Most Replayed Moment: The Antibiotic Alternative Big Pharma Doesn't Want You To Know!

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So there's sort of three things that I've been able to ascertain, as risks of misuse

or overuse or inappropriate use of antibiotics, which is the impact on the gut microbiome.

You're contributing to the rise in antibiotic resistance and...

That's for the main thing.

I guess even with the diseases you get, you'll be slower to heal, because you're less

if you've got that resistance.

That is one of the things that we do see particularly those who are long-term ill, you know,

that they lose some of their healing capacity.

And that's so much of the work I do is to aim to put some of that right.

And there's links to colorectal cancers?

Yeah.

Well, that's it, because we're talking about the microbiome, so those are the cancers

and the lower gut.

We know that the microbiome is a major factor in how well the gut is.

So I think it's like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis and cancer of the bowel, very closely

linked to the state of the microbiome.

Oh, OK.

So are there alternatives on this table or in the world of plants to antibiotics that I

should maybe also consider instead of just jumping straight to antibiotics for everything

that I experience?

Yes.

So if you've got a serious gut or other infection, you may need the antibiotics.

So let's put that straight away.

But if you've got a cold flu virus, a viral problem, particularly the airways, a antibiotics

won't have no use at all and be, as we just said, they just add to the risk of more.

Because every time you take an antibiotic, you're growing a small population of the species

of bacteria that's affected who are resistant to that is natural selection.

You know, though you have a thousand little bacteria that's a small amount by their

terms and you kill 999 of them.

The one that survives will then become two in 20 minutes and four in 40 minutes and

subtly become a new population.

And you know, I duck that bullet and so that group of bacteria will already be resistant.

So we're creating resistance every time we use an antibiotic.

So try, let's try it and do something I'll show you.

So let's say you've got a cold, you're feeling the cold, it's got a good name, by the way.

So cold is one of the things you feel when you've got a cold.

And that's interesting because in former times we didn't have tests, we didn't have

laboratories, we didn't have paramedics, we didn't have people poking things in you.

All we could know is what it felt like.

And when you've got a cold, you often feel cold and you feel chills and you want to

wrap up and you want to hot water or you want to have a hot bath.

All that in the old language meant that you were cold and what you needed to do was to

heat up.

Now, you take this fellow, this is ginger.

It's grown widely around the well and it's original Asian form.

It was made extinct around the time of the Romans.

So popular was it.

And every since all the ginger sense of this species has got to be going from root stock

as they no longer seeds itself.

So this has been the most valuable natural commodity ever in its dried form worth more than

its weight in gold.

And you know, the reason why all those Europeans ended up in Asia running in deer and the

Dutch and the Indonesia and so on is because that's where these things came from.

That's where the spices came from.

And so we decided, you know, a good capitalist to go and control the business.

So ginger became very popular over here because we don't have nothing I could over here.

The nearest thing we got is horse radish, which I promise you is no substitute for this.

So how do we use this?

We've got a knob of ginger here about the size of your thumb.

That's about a good dose.

You grate it fresh ginger into a mug.

Can you do that for me?

I've got a grater.

I've got a grater for you.

So we've got here a piece of ginger, as I say, about the size of your thumb.

The thumb is a good measure because it's your measure.

So if you're a small person, you'll have a small thumb.

I'm a bigger person, so I'm going to use, and you literally,

it's making a bit of a mess here, but doing this at home, you don't mind a bit of mess.

So you're literally grating and grates nicely, isn't it, into a mug.

And let's say that was the whole thumb.

I don't want to take up too much time on this.

And then the one thing that works brilliantly with ginger is cinnamon.

Now, this is cinnamon you buy in any shop.

It comes in different forms.

There's one from China called Cassia, which looks like one big curled bark.

If you look at this one, you'll see that it's tightly wrapped

with lots of little curled, lots of little filaments in it.

That's the one you go for.

It's got a small aromatic.

And you either grate that with, if you've got a spice mill,

or you take a teaspoon of,

it, let's say there's a teaspoonful,

and you put that in your mug.

So that's ginger and cinnamon?

Ginger and cinnamon, that's it.

Then you add your hot water.

There.

You're going for real, right?

No, for the real one.

Good on you.

At this point a sieve is useful.

Why?

Because it's going to be full of bits and bits.

And then let's say this is a nice Japanese green tea mug,

but let's say this is your mug, and we'll pour a little bit in there.

You see all the stuff that you leave behind?

Ah, yeah.

Ah, OK.

And if you don't mind sharing a mug.

So what's in here, this is...

Just ginger and cinnamon.

Just ginger and cinnamon.

It's fairly weak.

Oh, it is nice though.

It is nice, isn't it?

It is nice.

Now can you feel it warming already?

Yes, straight away.

Yeah.

It's really nice.

Yeah.

Now you see what's happening there is that you...

I mean, ginger is an example of a group of...

