SUMMER SERIES | Unlocking Immune Health with Dr Michael Gonzalez

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Summer Series. Today, we are going to explore immune function with Dr Michael Gonzalez. Michael is a professor at the Nutritional Program School of Public Health, University of Puerto Rico. In our talk, we discuss ways to optimize immune function best, the influence of vitamin C on cancer treatment, and explore the long-term complexities involved in undertaking diets ranging from low carb, veganism, and carnivorism.


Health Podcast Highlights

SUMMER SERIES | Dr Michael Gonzalez: Improving Your Immune Function Introduction

My guest is Dr Michael J.Gonzalez. He’s a professor at the Nutritional Programmes School of Public Health in the Medical Sciences Campus at the University of Puerto Rico. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and Chemistry, a Master’s Degree in Cellular Biology and Biophysics, and another Master’s Degree in Nutrition and Public Health.

He then went on to do a Ph.D. in Health Sciences and another Ph.D., as though that wasn’t enough, in Nutritional Biochemistry and Cancer Biology. Now we discuss a lot of that in today’s programme. And I think the point that you perhaps need to remember when you’re listening to all of this, is that every cell in our body goes through trillions of biochemical processes each and every day. And inside our cells, there’s a thing called mitochondria, which are the power packs. 

And when I was an undergraduate to dentistry and when a doctor or any health practitioner does undergraduate work, they study biochemistry, which is the study of every one of those processes that drives healthy, immune, healthy cell function and therefore healthy immune function. So what goes on at a cellular level is critically important to our health. And how those biochemical processes go, is also critically important to our health. And in order for those processes to go, that’s why we need vitamins and minerals. That’s why deficiencies in vitamins and minerals are so important. 

Pharmaceutical products are not an essential nutrient. And when pharmaceutical products are introduced or when we are exposed to toxins, our liver has to go through a detoxification process. But it doesn’t have to do that when we have our nutrients. So this is a really important point. And that’s why someone who is familiar with cellular biology and biophysics, who is involved in nutrition and nutritional biochemistry, and cancer biochemistry, is so important. 

Now, Michael completed, also as though that wasn’t enough. Michael completed a postdoctoral fellowship and is a fellow of the American College of Nutrition. He has authored over 100 scientific publications, some of them with some of the other guests that we’ve had on this podcast. He’s an active member on several scientific editorial boards, including the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, which is where I have had the honor of meeting him. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Professor Michael J. Gonzalez. 

Podcast Transcript

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:00] I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I am recording this podcast, the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, and recognize the continuing connection to the lands, waters, and culture. I pay my respects to their elders of past, present, and emerging. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:26] Hello, and welcome to Unstress. My name is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Well, today we are going to continue our exploration of improving immune function. And one of the frustrations that I have about the way we’ve approached this pandemic is really our lack of focus on immune function. I mean, if public health is truly the number one goal in what a government delivers to its people, then I think we shouldn’t be embracing everything. And that means whatever pharmaceutical is needed to deal with if you have a bad case of Covid or a vaccine. Yeah, look, I’m okay with that, too. I’m not anti-vax, but if you were truly interested in public health, wouldn’t you also be promoting improving immune function? 

Sadly, that is not the case either here in Australia or in the United States, where they’ve just launched a Covid Consumer Protection Act where any mention of immune function positively affecting covid is deemed fake news and is being removed from Facebook and from YouTube. So I’m a little bit annoyed about this and that’s why I’m focussing on it in this podcast. And it’s such a pleasure today to have my guest. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:01:44] My guest is Dr Michael J.Gonzalez. He’s a professor at the Nutritional Programmes School of Public Health in the Medical Sciences Campus at the University of Puerto Rico. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and Chemistry, a Master’s Degree in Cellular Biology and Biophysics, and another Master’s Degree in Nutrition and Public Health.

He then went on to do a Ph.D. in Health Sciences and another Ph.D., as though that wasn’t enough, in Nutritional Biochemistry and Cancer Biology. Now we discuss a lot of that in today’s programme. And I think the point that you perhaps need to remember when you’re listening to all of this, is that every cell in our body goes through trillions of biochemical processes each and every day. And inside our cells, there’s a thing called mitochondria, which are the power packs. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:02:43] And when I was an undergraduate to dentistry and when a doctor or any health practitioner does undergraduate work, they study biochemistry, which is the study of every one of those processes that drives healthy, immune, healthy cell function and therefore healthy immune function. So what goes on at a cellular level is critically important to our health. And how those biochemical processes go, is also critically important to our health. And in order for those processes to go, that’s why we need vitamins and minerals. That’s why deficiencies in vitamins and minerals are so important. 

