Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage

My guest today is Pamela Seefeld, R.Ph, a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. We’ll be talking about basic principles pharmacists use to maximize the effectiveness of drugs in your body and how you can apply those same principles to maximize the effectiveness of supplements and other natural substances you take. Pamela has more than 25 years experience choosing and selling top quality medicinal supplements, so she’s seen it all. Pamela is a 1990 graduate of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, where she studied Pharmacognosy (the study of medicines derived from plants and other natural sources). She has worked as an integrative pharmacist teaching physicians, pharmacists and the general public about the proper use of botanicals. She is also a grant reviewer for NIH in Washington D.C. and the owner of Botanical Resource and Botanical Resource Med Spa in Clearwater, Florida. www.botanicalresource.com

LISTEN TO OTHER SHOWS WITH PAMELA SEEFELD

transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Pamela Seefeld

Date of Broadcast: July 15, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.

It’s Wednesday, July 15, 2015, I’m here in Clearwater, Florida and we’re having a little weather pattern here. Usually the rainstorms, the thunderstorms (we have thunderstorms almost every day), usually, they come from the Atlantic Ocean across the state of Florida and hit us on the afternoon. And now, they are starting in the Gulf of Mexico and coming and hitting us around noon time. So, we may be having more thunderstorms this week, but we’re fine right now.

So today, we are going to be talking with my guest, Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist. She’s on every other Wednesday. So, she’ll be on two weeks from now again. And I have her on so often because we’re talking about drugs, prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, how they affect your body and what you can do naturally instead of taking pharmaceuticals.

She is a registered pharmacist. She has been a pharmacist over 20 years. She works in a hospital as a pharmacist. And what we are going to talk about today is actually something a little different. What we are going to talk about is how she applies what she knows as a pharmacist and what she knows about the body and how things move with the body and what happens on the body, how she applies her pharmacist’s training to giving people the natural remedies that she gives them. She also has a botanical pharmacy here in Clearwater, Florida where we both live.

So, that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. I asked her to do that because she keeps like throwing in these little things every time she’s talking about different natural remedies and the pharmaceuticals. I just wanted her to get all these ideas into one show so that we can learn how we can better take our natural remedies in a way that there has some intelligence and design behind it.

Hi, Pamela.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Hey, it’s great to be here.

DEBRA: Thank you. So first, I want to tell you something and I’ll our listeners too as long as they are listening. No, but this is a personal message to Pamela.

I want to tell you. So, if you’ve been listening, listeners, if you’ve been listening for any period of time or have listened to other shows where Pamela is the guest, you know that she does consultations and anybody can call her. We’ll give her number during the show. But anybody can call her up and for free, she will find out what’s going on with you and help you choose some natural remedies.

So, if you can get them in front of her, she will look at your blood test. And so I took my blood test and I’ve been taking them in to her. A few months ago, I took in a blood test that showed kidney irregularity which indicated to her that I needed to pay attention to my kidneys now and not wait until the future when I have kidney failure. We did a whole show on kidney failure and how to take care of your kidneys naturally.

But I wanted to tell you, Pamela that I got another blood test and my kidneys are absolutely perfect.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s great!

DEBRA: Yes!

PAMELA SEEFELD: Good for you!

DEBRA: So, Pamela gave me, she gave me how many perfect remedy to detox my kidneys and it worked absolutely perfectly.

PAMELA SEEFELD: I can add things to that. Today is a very special day to me because my bichon frise, she’s going to be ten in October. She had a blood test. Her B1 kidney parameter was 40, which was high for her breed. Two months ago (and I told the vet), I said, “I’m going to treat her with some homeopathy and I need to have the blood test repeated. Yesterday, I brought her to the vet and I got the results this morning and she’s at 28. That’s’ only two months. She’s just completely reversed. I’m so happy! So, Vicky and you both have great results.

DEBRA: Yes, we do!

PAMELA SEEFELD: I’m just super thrilled. I’m super thrilled for you and I’m very thrilled for my pet because I love this dog very much. I’m very good with the animals as well. So, for your listeners, if they have their cat or dog has liver or kidney failure, these kind of things that there is really nothing in the veterinary realm, in medicines to take care of this, please call me because I have very good results with my own pets and other people’s pets.

