Episode 127: The SHARP Method Hydration Episode

Hi, everyone. It's Dr. Robert Whitfield here. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to talk about something that we often take for granted. Water. In support of Team Water, we're going to do a whole show just about water, but not just any water. I'm talking about how water quality, environmental toxins, and hydration strategy can make or break your recovery from surgery, chronic illness and inflammation. I'll also share how we use water as one of the fundamental pillars in my Sharp method to promote healing and detoxification, the problem with modern water. So, basically, I have patients come in from all over the country and for that matter, around the world now, with patients coming from places like Singapore, Turkey, the United Kingdom. And so everybody is a collection of experiences. They inherit their genetics from their parents, they grow up, they live and work in different environments. And so each of those environments has different influences. The quality of the air we breathe, the quality of the food we consume, and the quality of the fluid. So whether you are in Texas, I'm in Austin, Texas, or you're in New York or you're in California, there are going to be different things that you are exposed to through the fluid you take in. So first, let's start with, like, how we take our fluid out. So you should avoid using plastic when you are consuming water or other fluids. Why? We want to avoid microplastics, so use something ceramic or stainless or glass. Those are just basic things. Now, the municipal water systems across the United States are operating with standards developed more than 65 years ago. Back then, we didn't have the thousands of pharmaceuticals, pesticides, microplastics, and PFAS chemicals. All of these are constantly leaching into the water supply. And so what does this portend? So if in fact, you're in a different environment, say you're on well water or municipal water or another system, in fact, all of these things are being introduced all the time. So each of us has to assess potentially our risk for that. Now, around the world, it's very, very different. Most of the advances in modern healthcare are not secondary to advances in medications, but really sanitation. So having clean water, that's the biggest difference maker. Lack of filtration of the waste out of the water, the drugs, the potentially hormones, chemicals, those have to be extracted. So I'm on municipal water, but I have a very specific filtration system for my home. And you can become more granular if you have and want to have something specific, specific in your home, like an RO system to further remove chemicals or pfas or other things from your water. So if you're doing that, then you're getting the most filtered water into your system. Now there'll be other things we talk about that, I guess for surgical recovery. I'm a little bit more specific about how I want water intake. And we'll go into that a little bit later. Let's take and go to the next step. Like why water filtration, you know, quote unquote, isn't one size fits all. Here's where many people go wrong. They think that any filter will do, but carbon filters, while popular, don't cut it for removing specific pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and other endocrine disruptors. So if you're trying to get an advanced filtration system using materials like KDF55 and catalytic carbon, those will help really reduce more of the concerns regarding that. So it depends on where you start from. One, we want the cleanest possible water. Two, if you can't get that, what steps can you take that are simple and effective? Many people have heard like a Brita using a Brita to go ahead and, and filter the water. So if that's the only step you can take, fine carbon blocks are kind of a next step that you can take. And you have to scrutinize any filtration system you get into your home because you want to eliminate as many of those toxins or chemicals or pharmaceuticals as you can. In my practice in Austin, Texas, we know the tap water can be particularly challenging. So within my office environment, we have a filtration system that allows us to use it to provide highly filtered water for our team, for our patients, or it alternatively offers hydrogen water. So, you know, what are the risks and benefits there because of the oxidative stress created? It's a well documented fact through many, many studies that adding hydrogen back into the system will create more of a reduced environment. And that will allow the systems, if you will, of the body to work more efficiently and not have such an oxidative state. I've replaced, you know, like I said, our team system at the office. I've replaced our home system. And these are just steps to help further control the quality of the water. And then I get asked a lot about how much, you know, water should we be taking in. We'll get to that in a, in a moment. And should they add electrolytes into the, into the water? So it's reasonable to allow add back, say electrolytes at least once, say in the morning. That's the, the biggest deficit. You wake up, you should be dehydrated because you haven't had anything to drink or eat all night. So that would be the time to essentially add electrolytes back