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Eliminating Adult Acne for Good - w/ Leigh Brandon
162 Plays2 years ago
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Leigh is a Functional Medicine Practitioner, CHEK Practitioner, CHEK Faculty Instructor, Active Release Techniques® Therapist, author and podcast host. His extensive training and years of clinical experience has given Leigh the ability to provide a truly holistic approach to helping his clients over the years, which they have found very effective often times after other approaches hadn’t helped.
Connect with Leigh:
Eliminating Adult Acne for Good: https://amzn.to/3IBN3s3
Website - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/
Leigh's books - https://www.bodychek.co.uk/books/
Eliminate Adult Acne Programme - https://skinwebinar.com/
HEAL THEM Education Programme - http://healthemeducation.vhx.tv/
Radical Health Rebel YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@radicalhealthrebelpodcast
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radical-health-rebel/id1636884725
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, Christian Jordynov here. Welcome back to the podcast. A quick reminder, my latest book, how to actually live longer volume one is now out. Check out the link in the description below. Get your copy. Volume one, all about stress, inflammation, oxidative stress, or what I call the primary drivers of aging and dysfunction, AKA the things that are slowly killing you. This book series will add quality decades to your life.
00:00:28
Speaker
I guarantee it, I guarantee it or your money back. Try me, try me. So in those quality decades, if you happen to have any skin issues of any sort, probably no better man to talk about these things than today's guest, Lee Brandon. A little bit about Lee. First of all, Lee, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for being on. I just want to read your bio because it's extremely impressive. In fact, I won't say how old you are, just because I haven't asked if I can. But when we first spoke, when you told me how old you are, I was in literal disbelief and silence for
00:01:15
Speaker
a lot longer than I normally am. I rarely left speechless. In fact, I was telling my wife I was speechless and you know how I'm never speechless, right? So it means you are doing things right. You are practicing what you preach. So let me read a little bit of these bio.
00:01:34
Speaker
The full bio will be in the description below. So Lee is a functional medicine practitioner. He's a Czech practitioner. If you don't know what Czech practitioner means, it's Paul Czech's organization. If you don't know who Paul Czech is, what the hell are you doing with your life? Just kidding. Lee is also a Czech faculty instructor. I think he was one of the first functional diagnostic nutrition practitioners to be
00:02:01
Speaker
to graduate. He's an active release techniques or ART, ART therapist.
00:02:08
Speaker
He's an author, I think five books, right? Five books, podcast host. I've been on his podcast, Rebel Health Radio. And his extensive training and years of clinical experience has given Lee the ability to provide a truly holistic approach to helping his clients over the years, which they have found very effective and oftentimes after other approaches hadn't helped. So a full bio will be in the description. So today's topic will
Understanding Acne: Root Causes vs. Symptoms
00:02:36
Speaker
be
00:02:36
Speaker
adult acne. Lee's latest book is called Eliminating Adult Acne for Good, published
00:02:45
Speaker
few months ago, November last year, 2023. And yeah, this is a, this is a very interesting topic, because, you know, skin problems, as we were talking about, before we started recording, skin problems, the conventional medicine, the way to tackle those is merely to treat the symptom, i.e. some creams, salves or whatever. What's kind of your take on that approach, Lee?
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, just just to add by the way, so in addition to the radical health rebel podcast, I've just started another podcast called the adult acne podcast as well. So just wanted to throw that in there. Yeah, it's interesting. So the common medical approach is one that I followed in my teenage years right the way until I was 31 because I suffered from acne, hence my passion for the subject. And
00:03:44
Speaker
We can go into individual pharmaceuticals and products, but overall, what they basically do is that they mask the symptoms of acne. And when I say mask, I say that quite loosely because most of the time they don't work anyway. They don't get rid of the acne.
00:04:06
Speaker
So as well as not working, they're often also toxic and they're also often cause other side effects and they also tend to cause harm to your health overall. So the reason why, in my opinion, they don't work is because they don't address the root cause. They're simply, as I said, they're trying to mask the symptom. Now,
00:04:32
Speaker
One thing that's really important for me to get across to people, and I didn't put this in my book and I didn't put it in for a reason, but the same things that cause acne, and again, we can go into detail on that, also have been shown to cause other diseases and very serious diseases. So, I mean, I could reel them off, you know, obesity, dementia,
00:04:56
Speaker
diabetes, heart disease, cancer. So the way that I look at acne is that, firstly, it's an inside job. It's not technically a skin disease, in my view. It's a disease that shows symptoms on the skin. But what it is, it's a blessing. Now, I lived through 18 years of hell with acne.
00:05:20
Speaker
And here I am saying that it's a blessing. What do I mean by that? I'm not saying acne is a nice thing to experience. It's horrible. But what I mean by that is it's the canary in the coal mine. It's warning you that there's something serious going on on the inside. And what better motivator
00:05:39
Speaker
to look at yourself and change something than having something that looks really awful and feels really awful on your face, right? I mean, I had it on my chest and my back as well. I had it really bad, but most people tend to get it just on their face. So what better motivation for you to do something about that and get your health in check?
00:06:06
Speaker
I like how you plugged in the check part, no pun intended. Just a couple of questions. So why, I'm curious, why does it predominantly appear on the face? That's a really good question. And that's a question that
00:06:24
Speaker
I asked myself for many, many years, right? So going through the process and even after having it myself, I would have that question in my head. Why is it on the face? Why don't I get it on my feet? Why don't I get it on my backside? Why don't I get it in a place where no one can see it, then I wouldn't care, right? So you could look at it from a philosophical point of view and say, well, your body's putting it there so that you do something about it.
