Episode 52: Gum Health, the Microbiome, and Incurable Cancer with Dr. Al Danenberg DDS

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Full Episode Transcript:

SPEAKERS: Dr. Andrew Wong, Dr. Al Danenberg, DDS

Dr. Al Danenberg:

When you have a leaky gut, and it affects the immune system, and it affects the mouth, it may cause inflammation in the mouth in his early stages, which would be seen as bleeding in the gum tissue. And it doesn’t have to be bleeding on every gum surface all the time. If you use a little cleaner called a tape a easily fic te EC Peck it’s a little silicone cleaning device. It’s fantastic to clean between the teeth but if you use that anywhere in the mouth between the teeth and you notice a little bit of bleeding anywhere. It’s a sign of chronic systemic inflammation, and it most likely is an indicator of a leaky gut.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I am excited to bring you a conversation with periodontist and cancer survivor Dr. Al Danenberg. Dr. Al shares his story of being diagnosed with incurable multiple myeloma, and how he used his integrative and functional approach for his own health to fight this disease. We talked on this podcast episode today about how our oral health is affected by our microbiome, the most important steps to keep our teeth and gums healthy, and the key changes Dr. Al made in his diet and lifestyle to improve his health. What I found most interesting about this podcast, among other things were the difference between the gut and the oral microbiome and how they’re interlinked, as well as the key mindset shifts that are needed to really survive and thrive.

I am Dr. Andrew Wong, co founder of capital, integrative health, a clinic community and movement focused on root cause healthcare transformation. This is a podcast dedicated to transforming this consciousness around what it means to be healthy, and understanding the root causes of both disease and wellness.

Please join us to hear Dr. Al’s inspiring story and to hear what he has learned as a periodontist about how our oral health and gut health can impact our whole bot.

Dr. Al, thank you so much again, for coming on today. And we’re so honored to have you here. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. So you’re a periodontist and just for the listeners if you could just kind of go into the basics. What do you help your patients with? What is a periodontist?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

So a periodontist is a dentist who has gone through all the years of dental school training, and then has decided to specialize in Periodontics, which is the treatment of the gum tissue, the bone structure supporting teeth and other elements that are involved there.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

And how is gum health? Related to to overall health? Another kind of general question here?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Well, this is actually a huge question. Most dentists will think and most medical professionals will think that infection starts in the mouth, and then spreads to the rest of the body. And I would say that’s 50% Correct. The only correction is it doesn’t start in the mouth for for the most part, most problems in the mouth, start in the gut.And there is gut this BIOSIS meaning that the garden of bacteria in the gut are not in healthy proportions. For example, air air, our body is made up of 38 trillion microbes and just 30 trillion human cells. So we’re mainly microbial, most of that is in the gut. And those those microbes do tremendous things to keep us alive. If we killed off our gut bacteria, we would die. Absolutely, we would die. But when the gut microbiome is not functioning well for a host of reasons. And we can go into the reasons why. And different, potentially pathogenic bacteria, meaning very harmful bacteria over grow and start affecting the immune system. And the one cell layer thick lining of the gut, then toxic elements can put poor into the bloodstream. The immune system tries to fight it, but it’s not successful. And chronic systemic inflammation becomes a real problem. And that chronic systemic inflammation travels that every cell and every organ system in the body, including the mouth, and when that starts to happen, the gut the microbiome in the mouth, which is a unique garden, a bacteria unto itself, starts to destabilize and potentially pathogenic bacteria, baby. Come over active and create tooth decay and gum disease, all added, all being fed by poor diet choices, certain foods, a variety of things. So once the infection starts in becomes a problem in the mouth, that infection can spread through the circulatory system, through the lymph tissue, through nerve fibers, a variety of ways to get into other structures in the body, creating all the chronic diseases that we attribute to the mouth, but it starts in the gut. So the gut is affecting all organ systems, and infection in the mouth, because of the gut affects all organ systems. So if anyone were to treat the mouth alone, they would not be able to treat this disease completely. The gut must be treated and the mouth has to be treated concurrently. And most people don’t understand the linkage. And most people don’t understand exactly how to treat the gut.

