Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Ask Mark Anything: Cellulite, Carpal Tunnel, Vitiligo, And More

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Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Ask Mark Anything. My name is Hershel Perth. I'm the Dr. Hyman Plus Community Manager. And I'm joined by Darcy Gross, who is one of the producers of the Longevity Roadmap documentaries. Hi, Darcy.

Hi.

And of course, we are here with our expert, Dr. Mark Hyman. Hi, Dr. Hyman.

Hi, everybody.

Thanks, everyone, for submitting your questions for this month's Ask Mark Anything. So let's go ahead and get started. Our first question is about uric acid. So what is uric acid and what are the causes of having high Euric acid levels and what should you do to reduce it? Why is it important to reduce it?

Well, you should first listen to my podcast with Dr. Richard Johnson. We'll answer all your questions or you should read my friend's book, David, promoter called drop acid, not about LSD, but about your acid. So that's important because there's great resources out there. The second is that it is a molecule in your blood that we can check on a regular blood test. I check on all my patients that is increased in the, in, in the process of what we call insulin resistance. Now, for anybody who knows me, who's listening on the Dr. I'm a community, you know what that is, is when your body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin from too much sugar and too much starch and it's connected to diabetes and insulin resistance. What we now know is that it's really driven by fructose. Fructose is, you know, somehow uniquely affecting the body by increasing your gas at production. There are other ways to do it. Obviously gout, you know, we know gout when you get a big swollen toe that can be caused by high uric acid. There can be genetics involved. It can be caused by eating too much certain organ meats which have high levels of purines or giving rich food, like certain aged cheeses or wine, for sure can cause elevations of uric acid. But for the most part, it's caused by sugar and starch, and particularly fructose. Table sugar is called sucrose, which is a combination of glucose and fructose. Now, they're bound in sugar with a special chemical bond that makes your body work a little bit to dissolve them, and then you have to absorb them. And so, Now we're getting high fructose corn syrup, which didn't exist when I was a kid and was based on the advent of the increase in corn production, it being turned into sugar, high fructose corn syrup. And that may be anywhere from 55 to 75% fructose, but it's different than regular sugar because it's unbound. It's not like a bound together in a chemical bond with glucose, it's free fructose. And then so it just rushes into your body, you know, tons of amount of energy to get absorbed and it goes to your liver and it turns on this metabolic fructose, which causes inflammation, fatty liver, elevated uric acid, and it has huge impacts on energy production in the cells, on your mitochondria, on inflammation, on gout. And so it's one of the sort of central biochemical processes that goes wrong when you eat too much fructose and high fructose corn syrup. Now, if you're having fruit, it's a little bit different because it gets absorbed slowly. It's not highly, it's highly, you know, mixed in the matrix of fiber and vitamins and minerals, a little bit different. It's not all fructose, but, but it's this high fructose corn syrup that is just super dangerous. So if I could say to you one, you say, Doctor, what is the one thing I could do to improve my health? I would say never, ever, ever eat anything with high fructose corn syrup no matter what. Now, when, when you do that, all of a sudden you're immediately cutting out almost everything in the grocery store because everything that's sweetened today is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. In fact, the corn industry wanted to change the name to corn sugar and, and, and a sort of cheat, sort of deceive us by changing the name or corn syrup, which sounds okay. But high fructose corn syrup we know is one of the most dangerous compounds known to humankind. And I wrote an article years ago, five reasons you should avoid high fructose corn syrup, including things we mentioned. It causes leaky gut, it causes fatty liver, it causes all kinds of problems. But what's interesting, I'll just say a quick story, is that I had a friend who was a doctor who wanted to research high fructose corn syrup. So they called up the makers of Archer Daniel Midland, which is one of the big ag companies that makes high fructose corn syrup. And they said, Hey, we want to do some studies on it. Can you send us something like absolutely not, it's proprietary secret, blah, blah, blah. So they called them back and said, Hey, we're coming up with this new beverage. We want to use high fructose corn syrup. Can you send us some? They're like, oh, of course, sure. And they sent them a big barrel full of the stuff. And they tested it and it was full of mercury. What is going on here? And it turns out that in the process of actually making high fructose corn syrup, they use something called chloroalkali that is, contains mercury. And so they, in the process of actually making it, they use it something that contains mercury and some of that gets in the high fructose corn syrup. So it's another source of mercury poisoning. So aside from the sugar, it's just bad news. And if you wanna actually learn more about my views on it, just read five reasons to avoid high fructose corn syrup or I think maybe it's five ways high fructose corn syrup will kill you or something like that. Just Google high fructose corn syrup, Mark Hyman. In fact, the sugar industry is hysterical. The sugar industry reached out to me and wanted me to testify in court about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, but saying how much better sugar was. And I was like, no thanks. And they were going to pay me a lot of money. And I was like, oh my God, this is just so bad.