00:06:55
Speaker
When you look into the location of specific bacteria on the body, what you'll find is that the bacteria that's been linked to causing acne, in particular the propionibacterium species,
00:07:11
Speaker
it proliferates mainly on the face, but a little bit on the upper chest and a little bit on the upper back. So that's as close that I've come to understanding why it is that it's in that place. Now, I don't think that answers the question completely. And I think we still need to understand it in more detail. But I think there's two reasons. One is that where the bacteria is located. And the second thing is I also think
00:07:41
Speaker
This is more of a philosophical thing. You're more likely to do something about it if it's on your face. Sure. That does make a lot of sense. I mean, the human body and mother nature, the intelligence and wisdom is unfathomable to mere human minds. The other thing I wanted to briefly ask is why adult acne is there
00:08:06
Speaker
some type of hormonal ongoing during puberty that allow for acne to appear, you know, for that period of time and then dissipate. Is that why you don't want to tackle that or is there any other reason?
Impact of Acne on Adult Life and Mindset
00:08:21
Speaker
So the reason, the reason why I wanted to tackle adult acne is because if you get to the point where you're an adult and you're still not dealing with, so, so let me backtrack a little bit.
00:08:36
Speaker
For some people, they go through puberty, they might have acne during puberty, they get to the end of puberty and it goes away. But there are others who go through puberty and it continues. And quite often, or almost always, people don't know what to do about it.
00:08:57
Speaker
Now, what's interesting in my book, I do talk a little bit about the statistics, and it's between 40 and 55% of adults over 25 have some degree of facial acne. That's a lot, man. That's huge, right? Yeah. And then 12% of women and 3% of men over 45 have facial acne.
00:09:23
Speaker
That's still quite a high number when you look at it, right? So I also know, again, from my own experience of going through the process, yes, it's awful as a teenager going through it. It's awful. But you're kind of, you've got this mindset, well, it's only going to be for a few more years because when I stop my teenage years, it will go away.
00:09:50
Speaker
but then you hit your 20s and you get well into your 20s and then halfway through your 20s and it still hasn't got, and now you're just in despair. So whilst I'm trying to help those people, even, but the things that I teach will work for teenagers as well. Because teenagers are just little adults, right? From a whole perspective, they're just younger versions.
00:10:17
Speaker
So I really just wanted to aim at adults because I see so many adults suffering. And also you can almost, it's almost accepted that it's okay to have acne when you're a teenager. But then once you're in your twenties, thirties, forties, right? So I get clients coming to me in their forties with acne. I think I even had one lady who was in her fifties when she came to see me. It's not acceptable.
00:10:46
Speaker
in society for you to have acne as an adult. And I can remember going for things like job interviews in my 20s with really bad acne and just thinking, they're looking at me like I'm a teenager. Why would they give me this job? Because this was like a higher paid, quite responsible job. And straight away, I'm sure they were judging me thinking, well, this guy's, even subconsciously, they're probably looking at me thinking, well, this guy's full of acne.
00:11:16
Speaker
He's not in his mid to late 20s. He's a kid. We're not going to give him this job. So I really wanted to reach out to adults, but as I said, the things that I teach are relevant to anybody with acne at any age.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah. When you were talking about that, I remember one of my really good buddies in high school, he had acne and he had scars from it. And I remember just that memory came to me as you were talking about the job interview stuff. And I remember one time he said, at this point,
00:11:56
Speaker
I don't care how many pimples come up, I just don't want them to leave scars behind. It's really horrible because it makes every single social interaction difficult at that point.
00:12:14
Speaker
It's like having a diagnosis of anything as a child, be that autism or ADHD or a lazy eye. I had to wear the lazy eye patch when I was smaller, which didn't even do anything. You look different and people visibly are looking at you different. I think the faster we can help people get over this and just get on with their life, it's just amazing work you're doing, bro.
00:12:41
Speaker
Thank you. So if I see someone with a skin condition, be that psoriasis, eczema, acne, the first thing I'm thinking is gut imbalance, microbiota imbalance. Let's maybe dig into the deeper nuances. So maybe let's discuss the microbiome and then we can kind of branch out on other factors that influence it.
Holistic Approaches to Treating Acne
00:13:11
Speaker
Well, I would actually say, if you're talking about other skin conditions as well, I would agree the gut is the right place to start. If we're just talking about acne, and now I know this is linked to what I'm about to say, but I would be solely looking at diet. Okay. Right. Now, and as a caveat on that, if I'm helping someone, I'm working with someone and even the way I've laid the book out,
00:13:38
Speaker
I wouldn't even start helping people with what they need to do until I help them get into the right mindset to do it. Because, you know, like a lot of things that we need to do to be healthy, it creates, it requires change. Change takes effort. Most people are resistant to change. That's human nature. So I always make sure that people have got, let's call it a bulletproof mindset.
00:14:08
Speaker
because challenges always come up. Okay. When you're trying to change things in your lifestyle and in the book, there's a whole list of excuses that I've heard over the years that come up over and over and over again. So someone will come to see me and you know, they'll show me their, their diet sheets, like getting to complete and they look at me, you know, like, like a naughty school kid. Sorry, sir. I, the dog at my homework kind of thing, right? And
00:14:37
Speaker
I'll look at their diet sheet and it's awful, right? Now, I'm not a school teacher. I'm an adult speaking to another adult, so I don't make people feel bad. What I say to people is, there's no such thing as failure, only feedback. So if you're eating things and you're getting bad reactions from the food, that's feedback. That's an opportunity for you to learn and grow.