into the water. But you don't need to do that with every glass or every container of water. So let's talk about water and the, and the sharp method. So the sharp method really boils down to. When I think of it, and you can explore this in the book if you go to my website or our store, Dr. Rob Solutions, you can get that book. The book is a very quick read, but I did it to highlight what I think is a very underappreciated kind of way to think about this. So we inherit from our parents our genes. You can't change your genes. You get those and you have the copies you get from your biologic parents. Things can be turned on and off, and the quality of the air, the fluid, the food you put in your system, those are the things that I think will impact us most in addition to sleep. So, you know, why is like, sleep such a big deal? Because we're talking about water. So if you, if you don't actually get the quality and quantity of sleep needed, your lymphatic system for your brain, which is your glymphatic system, and the lymphatic system that helps really drain, if you will, and clean the rest of the tissues from the previous, say, 24 hours, you won't really recover properly. So we want to always be thinking of sleep and what can we do to maintain balance. And those are things that we look at routinely as someone's tox profile. We already know their genes, we already look at their gut health, their hormone balance, certain metabolism factors. So all of those things being said, like what, what is the root, you know, or the core issue we're trying to look at is like, balance. When you're out of balance, when you don't have high quality fluid, in this case in your diet, you're, you're not paying attention to air quality or your, your consumption of food is limited by your ability to access it or the quality of the food you access, then you get out of balance. So for surgical patients specifically, I'm always trying to get everybody to be more focused on the quality of the fluid, the air and the food they put into their body, as well as something I haven't mentioned about is products they put on their skin. Now you can get a lot of chemicals introduced into your system through products. Many, many products have parabens and many, many products will have things from plastics like BPAs. Other things that come in through our food are things like glyphosate, which everybody's heard of Roundup at this point. That's the problem with Roundup. It has glyphosate in it. It's a really, you know, series of problems that are cumulative over time. And I often hear from my clients, my patients, like, hey, I'm doing such a good job. I have a really, really clean diet now, and that's a pretty common thing I hear is they're eating clean now. But I was born in 1969. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and the food quality was not great during that time. And although I do and feel like I try really hard to be careful about what I put in my body and on my body now, that wasn't always the case. And so we're a collection of our experiences over time and how we genetically can detox in combination with what our exposures are, whether where we grew up, where we moved around to, where we traveled to. Those are all in our systems. We don't magically get those in and out in a moment from the time we leave that environment to we go to the next environment. So avoiding things that potentially can harm us, you know, like I mentioned. So let's go through environmental toxins again. That's because those are some of the easier ones that I see routinely. Things like a contaminated standard drinking water issue is arsenic. It's not the most common thing you would think of, but arsenic is a common finding in groundwater. Where I grew up, there was a lot of arsenic in the groundwater, and we drank out of hoses. You can probably see these things from, you know, the 70s and 80s. Why'd y' all drink out of hoses? Because that's, you know, what we did. We weren't taught to drink out of, you know, the tap. You know, if you're out washing a car, you were drinking out of the hose. Other things that are commonly found in tox tests we do are, like, we mentioned phthalates. Phthalates. So those come from plastics as well. They're plasticizers, so they make plastics firmer. So if you can avoid drinking out a single, use water bottles that are made of plastics, that would be great in practical, you know, application in your home. Try to avoid, you know, heavily using plastics. Don't certainly reheat anything in plastics. If you avoid drinking out of plastics, that would be great. Switch to something very simple like ceramic or a glass or stainless product, and that's probably the. The easiest way to do it. Many times what we're trying to do is enhance, you know, whatever component of recovery we can to make it more efficient. So we certainly try to do that with water as well. And so I have like two fundamental things we do in the office, and that's where this all starts, is we have a system in the office that provides highly filtered water through echo. That's who we've used traditionally. And then they also provide hydrogen. So why, you know, highly filtered water? So we want to, we already discussed, move, remove impurities, things that are chemically bothersome to us, things that are