Following up on that, what are the consequences of not reducing your uric acid levels?

Well, basically death. I mean, if you want to avoid heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, and dementia, which are all caused by insulin resistance, you should avoid things that cause your uric acid to go up, particularly high fructose corn syrup and sugar and starch in general. And two, high uric acid levels will cause often something called gout, which is no fun. And also they can cause kidney stones, we call uric acid kidney stones, which are, if anybody's had a kidney stone, well, I haven't, and I haven't given birth, so I can't give you firsthand experiences, but apparently it said it's the closest thing to the pain of giving birth and, and, and that you'll ever experience. so I would say that those should be enough reasons for you to never eat high fructose corn syrup again.

Definitely. Thank you for that. Darcy, over to you for the next question.

Yeah, I've never passed a kidney stone, but I have given birth. And so if it's anything similar at all, no, thank you. All right. Yeah, so switching gears, the next question is about cellulite. So basically, is there anything that we can do to reduce cellulite or reduce the appearance of cellulite or even prevent it in the first place?

Yeah, I mean, cellulite is often a condition of lymph stasis and fatty deposits in the skin. And so, you know, I'm 62. I don't have any. And many people who take care of themselves and exercise and don't eat sugar and, you know, have good lymphatic flow and do yoga and get massage typically don't have cellulite. So taking care of yourself is the first and the best preventive strategy for it. In terms of treating it, Lymphatic massage can be very helpful. There are different kinds of laser devices and therapy sort of technologies that actually dermatologists use to get rid of it, but it's not easy. So I think the best is prevention.

Yeah, for sure. That's super helpful. Thank you, Dr. Hyman. And over to Herschel.

So our next question is about carpal tunnel syndrome. And so we have a lot of community members that are asking about this. And so what is the best way to treat it or support it if you have it?

Well, first of all, what is it? Right? What is carpal tunnel syndrome? Essentially, in your wrist, you have a little tunnel, which a carpal means wrist, right? So a little tunnel that goes through your wrist that, that carries the nerve. And this, this nerve can get crunched if there's swelling or inflammation. And, you know, we're all on our computers, devices. So often it's a, it's a kind of work related, or we'll call it. an occupational hazard of certain activities. So making sure you have good ergonomics, particularly on your computer when you're working, really important. It can come from various kinds of sports or for certain kinds of work-related things, like if you're doing jackhammers or things like that. It often can be to do inflammation from other causes. So if there's fluid retention and any inflammatory conditions, that can often be a factor and it can be an inflammatory diet and so forth. In terms of treatment, and often it's treated with surgery, which is to release the carpal tunnel and open up that space and leave room for the nerve, not so it's not because it's crunched and scrimped and it's not causing pain. And usually notice it because the thumb and the forefinger and the middle finger tend to get numb and tingly. Often there's splints that people use, carpal tunnel splints to make sure you don't actually compress the nerve. If you do this, if you do this, you put your wrist together upside down and stuff like that, then you can test for it. And if that hurts and it reproduces symptoms, then you probably have it, but so you want to hold your wrist sort of in a neutral position, like in a splint. And that often can relieve it, especially at night, people sleep on their arm funny or, you know, if you wear it at night, it can often help. But often we'd be surprised vitamin B6 at high doses, like 200 milligrams a day. Now you make sure you add up all the sources of all the vitamins you're taking. So you don't take 200 on top of another 100 on top of another 100 and some other vitamins. So you gotta be careful, but about, you know, because it can cause other problems, but it can be really helpful. Vitamin B6 can often really be helpful for, for carb Hormone Syndrome. And I don't think we exactly know why, but it seems to work. So those are the kind of basic ideas about it, but it's often really, you know, an ergonomic issue or inflammatory.

Issue, and it's the same thing we do for all inflammation. Great.

That's super helpful. Thank you so much, Darcy, over to you.

All right.

So the next question is, what is.

The Vitiligo and what's the functional?

Vitiligo. Vitiligo. I practiced before we read this question. what is vitiligo and what's the functional medicine approach to treating it?