00:15:02
Speaker
But quite often I'll get someone come to me and they'll say, oh, yeah, my diet sheets are really bad this week. So why is that? Oh, well, I wasn't in control of what I was eating. Oh, really? That's interesting. Tell me more. And that's where all the excuses come out. Oh, I was on holiday. We had a business meeting at work. They supplied the food. I was out shopping with my spouse, whatever it might be, right? There's all these excuses.
00:15:28
Speaker
Now, when someone says something like that to me, my interpretation of that is I didn't plan ahead of time, therefore I chose a less than optimal option, right? So then I would say to them, okay, so you had a lunchtime, you had a lunchtime meeting at work, they supplied the food, how far in advance did you know about the meeting?
00:15:55
Speaker
Oh, well, about a month. OK. Is there anything you could have done between the time the meeting was set and the time the meeting took place to make sure that you had the food that is right for you? And they kind of go, oh, yeah, I guess I could have done something. OK, great. So what could you have done? Well, maybe I could have got my wife to prepare me at lunch and I could have taken that in. There you go. So what will you do next time you've got a business meeting?
00:16:21
Speaker
I'll take some food with me, right? So it's just making sure that people have got the right mindset because as I say, you will have challenges along the way, but also I go through making sure that people are really clear on what their goals are, setting their core values, coming up with affirmation statements. So we're really building up that, that bulletproof mindset before you actually start doing the things that are actually going to help you with your acne.
00:16:52
Speaker
But with acne itself, the reason I say I start with diet rather than the gut, even though of course the gut affects, sorry, the food affects the gut, is that in my experience, the most common cause, and in most men, it's nearly always the main cause, is specific foods that we know cause acne. And it's quite simple, high glycemic foods, dairy,
00:17:22
Speaker
vegetable and seed oils, and pretty much anything processed, any kind of processed foods. Because again, you're going to have the oils in there, et cetera, et cetera. And just replacing those with more healthy, natural, high quality, i.e. organic foods,
00:17:41
Speaker
is quite often all that people need to do. Certainly men need to do to eradicate their acne. Now, women are different. Women are more complicated because of their hormonal cycle. But in terms of the gut, and this is relevant for all these skin diseases that you mentioned, acne, eczema, psoriasis. Now, eczema and psoriasis are more autoimmune-type conditions. Acne isn't.
00:18:12
Speaker
but having a healthy gut, having a good well-balanced microbiome with a good mucosal lining of the gut is really crucial in all three of those conditions. So sometimes with clients, I might run a stool test like you do, Christian, whereby we are health detectives, right? We're trying to,
00:18:42
Speaker
we're sealing off the crime scene as in the client's colon, right? And we're trying to find pieces, we're trying to find evidence of who the culprit is, right? So from the testing, we can look and see, okay, so perhaps this person doesn't have enough hydrochloric acid in the gut. Perhaps they don't have enough pancreatic enzymes. Oh, look, they've got this
00:19:13
Speaker
bacterial overgrowth or they've got a candida infection. So you're starting to see all the things that could potentially be causing the problem. And then don't know what's going on my throat, like all of a sudden, but, um, you know, from, from receiving those results, then you can start to again, potentially affect the diet. There might be some change they need to make to the diet to improve the gut.
00:19:38
Speaker
And they may well need some supplementation as well. So I quite like using prebiotics. Some people obviously probiotics might come in there as well and potentially cleanses as well. And that could be a fungal cleanse. It could be, they might need a parasite cleanse, et cetera. And the reason my view they're important
00:20:05
Speaker
If someone does have something like a fungal or parasite infection, again, you know this Christian, they release toxins into the system. And that can cause all kinds of havoc in the body. But what we also know, there's a very close link between the gut and the skin and the gut microbiome and the skin microbiome. So anything that's in the gut can eventually end up in the skin, particularly if it's toxins because
00:20:33
Speaker
If your detoxification systems are backed up, remember that our skin is an organ of detoxification. If the body's trying to get rid of toxins, but let's say the liver's already overworking, your body might send the toxins through the bloodstream to the skin to be released through the skin. Now that can increase inflammation. And again, acne is an inflammatory condition. So
00:21:01
Speaker
The gut is, again, it's just a really, really crucial aspect of skin health, but it's actually a very important thing, health in general in the body. For me, from a physical point of view, the gut is probably the most important part of the body. Agreed. Absolutely agreed. Yeah, it's interesting that
00:21:24
Speaker
talking about cleanses and the way you kind of coach people about planning ahead of time. Yesterday evening, I was talking to a lady. She has a fairly busy work and social life, a lot of travel in both areas. And she still hasn't been able to start her liver flush series. So I just told her, look, let's just look six weeks from now.
00:21:53
Speaker
pick a weekend or roughly pick a weekend. Tell your husband, that's my liver liver cleanse weekend. I will need support and or to be left alone, depending on what I ask. And then work backwards. So if it's six weeks, work backwards a month prior to two weeks from now. And I without any qualms, I told her, look, if you can't get the weekend off, if you if it's planned, whatever, just get the time off work.
00:22:23
Speaker
If you can't get the time off work, just pull a sickie for a day or two and get that first liver cleansing. And once you've done that, now you have the next one plants four to six weeks ahead. And then from there on every month, just plan the next one and the next one and the next one. Sure. If you, if you do one a week later, it's not the end of the world, but get those done. And then now you have those, that sequence of flushes, and then you can plan the summer holiday around that.
