Transcript
Speaker: on zencastr Hello and welcome to Fit For My Age, the health and wellbeing podcast from Abbasida. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
Speaker: Today, my guest is Chen Profasowski from the Gallstone Tribe on School. We are going to be discussing gallstones. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, Fit for My Age is made on Zencastr.
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Speaker: One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. Very importantly on Fit For My Age, we don't tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
Speaker: Today, my guest is Chen Profesorsky from Galstone Tribe on School. Chen is based in Israel, a country I am yet to visit.
Speaker: When I do go, i will be making my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club. It is where I get trade prices on flights, trains, hotels, holidays, all sorts of travel-related purchases.
Speaker: You can as well. There is a link in the description with a built-in membership discount. Now that I have paid the rent, it is time to make an episode of Fit for My Age.
Speaker: Hello, Chen. ah Hello, Michael. Thank you for having me here. Oh, you say that now. In half an hour's time, you may not be saying it. Please, could we start by you explaining a little bit about your career and how you got involved with gallstones and the establishment of the gallstone tribe?
Speaker: Gladly. Well, it all started when I was already a young naturopath about, oh, an odd 30 years ago. i was actually studying Chinese medicine. And because i had gallstones, I did not know it at the time, I started turning yellow.
Speaker: And all my colleagues were actually making fun of me that I was taking the Chinese medicine too seriously and I'm turning Chinese. But the pain made it clear that it was not just a visual transformation. And so I started looking...
Speaker: ah through the very young web at the time for a solution that will actually leave me with my gallbladder. I was not going to give up on an organ for this.
Speaker: And yet to leave the stones behind me, that was obviously my challenge. And it was not an easy challenge because despite being a naturopath, I had no idea how to take care of this. So I actually put a challenge up on the web and to my surprise people actually answered. Gave me all sorts of ideas I wouldn't say out loud in a respectable place.
Speaker: And the last one was actually a simple one. It was a name of a book. and a few photographs that included some stones. And the young American was just sharing this information with me without a name, so I can't give him the Hall of Fame I promised.
Speaker: That opened the path. I actually ran this process, learned that it needs refining because it was a little bit difficult the way I did it at the time. And when I was actually free of my stones, it was obvious that I had found something super important because apparently this is one of the most common surgeries around.
Speaker: It's common enough for me to have had it. Ouch, yeah. I took from experience of having gallstones and I know how painful they can be. I've had women tell me that the pain they got from the gallstones was far worse than when they brought a baby to the world.
Speaker: That's how painful it can be. Yes, I can well imagine just um remembering the the pain and the feeling that, oh something has happened, the pain is going to come back, because it's not a constant pain.
Speaker: It's almost as if the stone moves in the gallbladder and causes a pain, and then if it moves to another place in the gallbladder, the pain sort of disappears.
Speaker: Considering the fact that the gallbladder is not one of the bigger organs and the stone itself is probably not going to be that big, it is extremely painful in relation to its size.
Speaker: Oh yeah, definitely. And the truth is, there's two reasons for pain with gallstones. ah One is within the gallbladder, when you squeeze on it tightly, like when you eat fried food.
Speaker: And ah the other option actually a lot more common for real pain, and that is when the stone one of the stones, actually I should say, um flies out of the gallbladder and into the ducts.
Speaker: And when it hits the duct and gets stuck there, then it's a wave of pain repeating itself over and over until it's pushed out. Thankfully, yes it's not a very long process usually because the the pipe itself, the duct, is not that long.
Speaker: But it's still quite an excruciating experience. The words like excruciating roll off your tongue. And I think like, yeah, it is, it's it's an experience, not one you ever want to sort of repeat really.
Speaker: Unless you've had gallstones, you don't really get to know very much about the gallbladder. So what is the gallbladder? What does it do? The gallbladder is a hollow organ, the size of a large cucumber.
Speaker: It's placed right under the ribs on the right side, not to the right, but actually from the center to towards the right side. It's actually a reservoir of bile, of the liquids that the liver creates in order to digest fats and in order to excrete from the body all kinds of toxins.