DEBRA: And go ahead and give them your number.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes. My number to the pharmacy here is 727-442-4955. I’d be very honored to help you with your family or with your animals with any concerns you might have.

DEBRA: And she’s excellent, she’s excellent. She has a very good reputation in Clearwater, Florida both with people with the community and doctors. I’ve said before that my medical doctor when I told him that Pamela has given me something, he said, “Just do whatever Pamela tells you to do.”

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s great!

DEBRA: Yeah. So, we’ve done so many shows, but I think way back in the beginning when we did the first show, I’d probably asked you this question. But I want to ask you again today because we’re talking about pharmacology. What made you interested in becoming a pharmacist?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, I always was very good in chemistry and I’ve always been interested in the chemical realm of nature and so forth. When I was in high school, I want to be an organic chemist and that’s what I wanted to do when I graduated. In my senior year in high school, my dad was an engineer and he told that I needed to get a real job.

So, the truth of the matter is I really wanted to be a chemist. He told me that’s too hard and being around dangerous chemicals, I’d be in laboratories all my life. That might not be the best suit for me.

So, one day I came home after touring the Pharmacy School of the University of Wisconsin and I came home and I said, “You know, I think I’m going to be a pharmacist because I found that it has lots of chemistry and I can help people.” I came home and my dad was all excited, he goes “You’re going to be a pharmacist?” I said, “That’s what I’m going to do.” And that’s exactly how it happened.

DEBRA: So, once you became a pharmacist, how did you get into your field of pharmacognosy? Details…

PAMELA SEEFELD: I was actually fortunate to study pharmacognosy at the University of Florida. They don’t have that anymore, but they did offer that and I did study that quite extensively as a side major to what I was working on. So, plant medicine is something that really most people probably aren’t paying much attention to.

You have people that do herbalism and they study the plants and how they react in the body, but that’s more wild crafting and I’ve studied a lot of that too. But I’ve been very fortunate. I studied a lot in Europe on homeopathic medicines. My formal training was in the University of Florida.

I’ve really made it my passion. I actually collected all the pharmacognosy books written in English all over the world. I’ve one of every volume. I’ve read them all.

I find plant chemistry very interesting, the primary and secondary metabolites of plants and how they act in the body and the fact that we could realize that the plants produce these for reasons of their own. It’s not just they’re producing them because they want us. A lot of these things were produced because to ward off herbivores and animals from eating them. But as a result, when we take them, they actually have different restorative properties in the body.

Understanding how this chemistry of the plants and the homeopathy work on receptors in the body, really, it is important for me to train the people and to educate them that this isn’t some sticks and twigs and hocus focus. There is actual scientific data that I can prove on the remedies that I am proprieting for patients.

DEBRA: So, now we know about your background. Now, I know that we have several different areas that we want to talk about today. We have just a couple minutes before the break, but let’s get started. What’s the first one you want to talk about in terms of what you can tell us as a pharmacist that will help us understand better how to take natural remedies.

PAMELA SEEFELD: So, what I like to look at is that certain things sequester your supplements when you’re taking them. So, we’re going to start to talk about that, introduce that subject. So, sequestering agents can somebody taking psyllium like Metamucil. A lot of people or a vegan, they’ll use Metamucil as a thickening agent. I know I used to make them like a crust, if you’re making a quiche that is vegan.

Fiber is also very sequestering. So if you have bran, flax, any of these things that have lots of fiber, when you eat them, they can act as a sequestering agent. So, say in the morning I have steel-cut oats and then I put a lot of flax there and then also some psyllium in there. And then I start talking all my supplements. Well, there’s a problem with that because if you don’t separate them by one or two hours, you’re probably not absorbing 90% of what you’re taking.

DEBRA: Well, that’s a very good thing to know because I just started eating a whole lot more flax and…

PAMELA SEEFELD: And the fiber is good, but separating it, it’s important.

DEBRA: Right. So, I see what I need to do because I do take my supplements. I eat my flax and then I take my supplements.

PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s just that it’s reducing some of the absorption because if you think about it, you’re taking these things and they sequester cholesterol, which we want. They kind of clean the GI tract to some degree. They’re taking things kind of whatever. They’re not supposed to be there and they’re taking it out with it. But at the same same time, when you’re doing this, you’re actually reducing absorption the supplements you’re taking.

DEBRA: That’s really good to know. We need to go to a break now. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who prefers to dispense medicinal plants and other natural substances instead of prescription drugs. And today, we’re talking about how what’s she’s learned as a pharmacist can help us better take our natural supplements. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist, but in addition to being a pharmacist, she has a natural pharmacy where she practices a field called pharmacognosy. We’ve talked about the meaning of this word before. The root of this, ‘pharma’ is drug, but ‘cognosy’, it means information. So, plants actually have information. You want to explain that, the difference between plants and drugs?

PAMELA SEEFELD: So, actually what’s interesting is that two-thirds of all drugs come from plants. Originally, they’re found in nature. That’s what we have to think when people say, “Oh, you know, but pharmaceuticals, they’re so good.” They came from the plants. They find them in plants. And then, they synthesize them in a lab. That’s how we get medicines.

So, what’s interesting about plants though is that they have activity in the body almost somewhat to what they produce in the plants. So, I’ll give you an example. I think it’s pretty amazing that quercetin is ubiquitous. It’s really in two-thirds of plant. Quercetin works in plants. If quercetin was not in the leaves of the plant, the leaves will basically fall to the ground because quercetin works as a vascular stabilizer of the plant vasculature. It makes the nice and taut and tight and it allows for the nutrients to go to the vessels in the plant.

When we take it orally as people and humans, when we take it, it does the same in our blood vessels. So, I use it for eye problem with the blood, small capillaries. I use for people that are bruising. I use it for hemorrhoids. I use it for leaky gut. I use for a lot of different things where there’s a permeability of the blood vessels.

To me when we think about the wonder of nature that it is pretty intelligent and amazing that the plant, how something works in the plant works exactly the same in people.

DEBRA: That’s so interesting. But I see that in nature (I’ve done a fair amount of study about nature myself), there’s consistency in their order and design and…

PAMELA SEEFELD: And, the cytochrome p450, which are the enzymes in your liver are found in the plant as well. That to me was the craziest thing that I have ever read. The liver enzymes that we have to metabolize medicines and what’s called phenobiotics, which is a terminology for like anything that we consume, maybe a chemical or plant, the metabolism in our liver is inherently related to the metabolism in plants themselves.

DEBRA: Wow! Amazing!

PAMELA SEEFELD: It is. So, we have to have a great appreciation for plants and understand that they provide wonderful things.

And most people, even if they don’t want to believe in alternative medicine (which I would find really hard to not be able to embrace that), everyone’s like, “Eat your fruits and vegetables. Eat plants. Eat salads,” well, what are you doing when you’re eating plants? You’re absorbing these vital nutrients and they’re helping your body.

So, you can help someone’s diet just by how they’re feeling and how they’re doing. I think your 20s and your 30s are very forgiving. People eat a lot of junk and stuff and they can get away with it. When you start you late 40s and your 50s, that’s when you’re not taking care of yourself and you’re not eating salads and trying to do something (it can’t be every day probably for most people, but in general, the trend of what you’re eating isn’t as healthy), that’s when people start having health issues.

That’s typical when I see people come to me because they’ve been able to coast along and now all of a sudden, things have happened. So, eating the plants, consuming specific remedies that I can suggest to you at a very economical cost –

And that’s really important people to know, that this is not very expensive stuff that I’m suggesting. We keep a chart for you, it’s very professional. If you call me and say, “My liver enzyme parameter came high. My kidney parameter came back a little high,” the time it would take you to deal with these issues is when you first find these numbers. When you wait and see what happens and you’re like, “We’ll keep watching it,” well, “watching it” means they hope it doesn’t keep going up. The problem with that is that there are certain things in the herbal medicine realm that can treat very well whereas in regular pharmacy, they have nothing.

DEBRA: Yes, that’s part of the problem. I know, I know. I see the difference. I have to go to a medical doctor because many, many years ago, I started taking thyroid supplement and you can’t just stop taking thyroid supplement although I’m holding out the hope that one day, I’ll figure out how to do that.

