bloodstream than your body’s actual needs at every nanosecond. There’s something called selective assimilation. And what that means is that your body, nanosecond by nanosecond, is making decisions about what you need, and it adjusts accordingly. So, you could take in 5,000 milligrams of something, and your body might only allow 5 milligrams of it in, all right? When people start talking about these pathways, like when you eat vitamin C, or when you take vitamin C, this happens and that happens, and this happens and that happens. But you have no idea what happens because there’s 55,000 different variations nanosecond per nanosecond, depending upon the needs of the body in that particular nanosecond.
And I have a great example of this. When a woman is pregnant, long before she even knows she’s pregnant, her body starts extracting more iron and calcium from food, because she’s going to need a lot of both in order to grow another human, and to nurse. And that will happen if you get pregnant at noon and sit down at dinnertime. At that meal, your body will start absorbing more iron and calcium to support that little life.
So, when we go around making claims, like this man at the grocery store, we seem to be attempting to bypass the wisdom of the body, which is never a very good idea, as it turns out. There used to be a great commercial back when I was a kid. The premise was tricking Mother Nature into thinking margarine was butter, and then she would say, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” which would be followed by lightning and thunder cracking or an elephant stampede.
Member: Pam, may I ask a follow up question to that?
Pam: Sure!
Member: Regarding the spinach and lemon question, would that apply to this idea of food-combining? You know how there are some books about combining certain foods, or eating certain foods on an empty stomach?
Pam: Food-combining is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with anything. Here’s the bottom line – it all gets ground up and your body decides what it’s going to take and what it is not going to take, regardless of the combinations you eat. This food-combining nonsense is just one more way for people to draw attention to themselves.
Member: Yeah – thanks, Pam. That’s what I thought.
Pam: Just keep it simple, right? Let’s make it easier on ourselves to eat well, not more difficult. For example, whatever Wellness Forum is serving for lunch today, let’s see, cheesy spaghetti squash with pecan meatballs. Done! That’s what I’m having for lunch today. And I have no idea what that combination of food entails, but I know it’s all real food, and I know it’s going to be delicious, so that’s what I’m having.
Member: Yeah – that makes sense. Thanks, Pam!
Pam: You’re welcome! All right, who’s next? Yes! Go right ahead.
Member: Hi, Pam. Okay – I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease about 12 years ago. What are your thoughts on how to manage that? I’ve done pretty well, but I blame my aggravations on Lyme.
TOPIC 3: Chronic Lyme
Pam: There are a lot of incompetent healthcare practitioners telling people they have chronic Lyme disease when they don’t. There are even a couple of articles in the Health Briefs library about this issue, and there is absolutely no benefit from long-term treatment of Lyme, but there are some devastating consequences. We have members at Wellness Forum who have been irreparably harmed by this.
Excerpt from Health Briefs Library on Lyme Disease:
Lyme disease is a common tick-borne illness caused by bacteria called, Borrellia Burgdorfei (Lyme disease spirochetes). People are more likely to contract Lyme disease when they spend time in wooded areas where the ticks carrying the disease tend to live. Late spring and early summer are the times when one is most likely to get Lyme disease, but it can happen at any other time of year, too.
The area around the skin surrounding the bite is the first to be affected, and the most common visible sign is a red oval-shaped rash. If not treated, the bacteria can migrate elsewhere, affecting other parts of the body like the nervous system and joints, and can cause many different symptoms.
While tick bites are common, only about 2% result in Lyme disease. The tick should be removed slowly in order to make sure the entire bug is taken out of the wound, and then watched carefully. The development of a rash signifies Lyme disease 80% of the time, and it usually develops within 30 days.
If Lyme is suspected, a doctor can confirm diagnosis with a tissue culture or a blood test for antibodies to the bacteria. Antibiotic treatment for 2 to 3 weeks is effective most of the time, but if the spirochetes have migrated to other parts of the body, longer antibiotic therapy may be needed.
While there is not much controversy about what to do in situations where the tick bite is relatively recent and the diagnosis is clear, there is a great deal of debate about what to do for people who may have contracted Lyme disease a long time ago, and still are having symptoms that are sometimes associated with Lyme disease. Some doctors insist that the inability to confirm diagnosis with a blood test does not mean that the person does not have Lyme disease. These docs often claim that symptoms are enough to warrant treatment and the treatment most often prescribed is long-term antibiotic therapy, sometimes for as long as 2 to 3 years.