Speaker: So it's just supposedly an assistant to the liver. But that's not a minor thing because if you understand a bit about digestion, you know that in order to digest fats, you need that bile and you need it accumulated in advance.
Speaker: And the only way to accumulate it is to have that sac, to have that organ in place. So it's not really that much of a useless, you know, unnecessary organ that sometimes is portrayed. It's actually very important for healthy fat digestion.
Speaker: Yes, I think whatever it is that we've got in our bodies, it is there for a purpose. Oh, yeah. And each part of our body needs to be respected.
Speaker: think in conventional medicine, the first option is to try and flush the stone away. And then if that doesn't work, it is removal of the gallbladder. Actually, I have never heard of the of doctors offering to flush the stones. It's usually not really an option.
Speaker: They used to have more commonly offered a drug called Ursulite or one of its other names, depending on the country, that would supposedly help melt away the stones, but that never actually succeeded, only caused more pain and more inflammation. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And so today, if you come to a doctor and the diagnosis is, okay, you have gallstones, ah then you will be offered ah one option. And that option is a surgery to remove that gallbladder.
Speaker: It will also be treated as something minor, like some nuisance, not a big deal. It is important to understand a few facts to understand why I'm not just suggesting it myself if it's such a simple nuisance and not such a big deal.
Speaker: mean, why take people through a process when they can just, you know, go through a five-minute surgery and just be done with it? The first fact, which is important to know, is that for every stone you have in your gallbladder, you actually have a thousand little stones in your liver.
Speaker: And that factoid is important because some of those stones can come to the size of 4-5mm, which is all you need. if it's released from the liver, to do the exact same thing as a stone that comes out from the gallbladder, and that is to get stuck in the ducts with all the lovely benefits.
Speaker: So that's one fact that's very, very important to understand. It changes everything because if taking out the gallbladder doesn't really prevent the next painful attack, then maybe that shouldn't be the first action if there are alternatives.
Speaker: At least that's how I see it. Yes, it would make sense that and I'm thinking, why have we got stones in our liver? That is a very good question. And maybe I should, you know, maybe we should go to that point to begin with. It's true.
Speaker: There's quite a few different reasons for gallstones forming. The first is the obvious one, and that is that people often don't drink enough. And so their bile becomes sludgy, it becomes muddy.
Speaker: And mud tends to accumulate and build. It's like the crystals they build for computers. It's all about the the consistency of the medium into which you drop a small starter stone.
Speaker: And that's how it works with gallstones. The liver creates tiny little stones that very often just flush away and leaving nothing behind them. But every once in a while, those little stones get to the gallbladder. And if the gallbladder contains very sludgy,
Speaker: and not watered down a bile, then that's the basis for the gallstone formation. On top of that, it's also a question of how often the gallbladder is fully squeezed on a routine basis when you don't have stones.
Speaker: And very often people squeeze it strongly in some cases, but but because of various reasons, very often not. Even when they do eat things that are fried or you know heavily fatted or a other reasons why it should squeeze well, partially because very often one of the main triggers, which is the stomach acid, actually, when it pours into the intestines, and I'm getting way too technical, so stop me if I'm overdoing it.
Speaker: No, no, no, please. ah when you When you don't have enough stomach acid, there's no trigger for the bowel to be squeezed, actually. That's part of the rule of game, so to speak. And very often people have low stomach acid.
Speaker: And that's just number two. A third reason, not enough motion. How often do people neglect being physically active? especially in the 21st century. I mean, we made a habit of it, a sport of it in a way.
Speaker: yes And there's another fascinating one that's less known. And that is that when we're frustrated, when we're, you know, as they would say in classical times, when we we're bilious, you know, and bitter, then very often the gallbladder area would be squeezed, but stuck in the squeezing position, which means it wouldn't be effective at all.
Speaker: And one of the main reasons for that, and according to Chinese medicine, and we we can all relate, I think, is not being very happy with our lives, especially with what we do if for life. If we are not happy in what we work, if we're not accurate in our choice of profession, or of course, there's always the other alternative, and that's choosing the wrong mate.
