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

So there's sort of 3 things that I've, 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, um, that you're contributing to the rise in antibiotic resistance, and those are the main things. I guess even with the diseases you get, you'll be slower to heal. Because you are 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 the 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. According to you. Well, that's it because we're talking about the microbiome, you see. So those are the cancers in the lower gut. And we know that the microbiome is a major factor in how well the gut is. So things like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis and cancer of the bowel, very closely linked to the state of the microbiome.

Ah, okay. 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. If you've got a serious gut or other infection, you may need the antibiotic. So let's put that straight away. But if you've got a cold, flu, virus, a viral problem, particularly the airways, A, antibiotics will have no use at all, and B, as we just said, they just add to the risk of more. 'Cause every time you take an antibiotic, you're growing a small population of that of the species of bacteria that's affected who are resistant to that. It's natural selection. You know, though you have 1,000 little bacteria, that's a small amount by their terms, and you kill 999 of them, the one that survives will then become 2 in 20 minutes and 4 in 40 minutes and suddenly become a new population. And you know, 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 let's try then doing something else, shall we? 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 knows 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 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 fella, this is ginger. It's grown widely around the world. In its original Asian form, it was made extinct around the time of the Romans, so popular was it. And ever since, all the ginger since of this species has got to be going from rootstock 'cause it 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 India and the Dutch in Indonesia and so on, it's because that's where these things came from. That's where the spices came from. And so we decided, you know, like good capitalists, to go and control the business. So ginger became very popular over here because we don't have nothing like it over here.

The nearest thing we got is horseradish, 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, a mug.

Can you do that for me?

We've got a grater.

I've got a grater for you.

So, um, we've got here a piece of ginger, as I say, about the size of your thumb. The thumb's a good measure because it's your measure. So if you're a small person, you'll have a small thumb, but I'm a bigger person, so I'm going to use And you literally— it's making a bit of a mess here, but in doing this at home you don't mind a bit of mess. So you're literally grating— it grates nicely, doesn'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 curl, lots of little filaments in it. That's the one you go for. It's got— it's more aromatic. And you either grate that with— if you've got a spice mill, or you take a teaspoon of It, um, let's say that'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. You're going for real, right?

For the real one.

Good on you. At this point, a sieve is useful.

Why? What for?

Because it's going to be full of—

Oh, bits.

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?

Oh yeah. Okay.

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's nice.

It is nice.

Now, can you feel it warming already?

Yes, straight away. Yeah, it's really nice.

Yeah. Now you see what, what's happening there is that you— I mean, ginger is an is an example of a group of remedies, which includes turmeric, by the way, and that's other root, the other root there. Oh, this one. That's turmeric. It's normally seen in a yellow powder. We might 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 your mouth, don'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 and 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 mucosa, the ones that you just swallowed and including a little bit up in the nasal passages, are opening up the mucous cells producing mucus will loosen up and you get more runny mucus, which is 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 we use, 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 complement, 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 would— 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 heat it 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.

Just because it's heating. And that's, Simple old medicine.

So when you are experiencing different types of pain or a cold, then cinnamon and ginger are good. I think my cough—

Well, only if it responds to heat. Now, if you want to put an ice pack on, I mean, the old doctors, when someone came with a migraine, would say, "Tell me, would you prefer a hot pack or an ice pack for your migraine?" And migraine sufferers generally split 70/30. Preferring heat, 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 onto later.

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

Yeah, she likes the heat.

She likes the heat.

Heat, yeah.

She drinks it before bed as well.

Can help with sleep if that's the way, It goes, I mean, everyone, people are different. And there are some people who can't take ginger at all because their stomach objects or because it, you know, literally heats them 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, you could, if you wanted to be Tex-Mex, you can take the chilies. As well? Well, you know, we think of them as a much more extreme version of the heating. And, you know, remind ourselves, it was only when the Europeans discovered Americas that chilies became used over here. You know, can you imagine an Italian meal without, you know, without tomatoes and, Chilies, but in the old days there were none of those 'cause they all came from America. But yeah, chilies were the American equivalent of ginger used for the same purpose.

So if someone comes to you and they say, Simon, when should I use chilies as a form of medication? What would you say?

First of all, I don't know yet. And you know, if I'm dealing with someone at a distance, you know, online or on the phone or something and they say, you know, what should I try? The first thing to do is you figure it out. You could start with herbal teas. You are, don't you?

I'm gonna drop it into the, I'm gonna drop it into here. Is that a bad idea?

Yeah, yeah, no, go for it. But you should notice that should be quite a hot one. I will suggest that they start with herbal teas 'cause 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, that 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 fennel tea, that's a warming remedy, or it could be cinnamon or any of the spices. Cardamom is one of my favorites, by the way. This is, I use cardamom, this is the cardamom pods inside the little black seeds. Absolutely lovely taste. Do you know cardamom? Have you tried it?

Not really, no.

Oh, have a bite of that.

Do I just bite the seed?

Yeah, just bite into it. You don't, just get a hint of the taste. In many parts of the Middle East, cardamom is one of the main flavors, things like coffee and so on.

Reminds me of, oh, I was gonna say Indian food that I've had.

Yes, used a lot in India. And in China, it's a convalescent tonic. So they use it when people are building up their digestion after being ill for a long time. They will often use cardamom. It's one of my favorite remedies for that. When people really run low, their digestion isn't functioning. It has 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. Hmm. That's spearmint. The best one is peppermint. Oh, it's got a lovely smell, hasn'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 the very beginning, and in every part of the world you'll find them saying exactly the same thing. The main cooling remedies, so-called, are the bitters, and they taste rarely 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— I'll feel hot.

Fever, fever, fever. And they were often used to fever, manage fever. And, uh, what happened— you remember when we were young, we were told if you've had a big meal, don't go swimming? Oh, you weren't told that? Yeah, I can't swim, so 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 you'll the blood's moving into the digestion and you won't get as much as you want where you need it in the limbs. And that's, you know, it's true. When you are 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, get much more out. But what it means is, is that Digestion is all about, I'm just being a bit loose here with the language, but it's not about language, 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, white blood cells, the ones that are doing the legwork, 2 or 3 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. It's almost as though, you know, the creator put a purposeful 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?

A bitter, something that tastes bitter.

Are there any plants that are bitter?

Yeah, bitter plants are very common and were 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 vermouth. And you think of the use of a drink before a meal. The idea was it 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 are two other bitters, which we now have as a soft drink, you know. Yeah. 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, 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're hardwired and they produce hormones down here in the stomach that switch on all sorts of things and effectively 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 know, 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 Caffea arabica. 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 you're 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 we can see that happening. 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 it. 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.

It's 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 bitter to somebody and, you know, someone 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. Thank you.