Pharmaceutical products are not an essential nutrient. And when pharmaceutical products are introduced or when we are exposed to toxins, our liver has to go through a detoxification process. But it doesn’t have to do that when we have our nutrients. So this is a really important point. And that’s why someone who is familiar with cellular biology and biophysics, who is involved in nutrition and nutritional biochemistry, and cancer biochemistry, is so important. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:03:55] Now, Michael completed, also as though that wasn’t enough. Michael completed a postdoctoral fellowship and is a fellow of the American College of Nutrition. He has authored over 100 scientific publications, some of them with some of the other guests that we’ve had on this podcast. He’s an active member on several scientific editorial boards, including the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, which is where I have had the honour of meeting him. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Professor Michael J. Gonzalez. Welcome to the show, Michael. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:04:35] Thank you. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:04:36] You’re talking to us from Puerto Rico, which I’m really interested to hear how things are going over there. But when I looked at what you had done on your journey, it’s been quite incredible, the number of Masters and PhD. And I wonder if you might share with us a little bit about your journey. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez’s Journey

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:04:54] Well, it’s more than a journey for grace, it’s a journey to gain knowledge. And let me tell you, it was a bad idea. And I’m going to tell you why, because most of the things that I practice, that I learn, I learned it on my own. Not really when I was taking these degrees.

Although it did help me to some extent to understand certain things, I understand things that were done wrong so I could do it right. But it’s, I mean, it’s not something that I really recommend. It started in high school that my grandfather, I was raised by my grandparents. And what happened was that he got liver cancer. There was nothing that can be done to him. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:05:35] So I was a kid in high school and I went to the medical school library to see what I can find to help them. And I think, you know, the librarian saw me and said, what are you doing here? I said I’m looking to help, my grandfather has terminal cancer. And I think he felt sorry for me more than anything else. And he always was looking around. And one day that I came in, he said, “Hey, this journal just came in and it has an article on vitamin C helping cancer patients.” And he said, “I’m going to photocopy it for you, I’ll give you two copies so you can take one to the physician,” and I said, “Sure!” And when I started reading, I said, well, vitamin C that’s interesting was a paper by Linus Pauling, Edwin Cameron, and Brian Liebowitz. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:06:25] In the article, the name was “Vitamin C and Cancer.” And it came it was as if I remember the journal, the Journal of Cancer. And it was 1979 when I saw that, and I got so excited because they were helping patients with 10 grams of Vitamin C. At first, intravenously, and then orally.

So I went running to the physician and everybody said he’s not going to pay any attention to that. So he was on a physician at the hospital, and when I saw him, I brought him the article, I said, “Can we do this with my grandfather?” And he said, “I’m going to take it. I’m going to read it. And you can call me tomorrow.” But actually, he knew that my grandfather was terminal. So I think he just read it. He was I think he was willing to experiment. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:07:16] You know, the next day when I came in, he told me, come with me to the to the pharmacy. Let’s check out this Vitamin C. So we went downstairs, and they only had it in these little crystal vials and it was 1g each. So we had to break this violence and put them in the IV bag. And we did that. And in the second bag that we put him, he was in a semi-comatose state and he woke up and he was all impressed with that. And then a couple of days they sent Grandpa back home.

But eventually, he died of cancer because after that I, I gave him some we bought oral vitamin C. I gave him some. But I don’t think we if he was taking probably about, I don’t know, maybe 3 or 4g, it was not really enough with all the conditions that he had. And I didn’t know as much as I know now on what I had to do, know what to do. And he died of the cancer eventually.

But we saw him get better, ask for food, get out from that semi-comatose state. And that really encouraged me to want to study all these aspects of using nutrients as therapeutics and different diseases. So it’s called the molecular medicine, as was named by Dr. Linus Pauling and Abraham Hoffer. And so the only person that I knew that was that worked with Linus Pauling was about Kimmons was Jeffrey Bland

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:08:40] In the world of nutritional medicine, Jeffrey Bland’s religion. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:08:44] Yeah, well, he’s actually he was a founder of functional medicine. And I think functional medicine is the clinical application of molecular medicine. So I wrote to him, he was at the University of Connecticut. He was teaching. And I tell him I want to do a doctorate degree and then onto molecular medicine. And he told me, you know, it doesn’t exist. And then he said that I should study biochemistry.