That’s a complicated answer to a simple question.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I would say most healthcare press most health care practitioners also don’t really know they that that cycle. And I have a question for you about the gut mouth connection. So when the gut bacteria escaped from that single cell gut lining to the bloodstream and causes systemic inflammation that causes eventually mouth oral dysbiosis are the same bacteria that are in the gut actually ceding the mouth or is it is it more that the inflammation is just sort of disturbing the the oral microbiome and those kind of bad actors in the oral microbiome are getting getting so it’s not the bad bacteria that leak into the circulatory system.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

It’s their byproducts. For example, the most important would be lipo, polysaccharides, or LPs, or the the gram negative bacteria. And those gram negative bacteria many of which may be pathogenic can when they die, they can leak into the bloodstream. Normally, lipid polysaccharides are in the gut and we excrete them. But if there is damage to the gut microbiome, and gamma damage to the epithelial barrier, creating holes, which would be known as a leaky gut, those molecules of lipo solid polysaccharides, get into the circulatory surface circulatory system, that is what’s affecting the immune system. And that is what gets into other organ systems including the mouth. And because of a dysfunctional and lipo polysaccharides, being so highly assists in the mouth, and then there’s just unique bacterial garden in the mouth that is similar but but different than the gut.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

So good, really gut, gut dysbiosis. Leaky Gut then leads to eventually systemic inflammation by way of lipid polysaccharide. And then that will ultimately affect the oral microbiome. So we can talk about let’s talk about that you had mentioned what are your factors for what leads to the breakdown of the gut lining?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Well, there are many things. First of all, certain foods, foods that are like sugar, like alcohol, like anti nutrients, like lectins, and oxalates. All of these types of nutrients or bad nutrients or bad foods can damage the gut microbiome. In turn, the gut microbiome directly can affect the gut epithelial barrier. But then there are other things like emotional stress. If you are the healthiest person in the world, but you’re dealing with emotional stress, which is constant, then that emotional stress because of the chemicals that are produced, cortisol creating other issues will damage the epithelial barrier barrier by itself. Chemicals in food, like glyphosate, which is an herbicide that is used in conventional farming the residues of glyphosate getting into your gut, damaged the microbiome and definitely damage the epithelial barrier, stress, over exercise, under exercise, Poor sleep habits, all of these elements can damage the not only the the garden of bacteria, but the epithelial barrier. So and medications we take so many medications over the counter drugs we take prescription drugs, many of which can be very damaging for that by microbiome. supplements. Supplements can damage the gut microbiome most supplements. First of all, There’s synthetic because of that, that can damage the gut. But most supplements contain chemicals, called either inert ingredients or other ingredients on the label. These chemicals can be preservatives and a variety of additives to make the pill solid, or preserve or emulsified the medicine into the, into the gut. But these chemicals actually have been shown to damage the the garden of bacteria in the gut. So all of these things in and of themselves, but even more importantly, on a on a cumulative basis, will slowly damage the gut microbiome. And then antibiotics, antibiotics. Many people use antibiotics on a regular basis that certainly the medical profession as use antibiotics indiscriminately. And the antibiotic regimen not only kills some bad guys, but it kills a host of good guys. And it will allow potentially pathogenic bacteria to overgrow. So there’s a host of other things that can affect the gut. And if membrane

Dr. Andrew Wong:

and and in terms of the interface between dentistry and medicine, which we know is really a false separation, right? It’s really all linked together. There used to be a lot more usage of antibiotics for even routine dental cleanings. I believe this is starting to change.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yes, that’s true. That’s That’s true. prophylactically antibiotics were used a lot and dentists would write prescriptions for antibiotics, even though they saw infection in the mouth. Even if it wasn’t systemic, they were using systemic antibiotics. Physicians also would be writing for antibiotics on a regular basis, even when it’s a viral infection, antibiotics don’t treat viruses, but it was being being written. So that’s the problem. Now, if you have dentistry in the mouth, you know fillings and a variety of dental appliances, and they’re not fitting well, where they’re cutting the gum tissue where they’re irritating, that can initiate infection in the mouth. Even though there’s not infection in the gut at that point, there are some indications where the infection actually starts in the mouth. But for the most part, when it’s a bacterial inflammation, it is definitely an individual needs to look at the gut and identify if there is gut dysbiosis, which is not easy to do. But if there is this BIOSIS, certainly, the mouth can be treated, but the mouth of the guy has to be treated.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

We use a lot of functional stool testing in our practice, what do you think about diagnosing this without testing? Or do you feel like everyone needs a test? Or do you just assume that everyone has leaky gut? And? Well there? I suppose