Prioritizing Health: Detox and Liver Cleansing
00:22:53
Speaker
Or you can plan your flush around the holiday. So what I find is people are, this has to be done, that has to be done, that has to be done. And then at the end of all of that big list of things that they're listing off, I'm like, okay, so
00:23:07
Speaker
where does looking after your health fit in? Where do we jam this in here maybe? And then once people grasp that, it's like, oh wait, oh, the health, the health stuff comes at the top and then maybe, oh, I like these types. So it's the same with food. So what you're saying is if we can, some people, all you need to do is change the diet for the better and they improve. So it's like,
00:23:34
Speaker
Do you like how things taste or do you want to be healthy? Once we flip those around, it's, okay, I eat for health and then occasionally I might have something that I like specifically for that purpose. So I really love that. Before we even get into the technical stuff, the supplementation, all the stuff, we're always laying down very solid foundations. And that's also, you know, what you were saying, that for me is where you set your core values. What's important to you?
00:24:04
Speaker
So once, once you've got your goals, you set your core values, which are basically your upcoming behaviors so that you can achieve your goal. So, so for instance, it might be, okay, what your core values around eating. So, you know, let me, I mean, I'll share mine. So all my food is organic apart from fish. So I always eat wild caught fish never,
00:24:33
Speaker
never organic fish because organic fish is fond. Uh, I drink good quality water and that's, that's a whole nother podcast to go into. And I drink two to three liters of water a day. I allow myself the occasional food out and then I don't worry too much about it. It's never terrible, but my food is always gluten free. Even if I eat out. So I always make sure I'm asking the waiter or the chef or whoever, making sure that my meal is going to be gluten free.
00:25:04
Speaker
I very rarely eat dairy apart from butter, which I eat every day. But if I'm in a restaurant, if it's a one-off, I might have something with dairy in it. But it's not too much of an issue for me. But if I have it regular, then it's definitely an issue, as it is for most people with acne, by the way. And the other thing I just want to come back to, because I didn't mention liver flushes in particular.
00:25:29
Speaker
But they are great for people with acne, by the way. So, you know, as I was saying, if your liver's backed up, your skin has to do more work to detoxify the body. But if you've got a clean liver, then you're taking a lot of stress off of the skin as well. So liver gallbladder cleanses, coffee enemas, which again, clean the liver. A lot of people think it's mainly for the colon. It's actually mainly for the liver. Yeah. They could really help with acne. So even if
00:25:58
Speaker
someone's never done anything natural to help with their acne, if they feel like a breakout is coming on, do a coffee enema straight away. Because I remember when I was starting my journey, you can feel when a breakout is coming. Now, if I would do a coffee enema straight away, the breakout would never actually happen. It would just go away. So I learned that very early on.
00:26:28
Speaker
how the health of your liver has a big effect on your skin as well. Absolutely. I have one client that she has a lot of issues due to a lot of toxicity, due to a lot of mercury amalgams. And she has learned over the years that anytime a spell of dizziness, because it's a very complex set of issues. So anytime she feels
00:26:58
Speaker
something coming on, immediate coffee enema. And you read about these things where people use that when you have a detox reaction, be that let's say you're doing a parasite or a gut cleanse or a heavy metals cleanse and whatever toxin cleanse you're doing. Anytime you have a detox reaction or a Hertzheimer type reaction, a coffee enema can be enough to
00:27:25
Speaker
But you know get you feeling okay and normal so I think it's it's almost a magical tool that People are grossed out by
00:27:40
Speaker
where it's actually, there's nothing gross about it. You put a couple of cups up to a liter of coffee in a bag, you put a tube, you put a little bit of olive oil on a tube, and you gently insert it in your anus, you know, up your anus, and
00:28:01
Speaker
You know, you after you put that into you, you can even walk around the kitchen. You don't have to like lie down after you get used to it. You can just go to your business. Not that it's recommended. It's better to relax and take it easier and whatever. But you can then expel that. Sometimes you don't expel anything or much of anything. And that is it. Minimum cleanup. But you people think it's going to smell and it's going to be like poop everywhere flying. It's really nothing like that. And it's.
00:28:28
Speaker
next to nothing after you invest the 15-20 bucks into the kit that you can get on Amazon. These are the tools of longevity, folks. Like liver cleanses, looking after your gut, the occasional parasite slash whatever candida cleanse. These are the tools of longevity. It's not in these expensive supplements and nicotinamide, mononucleotides, and whatever else.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree, completely agree. And again, in the book, I give people almost like an annual plan when it comes to cleanses. You only do one cleanse at a time, right? You don't do more than one cleanse at a time, but throughout the year, you might do X number of cleanses. I generally recommend more when you first start on a program.
00:29:23
Speaker
but then once your acne's gone, you still need to keep doing the things that you did to get rid of the acne. And then the cleanses might be, you know, quarterly or every six months or every 12 months. So it's not a big deal once you get to the point where, you know, when your skin is clear. The other thing that works really well as well is infrared soreness. They're really good for detoxification. And lots of my clients, you know,
00:29:53
Speaker
you know, little portable ones, you can just fold them up and put them in a cupboard when you're done. You know, I still, I still have a sauna twice a week, but I'll do about 15 minutes twice a week. And you feel, you feel much better afterwards. You know, you feel cleaner because you know, sweat is one of the best ways to detoxify. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah, actually, so I had a lady that she had eczema. So we did the stew test, the gut cleansing stuff, and I obviously got her on the liver flushes. But very quickly, it seemed to almost completely resolve. And I instinctively, because when I looked into the, what's that?