Speaker: If we have reasons to be bitter... It's going to be a very easy path to gallstones. So there's quite a few good reasons. What I'm hearing and out of all of that information is that the gallbladder is almost like a signposting organ for a wider range of physical and mental health issues and even lifestyle issues.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely. I guess I would actually say it been even brighter. i would say that gallstones are a wonderful opportunity for plethora of wonderful, wonderful benefits and gifts. Yes. It's a bit like we all believe that we are completely indestructible until we get that wake-up call and the gallbladder is one of those organs that can give us a wake-up call.
Speaker: The other one, our hearts gives us a wake-up call by giving us a heart attack. That's pretty serious. Oh, yeah. but When the gallbladder decides it's unhappy, the ways in which it tells us it's unhappy are things which can be resolved with surgery or can be resolved with a more holistic, natural type of way. And that's the way that you've spent your career focusing on.
Speaker: Oh yeah, that is exactly the point. The challenge here is actually to help people understand that it is actually up to them whether they're going to be suffering or not, whether they're going to have more gallstones or not And the beauty of it is that once people understand it's possible to take charge of the situation, they don't only become empowered by it, they discover that the effects of healing the gallbladder and the liver
Speaker: are far-reaching because they learn how to eat well, which is another very important aspect obviously, and they know how to drink well, and they know and they have a you know a reminder to start moving and sleeping well and breathing well.
Speaker: It can change almost all their health picture. including their heart health picture or their joint health picture or just their well-being, their happiness and their functionality in life.
Speaker: and Also, how many ah sick days they have have to use per year. Yes. This is a very wide-reaching effect with a very positive potential. Is this something that affects men more than women or women more than men, or is it equally split? First thing I would answer to that is that theoretically women have it five times more commonly than men, simply because there's an interaction between pregnancy and lactation and gallstones.
Speaker: But practically speaking, when I look at my clinic, I get ah get them almost 50-50 to the clinic in what could someone who is half my age, someone in their 20s, for example, might be able to do to make sure that they don't get gallstones?
Speaker: So let's take this the 23-year-old, for example, who might have a history of gallstones in their family and is thinking, I don't want to go through that. What are the things that someone who's 23,
Speaker: could do It's a very common problem for everyone. And I'll remind you that I was actually 25 when I already had a centimeter and a half of a gallstone inside alongside a lot of others.
Speaker: So 23 is not that young already for many of my patients. But still, there is a lot to prevent. There's a lot to do to prevent. There's a lot to do to choose a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker: And obviously the first thing, like I stated before, is to take charge of your water drinking habits. And I'm stressing the water because coffee and cocoa and black tea are all gallbladder squeezing tools and that not don't necessarily help you hydrate better because you actually lose a lot of water for coffee.
Speaker: to urination. So if you drink a lot of water, a lot of you know infusions of non-caffeinated teas, then that would be a good start, a very simple thing to do for for starters, and that's very healthy for a lot So you're meaning herbal teas? Oh, yeah.
Speaker: and Herbal tea is specifically the kind that don't have actual tea inside. That's why I call it infusions, because that can be confusing. you know Sometimes it's black tea plus, all kinds of other lovely things. And I'm talking about the kinds that do not come with regular tea. And I know I'm talking ah to a vastly British audience, which are now smirking at me and saying, how odd. He thinks tea is bad. Yeah.
Speaker: It's not the tea, it's the caffeine in the tea, which that is bad. But tea is also a stimulant. so Yeah, yeah. But apart from that, obviously learning how to eat a little more wholesomely is a very good idea, and it's not something that's so hard to come by nowadays, information about wholesome nutrition.
Speaker: It's also about learning to be active, physically active. I would suggest yoga, but you know combining all sorts of good physical activity is very important. All these are easy to do. The thing is, you were talking about someone who has a gallstone story in his family. And the truth is, we're talking about 95% of humanity last I checked. wow That's actually very, very common. So if you're hearing this, you're one of the millions that either have them or have the potential of them. So this is not like we're talking to those that already know they have gallstones. It's...