Dr. Al Danenberg:

that’s a great question, because there was a fabulous study, I think in 2000, something like 2019, that showed that the US adult population of the US adult population 88% are metabolically unhealthy. So to be metabolically unhealthy, you must have a leaky gut, to have autoimmune disease, you must have a leaky gut. Many of the diseases, we treat our autoimmune diseases. So definitely there’s a leaky gut component. There are some tests, there are some stool tests. Most of them are not very valuable. One of the stool tests that can determine alpha diversity is quite unique. Alpha diversity is a term, that means that you have a many, many, many different species of bacteria in your gut, and many numbers of these different species. And when you have a high alpha diversity relative to literally a, quote, healthy population, if you have a very high alpha diversity, you have so many different species of bacteria, that they crowd out, potentially pathogenic bacteria. And when you have a moderate or a low alpha diversity, you are prone to overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria. That’s a great test. Another test is I think SEER X makes a test called CR X ray to which identifies and looks at certain chemicals in the epithelial barrier, that indicate that there may be perforations or a leaky gut. There are other tests that you can do that are only questionable I will tell you this, which is interesting. When you have a leaky gut, and it affects the immune system, and it affects the mouth. It may cause inflammation in the mouth in his early stages, which would be seen as bleeding in the gum tissue. And it doesn’t have to be bleeding on every gum surface all The time, if you use a little cleaner called a tape, a easy fic te EC pack, it’s a little silicone cleaning device, it’s fantastic to clean between the T’s. But if you use that anywhere in the mouth between the teeth, and you notice a little bit of bleeding anywhere, it’s a sign of chronic systemic inflammation, and it most likely is an indicator of a leaky gut. Treat the leaky gut. And that early gingival, or gum inflammation and bleeding which is called gingivitis can reverse all by itself. That’s incredibly not a as long as there is not an underlying dental problem like a filling that’s irritating or decay that’s under a filling or something like that.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Great advice, especially if someone listening out there doesn’t have access to a stool test or you know, wondering if they have leaky gut, like you said, chances are probably they do if 80% of the US is metabolically unhealthy for this study from I think North Carolina, there is this idea of sometimes we have to test in order to find out but actually our bodies are the best test.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Absolutely. The clinical manifestations, of course, fortunately, come way after the fact of problems with the leaky gut. So it’s not like you have a leaky gut. And all of a sudden, you manifest disease, it takes a while. And my own personal journey I can explain to you. It took I would save decades before I manifested what actually has occurred to me.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Let’s get into that have for one second, I just want to talk about the key steps that you recommend for maintaining an healthy oral microbiome muraki mouth for

Dr. Al Danenberg:

sure. So personal oral hygiene is critical. Now, certainly a diet is critical, certainly to take care of your gut is critical and all the other factors I mentioned. But one of those elements of taking care of your mouth would be basic personal oral hygiene. What I recommend you need to clean first, I mean, but put this first and foremost, dental plaque is healthy until it’s not. You do not want to remove dental plaque completely from your mouth. And most dentists, most hygienist and most people that talk about the oral health, show you and tell you and recommend to you products that literally destroy the dental plaque. There is no place in the body that I know of where a structure pierces to the skin, and embeds itself into sterile tissue and is healthy except the tooth. So I’m looking at the tooth that says hard structure, piercing the gum tissue the skin in the mouth, embedding itself into the sterile jawbone. If that were the case, which it is, and nothing else were going on, bacteria in your mouth could literally slide down this wet surface, hot, moist, wet surface, or enclosed surface slide into the jawbone, new crow spur kill, we’re eat up the jawbone and we would die our species never wouldn’t have survived. Obviously doesn’t doesn’t happen. Why doesn’t it? Well, the tooth structure into under the gum and into the bone have numerous immune cells to take care of any bacterial or viral or other microbe invasion. That’s true. But there is a superficial back preventative biofilm that protects where the tooth enters the gum where the tooth and gum meet. And that biofilm is called dental plaque. And in dental plaque, there are about two or 300 different species of microbes in that dental plaque. And those species of microbes do three major things. One of which is they produce hydrogen peroxide by themselves that kills off any potentially pathogenic bacteria in the mouth that want to get into that crevasse that space. They also have chemical buffers within them themselves, that maintain the acid level to a pH of 5.5. That pH of 5.5 is just a moderate acidity. And it does and it prevents any more acid to be produced because that would cause tooth decay. So actually dental plaque when it’s out the courage to speak And third thing is that this dental plaque acts as a gatekeeper so that it allows minerals from the saliva to enter into the root surface to remineralize the root surface as necessary. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so you don’t want to strip off this dental plot. It’s hard to strip off the dental plaque, because it reforms very quickly. But people that use antimicrobial toothpaste, anti microbial mouthwashes, they suck on gum that have chemicals, including Xylitol that destroys the dental plaque that is unhealthy. But the way to clean your mouth to remove maybe unhealthy dental plaque that may be accumulating because of gut dysbiosis. Because of maybe bad diet and a variety of other things. You should get involved with basic good oral hygiene, that’s what I was going to explain. So normal tooth brushing will not remove healthy dental plaque as long as you just brush correctly. So you take it to the trash that is soft nylon, use it where the cheek and tooth meat of the tongue and teeth meat, angle it at about a 45 degree angle and gently slide or scrub that that toothbrush bristle into the gum crevice horizontally to remove the soft dental plaque. The harder or more tenacious dental plaque which is the healthy dental plaque will still remain on the tooth. Even if it was removed, it would regrow within 1212 hours. So that’s that’s what you would do with a toothbrush. You would use dental floss between the teeth but only the contacts to remove any fibrous material like you’re eating food that has meat fiber or you know, fruit or something that causes a fibrous material to get stuck between the teeth. Dental Floss is great for that. But dental floss is not great to floss under the gum. Because if you try to floss under the gum, most people will literally cut the gum Graslie trying to pass and that’s very damaging. So when it sees those little tip or a tape a brushes, the tape a is effects, which are little silicone brushes almost looking like a toothpick or ideal. They will not scrub that healthy dental plaque away, they’ll only remove the unhealthy dental plaque. And they will not harm the gum tissue and you just use it back and forth at the tooth gum margin between every tooth. So now you’ve cleaned the plaque that is unhealthy off the outside and inside of the tooth and between the tooth. The other thing you need to do is to remove excess unhealthy bacteria and food particles that are on the top of your tongue. 80% of mouth odor comes from these bacteria that are causing odors from the food that they’re breaking down. So the way you do that is you can use a tongue scraper but the simplest thing is to take a teaspoon, invert it. Put that back in your mouth, touch the top of your tongue and then pull the spoon forward rubbing on the tongue. And you’ll see in the in the bowl of the spoon, a little milky fluid that’s accumulating that’s the bacteria and decaying food products. If you run it get really gross. You can put that liquid on the top of your head and let it dry and take a whiff and that’s what your bad breath smells. That’s not what I’m recommending to do. But anyhow, this is why this is the way to clean your mouth. You do not need a mouthwash. You do not need any thing that’s anti microbial. You don’t even need toothpaste. If you don’t want to. You can just dip the toothbrush in a little bit of saltwater. Now if you want to use a toothpaste, it has to be a gentle toothpaste with no chemicals that are going to damage the gut microbiome. One of the toothpaste that I love it is called rewriting our E is v i t i n it’s available on Amazon they have a website Revite and.com. This has this has products in the toothpaste that enhance the bacterial garden rather than damage or kill off any bacteria. You do not want to have toothpaste, in my opinion that has activated charcoal or xylitol or fluoride or any other chemical constituents that will damage the normal garden of bacteria. There is no way to kill off only pathogenic bacteria and leave healthy bacteria because it just doesn’t exist and health The bacteria can become pathogenic, if other factors in the in the bacterial garden are removed. So you don’t want to damage this garden.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Make sense? Yeah, keep the garden alive. It sounds like there’s a lot of protection from dental plaque and you can safely you know, brush off the soft plaque. What do you think about baking soda? Would that be another option for people that were,

Dr. Al Danenberg:

then soda does a couple things. If you’re using salt water or wet, or toothpaste that you weren’t like relighting, maybe even dip it in a little baking soda just a little bit. But baking soda has two benefits, one of which is a it’s a mild abrasive. So when you’re brushing gently, like I just explained, it might remove some food, discoloration on the teeth. It also has the ability to neutralize the acid in your mouth. So if you had a meal or had a drink that is very acidic, it helps to bring it to a state of neutrality rather than maintaining that acid level.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Great. And I think we’d like to get into your your story about your own health journey and kind of your diagnosis and what you’ve done for your own health for your immune system. I think we’re going to touch on nutrition and lifestyle a bunch of things. I know this is a topic you blog about a lot. You have an incredible website. But yeah, we’d love to hear about your kind of personal health journey, how you’ve figured out a way you know, which is ongoing, it sounds like to really try to strengthen your immune system.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah, so So the bottom line, no matter who we’re talking to a healthy person, a sick person, a dying person. The immune system is the critical element that your body has to fight the fight. It was designed to fight. It not only kills microbes, it also kills cancer cells. But if you do not have a robust immune system, at risk for I am, I’m 75 years old now. So when I was 71 years old, not 2018 I was considering myself a poster boy for help a senior poster boy for owl. I was eating a paleo diet. I was eating a paleo lifestyle. For about six years, I was in great shape, feeling fantastic. I was writing I was lecturing. And I actually, in April 2018, I was traveling to Austin to speak at the Paleo FX meeting. And at that moment, when I was traveling, I noticed some soreness in my shoulder when I was carrying my travel bag. And you know, I’m a worst I don’t like pain, but all of a sudden this pain was there. And it just kept coming. And it never went away. And I got back home and the pain went to my back eventually went to my chest. And from April of 2018 to eight, September 2018. This pain was progressively getting more uncomfortable. So I finally went to see my physician. You know, I’m a little pigheaded, I guess. And he’s a buddy. I’ve known him for 35 plus years. And I went to see him and I said, Billy, you know, I’m not feeling well, I think I pulled a muscle or ligament or tore a rotator cuff, whatever is going on. So he did some blood work. Everything in the bloodwork came back normal, but he just did some normal blood work, except one extra test that he did was a CRP, C reactive protein that generally identify systemic inflammation. It was indicative of something really going on. So then he said, Let’s do an MRI and figure out what’s going on. And we had an MRI and then he calls me on the phone. He kids a little bit about things First, he said, did somebody beat you up? Did you fall down some steps? I said of course and I said well, on the MRI, you have a vertebral compression fact fracture. I had several broken ribs that was causing the pain. And I had a hairline fracture in my pelvis. And then he gets very serious and he says that I think you have either leukemia, lymphoma, or multiple myeloma. These are just three cancers. He didn’t give me any idea that I had torn rotator cuff. He thinks I have cancer. Now how can this guy me? Feeling as good as I feel eating as healthy as I eat, living a healthy lifestyle for at least six years develop cancer? Obviously, this is devastating to me. He refers me to oncologist who is now my oncologist, a wonderful guy, but he’s conventional. And he does a whole bunch of other tests. And he comes back with a diagnosis of IGA kappa light chain multiple myeloma with severe lytic lesions, meaning I have so many holes in my bone, because the diseases eating my bone inside out, that I potentially can have fractures easily. In other words, I can twist wrong and break a bone. And that’s what happened. At that time, what with this first visit to my oncologist, after the testing, my wife and two adult children are there. And my oncologist, George tells me that this disease is incurable number one. And number two, if I do nothing, I have three to six months to live. Now he immediately wants me to start chemotherapy the next day. So I’m asking him, wait a minute. I’m trying to be logical, but you know, my world is great. You know, crashing all around me. I’m asking him, why would I do chemotherapy, which is going to destroy my immune system, and even worse than this disease has done. And I still have three to six months to live, it’s going to destroy the quality of my life, too. And he said, Well, if you do chemo, you will have go into remission, and you will have more years to live. And I said, Well, you said is incurable. And he said, Well, yes, it is incurable because of the chemo is not going to work very long, and the disease is going to come back. And we’ll need to get another cocktail of chemo again. But it will be more caustic. And eventually, none of the chemo will work. And I was not a good candidate for stem cell therapy. So I’m thinking, I’m going to live longer than three to six months, but the quality of my life is going to deteriorate rather rapidly as things break down. And this disease is still going to kill me. So I decided and my wife, of course, is in agreement. And even George, my oncologist is in agreement to reject chemotherapy completely. And I start to do a ton of research on what I can do to rebuild my immune system as best as I can to help my body if it’s possible, heal from this serious, deadly multiple myeloma. And that’s what I’ve done. And I did very well. And for a year, until August of 2019, I never got, I was never in remission, I never got worse, I’d never got better. And everything was was cool. So in August of 2019, a year later, I’m in my bathroom brushing and flossing my teeth, and I guess I know how to do that. But I need to throw the dental floss away. So just visualize I’m standing with my two feet planted on the floor, and I turn 90 degrees to my left, that’s where the trashcan is. I throw away the dental floss. That’s at least that’s the attempt I was doing. But as soon as I twist 90 degrees, my right femur snaps in half. I crashed to the floor. I broke several ribs and my right humerus also snaps in half. So I’m lying on the floor. I know my bones are broken because my foot and my arm are in angles. I could never even bend them. I’m actually screaming from my wife who’s in the other room, she comes in. Obviously, there’s a lot of emotion here. And she calls EMS, the emergency ambulance. They take me to the hospital. And they want to fix my my right femur because my femoral artery will artery will bleed out and I’ll die. They don’t fix my arm. I really am ready to die and I want to die. I know people, patients my age who just fractured their hip, and they die months later. I know that the mortality rate is not good. And here I am breaking all these major bones and my disease is severe. And I’ve outlived my prognosis by another six months. So what happens is they put me in hospice to die and in and I’m in hospice at the after the they fix my leg. And there is a hurricane coming through Charleston, the first week of September that year, and a hurricane is packing 187 mile an hour winds. It is it is on track to go or hit the hospital itself. And the hospital is ordered to evacuate all patients. They don’t know what to do with me. My wife has an R and she gets a hospital bed. They evacuate me to my home. I’m still under hospice. The hurricane comes and go as my wife gives me a whole bunch of tough love. And she says, Look, you have been doing well until this accident, lets you get a physical therapist in. And let’s get you back on your unconventional cancer protocols. And see where we go, well actually things were doing well, physical therapists got me out of bed, I got this catheter that I had in for 30 days out of my body, and I started to revive, and I revoked hospice and went back to my oncologist in October 2019. And he was amazed that I was still alive. Several things happen along the way. In May of 2020, I had a new pet scan, I had no cancer cells that were active, either, even though I still was not in remission, PET scans don’t show everything. But for the most part, I was doing quite well. Then I got COVID and late 2021