A group of remedies, which includes turmeric, by the way,

and that's the other root.

The other root there.

Obviously.

That's turmeric.

It's normally seen in a yellow powder.

I'll talk about that later.

And black pepper and chilies.

I've got a chili here.

Which when you take them,

you think you're burning a mouth, aren't you?

The interesting thing is that there's no burning.

You can actually have full madras level chili.

And no harm will be done to your lining

because there's no burning going on.

What you're doing is you're stimulating the pain fibers.

So you've got pain fibers all the way through the lining of the mouth.

When you take a hot thing like ginger,

it's stimulating the pain fibers.

Immediately, there's a...

What we call a reflex response,

which opens up the blood vessels.

It's called hyperemia, more blood.

And the vessels lining these mucos are the ones that you just swallowed

and then screwing a little bit up in the nasal passages,

are opening up.

The mucous cells producing mucous will loosen up

and you get more runny mucous,

helping to flush through the grot on the mucosa.

And the main thing you feel is the warmth.

And if you're dealing with something down here in the lungs,

you'll actually start bringing up more gunk up the airways.

There's a natural escalator that the body uses to get stuff out of the lungs.

That's stimulated.

And the mixture of cinnamon and ginger was created, I think, in heaven.

I mean, I think there's such a natural compliment.

And anybody can do that.

And the point about it is that it's warming.

And in the old days, that was the key thing.

You didn't matter if you had a headache or a joint pain or a menstrual cramp.

If you wanted to put a hot water bottle on it or heated up,

then that was a cold problem.

And putting a heating medicine would begin to make difference.

So you can use the same thing.

If you have a headache and you want to put a hot pack on it,

if you've got a menstrual cramp and you want to put a hot water bottle on it,

if you've got a joint pain and you want to put a heating liniment on it,

you can use the same thing.

Ginger is the same because it's heating.

And that's simple, old medicine.

So when you're experiencing different types of pain or a cold,

then cinnamon and ginger are good.

Well, only if it responds to heat.

Now, if you want to put a nice pack on, I mean, the old doctors,

when someone came with a migraine would say,

tell me, would you prefer a hot pack or a nice pack for your migraine?

And migraine suffers generally split, 70, 30,

preferring heat to 70.

But a third of people with migraines actually want a cold pack.

You don't use ginger for that.

You use cooling remedies, which we might come on to later.

Okay.

My girlfriend, she drinks ginger tea all the time, almost every day.

Yeah, she likes the heat.

She likes the heat.

She drinks it before bed as well.

You can help her sleep if that's the way it goes.

People are different.

And there are some people who can't take ginger at all

because there's stomach objects.

Or because it literally heats up too much.

They get stimulated by it.

But that's where the individuality comes in.

Okay. So any condition where I might be looking for heat,

ginger and cinnamon, first place to go.

First place to go.

Yeah.

If you wanted to be Tex-Mex, you can take the chilies.

And as well.

We think of them as a much more streamed version of the heating.

And remind ourselves there was only when Europeans discovered

America's that chilies became used over here.

Can you imagine an Italian meal without tomatoes and chilies?

But in the old days, there were none of those

because they all came from America.

But the chilies were the American equivalent of ginger,

used for the same purpose.

So if someone comes to you and they say,

when shall I use chilies as a form of medication,

what would you say?

First of all, I don't know yet.

And if I'm dealing with someone at a distance,

online or on the phone or something,

or I said, the first thing to do is you figure it out.

You can start with herbal teas.

You are, don't you?

I'm going to drop it into the...

I'm going to drop it into here.

Is that a bad idea?

Yeah, no, go for it.

But you should notice that it should be quite a hot one.

I will ask, suggest that they start with herbal teas

because herbal teas are a very low dose.

But they'll allow you to figure out what suits you.

And you can divide, as I was hinting at earlier,

old medicines were often divided into those

that were more warming than we would now call stimulating circulation.

And more cooling, which we would now translate

as stimulating digestion.

And depending on which of those you prefer

would really give me a clue.

So if you were looking at warming remedies,

it could be ginger tea, it could be phenol tea.

You know, that's a warming remedy or it could be cinnamon

or any of the spices.

Cardamon is one of my favorites, by the way.

This is, I use cardamon.

This is the cardamon pods inside a little black seeds.

Absids are a lovely taste.

Do you know them?

Do you know the cardamon? Have you tried it?

Not really now.

Oh, have a bite of that.

A bite of the seeds?

Yeah, just bite into it.

You don't...

Just get a hint of the taste.

In many parts of the Middle East,

Cardamon is one of the main flavors,

things like coffee, et cetera.

It reminds me of...

Oh, it's good to see Indian food.

About how?

Yes, used a lot in India.

And in China, it's a convalescent tonic.

So they use it when people building up their digestion

after being ill for a long time.

They will often use Cardamon.

It's one of my favorite remedies for that

when people really run low.