So eventually that’s one of the I got a Ph.D. in Nutritional Biochemistry at Michigan State. So I did what he told me I should do.  You’ve done all these courses, you’ve done all these degree.. And you say most of what you’ve learned, you’ve learned outside of this formal education. That is so interesting. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:09:27] It is. Actually, you know, the thing is that then to do that, I have to a certain extent is that I have experiments in the lab, have experience with patients, and I have experience teaching. So I  have seen in all these things, I see how it works in animals, how it works itself, and how it works in human beings. And so everything is a little bit different when you go to all these different ways of looking into research. And but, you know, there’s some commonality.

But there also a lot of differences also. And you have to really be open-minded to understand this. Sometimes scientists are so focused that they miss. It’s like they want to understand the whole environment, but they’re only looking at the least. And you have to look to understand it ecologically, you have to look at the old system and sometimes you lose that when you focus that much, but it has to be like a balance between focusing on some things and looking at the whole picture in another way.

So that’s what I have really learned on my own, that I have to be cognizant that there are many variables, there are many things that interfere, and that I have to have a general whole picture of what’s going on. Well, that has helped me with patience. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:10:47] Yeah, what a unique position to be a researcher, clinician, and teacher all wrapped up in one. So you’re in Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico is an island like Australia. I mean, admittedly, Australia is a bit bigger than Puerto Rico, but you’ve got about three and a half million people here. How has this, before we dive into some of your research, I’m just intrigued to know, how things are going over there in terms of the Covid response as an island? 

How’s Puerto Rico in terms of Covid-19?

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:11:16] Well, let me tell you, we’re influenced too much by the United States, which is not good because everybody talks about CBC. But CBC has managed it horribly, this viral infection. So it has not been so effective in managing it. And I think with this issue with that vaccines are that they’re really advanced so much to try to make them use for public use that I think we don’t really understand what’s going on. And I don’t think they really have a good grip in terms of how the immune system works. 

I mean, the immune system is a check and balances kind of system. It’s very complicated and it’s very individual. Everybody has their own. I mean, there are some generalities, but there are a lot of differences also. And I don’t think they have really stressed much in these differences and stressed much and how important it is to have an optimal immune system.

People talk about enhancing the immune system, but it’s not really enhancing. It’s optimizing it. Because if you enhance it too much, you’re going to have an imbalanced immune system and you don’t want that. You want a very balanced, very rapid response immune system. And that’s the only way of doing that, is understanding its complexity and understanding that it entails many enzymes, many metabolic pathways.

So you’re going to need a lot of cofactors. And that’s where all these nutrients come in –Vitamin C, Zinc, Vitamin D, and you’re going to need these nutrients in order to balance that immune system and to have it work optimally, which is efficiently and fast. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:12:56] Right now, what we’re seeing here in Puerto Rico is don’t try to limit your sugar intake, limit all the products that are not natural, all these because actually sugar, it’s the main enemy because it competes with vitamin C and then your first defense against viruses and bacteria is your T cells. And the T cells have receptors for sugar and vitamin C, but if you compete with vitamin C, you’re going to you’re not going to have enough of formation of peroxides that you need and these lysosomes in order to fight the virus and the bacteria.

So you’re going to imbalance your immune system. You’re going to have less cellular response, which is your first response. So the viral load is going to be more, and then you’re in your secondary immune system, which is the antibodies and the cytokines are going to increase up. And then you have a cytokine storm because of too much viral load, because you’re your primary cellular immune system is not responding well. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:13:57] So all these things can be corrected when you have enough of vitamin C, which is probably the nutrient that has more antiviral mechanisms. Vitamin D has a lot of antiviral microRNAs, although they’re secondary, and zinc, which mainly zinc, helps a lot because it inhibits reverse transcriptase.

But in order to do that, you need a molecule that will get vitamins that will get sink into the cell. And that’s what they were using, chloroquine, which could probably do that. But there’s something even more simple and less toxic, which is quercetin that could do that also. So we’re looking into that. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:14:35] We’re promoting a diet high in vegetables, fruits, low and sugar and carbohydrates and processed foods in general, and the intake of a multivitamin and mineral, probably a high dose one. Vitamin C, at least three grams, one gram, three times a day. Vitamin D is less than ten thousand units. Zinc at least 30 milligrams. And magnesium because sometimes people have enough vitamin D, but it doesn’t work well if there’s no magnesium there.