destroyed me weaken my body and cause the myeloma to reactivate because COVID course activates the immune system. And my disease is a disease of malignant plasma cells, which is the immune system. And it produced so many dysfunctional antibodies, it began to eat into my bones even further. And where I am now is trying to rebuild my immune system, because I had another 11 rib fractures after that. So life has been interesting, but I am doing extremely well. And I have helped my body to rebuild its own immune system, as best as I can for myself, I am not a example of peak health, of course not, I have a cancer that’s going to kill me. But what I’ve done is to help my body fight it, and maintain the quality of life that I wished to have. Here I am. And that’s the stuff that I recommend to anybody and everybody, that’s amazing

Dr. Andrew Wong:

journey out. I think, you know, you were sitting here in 2022, this is four years after your doctor initially said, I believe that you have three to six months to live. And I’d like to really for our listeners to I mean, this is such a personal story, we really appreciate you sharing this. What are what are the key mindset shifts that people maybe need to have or evolved to have to, to fight off something as tough as you know, or to you know, journey with this kind of kind of disease?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

I think, number one, you need to have a partner who can support you, because you’re going to have some bouts of depression. And you might need a little lifting up. And that’s what my wife has been able to do for me. I think that’s a critical thing. Another thing is faith in something. I am not a religious person. Absolutely, I would tell you, I don’t follow any man made religion. But I am very spiritual. And I do believe in our spirit. And I believe in certain things that might be surprising to many people. But I believe that we are here for a purpose to learn things. Maybe this is my lesson to learn. But when you have a faith in a higher power, I think that that helps you get through some of the rough spots, especially if this is a learning experience. And we go on after this mortal life in a immortal spiritual world, and then maybe even do it again and again and again. So I do believe in reincarnation, and guess a few of your listeners may resonate with that most of your listeners will not, but this is my belief system. So a belief system and someone to support you, especially in very emotionally depressing times, are two critical elements. The other thing in a more practical sense, is we can do so much to enhance our immune system that is contrary to the guy in the white coat telling you, you’re going to die. Attitude is everything. And you don’t have to have, you don’t have to be in denial. But you can certainly be in a state where you can do things that are practical to improve your immune system and I’m not talking about crazy anecdotal stories, sticking things up your butt and all kinds of crazy things that are not natural. I’m talking about the natural Rule healthy, normal pathways of your body to enhance them to get better.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Let’s delve into that a bit. What are the key lifestyle nutrition changes that you found to be helpful? That, like you said, are very practical, practical and accessible to folks listening out there?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Sure. First of all, you need to do a little a person needs to do some research. So I did quite an amount of research and I made a lot of mistakes. And a lot of things that I started doing way back in 2018, I’ve tweaked out of my protocols, as things became more obvious to me that they were not functional. But there is a clinic in Budapest, Hungary, called The Paleo medicine clinic. It’s been around for now, I guess. 11 plus years, the doctors there treat only severe chronic disease and cancers. And they treat their patients with a strict diet, an animal based diet. They call it a Paleolithic ketogenic diet, where the patients do not take any prescription medications, they do not take any synthetic supplements, they only eat an animal based diet, nose to tail, meaning they’re eating healthy meats, with organs, and for animal fat and bone marrow and cartilage. And they are getting unbelievable results of curing chronic disease and cancers. Now, obviously, they don’t cure all their patients, some patients do go in remission, yet, they still have the disease. And some patients don’t succeed. And they die, of course, but they have a number of patients that are cured or go into remission, that they report in various journals, translated into English, which you can actually do some research about. And you can find this type of way of eating and the elements, how it supports the immune system, as well as gut health, repairing epithelial barrier breakdown, in other words, eliminating leaky gut, which is critical. So when you have this diet, lifestyle, by way of eating, and you have a healthy gut and a healthy membrane, you’re not pouring into your system. Unhealthy toxic life of polysaccharides, you’re preventing causes of cancer, and then your body’s immune system can start or it or at least enhance its ability to fight this cancer and other issues that may be related to cancer. So that’s that’s the emphasis on my protocols, a healthy diet, meaning an animal based diet, we can go into that. And we are also a means to repopulate and enhance the gut microbiome. And then many other things including good sleep patterns, exercise patterns, reducing emotional stress, so on and so forth.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I read that you’re having the 90 rather as 70%, animal based nose to tail, and in 30%, low oxalate, low lectin plants is that still kind of what you’re doing,

Dr. Al Danenberg:

I recommend that for the average person, as a matter of fact, Paleo medicine and clinic that do does recommend a 70% 30% ratio for those patients that are in remission or in the state of cure rather than early stages of treatment. Personally, I was 100% animal based 0% plants for about a year, starting the first 2020 to the end of 2020. Then I started to incorporate raw honey, as well as some fruits, practically no vegetables, no nuts, no seeds, nothing that had or any level of phytates oxalates and lectins which are major anti nutrients that would be outside are not part of my diet. But right now I’m eating about 90% or so animal base and 10% Maybe some fruit and raw honey.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Got it Okay. Okay. What would you say in terms of the conventional wisdom of new CMOS say somewhat breast cancer, prostate cancer, I believe the conventional wisdom is to go low on the saturated fat. I know you know, divas Well, I think some integrative advice sometimes.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah, no, and there are some very brilliant people recommending it total plant based diet.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I hopefully we’re not getting into that. We’re not trying to get in the diet words here. But I just want to hear your opinion. That’s all

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah. So my opinion is based on one matter More research that I have read from peer reviewed journals, and saturated fat from animals that are raised in a humane way, and are not fed grain and not given injections of antibiotics and hormones, which conventional animal husbandry will do. If those things are eliminated the meat and the fat is extremely healthy saturated fat is part of our means to produce hormones in our body. Saturated fat is a means to produce healthy cell membranes, and brain tissue. And I mean, it’s so many benefits. So saturated fat has been shown to actually enhance the body’s ability and prevent chronic disease. But saturated fat from unhealthy animals is not. And also saturated fat from animals that have been eating a number of plants that are high in linoleic acid, like corn and soy will actually be concentrated in their meat and skin and fat. And when we eat them, this linoleic acid is very damaging to our micro mitochondria, and fat cells. And as a matter of fact, cancer is a disease of not just metabolic dysfunction, but also mitochondrial dysfunction. So if we’re damaging the mitochondria from the food, we’re eating, like saturated fat from pork and chicken, that would be unhealthy. Or linoleic acids, not saturated fat, but their fats, including linoleic acid can be very damaging to our body.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

I mean, this goes back to what we’ve talked about in the last couple podcasts, which is really transforming the food system, right? Because it’s really hard to actually eat that way a low, low, low Linna linic acid diet, you know, truly pasture is truly 100% grass fed, you almost have to get a subscription from I don’t know if some of these you know, like butcher box or wild harvest are different. No, I

Dr. Al Danenberg:

don’t think so I can go to my local Harris Teeter. Okay, big grocery store. And they have ground beef and ground lamb that is grass fed grass finished. From a very a variety of farms, not only in the United States, but New Zealand, it’s there in packaging. There

Dr. Andrew Wong:

you go. So so it’s more accessible than it was before. Yeah,

Dr. Al Danenberg:

yes, I think it’s very accessible. And if you avoid the foods that have linoleic acid, in other words, any chicken, then the poor, don’t eat the plants that have fruit or or seeds, vegetable and seed oils that have high linoleic acid. If you’re avoiding them completely, you’re not getting them in your system. Course that those are in highly processed foods. So you have to look at the labels, or just not eat highly processed foods. You make all your food easily. And there are places that you can actually go out and eat a burger that is made from grass fed grass finished. Beef.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yeah, yeah. What would you say for the whole low lectin low oxalate kind of plant? Idea? In other words, I know you said you don’t eat that much yourself. But for someone out there that’s trying to eat, say, a lower lectin diet or something. But what kind of plants would you recommend there? For them?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

So let’s let’s talk about why are you eating the plants to start with, you’re eating the plants because you think you need the fiber, you’re eating the plants, because you think you need the nutrients. And everyone has told you you need a rainbow of colors. So you’re going to eat all these vegetables, and things that are high in fiber, and high in nutrients. The problem is the fiber isn’t a critical element. That’s another statement that will get a lot of controversy. Although it’s true, our bodies do not need the fiber. I’ll tell you why in a moment. And the other thing is that most of the nutrients in plants that have themselves high oxalates and lectins. These will bind to the minerals and other nutrients and not allow them to be bio available so the body doesn’t absorb them. They may be in the food but they get pooped out right away because you can’t absorb them. Every nutrient. Or I would say almost every nutrient your body needs would be in animal based foods if you eat them, nose to tail, meaning all the organs and the saturated fat, and so on and so forth. These animals that are ruminants that have four stomachs like sheep and cattle for example. These these ruminant animals eating grasses and whatever on on the field, pastured without chemicals on the grasses. They have the ability to digest even the nanty nutrients, removing them converting them to healthy nutrients into their their their Light and, and bone and marrow and meat. And when you eat them, the zinc and the other nutrients and the amino acids are pure, and they get absorbed immediately without any hindrance from anti nutrients to bind to them. So you can get all the nutrients. The other thing about fiber is very interesting. First of all, you can do some research and you will see, especially a paper that was published in early 2021. From a couple or three archaeologists and other degrees, I can’t remember the three guys their degrees, but they did quite a bit of research and showed that the human species evolving over two and a half million years, basically are omnivores, meaning they eat all kinds of animals and plants. They are dominantly. carnivores, they need and do eat animal protein and all the other elements. And there are many ways that it has been proven to do that. And these nutrients get absorbed in their body and created. They’re the species that we are today. So our bodies know how to use these nutrients. In addition, our microbiome, if it is eating a plant based diet will take the fiber and metabolize the fiber into short chain fatty acids, which is critical for many, many functions in our body. But in an animal based diet, the microbiome actually is slightly different in the gut. And the microbiome in the gut will then use amino acids to ferment into the short chain fatty acids that are required. So at humans, like some of the primal societies like the hodza, he’ll eat primarily an animal based diet, but they are omnivores do not eat much fiber, yet they are extremely healthy people and other societies that maintain their their primal eating lifestyles. Maybe some of the ones like the Inuits, although they’re not as primal as they used to be, but the primal in you Inuits, which were eating 90 95%, animal baits did not have fiber in their diet. But basically, were healthy people today in the US have gotten westernized, and they have many, many chronic diseases, but the primal Inuits were doing quite well. So the fiber is not the critical elements, as long as the microbiome in the gut is of the of the constituency to break down the amino acids into the short chain fatty acids that are required to answer your question, in my opinion, avoid those plants that have phytates, oxalates, and lectins. And the degree that may be accumulating in your body. Now there are many organizations that can identify how many milligrams or whatever the measuring is for the oxalates and lectins. In the food URI, you can choose the ones that are lowest if you want to eat just I low oxalate, lectin. Plant or avoid them completely. Most fruits do not have these problems. So you could eat the animal based, you could eat the fruits, honey is amazingly healthy as long as raw honey, we can talk about that. But it has many, many medicinal benefits. And you can survive not only well, but you will thrive well on a diet of those foods and get the nutrients your body needs

Dr. Andrew Wong:

are Dr. Al your wealth of knowledge. And we just want to thank you for coming on today. And really we covered a wide range of topics today but you know, gut health, oral health microbiome, how everything’s linked, and then kind of went into your personal stories. Thank you so much for sharing that and certainly wish you good luck on your health journey moving forward as well. how can listeners learn more about you and work with you? I think you’re also a nutritional coach. Correct?

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Yeah, so I My website is Dr. dannenberg.com Dr. Da n e n the erg.com. I sell nothing on my website. I don’t recommend products that I mean I don’t have a store on my website that I sell products from I do recommend products, but I don’t sell products. I do offer coaching especially a 12 to 12 week metabolic coaching program where I look at your overall medical dental history. I look at your dental X rays to see if there are individual areas of your body that you’re not aware of in your Now that could be causing other areas of infection. I look at a three day food journal that you send me and then certainly create a program that works for you and we follow that up over a period of 12 weeks.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

That’s so great. And then when one last kind of fun question if you’re traveling to a desert island and this question was originally a supplement question but given you what you said about supplements what three foods would you bring with you on that desert island assuming there were no you know, animals there are maybe three

Dr. Al Danenberg:

foods that I would be okay so i would i would take desiccated Oregon’s desiccated Oregon, so those are in powder form, because all these nutrients are alive and well without the water. And I would probably, in some fashion, get or make some beef jerky or lamb jerky that I could take and nibble line in those woods suffice as long as I had good spring water that had trace minerals in it.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Yeah, yeah, that’s on the island. So. Well, thank you so much, Dr. L for being on today. It’s been pleasure and good luck with you on your journey. We’ll talk again soon.

Dr. Al Danenberg:

Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to again.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Thank you for taking the time to listen to us today. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review. It helps our podcasts to reach more listeners. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our next episodes and conversations. And thank you so much again for being with us.