00:30:39
Speaker
bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus, that's very common in folks with eczema. So instinctively, I told her, just knowing high temperature kills germs. So I instinctively told her, get yourself some type of infrared sauna, something that's
00:30:58
Speaker
easy to use, not too much mess and clean up. Women generally, they don't sweat as much as men, so it's not like this crazy crap you got to clean with towels and whatever. When I do sauna, it's like multiple towels drenched inside. So she's having really good results. So the infrared sauna is absolutely phenomenal tool to use. But what we notice now
00:31:22
Speaker
is that there's still flares, there's still flare ups, but they seem to be, because her diet has been pretty much on point the whole time, pretty much, you know, except maybe Thanksgiving and the occasional indulgence around the Christmas period. So it seems to be stress is causing flare ups.
Stress and the Gut-Skin Connection
00:31:41
Speaker
Now I did notice in your book, you discuss a little bit about how stress can contribute to leaky gut,
00:31:48
Speaker
And that can exacerbate skin conditions. Can we maybe unpack the theme? I think people miss or rather people undervalue or underestimate the factor of stress in any disorder or condition. Yeah. I mean, again, just talking to my own acne experience without question, whenever there was something coming up, like a big party or a job interview or wherever it might have been, wedding, et cetera.
00:32:18
Speaker
and you want to look good, you start getting anxious because you think, oh, but what if I break out on that day, right? Well, the anxiety causes stress, which causes a leaky gut syndrome, which then leads to a breakout. And it's the same, certainly the same with eczema as well. As soon as you get stressed, bang, you get a flare up of eczema. So one of the studies that I looked at when I was writing my book
00:32:46
Speaker
stated that when we're in a state of stress what it does is it prevents the production of mucin. So mucin is one of the proteins if you like that helps build the mucosal barrier in the gut. So if you've got a damaged gut lining or mucosal barrier in the gut then things that
00:33:14
Speaker
shouldn't get into the bloodstream, can get into the bloodstream, whether it be, you know, toxins from the bacteria, or it could be microtoxins if it's fungus in there, or it could be undigested food particles, which then the immune system attacks and it causes inflammation. Also, any of the toxins that also get into the bloodstream, again, could cause inflammation. And what we also know is that
00:33:41
Speaker
a lot of the immune system, so this is more eczema related. So the majority of our immune system is in the gut, right? Now, when you look at the gut and the skin, they actually do exactly the same thing to a degree because they're both a barrier, right? They stop things coming in to the body. So, you know, what's important to understand is that our,
00:34:09
Speaker
gastrointestinal system is a tube that goes on the inside of our body. So if you've got something in your mouth or it's going down your esophagus or it's in your stomach or it's in your small intestine or any large intestine, it's not in your body. It's in the tube that's in your body, right? And if you've got something on your skin, it's not in your body. So the gut lining and our skin are both barriers and they both have quite complex
00:34:38
Speaker
immune systems because what does our immune system do? It attacks things that shouldn't be on the inside of our body. So obviously our skin does allow some things through it, semi permeable, right? Our gut lining is semi permeable. So what we know is, and I don't think we fully understand the exact mechanism, but when we have
00:35:05
Speaker
Let's call it attack on the immune system. On the gut, we generally get a similar response at the skin level as well. Whenever someone gets stressed, whether it's acne, eczema, psoriasis, they're generally always going to get a flare up. Well, not always, but they're far more likely to get a flare up if they're stressed.
00:35:29
Speaker
what we understand is at this point is that things are getting into the bloodstream from the gut to the skin, affecting the immune system at the skin level, which is causing the breakout. Yeah. I suppose when you're stressed, if cortisol, when cortisol increases, that
00:35:55
Speaker
will suppress the immune system or at least the release of certain inflammatory mediators, interleukins and so on. Could that suppression perhaps allow some organisms to overgrow and could that maybe then, once the glucocorticoid be it a treatment or the endogenous reproduced, could that
00:36:24
Speaker
then could the immune system overreact once it's not suppressed to the potentially higher inflammatory burden developing in the meantime, do you think? I mean, I guess that's a possibility. Again, that would be definitely more related to the eczema and the psoriasis, not so much the acne, I would say. But either way, stress is having a direct effect on your immune system. I mean, obviously, the other things that
00:36:53
Speaker
stress is gonna affect is things like production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach, which is gonna reduce the breakdown of particularly proteins. So again, you're more likely to have undigested food particles in the gut. And then if you've got leaky gut, now that's leaching into the bloodstream. If it's undigested, your immune system is gonna attack it anyway, even though it's a perfectly natural thing, right? If it's not broken down into constituent parts,
00:37:21
Speaker
your immune system's gonna think, well, hang on a minute, I don't recognize this as an amino acid or whatever it might be. So now I'm gonna attack it. And then whenever you have an immune response and it's attacking, say a protein in the body, now you've got what I call collateral damage, right? So again, you've got all these chemicals going around the body and it's no surprise
00:37:46
Speaker
that there's a war going on inside your body. There's all these chemicals, because it's a chemical warfare inside your body. It's no massive surprise that that could potentially cause an issue at the skin level. Yeah. Now, early in the book, you talk about what the conventional paradigms are.
00:38:11
Speaker
belief is of what causes acne. One of the, one of the points is excess androgens, AKA male hormones. Have you looked, is there very much research in, in terms of what androgens do to exacerbate or, or cause acne? Yeah. So, so it's, and it's not just testosterone by the way, it's also insulin and IGF one or at least insulin
00:38:42
Speaker
ignites the release of IGF-1.