So you see all of these synergistic effects of the nutrients, although you’re going to have to use some of them in a little bit larger doses during this pandemic period in order to make a physiological difference and there has been a lot of problems with the physicians because so dissolve a vitamin C, it’s water-soluble, you take it and you drop it. But they’re forgetting that even if that’s true, don’t drink water because you drink water, then you pee it.

The point is that in the interim, you have a lot of physiological effects. Water will decrease, your temperature will help nutrients get to the different cells, will help the detoxification process of getting detox out by their urine. Also, you have a bunch of effects of physiological effects that goes on even when you drink. And it goes just the matter of going through. It’s going to have a lot of physiological effects.

The same thing happens with vitamin C, although vitamin C, you’re not going to eliminate all of them. You eliminate some of it for you to get you to produce collagen before you even produce energy with it because it’s an excellent reduction molecule. So we have seen that vitamin C increases energy by you being like an electron promoter of the electron transport system. So if you have all the rest of the things coq10, the carnitine, the B complex, it’s going to help push that electron to the electron transpacific. And that’s what really produces energy. We will not have life on Earth without vitamin C because of that electro movement of photosynthesis. It’s because of the ascorbic acid molecule. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:16:47] Wow. That’s just such a great description of… My next question, which was how do, how does that look like in practice? And you’ve just mentioned all of these nutrients and the levels which they are. You’re also a professor of Public Health. And one thing that really, maybe I’m naive here, but I would think that in public health, we should embrace everything that could improve public health. So that might include embracing pharmaceutical alternatives like vaccines.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But I’m just in Australia. Whenever we mention anything about immune function, it’s almost heresy in America. I believe you now have the Covid Consumer Protection Act. We spoke to Dr Richard Cheng and he informed me that there’s a consumer protection to protect people about any mention, more or less that immune function. What is going on? Why should we embrace all these things? 

Vaccine and the effects on our body

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:17:52] That’s the power of Big Pharma. They just want to sell. But the thing is that it could be done in a more effective way. I mean, I’m not against vaccines in general. I’m just against that there’s not enough science to really push these vaccines that they have been pushed. And I think it’s blowing on their faces right now with all these adverse effects about the coagulation problems, about the damages to the alveoli, damages to the vascular system, the damage to hemoglobin.

Actually, we’re just finishing a paper talking about vitamin C. How vitamin c can prevent all these practical physiological effects that the cytokine storm can produce, especially damages to the vascular system, to the plaque flatulence, to the hemoglobin, and to the alveoli. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:18:46] And that cancer is another area I know you’re very interested in. And while we’re on the topic of vitamin C, I know there’s this controversy about whether vitamin C and its effect on conventional cancer therapies. I know you’ve written about this. What’s your view? Can you share some of your thoughts on this issue? 

Vitamin C and its effect on conventional Cancer therapies

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:19:05] Well, first thing is that vitamin C, physicians in general, especially in college, have no idea how vitamin C can work. They just think it’s just a vitamin. How a vitamin could be anti-carcinogenic. And I think one of the most important people I mean, you could mention Linus Pauling, you could mentor Dr. Hugh Reardon, who was my mentor.

But, you know, one of the most important guys here, I think it’s Mark Levine, from the National Institute of Health. Because Dr. Mark Levine has really shown the increase in hydrogen peroxide as a mechanism of inhibiting cancer cell growth. And basically, I think it’s, first, it’s a perception. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:19:48] A lot of physicians want to use vitamin C as a pharmaceutical agent, and you can be using it in pharmaceutical doses. But pharmaceutical doses of vitamin C are very high doses, and they’re forgetting that the body can manage nutrients in a different way as pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceuticals sometimes need to be activated by these detox tests and phase one, phase two, and nutrients don’t work that way. Nutrients, just the body are physiologically friendly molecules that the body knows how to use. And they don’t even, the body doesn’t even know how to use energy to eliminate them. Just eliminate them in the process when they’re in excess in the body.