other toxins, any, you know, heavy metals that could be involved, pharmaceuticals, hormones, things like that. So that's why you, you filter the water going into the system that is your body. So for patients who are even more vulnerable after surgery, want to make sure that everything they're putting into their system is, is carefully curated. So we use either the highly filtered, but many times we're using the hydrogen. The use of hydrogen has been documented in the scientific literature for, you know, over thousands of studies. Honestly, hydrogen reduces the oxidative stress and inflammation, two of the biggest roadblocks in recovery. It acts as a selective antioxidant, targeting only the most harmful free radicals like hydroxyl ions, while leaving beneficial radicals untouched. So that's a lot of jargon. So basically your body, or think of like when you exercise, your body produces free radicals and with the addition of hydrogen basically via water, it breaks that oxidative free radical down into something your body manages. So by the addition of hydrogen, it breaks it into basically water. So the thing that we're trying to do is give your body more access to something that helps reduce the oxidative stress created. We've incorporated hydrogen water into our patient protocol. Why? Because inflammation is the enemy in recovery. So hydrogen rich water supports the microbiome like we've already discussed, enhances mitochondrial function and can even improve sleep quality, quality. Many of our patients report vivid dreams and deeper rest, sometimes after just one day of use. And unlike supplements which depend on gut absorption, hydrogen water works systemically and rapidly, making it ideal even when digestion is compromised. So let's just go off script there for a moment. So digestion is a complicated issue and all of our patients who undergo explant surgery have some level typically of gut issues. We'll just say, and I have to be extremely careful with both the things we provide in terms of supplementation. So everybody who knows my program knows that inflammation support in my program is done via liposomal supplementation with methylated B complex, vitamin D3, K2, vitamin C and glutathione. Those are all liposomal in our program because absorption is a key issue. And we have to level the playing field for those patients who have more and more trouble with absorption. Because as you get and recover after surgery, all of the nutrients that you're trying to take into the system have to be easily absorbed because typically the breakdown is compromised in someone who has problems with inflammation in their GI tract. So if you have followed me for a while, you, you know that we test and try to optimize the microbiome for every single expat patient. It's a core principle of ours. And the gut microbiome is getting more and more attention. There's more and more research being done for that. So the colon's environment is key. Now remember, the colon is the really the second half of the GI tract. You have your stomach, your small intestine, and then the colon. It is key that in that area it have a negative electrical potential of 300 to 400 millivolts for the anaerobic bacteria to thrive. And unfortunately, most people have this flipped due to antibiotics or pesticides or heavy metals are the things we discussed in terms of toxicity. And that leads to the poor digestion, more of the cravings, anxiety and chronic inflammation. The hydrogen water helps restore this terrain, promoting the right bacterial growth without needing endless probiotics. That's why we see breakthroughs in patients struggling with food intolerances, leaky gut, and even post explant bloating hydration strategy. So how much should you drink? Oh my gosh, I get this question all the time. And there's a couple things after surgery we really need to expand on here. And I'm going to take this opportunity to explain how I think about it. So when someone has surgery, it's very much like an acute injury. So if you stepped up the curb and you sprained your ankle, it would swell. That's acute inflammation. Your body would have this set of signals that go on, and part of it is your thirst center. You're told you should drink more. So surgery is far more obviously difficult on your body and so your thirst center to get turned on. So after surgery, people are from a mental standpoint thinking they have to drink a lot because their thirst center is turned on. And this is an important aspect of healing and one of the main ways that I leverage and can make it more efficient using our programming. So each time you reach for your, you know, we'll say Glass of water or stainless receptacle that's containing your water. We want your caregiver or you to have thought about already placing amino acids in it or a protein substitute. Why? So we want to elevate the amount of amino acids and proteins going in the system. So why does that matter? Why. Why can't we just drink electrolytes, Dr. Whitfield, and everything be better? So electrolytes replace electrolytes. Sodium and potassium will think predominantly those things are not utilized to heal tissues. Tissues heal by adding amino acids, which are the smaller components of proteins, into your system. That switches you from a negative nitrogen balance