Hormonal Influence on Acne
00:38:46
Speaker
So the androgens, there are androgen receptors on sebaceous glands. So the more androgens you've got, the more sebum is going to be released by the sebaceous glands. The sebum is in the hair follicle. And if there's excessive sebum, there's far more likelihood of there being a blockage of the hair follicle.
00:39:10
Speaker
So if you think of a blackhead, right? Yeah. Well, a blackhead is sebum that's got stuck in the hair follicle and oxygen as mixed with the sebum and oxidized it. That's why it turns black. Sebum isn't actually black. That's just the oxidation of the sebum. Right. Now, if you've got
00:39:36
Speaker
exosebum in the sebaceous gland, but there's a still skin film over the top. That's when you get what's called a whitehead. Right. Okay. So, so one part of it is that androgens stimulate the sebaceous glands and they create excessive amounts of sebum, which block the hair follicle. But the other thing is as well as the androgens also stimulate something called keratinocytes and they produce keratin
00:40:06
Speaker
which at the most simple level, just think of it as a bit, they're building blocks for skin cells. So now you've got an excessive amount of sebum plus an excessive amount of skin cells that are trying to get through the hair follicle, which causes the blockage. Now on the skin surface, unlike the gut, there's not an abundance of food.
00:40:31
Speaker
So the bacteria that live on the skin, so there are thousands or millions of bacteria that live on our skin, but the bacteria, they basically live off of skin cells and sebum. So if you think in a hair follicle, you've got bacteria and there's excessive sebum and excessive skin cells, it's party time, right? So they can proliferate. So this bacteria, propionibacterium can now proliferate
00:41:00
Speaker
That causes an immune response in response to the, what is now be called an infection. And that causes the redness. So that would be what's called a pustule. Right, right, right. So you got the black head, the white head and the pustule is where it's gone red. So white head would just be the white little head, but a pustule is the red part with a white head on it.
00:41:26
Speaker
Right. Right. So, okay. So it actually seems other than obviously the treatment, which is just symptomatic and masking the issue. So they seem to have gotten it right in terms of, because a lot of medical explanations for conditions and diseases seem to be downright wrong or genetic or whatever. So they seem to have gotten it right in terms of how it develops, right?
00:41:55
Speaker
That's one way in which they develop. Okay. So there's multiple ways, of course. And, and it's, and again, I talk about this in the book. It's not so much the increase in androgens. It's why is there an increase in androgens? So that's, that's where I don't support the medical approach because they say, well, your androgens are high. Let's reduce your androgens. Yeah.
00:42:23
Speaker
pharmaceuticals, certainly for females, right? They give them normally the contraceptive pill or another drug called spironolactone, which is really a heart medication. And all these medications have side effects. And again, I list them all in my books. But what they don't talk about, so again, there's that hormonal aspect, but they don't talk about the gut.
00:42:51
Speaker
They don't talk about the liver. They don't talk about toxicity. They don't talk about heavy metals. I had one client who, again, I tell a story in the book. She came to me at age 27. She was getting married in about, I think it was four to six months from the time she first came to see me. And all her life, she'd eaten whatever she wanted. She wasn't particularly a healthy eater,
00:43:19
Speaker
She had perfect skin. She had the perfect figure. She looked amazing. Right. And at the age of 27, her skin just broke out, you know, four to six months from her wedding and she was in panic. Right. So it was interesting because she actually used to be my PA years before. So she knew what I did. Right. So she came to see me and she's like, what do I do? What do I do? And I said, okay, well, let's, let's start with the diet. Let's change your diet.
00:43:49
Speaker
And we started changing things. Um, yeah, there was a little bit of improvement. Okay. We need to look further. So we ran a stool test. She had a parasite infection, a little bit of a dysbiosis, but not terrible. So again, we made a few tweaks. A couple of months went by. She's, she's now panicking. Right. So I said, right. Okay. Let's, let's run a heavy metals test. So we ran a heavy metals test here or, uh, blood blood. So.
00:44:19
Speaker
her blood mercury was off the chart, literally off the chart. So she said, why would that be? And I just said, well, the most common reason I come across is when people eat a lot of tuna in their diet. And she just looked at me, she stopped and I said, what? She said, I've eaten tuna every day for the last 10 years. So I said, look,
00:44:48
Speaker
I'm going to suggest you take some liposomal glutathione and then let's see what happens. Within a few weeks, she rings me and she says, my skin's fine now. So let me ask you this question. After she'd gone to her medical doctor, what would he have done? So he would have given her, I'm guessing something like Accutane or some other skin cream.
Case Study: Holistic Treatment Success
00:45:15
Speaker
A doctor shouldn't give Accutane as a first treatment. Is that reserved for edge cases? That is considered a last resort. Okay. Right. So the likelihood is, and obviously each case is different, each doctor is different. The likelihood is they would have put her on birth control pill. For pimples, for acne. Yeah. So let me ask you this question.
00:45:45
Speaker
would that have solved her mercury problem? Nope. Of course not. Right. It's not getting to the root cause of the problem. So, you know, this is why we do what we do, right? Christian, we, we find out what the root cause of someone's issue is and then we treat it at that level. Yeah.
00:46:07
Speaker
So if let's say they had done a hormone test and her androgens were quote unquote high, they would have put her on birth control as well, right? They probably wouldn't even have tested for hormones. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I realized that 99% of the time or more would be the case. But if indeed, let's say her, her androgens were high, they would again do the birth control, right? Is that what I would do?
00:46:35
Speaker
if that was the case possibly, but the other thing to consider as well with women, it's not always technically androgens. So, estrogen dominance can also cause acne. So, estrogen dominance, as you know, can be high estrogen or it can be low progesterone. So, that's why it's a... This is why
00:47:00
Speaker
When working with females, it's more tricky because females have a much more complicated hormonal system than are simple men. But yes, if something had come back on a test for her that androgens were higher, my guess would be a doctor would have either suggested a birth control pill or spironolactone.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, this is one of the biggest, and God, my listeners are probably like, he says that every like 10 minutes, crime against humanity, but it's putting women on birth control. Like I remember, and I was talking about that in the episode I just published today.
00:47:40
Speaker
But when I met my wife, she was put on antibiotics four times in the first year that we were together. And at the end, obviously you get candida, thrush, whatever else. And they put her on birth control. That was how they were treating that. And I'm like, it seems like you're going to go there with, you know, you stepped on a rusty nail and they're going to put you on birth control pills. You know, you're going to,
00:48:11
Speaker
you know, whatever, you're feeling a bit depressed. So if you're certain, not to veer off the topic much, but even things like PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, they're saying it could be an excess of androgens. But it seems like more often than not, it's estrogen that is the culprit in women's issues. And they just don't want to, the medical system doesn't want to admit that.
00:48:40
Speaker
because pharma are pushing estrogen in the form of birth control pills and other things, like hotcakes seemingly for everything. Yeah, for sure. And interestingly as well, and I'm not sure if it's why you brought it up, but polycystic ovarian syndrome has a very close link with acne as well. So if you've got polycystic ovarian syndrome, you're far more likely to have acne as well.
00:49:09
Speaker
And again, the medical approach is to not find out what's caused a polycystic ovarian syndrome in the first place, but just to try and treat the symptoms. So what I would suggest is if someone's got PCOS and they've got acne, again, following the same recommendations in my book will help with both of those things.
00:49:32
Speaker
Absolutely. I think it's, I think we were talking about that earlier with you before we started recording, but I think we are all, each one of us, we are espousing the same things in our own kind of little different, slightly nuanced idiosyncratic way. But the principles of health are very, very simple and they're the same for pretty much it's like, um, disease.
Fundamental Health Principles and System Critique
00:49:59
Speaker
There's like,
00:50:01
Speaker
a few causes of disease, right? And how we express disease seems to be the infinite different ways. It's like, I forgot who, I think it was Steven Genuis. He's a researcher into kind of toxins and stuff like that. And he said in one of his papers,
00:50:20
Speaker
There are many ways of being sick, but there are very few ways of becoming sick and I think once we address those in with diet lifestyle mostly Things start falling into place at the very least Yeah, it's interesting because I've also just started looking out into the into the you know, the acne arena and see who's out there and what they're doing and
00:50:45
Speaker
And those of us that are going down the holistic, natural root cause, root, we're all doing pretty much the same things. And it's because we understand how the body works and what the body needs rather than how do we get rid of this person in front of me within seven minutes, right? Which is all a doctor has for most people. And listen, I'm sympathetic towards doctors because
00:51:13
Speaker
They're under a lot of pressure. They might have, I don't know, 60 patients a day, right? That's more than I see in a month, right? And the people coming in, they're programmed that they want a quick fix. That's how they're programmed to think. So if the doctor then says, oh, how much water are you drinking? What time do you go to bed? Are you eating organic food? How many times are you exercising a week? The patient's just going to get upset with the doctor and say,
00:51:43
Speaker
Where's my drugs, guy? Just write me a prescription and I'm out here. And also the other thing that again, I'm in sympathy with for a lot of doctors is they're training. They're not trained in health. They're trained in anatomy. They're trained in physiology, symptomology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology. Basically disease for the most part. Disease, right?
00:52:15
Speaker
It really annoys me that we have what we call in this country a national health service. The only thing that's correct about the name is the national part. Because it's neither, it's got nothing to do with health and it definitely isn't a service. National sick care system. Perfect. That's the perfect explanation. We have something in the UK called the trading standards.
00:52:43
Speaker
Now, if there was a body that wasn't a government body that called themselves the National Health Service, they could be sued under trading standards because they've got nothing to do with health and they're not providing a service for people. In 99% of the cases, in 1%, they're amazing, by the way.
00:52:58
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, like I have a few clients in the UK where just getting simple blood work is exceedingly difficult, it seems. Yeah. And one lady, I gave her a list of, I don't know, 40 markers. And I said, get as many of these as you can, as long as it's cheap, feasible, or free, you know?
00:53:21
Speaker
And she came back. Yeah, I talked to some clinics that's going to cost £1,500, British. I'm like, okay, never mind. None of that is needed, you know, which is really sad. And it's crazy, bro. It's crazy. But, you know, we've
00:53:40
Speaker
I think we've beat that dead horse to death and I perused your book and I'm glad we're folks like you are and I guess probably at this stage you're sick of pulling your punches so you're gonna say it like it is because in print you have to be a bit careful, you don't want to insult, you don't want to step on people's toes but I think we're
00:54:04
Speaker
We saw the craziness over the last three, four years go to like the nth degree. So I think we have to stop pulling punches and tell people that have not yet had the time to research all of these things in depth. We just have to teach people what's the story and the story is that the way to a vibrant long life.
00:54:24
Speaker
free of disease is to take responsibility for your own health. Learn what creates health in a person, not how to treat the symptoms of disease, but what creates health. And at the end of the day, it's all basic things. Yeah. As you started talking then, I was actually going to say that exactly what you just said, but I think whilst the last four years has been awful for 99% of us,
00:54:53
Speaker
What it has done, I think it's made a lot of people aware that they can't really rely on the authorities to keep them healthy. In fact, they need to invest in themselves, in their own health.
00:55:10
Speaker
I was going to say something then that might get you banned. So I'm not going to say that. Oh, please. I cannot be, I'm shadow banned on YouTube, so I don't even post there anymore. So it's all good. Yeah. I mean, I mean, if you look at the, you know, the medical experiment that took place over the last three years, you know, there was an estimate in October last year that that had killed 17 million people. In the world? In the world. Okay. Yeah. You know, and again, we don't know.
00:55:36
Speaker
how accurate that figures is because the governments don't want to tell us those figures. Now, why wouldn't the government want to tell us those figures? And we pay them to tell us those figures, right? But some of the world's leading health statisticians have looked at all the countries and looked at all the data and they believe that it's at least 17 million. And that was a product they wanted every single one of us to take. Multiple times.
00:56:02
Speaker
Right. Multiple times. Yeah. So, you know, anyone, anyone listening to this needs to ask themselves, do they want to continue trusting in those people or is it time to look after your own health? Yeah. You know, and search for people like us who can help them get there. Yeah. You know, and we, you know, we both have books, books aren't expensive to buy. You know, that's the reason I wrote the book because I know not everyone can afford my coaching fees. Right. So I wrote the book.
00:56:33
Speaker
You can get it on Kindle for 10 pounds. Yeah. Right. Who can't afford a 10 pound Kindle? Right. As long as you've got a device to play it on, right. You could read it on your phone.
00:56:43
Speaker
Yeah, very much people got a phone, right? Yeah, man. Yeah, it's the solution. Look, the solutions are out there. It's I think the biggest impediment right now is the education. That's why I'm trying. I'm trying to think of maybe I want to do some more educational resources in my solo episodes where you just start teaching people a little bit of a little bit more about the mechanisms of how
00:57:10
Speaker
how health deteriorates. That's why in chapter one of my book I talk about, it's called understand what's killing you. And I talk about the primary drivers of aging and dysfunction. I have this little basic graphic where it's stress, inflammation and oxidative stress. Understand what causes these things
00:57:34
Speaker
drinking, alcohol, smoking, pesticides, toxins, infections. The list is longer than your arm. But once you understand that as a layperson, you don't have to be a health practitioner, once you understand these things, then you can evaluate, engage and do a risk cost benefit analysis. Okay. If I go out and have two cocktails, but I'm going to see friends I haven't seen in ages. Okay. I'm going to poison myself a little bit.
00:58:01
Speaker
but I've been doing so well in other aspects of my life, I can afford to take that hit because the social element will greatly outweigh that. So people can start making these trade-offs because these are the kinds of trade-offs we have to make in the modern world.
00:58:18
Speaker
People need to understand this when you, and I know people that have like really nice houses, multiple cars, two, three cars in some cases, jet skis, seriously bro, jet skis, yachts and shit, and they're like buying the cheapest crap from Audi and whatever, and it's not even organic.
00:58:39
Speaker
It's like, that is simply a matter of education. If we can educate the people and they start to understand, this is what took me from all my twenties, destroying my health to who I am now. So it's just a matter of education. Yeah. Getting back to what you were saying about, you know, if you're doing really well, go out and have a couple of cocktails. That comes back to what I was saying about mindset. Get your core values in place.
00:59:08
Speaker
Right, if it's important for you to go out and socialize and have a couple of drinks, make sure that's part of your core values. But obviously whatever that thing is, make sure it's not too much and it's going to stop you achieving your goal.
00:59:19
Speaker
Okay, so no lines of coke off a dirty toilet seat guys, okay. Only on your birthday and maybe Christmas, maybe. Lee, well, this was a pleasure, bro. Thank you very much. So just before you go, just tell us about your, so now you have two podcasts. How can people connect with you? Just give us all that info, please.
00:59:46
Speaker
socials, et cetera, et cetera. And we of course, of course have the links for listeners down below. Sure. So as you said, I've got two podcasts. So one is the radical health rebel. One is the adult acne podcast. So I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter X. My handles are either Lee Brandon, just my name is spell L E I G H Brandon radical health rebel.
01:00:14
Speaker
or Adult Acne Podcast, so it might be Adult Acne Pod, depending on which social media. I'm on YouTube as well, Radical Health Rebel Podcast and Adult Acne Podcast. I've got one website that I have for one-to-one coaching, which is bodycheck.co.uk. That's B-O-D-Y-C-H-E-K.co.uk. And another one that's currently in development, which is called eliminateadultacne.com.
01:00:44
Speaker
I saw that one looks good. And then all my books are on all the major retail outlets, Amazon, et cetera.
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. We're going to have all those things. I saw your, your eliminate adult acne. Good. That's a very good. Um, that's a very good URL. So yeah, I think hopefully gets you lots of traffic there because I mean, these are, you know, these are things I really liked the way you frame it. It's your body telling you it's like pain. And I wish I would.
01:01:16
Speaker
tap, be able to tap into this more. I kind of ignore pain like when I'm sitting writing for hours and hours on end or recording and it's like these are our bodies are sending us signals and one signal folks listening you may want to listen to more is how often you get sick. If you're getting sick more than once twice per year the body is telling you something is not right. Your immune system, your toxic burden, something is not right. Nutritional deficiencies. Listen to your body folks.
01:01:45
Speaker
With that, Lee, thank you so much for joining us today, bro. Thanks for having me.