So it’s a different pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic form of looking nutrients versus drugs. Physicians don’t understand that. And that’s many of the mistakes that they do when they’re doing these experiments because they use very small doses that are not going to have the same effect as the large doses do. But because they’re scared of using large doses, because they think it behaves like a pharmaceutical agent and it does not. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:20:57] Mmm. Because I get the feeling that whenever we look at a recommended daily intake of these nutrients, what we’re talking about when we look at the official line is enough nutrient to avoid identifiable disease. So the nutrient I think the dose for a daily dose of vitamin C, you would know this better than I am. What’s the recommended daily intake of vitamin C? 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:21:21] Well, it used to be 60. I think now is 90.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:21:25] I know. Yeah. I mean, that will stop us from getting scurvy. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:21:29] Yeah, but that’s a terminal disease. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:21:32] That’s a? 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:21:33] That’s a terminal disease. You could die of scurvy. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:21:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:21:37] I mean, the dose for optimization may be different from person to person, but it’s definitely more than 90 milligrams. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:21:45] Yeah. And what would that range be? Say, from a healthy individual, an individual with comorbidities, and an individual with cancer. Just roughly so people can get their head around dosages? 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:21:58] This is my personal opinion. I think between five hundred milligrams and probably the three grams for…

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:22:07] a healthy person. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:22:09] Yeah, that’s what I think will be a good maintenance dose for maintaining a healthy state. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:22:15] Mm hmm. And if someone was with, you mentioned in cancer therapy, that those doses could get really high. What is sort of the range of doses that are used within cancer therapy? 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:22:28] Well, my friend, Steve Hickey is going to kill me because he advocates a lot about oral dosing. And I think he has a point. I think oral dosing because I use a lot of IV because I think I you could reach higher levels quicker and sustain them a little bit more than you do oral because you have that limit of sorts of stuff. But he has a model which he calls the dynamic flow in which he gives a certain amount of vitamin C like every hour in order to keep the levels high in blood and in circulation.

But it’s very impractical sometimes because you have to be twenty-four hours taking three grams every hour. It’s a pain. So, I think it might be possible, he says that he’s probably correct. But the thing is, it’s not practical. So what we use is a one-time dose of vitamin C and once we do a g6pb test, we may start with 15 grams and go up to twenty-five and go up to 50 and even seventy-five grams. And we keep it between 50 and seventy-five because we want to prevent recycling of ascorbic acid because we want ascorbic acid, then the presence of oxygen produced hydrogen peroxide.

But if, if we give too much vitamin C that’s going to be inhibited and it’s going to recycle back to energy and you’re going to have less production of hydrogen peroxide. So you’re going to have a less anti-carcinogenic effect. So that’s why it’s kind of a wakey-wakey dose. We have to really be paying attention not to inhibit what we really want to increase in cancer. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:24:08] Now, you mentioned hydrogen peroxide, and I had the pleasure of talking with Thomas Levy a few months ago on the subject of hydrogen peroxide. And it was quite surprising how ubiquitous it is in our bodies and how important a role it plays. Can you just tell us a little bit more about how you mentioned it twice, that hydrogen peroxide and Thomas has mentioned it as a nebulizer. Tell us a little bit about hydrogen peroxide. 

Hydrogen Peroxide as a nebulizer

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:24:33] I’m a very good friend of Tom, and we went up at the same year to the Molecular Medicine Hall of Fame. And Tom is a very knowledgeable guy in this area. But what I can tell you is that’s a passive effect, in very low doses, it’s kind of like a signal molecule in the body. But when you go to high doses, it may have a physiological pharmacological effects.

The thing is that the body manages it pretty well because most of the normal cells have Charolais superoxide like this. Grutaen Peroxides and then the body can manage it very well. That’s one of the things he said. If you get the virus use as a nebulizer and you’re going to be OK.

So that’s one of the directions that Tom does in terms of this virus. But it helps even clear the sinuses and all that stuff I have occasionally done it. And you have to watch out because if you use too much, it might be irritating. But if you have the right dose, it’s a good sense of clearly using your respiratory tract. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:25:39] Now, I wanted to ask about cancer because it’s such a big issue. It’s often referred to as a genetic disease. But some of your research and I’ve also had the pleasure of speaking to Thomas Seyfried about this as well. I wondered if you might share with us the difference between the view that it’s a genetic disease and the emerging view that it’s a metabolic disease. 

What’s your view between a genetic disease and metabolic disease in Cancer?