Well, Darcy, I forgive you. You're not a doctor, and it is one of those weird words that you don't know how to pronounce. And honestly, there are actually medicine words that I don't know how to pronounce even. So it's like, is it tinnitus or tinnitus? You say tomato, I say tomato, I don't know. Anyway, so that the, this is a horrible condition where you get deep pigmentation of the skin. And essentially it's like where you basically look like your albinino person in one area. So it can be blotchy on your face. You've probably seen these people. They look like they're piebald. They have like white areas that are blotchy. You come on your arms, on your body, on your leg, and you know, it's really common. It's an autoimmune disease actually of the skin, which attacks the melanin and the producing cells, the melanocytes, which is the ones that give you suntan. So if you go in the sun, you get a suntan because you increase melanocyte activity, and that's great. And it protects you from getting a sunburn. But if you don't have the melanocytes like in some areas of your skin, like the Ligo, you'll get a really bad sunburn. So, for example, if you're albino and have the gene that doesn't produce melanocytes, well, you're, you're this sort of white everywhere. So it's kind of like being albino, except it's an acquired autoimmune problem. And guess what? The number one cause is. Can you guess? Sugar and starch.

What?

What? No, come on, guys. Gluten. Gluten. Gluten is a, you know, if you have an autoimmune disease, gluten should be the first, second, and third thing you think about. And, and so it's leaky gut, it's gluten, and, and sometimes it's reversible. If you heal the gut and you get rid of gluten, it can be other causes of autoimmune disease. And we've talked a lot about on the Ask Me Anything podcast, and we have some of our expert doctors who have sure, for surely talked about autoimmune diseases, but it's usually things you think about toxins, allergens, microbes, leaky gut, stress, poor diet. So, so I, I find, you know, it's a little bit hard to treat. But it is a really unfortunately common condition and it can really be mitigated. So the best thing to do is if you start to notice it, then immediately get on it. Because once your whole skin is de-pigmented, it's hard to re-pigment. I think we're going to find ways to do that through stem cell treatment, through exosomes, through versus various kinds of treatments that we may be using in the future, plasmapheresis, which is where you filter your and clean your blood. So I think there's hope for people, but you know, to sometimes requires a little bit extra, extra work, but it is a, it is a horrible condition. But make sure if you start to see these blotchy patches, one, you get checked to, you get checked for gluten and, and you got to check properly because a lot of doctors don't know how to check or they'll see elevated antibodies that are light, like a little elevated. But you know, the level of gluten antibodies become anti-glide antibodies. The range is zero to 20.

Now, what's the normal level of mercury.

In your blood is the quiz. None?

Zero.

Zero, zero, zero. Like there's no, there should have no mercury. It's not a by, right? What is the normal level of gluten antibodies in your blood? Zero. Why? Because if you have gluten antibodies in your blood, it means one, that you're eating gluten, two, that you have a leaky gut, and three, that your immune system is pissed off at some level. Now it could be just a little pissed off or a lot pissed off. If it's a lot pissed off, it's called celiac disease. it was a little pissed off. It's called non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and you don't have to have full-blown celiac. So if you have any antibodies and they're not zero and you don't, and also even regular antibodies, we only check like two different kinds, trans glutamine and anti-glide antibodies. They're like over 20 different proteins in gluten and weed and, and we check all of them. So, so there's other tests that are more sophisticated. We use Cyrex three. Also there's cross-contamination with other grains. So we look at that. But I think it's really important to look at all these factors. as you're beginning to kind of survey what's going on with your body and, and, and really discover what's happening with this. So you got to dig a little bit. And then, of course, you have a leaky gut. You know, you need to heal your gut, and that's really important. And, and so it means eliminating foods that are triggering inflammation like gluten, but then you have to rebuild your gut. And often, I, I see this often with patients who have celiac, they'll come in and they're eliminating gluten, but they're still not healthy and they still don't feel great. And I'm like, oh, has your doctor told you how to reboot your gut? and heal your gut. And they're like, no, they just tell me to get off wheat. And I'm like, okay, so then we go through, how do we reset their microbiome? How do we heal their gut? And that's really why we created something called gut food, which is a product that I created with, with all my whole team focused around healing the gut because I had colitis as a result of having a bad tooth and an antibiotic that called C. Diff. And then I got full-blown ulcer colitis, and I was miserable, and I'm like, you know, like, I don't know why, but somehow God chose me to get sick and figure out how to heal myself so I could tell everybody all about it. Hopefully I'm done with that. I'm ready to be done with all that. And, and, and so this product we call gut food is full of prebiotics, probiotics and polyphenols, which are important plant compounds that the microbiome loves. So it's like a multivitamin for the gut. So you need to do all these steps to kind of heal yourself. If you have some annoying bit of like, Well, I hope you enjoyed that.

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