While antibiotics can be lifesaving in many situations, they can also cause side effects, including the destruction of beneficial bacteria in the GI tract. This can affect many things, including the ability to absorb nutrients from food and can result in compromised immune function.
Another issue is that patients’ symptoms can be related to many other, and more likely causes. Inflammation, pain, swollen glands and fatigue, for example, can be caused by things like dehydration, poor diet, obesity and inactivity.
Conversion to an optimal diet, exercise and, depending on the situation, some testing to rule out more serious diseases, are the best first steps to take. Therapeutic water-only fasting is a viable alternative for those who have no firm diagnosis and continue to have symptoms. Therapeutic water-only fasting should only be done under medical supervision. Pam has recommended several Wellness Forum members visit well-respected fasting centers like True North for this purpose, and these members have experienced amazing health improvement during their stay.
While there are patients for whom long-term antibiotic treatment may be appropriate, this should be the last resort, not the first option in the absence of a confirmed diagnosis. There are a lot of misunderstandings about Lyme disease, a lot of, in Pam’s experience, opportunistic healthcare practitioners who have turned unconfirmed Lyme disease into a big business, and the potential for many unsuspecting patients to be hurt as a result.
Excerpt from Health Briefs Library on Long-Term Antibiotic Treatment for Lyme Disease:
Most patients with confirmed Lyme Disease recover after taking antibiotics. But some patients, as many as 20%, continue to have symptoms that include fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, sleep disturbance, and cognitive decline. Longer-term treatment is often recommended for these patients, but several randomized, placebo-controlled studies have shown that long-term antibiotic therapy did not result in better clinical results or reduction in symptoms. Two trials showed that there was no difference between oral or intravenous antibiotic treatment vs. placebo for relieving symptoms associated with Lyme in patients with a confirmed diagnosis. The reason may be that for most of these patients, testing did not find evidence of lingering infection.[1] Unfortunately, these data have not changed prescribing habits. Long-term antibiotic therapy is still recommended by many doctors for people who at one time had a confirmed diagnosis and for people who have chronic symptoms similar to those experienced by Lyme patients post-treatment, but who have never had a firm Lyme diagnosis using any reliable testing method.[2]
A newer study looking at this issue is interesting because it included patients with confirmed Lyme diagnosis (96 subjects), and even more patients without confirmed diagnosis (184 subjects). The unconfirmed patients had symptoms attributed to Lyme disease based on positive results from tests that are not considered reliable for a Lyme diagnosis. Testing for IgM or IgG antibodies has a high rate of false positive results for many reasons, including the fact that antibody count can remain high long after an infection has cleared. All patients in this trial were given intravenous ceftriaxone
for 2 weeks which was followed by 12 weeks of treatment with either antibiotics or placebo.
During the 2 weeks of antibiotics preceding the trial, 131 patients reported at least one side effect, with the most common being rash and diarrhea. During the 12 weeks of treatment, 205 patients reported at least one adverse event, with 9 patients reporting serious side effects, and 19 patients with side effects serious enough to discontinue taking the drugs. Side effects reported during this phase included nausea, photosensitivity, and diarrhea.
But the study showed that patients taking antibiotics did not have more improvement in symptoms or health-related quality of life than those taking the placebo.[3] In other words, there was no benefit, but just under half of the subjects reported harm.
In an editorial about the study, experts acknowledged that some critics might claim that 12 weeks of antibiotic therapy might not be long enough for resolution of symptoms.[4] But, they say, antibiotics usually work quickly when prescribed appropriately (for confirmed infection), so it is not likely that continued antibiotic therapy would result in a more favorable outcome. The authors reference a study showing that long-term mental and physical outcomes for patients with confirmed Lyme Disease who do not receive long-term antibiotic therapy are about the same as those in the general population.[5]
The diagnosis of Lyme disease without reliable test results is common in some types of practices, particularly those advertising themselves as “holistic” or “integrative.” Wellness Forum Health has had many members with such a diagnosis who have not experienced resolution of their symptoms but have instead been damaged by long-term antibiotic treatment. Sadly, the diagnosis of Lyme in many patients is inaccurate. It is more likely that patients suffering from nebulous symptoms such as fatigue and muscle pain have other conditions which are not addressed by their Lyme-focused doctors.