Speaker: it's It's actually a talk that's good for everyone if you want to avoid one of the more painful afflictions ever invented for mankind. So that's that's the general answer.
Speaker: You know, as someone who has had gallstones and had the conventional treatment, I'm wondering what can I do now to compensate for the fact that I don't have a gallbladder,
Speaker: For you specifically and people like you who've already undergone the surgery, there are two very important answers I have. One is to take all I said before and repeat again. Because just because you don't have that flashing light in the car anymore that says empty tank,
Speaker: Doesn't mean you can avoid filling the tank regularly, right? i mean, that's just the whole point. You just lost your signal light, but the issue is still there. So you want to eat well, you want to drink well, you want to exercise, you want to rest well, and all the other important basics in health. i mean, they're all crucial.
Speaker: And sometimes, especially immediately after surgery, they can prevent a lot of pain and discomfort. But long term, they're just as important. And I'll say this too. um People who have had their gallbladder removed, as far as the holistic solution for gallstones, they still need to flush out the stones.
Speaker: So the key then is to drink lots of water and drinks that are water-based rather than caffeine-based. That's the one.
Speaker: And the second is obviously the nutrition. If you eat wholesome fats in a reasonable amount, then you're giving your liver and your gallbladder a fighting chance. If you eat a lot of heavy oils and fats and you digest them three times the amount you should be eating every day,
Speaker: well you're really putting a burden on these two organs. Yes, because the body does need to consume some element of fat. Yes, definitely.
Speaker: And there is a big difference between good fat and bad fat. And what is a good fat to eat? Well, the the question of good versus bad is definitely one of the things you need to consider. Good being as close to its source as possible and preferably mostly from vegetable sources for anyone who wants to prevent gallstones.
Speaker: If you still eat some um food from animal sources, and I'm assuming I'm not talking to someone who actually has gallstones right now and in pain because then I would say veganism for a while for sure.
Speaker: People who just want to prevent this want to have more from the vegetable sources than from animal sources as a rule. And if you don't heat oils that you don't have to heat oils, you know, like if you add the oil to your serving plate rather than to heat it inside the pot, or if you add nuts or seeds fresh and not roasted into your salad as a source of oil, all these are going to be very, very, very welcome by the liver and gold batter.
Speaker: So eating raw nuts, nuts which have not been roasted, would be a source of good fat for your liver and gallbladder. Same as avocados, same as tahini, well diluted.
Speaker: But yes, these are all very good sources as a rule. Right. But a fat which is based on a grain rather than a vegetable would not be as good as the vegetable fat.
Speaker: Well, there's a lot of of you know of that going around lately, and in many cases it's true. If it's cold-pressed, I wouldn't put too much of a warning label on it.
Speaker: But yeah, most most of our oils should come from olive oil or sesame oil, s which is actually a seed, but when cold-pressed, it's a reasonably healthy oil.
Speaker: And some would say that the coconut oil is actually quite healthy. There's always been a controversy around it. But like I said, if you can have a source that needs to be pre-digested like seeds and nuts and avocados and stuff, the advantage is that the body needs to actually break it down in the stomach for quite a while before it actually starts to drip it to the rest of the system, which is really a very healthy fact.
Speaker: Right. So it's a having a balanced diet with good fats rather than bad fats, so the soft fats, not the hard fats, firm is going to be much better for your liver and gallbladder health. Oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker: yeah You mentioned that if you have been diagnosed with gallstones, then ah vegan diet for a period of time can be an advantage. So are meat eaters more likely to develop gallstones than vegetarians? a yes.
Speaker: But B, it's a lot more than just the question of developing the gallstones. One of the first things I focus on as a professional, when someone comes into the clinic and tells me I have gallstones, well, my first challenge is to stop is pain.
Speaker: Then we have all the time in the world to deal with the issue. And to stop the pain, there are five oil rules that if you stick to, will actually give you 99% quiet from the pain, which is really an important part in this phase.