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:26:04] Well, let me tell you, Tom is a great guy. But let me tell you a story. I came out with a paper which a theoretical paper, which I call — The Bio-Energetic Theory of Carcinogenesis. My idea of cancer as a metabolic disease came out was 2014 or 2009. I don’t remember well. The point is, I didn’t know about Thomas Seyfried. And after I wrote that paper, I learned about him and he never know about me. So he came to his idea on his own, and I came up with my idea on my own. And after that, we met and we wrote a paper together which is called (inaudible)

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:26:43] Tell us what the genetic view of cancer is and then tell us, remind us, because, you know, I think this is an important issue. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:26:56] One point that we have figured out is that the mitochondria, it’s not working normally in cancer and cancer patients. And that what it makes is that you cannot produce mitochondrial energy. What you produce, it’s mainly (inaudible) and that has been observed, called The Wartburg Effect

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:27:15] Yup. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:27:15] And the point of this is that that’s why the cancer cells use glucose so much. And it’s their main source of micronutrients. It’s glucose. It’s sugar. And they use it as a PET scan. The PET scan, it’s looking how much sugar that malignant tissue is taking.

So it tells you how, you know, it gives you an idea how bad it’s going to get. But the thing here is that it’s basically, the mitochondria are not working. If your mitochondria are working, you have a lot of energy. 

Energy helps with the order organization and compartmentalization of things. So it kind of organizes you. Energy has that power of organizing. And the thing is, differentiation requires multiple steps, multiple physiological steps, and it requires multiple nutrients and multiple enzymes. And the only way of doing that, if you have enough energy to produce that. To maintain the order and the organization. So it’s kind of an unbalanced, wacky sense. This using sugar, it’s a survival mechanism.

It’s an old mechanism that the cell has that uses it. But it’s the only thing that can do to survive. Once they do that, they lose communication because you don’t have the energy for communication. So it’s every cell on its own. That’s why they start dividing to try to survive. But there’s no connection. There’s no communication between the different cells and the different tissue. And that’s why it overgrows in terms of the tumor. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:28:51] Hmm. So you mentioned the word differentiation. And by that, you know, this is about liver cells forming as liver cells and pancreatic cells forming as pancreatic cells. And this is what you mean by differentiation? Yes?

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:29:06] Yeah, well, differentiation when you look at the cancer cells, it looks like an embryonic cell. It has lost its characteristic of the tissue where it is. It keeps some of them. That’s why you identify it, but it doesn’t keep all of them. And the thing is, it loses that communication capacity. That’s what we call, that it loses its differentiation. 

And the point here is that once this happens, you first have this metabolic derangement, but it’s followed by a genetic change. So you have genetic change. People call it mutations. And I think it’s more an epigenetic effect than a mutation.

Although on certain occasions, you may have mutations leading to cancer. I mean, there’s no question about it. And there is a genetic component even in the presence of these metabolic derangements. Because what happens is once you have this change in metabolism, the body, it’s going to turn on genes needed for that. So you have a genetic change after the metabolic derangements.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:30:17] Yes. So it’s not an all or none. It’s not the “He’s right. She’s right.” You know, this is a combination putting piecing this all together. The thing that surprises me and again, this is back to our question about public health, is that the medical profession is readily accepting of the PET scan as the gold standard for detecting cancers and yet making that leap mental leap into how sugar feeds or carbohydrates feed cancer never seems to be made. 

Public Health, Pet Scans and Carbohydrates/ Sugars

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:30:53] Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, you know, I had this discussion with Dr. Pauling and he said, “You know, physicians on science are not trained… They’re trained to work fast. They’re not trained to think.” And I don’t want to say that they cannot think, but, you know, sometimes conventional medicine, it’s very effective to problems, but in chronic degenerative problems, it’s not because sometimes that just one pill, one solution. And it doesn’t work that way. It’s a lot more complicated than that. But the other issue there is that I don’t know how they cannot make that jump. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:31:39] Let me tell you there’s a story that I was in an interview. And in the previous interview, I said about the sugar being the main fuel for cancer cells and the physician said that I was wrong, that all cells use sugar, that I was saying, that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and all that stuff. I said, “OK, so I don’t know what I’m talking about. So, yeah, you don’t know what you’re talking about. OK, fine. One question, when you have a tumor, what type of test you go use markers?” “No, no, no, if you want to see it growing. So we use a PET scan,” he said. When he mentioned PET scan, he then went quiet. What’s the PET scan using? I said glucose, so I rest my case. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:23] Yes, it’s incredible, and actually, you know, you make that point about T cells that sugar, the receptors, compete with the vitamin C there. And of course, it’s not just sugar. It’s because it doesn’t take long for carbohydrates to be broken down into sugar. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:32:40] When we eat carbohydrates or sugar we eat them in grams, and when we take Vitamin C, we take milligrams. So..