The bottom line is that short-term antibiotic treatment is effective for patients with a confirmed diagnosis of Lyme disease. Long-term antibiotic treatment does not improve outcomes. Those who do not have a confirmed Lyme diagnosis are not candidates for treatment.
Pam: We have members who are beyond help because of what these Lyme-focused charlatans have done to people. It’s very important to proceed with caution.
Members: Oh, I am. I’ve resisted everything they’ve tried to give me. And I didn’t take any antibiotics.
Pam: First of all, “chronic Lyme” is almost always a misdiagnosis. And I’ll share what that looks like here at Wellness Forum. We have worked with more than 100,000 members in 33 countries in the almost 30 years we’ve been in business. It sounds like a huge number, but we’ve been at this for a long time. In almost 30 years, I have met one member who had persistent Lyme. That is one person in 28 years. So, it is almost always, as in 99.9999999% of the time, a misdiagnosis. But, I realize something is going on, and I am not saying that there is nothing wrong because if you’re having symptoms you’re having symptoms, and that’s real. I believe you. But I’m also telling you that blaming it on Lyme is probably not going to get you to the place where you want to be with your health.
And just as an aside, there has been a lot of discussion coming up in our healthcare bootcamp about rampant quackery in the medical profession.
Member: I’m not even with the doctor who diagnosed me with Chronic Lyme anymore. I’ve just been taking care of myself, and doing my own research, but was also curious to know your thoughts on it, so thank you. And I’m doing what I can with diet and exercise. I have a sauna now, too. I guess I also just want to hear more about ways an old lady like me can manage.
Pam: Well, I don’t know anything about your health, and as you know, this isn’t the forum to discuss personal health concerns.
But I will speak to the things that everybody can and should do to improve their health:
1.) Eat a health-promoting diet based on the Wellness Forum Health food pyramid;
2.) Exercise;
3.) Get out into the sunshine;
4.) Avoid unnecessary medical care because hanging out with doctors is not a pathway to health;
5.) Pay attention to getting good, restorative sleep;
6.) Keep yourself well-hydrated with good, clean drinking water;
7.) Pay attention to your quality of life, and engaging in activities that promote mental stimulation.
And I have something to say about that, too. Some of our older members were having a more difficult time throughout the COVID debacle. Before COVID many of them had rich social lives, and then suddenly their churches closed, and their clubs and social groups stopped meeting. This caused them to slip back cognitively quite a bit, just from lack of mental stimulation. You know, even participating in workshops like this, and any chance you have to be around people, and use your brain is great for maintaining your health. So just keep all that good stuff up that you’re already doing.
Member: Okay, Pam I will! Thank you!
Pam: You’re welcome! Let’s all help each other live healthy lives for a good long time. We have lots of stuff to do, right? We don’t have any time for sickness. Ya know, it’s just not on the schedule for this year.
Members: Nod in agreement.
Pam: This brings us to the end. Great questions, you guys! We’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. Bye!
Members: Bye, Pam! Thank you! See you next time.
CONCLUSION: A video recording of CWP is always emailed to members on the following business day after the session takes place, so even if you miss the live session, the recording is still made available. Pam always keeps her members in the loop.
[1] Klempner M, Baker P, Shapiro E, et al. “Treatment trials for post-Lyme disease symptoms revisited.” Am J Med 2013;126:665-669
[2] Feder H Jr, Johnson B, O’Connell S, et al. “A critical appraisal of “chronic Lyme disease.” NEJM 2007;357:1422-143
[3] Berende A, ter Hofstede H, Vos F et al. “Randomized Trial of Longer-Term Therapy for Symptoms Attributed to Lyme Disease.” NEJM 31 March 2016;374:1209-1220
[4] Melia M, Auwaerter P. “Time for a different Approach to Lyme Disease and Long-Term Symptoms.” NEJM 31 March 2016;374:1277-1278
[5] Mygland A, Ljøstad U, Fingerle V, Rupprecht T, Schmutzhard E, Steiner I.. “EFNS guidelines on the diagnosis and management of European Lyme neuroborreliosis” Eur J Neurol 2010;17:8-1
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