So, I have to go to the doctor every three months. I have to get a blood test. I have to get my thyroid prescription, et cetera. I can’t just stop taking it cold turkey because I would go into a coma. I almost did once when I tried that.

But in terms of keeping my body healthy, the doctors, the medical doctors just don’t have anything to give me but a drug. And that doesn’t contribute to health.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, yeah, you’re right. It’s important to realize that we’re not saying everything’s good or everything’s bad. I like to think to myself that I’m very reasonable about straddling the lines. Okay, you’re on thyroid medicine. I have homeopathic T3 T4. Is it going to replace your Synthroid? I don’t think so. For somebody that maybe is a little low on the bell curve and their reading is a little bit lower and for some reason, the doctor doesn’t want to give them thyroid, but there having symptoms of thyroid and they are having symptoms of hypothyroidism and they want to use that, perfect situation.

DEBRA: Yeah.

PAMELA SEEFELD: You maybe don’t want to be on as much medicine or the doctors not willing to accommodate your needs as far as adjusting it a little bit because you feel like you’re just very sluggish. T3 T4 can help a little bit.

But basically, when the TSH just keeps releasing it and it’s elevated and it’s trying to release thyroid and it’s not, that feedback mechanism is gone. And as a result of it, you really need medicine.

I think life is not about good and bad, black or white. It’s really about knowing that there are certain things you can treat well with herbal medicine. Then there are other things that I tell people, “No. This is the medicine that they should have given you.” I’ll write the name of the prescription down and I’ll say, ” Go to the doctor and this is what they should have ordered.”

So, you have to really look at that, that your knowledge, you use it in a very effective manner for your patient. That’s what really comes down to. It’s not about saying, “This is also good or bad.” It’s really about, “Let’s be reasonable and from the chemistry stand point, what you need…”

And many times, I can say, “Look, let’s just try and get rid of it” and it does work. So, really, experience matters a lot.

DEBRA: Well, I think one of the reasons why I like you so much (aside from that I just think you’re a wonderful person), one of the reasons why I like you as someone to have around to advise me on some of these things is that you do have both the drug background and the natural background.

And so many people who have natural background don’t have a drug background. So, you could bring both of those and say, “This is the one that will be most effective thing to do in this particular situation.” You can help people…

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s a very true. That’s why I’m very proud of what I do because it’s not about shaming medicines. It’s not about totally saying 100% of the time that herbal medicines are going to work.

I know from the repertoire that I use here what works and what doesn’t. Case in point, your pre-kidney failure for yourself and for my pet, I know that product works. I’ve actually given talks to the doctors on that and they were pretty amazed because I’ve seen some dramatic results.

DEBRA: Yeah. We need to go to break again, but when we come back, we’ll talk more about specific things that knowing will help you take your natural supplements better. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Pamela Seefeld. Her website is BotanicalResource.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest is Pamela Seefeld. She’s a registered pharmacist who also knows about how natural remedies can work as well if not better than drugs. But she also, as we’ve been talking about, knows when we need to take a drug as opposed to a natural remedy.

So, Pamela, before, you told us that if we eat a lot of fiber, that can interfere with absorption. Is there anything else we need to know about food?

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s good, yeah. Fat and protein, when you take fat and protein in a meal, it delays the emptying, the gastric emptying. And so, it delays the [inaudible 00:27:25] of the blood stream.

Let’s give it two examples. Say you’re having a really bad headache and you want to take a homeopathic remedy, you want to take a vitamin that helps for fighting a headache. If you want a peak in the bloodstream, you want it to be high and immediate and not have a delay of at least 20 minutes to an hour. You would want to take it in an empty stomach or you would want to take it with something fizzy, something that’s carbonated because carbonation pushes it to the bloodstream and you’ll get a peak within three to five minutes.

DEBRA: Oh! I didn’t know that. This is just great. It’s just great to know these things.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That way, it’s absorbed through the stomach. So, even pain relief. Let’s say you sprained something, you hit your hand and you’re taking a homeopathic that maybe has Arnica in it (I like tea relief a lot, which formerly was called Tramil), if you wanted to have a peak in the bloodstream faster, instead of just taking it orally or taking it under your tongue, if you put it in something that’s carbonated like Perrier or some Sprite (of course, I’m not a soda person), something that’s got some carbonation in it, even just seltzer water, your peak in the bloodstream is going to be immediate. That’s a good little trick to get it to absorb to the stomach. Fat and protein delay emptying.

So, if you take something that’s time released or you want this to last over the course of the day, you want to take it with a meal. That’s how food affects absorption with these particular things.

DEBRA: Very interesting! The first time I realized that what I was eating was affecting my medication was I used to take soy protein bars for breakfast. I would take my thyroid pill and I would eat the soy bar only to find out that soy negates thyroid.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yup, you’re absolutely right.

DEBRA: And it just amazes me. I had no idea. I was just eating and taking vitamins. We don’t even think about these things. I was completely negating my entire prescription. So then, when I went back to the doctor, he asked me if I was eating soy. But nobody ever told me at the beginning that soy could do that.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s very important to know, that what you’re eating at the same time as you’re taking supplements, we were talking about fiber sequestering it, so your peak in the bloodstream is low and you might not even absorb the contents because it’s going to be sequestered in the bowel basically inside the fiber.

Also, if you’re taking something that has Vitamin A, D, E and K, which are the fat soluble vitamins, you need to take fat at the same time to have them be absorbed. The reason behind that is that the taste of fat in your mouth (even if it’s just a few almonds), the taste of fat in your mouth releases bile acids in the small intestines. And so when you have a vitamin that has these fat soluble vitamins, say, Vitamin E, you’re not going to absorb it if you’re taking it with pear. So, that’s important to know.

DEBRA: That is important to know. Now, but also, I think it applies to the vitamins in food as well like a supplement. If you’re eating those foods that would have those vitamins in it, then you need to eat some fat with those foods. It’s so interesting how to optimize all these things.

PAMELA SEEFELD: It is.

DEBRA: I think it’s all so new, but once we start understanding it, I think can actually apply this.

PAMELA SEEFELD: I was going to say, another thing to, say you’re taking a homeopathic to block acids, we know stomach acids peak between 10 pm to 2 am. So, that’s why a lot of people have indigestion at night, more heartburns are going to be in the evenings.

So, I used a lot of Reflux Rx because people don’t want to be in a proton pump inhibitor like Protonics and Prilosec and these medicines, we have to remember when you take Protonics, Prilosec, Nexium, any of those medicines that are proton pump inhibitors (and a lot of people are on those), when you take those medicines in a consistent basis, you absorb no calcium and no iron. And that is very important for people to know. You’re going to end up with anemia and you’re going to end up with very frail, brittle bones.

DEBRA: Another important thing to look at. See, this is why I wanted to do this show.

PAMELA SEEFELD: It is important!

DEBRA: You mentioned about time of day. I think there is more about time of day.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct! So, some interesting tidbits, the Wallstreet Journal had a really interesting article…

DEBRA: Very good article.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes, very good. It’s about your body’s witching hours. It talks about the worst times of day for your health. And I think this is very important for your listeners.

Overnight, you blood pressure and your core body temperature and heart rate are at their lowest, which makes sense. But melatonin, of course, is at its highest. But the liver releases large amount of glucose and blood sugar levels rise between 4am and 6am.

Now, how is this important? It’s important for a person that’s watching their fasting blood sugar when they first get up in the morning if they’re a diabetic. It’s normally going to be elevated because the liver is dumping all this sugar.

So people need to take that into account when they’re checking their fasting blood sugar. They haven’t eaten all night, they take their blood sugar, if it’s high, it might not necessarily be pre-diabetes. It might be the fact that depending on how much glucose the liver has dumped, that might be pre-disposing you to inaccurate readings.

DEBRA: Especially if you get up at five in the morning and take it. That’s just the peak time.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right.

DEBRA: That’s the peak time. That’s an important thing.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Right. So maybe somebody that’s monitoring their sugars, maybe their fasting blood sugar is like in the 90s or close to a hundred. They have a glucose monitor. They’re really on top of things. They’re trying to figure out how to get their sugars down. They keep taking it early in the mornings and it’s registering high. But when they take it in the afternoon, maybe fix or six hours have gone and they haven’t eaten, then all of a sudden, it seems normal. They’re perplexed, they can’t figure out why. It’s important to realize what times of day sugar is being released at a higher amount.

So also, cortisol. Now, cortisol is a stress hormone. That increases in the morning when you first get up. The reason why that your body does that is it’s trying to prepare for the day. Your mind starts racing, “Oh, I’ve got to call this person. I’ve got to go buy groceries. I’ve got to go, do here.” Let’s face it, all of our days are filled with errands and things to do.

So, cortisol goes higher as a stress hormone. That’s why we know more heart attacks and strokes between 6:00 am and noon. Cortisol can be a pre-requisite to heart attacks.

DEBRA: Good, Good. So if anybody wants to look up this article, it’s called Your Body’s Witching Hour. Is that the title?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Correct.

DEBRA: You can just search for that, but I’ll put a link to it.

PAMELA SEEFELD: It’s Tuesday, June 2nd of this year, that’s when it came out

DEBRA: That’s a very good article. Yeah.

PAMELA SEEFELD: So knowing what times of day heart attacks are more frequent. If you’re going to taking a baby aspirin or in place of a baby aspirin, if you want to be taking a 800 to 1200 units of vitamin E, you need take it in the day time, not in the afternoon because you’re most at risk for the heart attack in the morning. That’s important to know.

And as I was saying, if you’re going to take something for heart burn, for stomach acid, I used a lot of Reflux RX. It’s medical. It’s very good for people that don’t want to be in the proton pump inhibitors as I was talking about, the acid not being there to absorb those things. You want to take it at night.

DEBRA: Okay, good. And that’s why doctors tell you take this at night or take it with your meals or whatever. When we come from the break, we’ll talk more about when to take you take your supplements and how to determine your dose.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Pamela Seefeld. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest is Pamela Seefeld. We’re talking about what we can learn from a pharmacist about how we take our natural supplements.

So Pamela, there’s a couple that I can think go together that I’ve noticed and that is about dose and also, about taking your supplements throughout the day. Talk about what you tell about drinking water throughout the day? Knowing you has changed completely how I take things because I have my bottled with my liquid supplements in it. I also spread my solid supplements throughout the day, breakfast, lunch and dinner for the reasons you’re going to tell us.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Right, a very good question. So, a lot of times, when I give somebody homeopathic remedies, we’re putting it in a water bottle and you’re drinking it over the course of six to eight hours a day.

The reason why you want to do is that every time you take a sip, your body is taking a hit of the medication. It’s like getting an IV fluid. We think about the people in critical care at the hospital, you have them on continuous drip. There’s a reason behind that. We want this to be released continuously into the body.

When you take something just for one time, let’s say you take everything in the morning with a swig of water and you walked out the door and you don’t take anything else the rest of the day, depending on what you ate, whatever your breakfast was [inaudible 00:40:02], maybe you add a big bowl of All Bran’s extra fiber and you didn’t absorb any of it or maybe you had some fat and protein if you had some scrambled eggs and then maybe it’s delaying it for another hour, the peaks in the bloodstream are going to be a sudden peak. It’s going to be, in the bloodstream, let’s say, 15 to 20 minutes, maybe less than that. And then after that, there’s no medicine around.

So, if you’re trying to get a therapeutic outcome and you’re looking to have a result, if you’re not just taking them just because you just want to take them (and I respect people’s time and money ), if you’re going to take something and you really want to absorb it and you really want it to be effective for you, then as a result of that, you really need to look and see taking it through the day.

And a lot of people are taking the homeopathic supplements that are liquids because it is easy. Just throw it in your purse or put it on your desk, drink it through the day and you have much more consistent result because of that.

DEBRA: Yes, I just think that’s so important because I used to take everything in the morning. I would say, “I can’t remember this through the day. “ But after listening to your explanation about this it made so much sense to me that I now make sure that I take it all day long.

I actually have three little containers on my desk where I work. One says ‘breakfast’, ‘lunch’ and ‘dinner’. I can see them in front of me all day long. So, there’s no forgetting. I know that I’m just supplementing my body all day long and it does seem to make a difference.

PAMELA SEEFELD: It will. And the thing that’s important too. Like we were talking about the different times of the day, as another aside, I’m talking about this article here. Arthritic joints are stiffest and most painful between 8:00 am and 11:00 am. That’s because when you sleep at night, you have a rise in pro-inflammatory markers.

Now, why is this important? Because these rise and pro-inflammatory markers that takes place while you’re sleeping (it makes you have arthritis and stiffness in your joints when you first wake up in the morning. And of course, part of it is inactivity when you’re lying in bed), but a lot of this is these pro-inflammatory markers, if your c-reactive protein or your SED rate or your estrogen (there’s different things that the doctor can do) or your ANA, all these different tests, these numbers (the c-reactive protein is more associated with heart attacks. If they’re worried about your heart, they’ll do that, so they can be aware of what your number is), if those are mildly elevated, then you need to take some anti-inflammatory at bed time before you go to bed. It -might help the morning stiffness and some of the arthritis that may be associated for some of these individuals.

DEBRA: Good!

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s important to know. Those inflammatory markers, that’s probably part of the explanation we were talking about heart attacks in the mornings. This article doesn’t go into that factor. But heart attacks are more frequent in the morning, we know cortisol rises in the morning, we know that stiffness due to pro-inflammatory factors is from the evening when you sleep is rising, it would make logical sense that the c-reactive protein, these inflammatory markers that are elevated at night not only contributing to arthritis, but they’re also contributing to heart attack prevalence.

DEBRA: Yes, good.

PAMELA SEEFELD: So, taking these things, if you’re going to take an anti-inflammatory, arthritis or not, but maybe you’re worried about heart disease, maybe you have heart disease in your family, maybe your doctors are already giving you something for heart disease prevention, the time to be taking homeopathic or vitamin supplements for inflammation might be at your bed time.

DEBRA: Okay.

PAMELA SEEFELD: So, that’s important to know.

DEBRA: You want to take things at the right time of day, that’s so important. So, we only have few minutes, but I want to make sure that we just talk about dose for a minute.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah.

DEBRA: There’s a big difference between taking six pills or one pill. How do you what the right dose is.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Well, obviously, we’re talking about the dose. When we dose children, we dose it in so many milligrams per kilogram. So it’s done on weight.

DEBRA: Yeah.

PAMELA SEEFELD: If we’re not talking about [inaudible 00:44:01] and we’re not talking about smalls animals (like we were talking about this earlier in the show), then we are looking at what is the normal therapeutic dose for most individuals.

Most of the time, I’m very conservative. I start with a few things and I start with the lowest dose that I think is going to be successful. If you start on a dose that’s higher, first of all, you might be overmedicating. And secondly, if we do a dose that’s higher, you’re going to be more at risk for side effects. And there can be side effects for anything.

DEBRA: Yeah.

PAMELA SEEFELD: And I have to tell people too that when you’re talking about dose, when you see a product and it’s a vitamin product and it’s got about 20 different things in it and its says it’s herbal pain relief or just some kind of a generic product, when you have lots of different herbal products in one container, one capsule, there’s more chance for side effect than if you use one single agent at a time.

So, a lot of times, I use single remedies. I don’t use a bunch of combination remedies because if someone’s not responding correctly or they’re responding adversely, you don’t know which ingredient is causing the problem.

DEBRA: Exactly! I tried to take just single ones too. Right now, I’m taking an herbal blend because that was what I was given, but I’m actually doing really well on it. But usually, I just try to take single things and I tell people to just take single nutrients or herbs or whatever because that way, you’ll be able to tell what is the problem if there is a problem.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Also, I wanted to caution people. When you’re taking blood pressure, because a lot of people have hypertension, your blood pressure will peak at 9:00 pm at night. So, if you take it in the morning and you take it night and every single time, you take it in the evening and then every time you go back to the doctor, he’s looking at your numbers that you’ve been writing down and he says, “Oh, your blood pressure is going up at night. Let’s add another medicine,” (I’m just bringing blood pressure as an example. I can treat that homeopathically for your clients that are listening), but what I want to tell people is that typically, this is what they’ll do, they start somebody on a beta blocker or something like that at the doctor’s office and then instead of titrating that particular medicine up and bringing it to its maximum or near maximum dosage, just because the dose was too low, they add another drug. And then, they add another drug.

It’s not uncommon that I see someone with mild hypertension on three things, low doses of three different things.

So, you need to question that. If you take your blood pressure at night, it seems like it’s high, but it’s normally what it’s supposed to be. It’s important for you to look at those numbers and not be over-zealous in treating them.

And if their doctors are giving you two or three different things for your blood pressure, maybe it’s something that you can approach – unless you have another existing condition like congested heart failure or something else. But a non-complicated mild hypertension, please question whether you need to be on two or three medicines where they’re using low doses and they never really have used the correct dose of the first drug.

DEBRA: Well, also, I know from watching from other people around me that you can take care of high blood pressure just by taking magnesium.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yes.

DEBRA: …that it can be just a nutrient deficiency. Just taking magnesium can take care of that. So, I’ve seen that happen over and over. It’s pretty amazing to me have a lot of people seem to have high blood pressure, but it’s not because they’re sick in some way. It’s just that they are not getting enough nutrition.

PAMELA SEEFELD: That’s exactly right. Magnesium makes a big difference in the blood pressure. But also, if someone has a mild hypertension – you know, people are stressed out a lot. Cortisol is a big driver of hypertension. And especially the top number, the systolic blood pressure, if you use 1500 mg vitamin C of time-released vitamin C and you do that twice a day (I use a 12-hour release Vitamin C called C-Max), that would lower it 20 points in four days. And that’s an easy way to get the top number down.

DEBRA: Yeah.

PAMELA SEEFELD: For the bottom number, I use Cartego Complex. It’s homeopathic Hawthorn. That takes that bottom number down nice and easy.

So there are things you can do. Blood pressure, and we were talking about kidney failure and different things, there are things you can do and you need to question whether you need to be on so many medications. Titrating up to the correct dose is really more important than keep adding in another medicine or another homeopathic remedy. We respect people’s time and money. You want to make sure that if you are not maxing out at the right dose of whatever product you are using or whatever vitamin, then you are not really sure what’s working and what isn’t.

DEBRA: How do you know what the right dose is?

PAMELA SEEFELD: Empirically, it will depend on the product that you’re using. But as a pharmacist, I can tell you – I’ll give you an example, Vitamin C. After 5g of vitamin C at any one time, you really don’t absorb it anymore. It basically spills out into the urine. So, if you’re going to give someone high dose of vitamin c, you would want to say, “Okay, maybe I should split that dose up through the day if I really want to absorb it,” so this person gets the full benefit of the C and it’s not necessarily going and being wasted. So, it’s important to know.

And these doses have all been determined by scientific method. So, now we know. And people can look those up. I wouldn’t just search it in Google, but if you look it in the National Library of Medicine, you can find all the medical data that’s been published on things.

Or I would just say to tell them to call me. I’d be glad to answer over the phone if there’s a question about, “Are you taking too much? Are taking too little? And what are you treating?” Sometimes people are just taking thing empirically just for their general health. That’s great. Other times, somebody actually has a real condition and they are trying to treat something. And if they are using sub-therapeutic dose, they are going to see any outcome.

I see this a lot where people say, “I tried that vitamin and it didn’t do like they said.” And then I’m like, “Well, what was the product you were using and what was the dose?” And then, they give me this glassy-eyed look. People don’t realize you just don’t take something randomly off the shelf and take it and think that it’s going to work. There should be…

DEBRA: I have to interrupt you, Pamela just because we only have seconds left. So, why don’t you give your phone number real quick.

PAMELA SEEFELD: Yeah, it’s 727-442-4955.

DEBRA: Okay, thank you so much! This has been a great show. You can go to the ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and find out about all the shows and there are transcripts. So, if you want to read the transcript of this show, it will be available next Tuesday.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well!

Pharmacology 101: How to Use What Pharmacists Know to Take Supplements to Best Advantage

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