Speaker: And the first rule is, yes, if you can stick to veganism during this period, then oils from from the vegetable sources are much less prone to causing strong squeezes of the liver and gallbladder. And these squeezes are the reason for pain, like I mentioned before.
Speaker: So if you can reduce the squeezing power to the minimum, then you're actually reducing the pain to the minimum. The second ah rule would be to not heat them and not you know not take things like margarine that are already ruined in their processing phase and not heat them, etc. like I said before.
Speaker: The third rule would be to well choose the right proportion of oil throughout the day, which is usually about 30 grams of fat or equivalent or equivalent a day, about 10 grams per meal, like a big tablespoon of olive oil or ah two tablespoons of nuts or seeds or tahini before the dilution or five tablespoons of avocado. It's a nice amount, but that's all that should be in a meal as far as fat is concerned.
Speaker: Again, too much of olive oil will still be enough to cause a strong squeeze. The fourth rule would be to actually spread it throughout the day and not take all those 30 grams in lunch, you know, for in one meal and then not eat oil the rest of the day. It's still going to be deadly potential for a very strong um ah squeeze and therefore a potential for a lot of pain. So having one tablespoon each meal, and this is of course an average for an average adult,
Speaker: That should do the trick. And the final tip, the fifth ah rule, is to look for sources that still need breaking down, like I said, like avocados and like and nuts, rather than, even if it's cold-pressed, olive oil, <unk> etc.
Speaker: Because it just means that it it would take longer to reach the gallbladder area and squeeze it. So it would reduce the squeezing to truly the minimum option. And from there, usually the result is no more pain, at least until you either break the rules or clear the stones.
Speaker: You know, it is one of those things where if only I'd known. Oh, I know. I'm sorry. I didn't know you before.
Speaker: But it is true that ah unfortunately, of the reasons for doing fit for my age was... that we do, you know, all of us sort of think, yeah, our bodies are operating in exactly the most perfect way in which it is possible for a body to operate.
Speaker: And we'll always do that regardless of what we do. And ah obviously it isn't going to work like that. And yet we don't have... For both people, yeah yeah. We don't have enough information about how the different parts of our bodies work and how we need to work with them respectfully.
Speaker: So Chen, I have learned so much and I really appreciate your time. I'm sure there will be other people who are thinking like, you've just scratched the surface of this. I need to know more. Where can people contact you?
Speaker: Well, part of the growing path that we've been developing going through is shifting from a local clinic to an international clinic. an international solution, and for that we opened an online community, a free online community, so there should be no reason not to come and visit us and say hello.
Speaker: ah And this is a community based on the platform Skool with a K. you look us up, the link will be obviously below, oh then, well, we have a lot of a lot of solutions there for from the very basics of, you know, here.
Speaker: let's Let's teach you how to eat well so you don't suffer and all the way to helping people flush out the stones in a supervised process. So that's definitely a place to come visit us and we'll be happy to see anyone who who joins us, whether you have gallstones or just want better help.
Speaker: Great. That's great. There will be a link in the description. Like say, really do appreciate your time today. It's been great. Thank you. Well, it was a pleasure being here, and I think we still have a lot more to talk about, but maybe another time. I hope so.
Speaker: hope so. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida, and in this episode of Fit for My Age, I have been having a conversation with Chet Profesorsky from Goldstone Tribe on School.
Speaker: You can find out more about both of us at abusida.co.uk. There is a link in the description, together with a link to the Goldstone Tribe on School. At Fit for My Age, our aim is proactive positive aging.
Speaker: Knowing the risks early is an important part of maintaining good health. That is why we recommend the annual health test from York Test. York Test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers, including cholesterol, diabetes, various vitamins, liver function, and inflammation, and a full blood count.
Speaker: The annual health test is conducted by an experienced lobotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. Hospital standard tests are carried out in a UK AS accredited and CQC compliant lab.
Speaker: You can access easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime via your secure personal wellness hub account. There is a link and a discount code in the description.
Speaker: I'm sure you will have enjoyed this episode of Fit For My Age as much as Chen and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
Speaker: Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of Fit For My Age, thank you for listening and goodbye.