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:47] So it’s another thing people hear about is low carb and it means so many different things to different people. What does low carb mean to you? 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:32:59] For me, it means low, simple, refined carbohydrates. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:04] I know, but if you were putting if you were measuring your carbohydrate intake in grams a day, what would be a low-carb diet? Because, you know, when I went on to the USDA site and put in all my parameters for a health practitioner, this is advice. According to the USDA, I should be on between 350 and 475 grams of carbohydrate a day. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:33:31] We think that’s, the way, it depends on the source, really. If it’s complex carbohydrate. If you don’t have any cancer or any degenerative disease, you might be on the safe side. If you have cancer, it might be too high. You should probably go lower. Two hundred or lower. Diets use 50 grams or lower. So and the problem here is also that even when you go on these very low carb diets, the body starts producing these ketone bodies, which it’s good, especially in cancer and any degenerative disease. It has a beneficial effect. 

But the problem is that after a certain time in these diets, you started using glutamine as a source of energy. And that has confused many scientists thinking that you have oxidative metabolism, thinking that the mitochondria are working when it’s not, but it’s using glutamine as a source. So it’s working in that way.

And the problem with that is that’s why the difference between the keto diet and the other low carb diets that came before because the low carb diet did not restrict proteins. And you need enough proteins to have your immune system working well, but not enough protein to feed that glutamine subtle to produce energy. So and that’s something that Thomas Seyfried made me aware of. It was not it was his research that made me aware of that. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:35:02] So we don’t really know. I mean, if you have to cycle this ketogenic diet intenser, I think Miriam Kalamian wrote a book on Keto and Cancer, in which she had her son extend his life by using the keto diet, he had a very terminal brain cancer. And she did that. She experimented with the keto diet with her son. And he really went a lot over what was expected for him to survive. And she has really looked into all of these aspects of it and hyperbaric oxygen and keto diet. And that combination is fabulous. And if you have vitamin c, you almost have the puzzle solved.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:45] Right. But you would say you need to be careful with not overloading on protein as well. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:35:51] Definitely, yeah. That’s something. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:53] Where does that leave the carnivore diet? How do you view that? Make a comment about The Carnivore Diet, from that perspective. 

The Carnivore Diet

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:35:59] You know, I don’t have much experience with it. I don’t think we should be in a carnivore diet because it’s simple for me,  when you look at our denture, we have more molars than incisors. So but we have incisors. So we have to certain meat, but we have more molars so we should eat more vegetables. 

I think that in terms of evolutionary, because when you see tigers, they have these incisors are very big and they don’t have any molars. When you see the cows that eat herbs and plants, they have a lot of molars and they have they don’t have any incisors. So you see, in terms of that, I would say that we have to combine our diet. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:36:42] Yeah,. 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:36:42] I’m a paleo man. I like the paleo diet. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:36:45] Yeah, me too. I think it makes sense. The Paleo diet, I mean, it’s not exactly radical. 

Dr Michael Gonzales [00:36:50] I should mention, Ron, the intestine. The intestines, they’re very long. And in these animals that eat only herbs and plants and it’s very short in the carnivore ones like tigers and lions. In us, in ours, it’s midway. It’s not as short as the carnivore, but it’s not as long as the herbivores. So in that sense, that’s why I believe that we should eat a mixed diet. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:37:15] Yeah. So, what is that? I’m just interested to hear about your view of raw vegan. 

The Raw Vegan Diet

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:37:23] Well, I think people, some people, do it because of religious purposes or some things, and I respect that. They just have to make sure they have enough protein and they could get it from peas and different types of beans and stuff. I think it’s possible. I don’t think it’s a problem, but they have to be aware of that. Some people may have problems getting coq10, getting B21, getting iron, and they have to be careful with that. But other than that, it should be OK. 

The other thing that I wanted to mention is that there’s a big argument sometimes against meat. And I think the problem is that the quantity and type because we should eat a lot of protein.