to a positive nitrogen balance. Now, why is that important? So when we're in a. A recovery period after surgery, we're in a catabolic state. So we're breaking down because the body's trying to heal. We want to switch into an anabolic state. And so that's the healing phase. The quicker we can do that by additional. If you want to think of additional amino acids and protein in the system, that becomes a process that is faster. And that gets us out of what's called a leaky phase after surgery. So the leaky phase is when your body is got your thirst center turned on, you're drinking a bunch of fluids, and you become puffy. So using that swollen ankle theory. So fluid is just pushed into that area as part of the. As part of the inflammatory process. So if we think of that in surgery, we don't want an area that we just operated on to become more and more swollen. We want to get you out of that phase as quickly as possible. So how do we do that? So everything that we are thinking about is utilizing the gut, which. That's the most efficient way to get this done is to absorb those nutrients to lower inflammation, but absorb those amino acids and proteins to increase the level of. Think of your oncotic pressure, which is what I said, which is really what's providing the relationship we need in the body to get the fluid out of the tissue. So if we have a higher amount of oncotic pressure in the blood vessels, then the fluid will move from the tissues. Think of like a dish sponge. Once you're operated on, the dish sponge is so be just. It's just full of water, right? It's so full that when you pick it up, it's just leaking water. What we want is for your tissues, where we operate on, to move the fluid out of the sponge as quickly as possible. And this says back into the blood vessels, which will drain those Fluids, the. In the interim, if you think of it, the lymphatic system will help drain those fluids. So the vehicle is the tissues damaged, it fills with fluid, the lymphatic system drains. It goes back into the circulatory system, our blood vessels, and then ultimately to the kidneys, and you pee it out. So how do we improve those processes to make them the most efficient for my patients? So when it comes to tissues, the tissues have been operated on, have the reduced blood flow second to the operation. So the number one thing that I do in that case is add oxygen back. And we do that through hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We have a vertical chamber in my office. Why vertical? We use that and leverage that so people can sit upright after the surgery. On the chest theory and in my practice. So I don't want people crawling in and out of tubes or capsules. I want them just to go simply sit in a chair. And you can, you know, answer email, listen to music, you know, watch a video, whatever you want to do. So that helps. Secondly, we use a device to, we've already talked about, restore cellular voltage. We have something called the human regenerator, which helps improve electron transport, which is also disrupted after surgery because the tissues are disrupted. So this helps restore that. Next, we enhance lymphatic drainage. How do we do that? We have these wonderful devices from New Zealand called Flopresso, and it helps with lymphatic drainage of the arms, the legs, the thighs, and the trunk area. We don't drain the chest with this device because that's where we operated and performed, in my case, an explant. So for our patients, this really enhances. Right. We've increased oxygenation to the tissues that need it most, the ones that just got operated on. We have reduced the need for electrons by adding those back in the system using the human regenerator and cold plasma technology. We've increased lymphatic drainage using these devices that help drain the arms, the legs, the thighs, the trunk, but not pressurize the chest. Then we also use something called nanov that helps increase the protein folding, which enhances recovery. That's happening while you're getting lymphatic massage. And then we also use red light therapy. Red light therapy has been touted for a long period of time to enhance recovery. The athletes use it. Professional sports, world football players use it. Players in the NFL use it. It's been used for a long period of time to reduce inflammation, reduce pain, enhance healing and recovery. So just think of all that now. We've really focused on how you're utilizing water as a main cog in the system of recovery. But we have all these other aspects that we're leveraging as well, and that is, you know, really using the short method in terms of enhancing surgical recovery. So water isn't an afterthought, it's an intervention. Before I wrap up, here's my message. If you're recovering from surgery, fighting chronic inflammation, or just trying to stay ahead of environmental toxicity, let's start with your water first. Let's just make it as filtered for you as possible and help eliminate other things that could be potentially harmful. In a world full of invisible threats, plastic particles, forever chemicals, hormone disruptors, your water can either be your shield or your saboteur. And if you're following the sharp method, let water be your daily prescription for detox and recovery. Thanks for listening. Until next time.