Their digestion isn't functioning.

It was appeared in one or two of these stories I've got here.

Because I prefer that to most of the other spices

when I need warming, as I said before,

but also sustaining and nourishing.

So you ask them,

do you prefer teas that are warming

or would you like something more cooling?

And now one of the most cooling remedies

that people know about is this, which is mint.

That's pure mint.

The best one is peppermint.

It's got a lovely smell, isn't it?

Yeah.

That has always been thought of as cooling.

And it's a simple test.

Would you prefer ginger or peppermint tea

and already you're beginning to narrow things down a bit?

The main cooling remedies throughout history

from very beginning.

And in every part of the world,

I find them exactly the same thing.

The main cooling remedies, so-called,

are the bitters.

And they taste really bitter.

When you say cooling, you mean I feel hot.

So I want something to cool me down.

That's right.

And there's certain conditions where I will feel hot.

Fever.

Fever.

And they were often used to fever,

manage fever.

And what?

Remember when we were young, we were told,

if you've had a big meal, don't go swimming.

You weren't told that.

I can't swim, sir.

No, there you go.

But that was one of the things that, you know,

some of us in my generation at least were always remembered.

We were told, you know, if you've got a big meal,

it's not a good idea to go swimming,

because the blood's moving into the digestion.

And you won't get many as much as you want when you need it

in the limbs.

And that's, you know, it's true.

When you're digesting a lot of blood investment,

shall we call it, is going into the digestive system,

because there's a lot of work needed to break down this food,

turn it into something useful.

It is an investment.

You put a lot in, you get much more out.

But what it means is that digestion is all about it.

I'm just being a bit loose here with a language,

but it's not about it.

It's like bringing blood into the core.

When you've got a fever,

the blood's all charging around and your body temperature's going up,

which is great, because fever actually is a defense measure.

You know, when our body temperature rises by a couple of degrees,

our white blood cells, the ones that are doing the legwork

two or three times as active.

So fever is what the body uses when it needs to bring out the big guys,

bring out the fight.

There's a slight design problem.

There's almost as though, you know, the creators put a,

you know, puffs for fault in the system,

because a lot of fever comes from the gut.

You know, you get gut infections, you know,

that's one of the main places.

And at that moment, all the blood's going out here

and you want more of it going in more digestion, if you like.

So when you take a bitter,

when you're taking a bitter,

you're actually triggering taste buds up here.

A bitter.

Something that tastes bitter.

Are there any plants that aren't bitter?

Yeah, a bitter plants are very common,

and we're highly valued in the old world.

In our times, probably the most bitter plant that people used

in European terms was something called wormwood.

Now, you may not be familiar with that word,

but the French for wormwood is their moose.

And you think of the use of a drink before a meal.

The idea was they used to call it an aperitif,

something that stimulated your appetite.

So they would use bitters to improve your appetite,

and a low level of wormwood would be one of them,

dandelion and burdock, up to other bitters,

which we now have as a soft drink, you know,

particularly in America.

And we know that bitters do switch on the appetite,

so we sometimes use them when appetite is poor.

And, you know, there's all sorts of reasons

why you've got a low appetite,

but bitters can really help.

Particularly if you're recovering from an illness,

they can help with getting the digestion juices flowing

and the appetite up.

Because they bring blood to the digestive system?

Well, they do all sorts of things.

Actually, when you switch on these receptors in the mouth,

these taste buds, they are hardwired

and they produce hormones down here in the stomach.

That switch on all sorts of things.

An effective increase, digestive activity,

which involves more blood coming into the area.

So yes, let's imagine you're living in some part of,

you know, the desert area in the Middle East.

You're eating a sheep or something

that hasn't seen a refrigerator.

And it's a bit dodgy, you know.

And you think after a meal,

you turn to something easily available in that part of the world.

It's a plant called Cafe Herabica.

We call it coffee.

You ground the coffee into a sludge

at the bottom, pour a bit of hot water

and drink that straight.

That's a bitter.

So if you ever had an espresso without sugar,

that's a bitter, okay?

And that was used as a digestive.

In other words, after eating,

it would help cope with some pretty rough food.

So, bitters were always seen

to be good for your digestion and appetite.

And in fever, that actually meant lowering your body temperature.

And that's...

We can see that happening, you know.

It means that some of the anger out here

just gets sublimated into digestion.

So that was where the bitters got their cooling reputation.

And we can now laugh at this is all medieval nonsense.

But the point that I keep coming back to

when I'm seeing patients I start with that blank sheet of paper

is because the only test of what these do to you

is to take it.

And as you notice with your ginger and cinnamon,

you don't need long.

You've got it there straight up.

And, you know, if I give a bitters to somebody

and, you know, so is really bitter,

they will know within an hour or so

what effect it's having.

What you just listened to was a most replayed moment

from a previous episode.

If you want to listen to that full episode,

I've linked it down below.

Check the description.

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