We should eat, what probably is, our hand, maybe two times a day. And that should be enough to cover our real necessity. Although if you’re an athlete or you do need more muscle or stuff like that, you may eat more. But the thing here is that I’m talking about quantity. But talking about the type — most of the meat, it’s given hormones, it’s given antibiotics. And that’s why we should eat meat that comes from grass-fed animals. And organic, the better.

Then we eat small quantities of meat — organic,  grass-fed.  We should not have any problem, I think. I mean, nobody really knows because those experiments had not been done. But most of the issues have been because people eating too much meat in the wrong form, full of hormones and antibiotics, and who knows what.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:39:01] Music to my ears, Michael, because we’ve done many programmes on regenerative agriculture as an important environmental and health one. But another question I wanted to ask you. This is great. I’ve got an opportunity to ask a professor of nutrition, throw out these questions to you. What about fasting, intermittent fasting, or fasting?..

Intermittent Fasting

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:39:25] Well, I’m intermittent fasting. Let me tell you. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:39:26] Why? 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:39:27] I am reaching 60. And I started to feel a lack of energy in my body. I mean, I have all these pains in my knees and my back that have not, I have alleviated that a little bit, but not as much as I would like. But let me tell you, in terms of energy, I have recovered the energy as when I was 30.

I have all the energy in the world. And it started like probably about in my second month of intermittent fasting. And I do it almost every day. Well, I could say I could do it every day, I try to do the 16 hours. Today, I didn’t. I went 12 today. But usually, I go 16. And let me tell you that for me, I have lost some weight. It has not been a big issue.

Weight was not a big issue to me. But the energy was. Let me tell you one thing. I have recovered my energy fully. Fully. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:40:19] Why do you think fasting is so good? 

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:40:22] Let me tell you, I think that one of the main issues with the fasting is that you give your body a break. It’s like cleaning, the mitochondria do the cleaning when you’re not eating. It cleans up, it restores itself.

And I think that’s very important that you give that time for restoration and rest to the digestive and to the energy systems. And I think has worked wonderfully for me. Too bad, I haven’t really measured anything but other than that, that my seeding of energy, I haven’t heard anything 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:40:55] Well, Michael, to hear that coming from a professor of public health and nutrition, it’s been terrific to connect with you and get these snapshots of information and your view on it. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr Michael Gonzalez [00:41:08] Oh. It’s been a pleasure, Ron. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:41:10] Thank you. 

Conclusion

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:41:13] I always enjoy talking to my guests. You probably gathered that. And as I’ve often said, every week I get to ask people questions about things that they know so much more than I do. And they answer them. And I learn. And I hope you do, too. There were some things there that Michael said that I wanted to just mention again. 

He mentioned in passing T cells, which are really important part of our immune system, and made the point that receptors on those T cells will accept sugar or vitamin C and they’ll compete. So if you have too much sugar, then the vitamin C doesn’t attach to those T cells and isn’t as effective as they should be. And as he said, it’s unfair because we consume so much more sugar than we do vitamin C. 

And also the point that the recommended daily intake of vitamin C is something like 50-90 milligrams, and that is barely enough for us to avoid scurvy. And if that’s the measure of success, then I think we could be doing much better considering we are exposed to many toxins and a lot of sugar and carbohydrates. So I thought that was really important. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:42:29] And you will have heard the point about cytokine storms. And you’ll also know you will know if you’re a regular listener, that the common denominator in all diseases, be they mental, physical diseases, is chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is the common denominator. And what happens in the body when there is chronic inflammation? Chemicals are formed, and one of those chemicals is cytokines. And that’s why you will have heard the word cytokine storm so often. And why that is part of oxidative stress which starts to disrupt the normal function of the cell. And that’s why antioxidants are so important. And if this is a theme we keep coming back to, I really don’t apologize for that because it’s a theme I need to be constantly reminded of. And I’m sure you do, too. 

Look, it was terrific to talk to Michael. He’s going to share with me some of the research papers. So if you’re interested in that, we’ll have them attached to our show notes. Stay tuned. Don’t forget to download our Unstress with Dr Ron Ehrlich. And we’re going to have some great resources becoming available in the second half of this year. And I think it’s an important topic, important topic, improving immune function for this pandemic and future pandemics which will inevitably come. I hope this finds you well until next time. This is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Be well.

 

This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health, and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions.