Embrace Mindful Meditation For Stress Reduction

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Welcome back, everyone, to the Parkinson’s Solutions Summit. I am your co-host, Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum. I have with me today a very special speaker. Her mission resonates with me. She believes that healing is possible. Her training is so impressive. She is a naturopath. She has also trained in acupuncture, homeopathy, and functional medicine. Today, we’re going to be talking about a subject that might be embarrassing for some people, so they may not bring it up with their doctor. that has to do with bowel functioning, specifically with constipation. We’re going to talk about how this is a big problem among people with Parkinson’s disease. let’s start. Take it away, Carol. I’d love it if you could tell our listeners who you are. A little bit about your story.

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Well, thank you so much for having me at this phenomenal summit.  it’s part of my mission because Parkinson’s is not like a super duper fancy illness. Some illnesses such as breast cancer, which is also my specialty, know it’s her, unfortunately. But Parkinson’s is less well known and it is impacting more and more Americans as people age. How did I get to Parkinson’s? I have a family member who has this illness and his father had this illness.  I specialize in chronic disease. I’m interested in understanding the metabolic nature of just not breast cancer, but infertility as well as Parkinson’s, as well as emotional stress. anything that’s a little deep in the functional medicine world piques my interest. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Parkinson’s disease. People are very familiar with the tremors of intention and the difficulty with the movement of the legs.  then there is this constipation problem. It’s difficult to eliminate and there can also be swallowing problems.  all of those symptoms have together is a decrease in the smooth muscle movement and smooth muscles. One of the items that they need to function properly is vitamin B6.  unfortunately, the medication for Parkinson’s, which is carbidopa leaves a dopa, it decreases the serum B6 levels extensively.  this is not well known in medical Parkinson’s neurology treatment. One of the first things that I recommend is taking a very specific form of vitamin B6 at pretty, what people would call high doses. B6 is a water-soluble supplement. It’s a vitamin. It doesn’t there’s no such thing as B6 toxicity that people can be concerned about because you need to support smooth muscle movement, not just in the neck with the esophagus in swallowing, but your hands and your legs and the small and large intestines. 

Let’s take it a step further. Let’s dive into the standard American diet. The standard American diet quadruples the cancer rate. Now, I know we’re not talking about cancer here, but Parkinson’s and cancer have a similar thing in common, which is called inflammation. When you have inflammation that leads to chronic disease, the standard American diet with processed foods, unhealthy fats, and not enough nutrients from vitamins, fresh foods, and organic vegetables leads to a diet that lacks essential fiber. When you go to your regular doctor and they tell you, Well, you don’t have enough fiber, if they even say that, the response is, Here’s some Metamucil. Now, Metamucil is like eating cardboard. Metamucil is not going to increase the fiber in your intestines. The other component of this is that you’re not drinking enough liquid. Then what happens when you use Metamucil is the intestines. Just soak up all the metamucil, and it gets dry, making it more difficult to eliminate properly. How do you combat this?

First, you need to make sure you’re pushing your fluids. What I recommend is to measure out eight cups however you want to do it. Put it in a cup. Pyrex, measuring cup, whatever you need to do, and make sure by the end of the day you have finished your eight eight-ounce glasses of water, which means you’re going to the bathroom to urinate quite often, but that is going to hydrate your intestines. If you’re drinking enough water, you should probably need to urinate every hour or so. Maybe you have a good bladder. You can do it every two hours. But that’s how you can tell you’re getting enough hydration in your system. Then you need to take a deeper dive into how you’re eating. Where are you getting real, fresh food? Fresh food is not something out of the box. It’s not something that comes frozen and then you put it in the microwave. Fresh food is organic vegetables that you steam or sauté, or salads that you make in the summer. It’s wonderful to eat salads in the summer. Notice I’m saying organic often because I believe that organic, whenever possible, is the way to go. I’m sure you agree with that, too, Sandy.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Oh, absolutely.

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Now, why is organic so important? Because of Parkinson’s, one of its aspects is that there is difficulty processing exhaustion or chemicals outside of your body. When you eat non-organic vegetables or fruits, they’ve been sprayed. So even if you wash them, you’re still not getting that spray that’s saturated the produce out of the produce. So you’re thinking you’re doing something good for yourself by eating steamed, fresh broccoli. But actually, broccoli is one of the number one chemicals, and when you spray it, it releases positive antioxidants and cold. Paraffin is removed, and it is killed by the spray. People say to me that I can’t afford organic. It’s too expensive. I have done a lot of research on this. If you stop spending money on boxed food, you will be able to afford fresh produce. When you think about the amount of money that went into taking out the real nutrition, putting in the chemicals, putting in the dyes, designing the box, and having the box made that then contains that food item that is expensive compared to a farmer growing food, you go to the farmer’s market, you go to Whole Foods, and you buy something that’s not in a box. There are lots of easy ways to cook steamed or sauteed vegetables. There are lots of online places to get good recipes from, so you don’t need to get bored with your salad, steamed, or baked vegetables. You’re increasing your fiber. That’s number one. You’re increasing your nutrition through food. The third aspect is something called a smoothie. Now, people think a smoothie is a banana, peanut butter, and milk, and maybe sometimes even put an ice cream scoop in there. That is not a smoothie.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

That’s a dessert.

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

That’s dessert.  Very few people should be eating that way most of the time anyway. What is a smoothie? A smoothie has specifically pea-isolated protein in it or whey, and both of those need to be organic. You do not want to go to Costco and buy some normal, or what they call normal, isolate protein. You have to be very particular about what you buy. Then I put in two scoops of organic dark flax seeds. The reason they’re dark is because they contain more linoleic acid, which is a beneficial fat, than the light version. The reason I say flax seed as opposed to ground flax is that when you grind flax, it’s a very sensitive oil, and it oxidizes very quickly. You want to not use ground flax; you want to get the flax seeds when you bring them home; you want to put them in a glass jar and keep them in the freezer or refrigerator because they’re very sensitive to heat. If they get too hot, that beneficial oil will oxidize and turn into an unhealthy and not-good-tasting fat that you want when you put it into your smoothie. One or two scoops of organic pea isolate protein or organic whey, and two tablespoons of organic dark flax seeds. Here comes the mucilage in this item, which is chia seeds. Chia seeds are these little, tiny, dark seeds, and they’re easily found in any health food store. Once again, look for the ones that say organic. You can start with two teaspoons.

Now, if you want to see what chia seeds do, take a teaspoon, put it in an eight-ounce glass of water, and just let it sit. Within, I don’t know, ten or 15 minutes, if you go to stir it, you’ll see that it’s become this mucilage and it’s a blob, which is what you want in your intestines because that is going to help propel everything through the intestines and out of your body easily, so you can start with one or two teaspoons of chia seeds and you can increase it if needed. The other item that I use is organic, either fresh or frozen blackberries or blueberries. In the summer. It’s nice to use stone fruit, peaches, or nectarines. I don’t recommend using banana numbers for two reasons: one, it’s a very high-glycemic food. It has a lot of sugar in it. Number two, bananas are what you want to eat if you’re having loose stools; you don’t want to eat them. If you’re having a problem with constipation, then you want to put the liquid in there. It’s about a quarter to half a cup of this fruit. then the liquid is eight ounces. You can use water, you can use nut milk, or you can use a combination of water and milk. Notice I’m not saying cow milk. I do not think you should be putting cow’s milk in your smoothie. Cow milk can lead to constipation. It can lead to inflammation. We want to reduce that. When you first start making your smoothie, you may make it with eight ounces of liquid and say it’s too thick, or you may make it with eight ounces of liquid and say it’s too thin.

It’s important to realize that when you first start making your smoothie, you may not like it. You may have to figure out, Oh, I need more liquid, or I need less liquid, or I want a little bit more fruit in the summer when it’s warm out. It’s a nice thing to put it in, to put some ice cubes in there, and to put the fruit that’s been frozen in there, which makes it a little frothy. Sometimes you can change up the recipe. You can put in a little bit of coffee or a scoop of instant decaf coffee if you want to make it taste like a coffee milkshake. There are ways of altering the recipes so they taste good, and they should taste good. I don’t want to drink anything that tastes bad to me, and I wouldn’t want to recommend that to the community that I’m serving.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

There is so much to unpack here and so many practical tips. Thank you. I’m going to go back to water. Is it just water? What about if people say, Does it count as coffee? I’ve heard somewhere that if you are drinking coffee, you need to increase your water intake. But can you comment on pure water? What about sparkling water?

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Coffee does not count. If you’re having difficulty with your tremors, I do not recommend drinking coffee because that will increase. Or it can increase the intensity of your tremors. You need to decide that for yourself. Coffee doesn’t count. Black tea does not count, but herb tea does. Okay. If you’re drinking eight ounces of sparkling water, you can count that as four ounces of liquid. I don’t think it is 100% equivalent to water. They have these powders that have stevia in them that you can make a drink out of. Don’t you want to be eating and drinking that stuff? It’s not healthy for you. You can put lemon slices in your water. You can put an ice cube, or you could put fresh lime squeezed in there.

You want to keep it as real to nature as possible. It doesn’t mean we’ve been brought up to drink soda. Soda doesn’t count. Soda is detrimental to your health, even if it is sugar- and stevia-free. It’s not anything that you want to be spending your money on, and then you can take that money and put it towards organic produce. What else? Drinking coffee. You need to drink more water. that we’ve been brainwashed. You wake up in the morning, and the first thing you do is have a cup of coffee. I would rather you wake up in the morning, eat a high-protein breakfast if you’re not intermittent fasting, and then have your coffee at ten or 11:00. Now, coffee, by my definition, is not a Starbucks-crappy sugary thing. Let’s get that clear. Coffee is organic, dark coffee. If you want to put cream in it, I would recommend a coconut or almond creamer. I do not recommend putting sugar in it. Sometimes people have to retrain themselves to drink coffee with coconut creamer. It’s quite delicious.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Yes, I love it. I’m assuming that when you say water, you’re not referring to tap water. I heard a report that 45% of this country’s tap water is contaminated. Would you recommend purified water and perhaps avoid bottled water?

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Well, that’s a very important topic. Thank you. Now we’re getting into toxins in the environment that influence inflammation. When you go to Costco and you buy these big plastic things—lots of little water bottles or bigger ones—and you bring them home, here’s the truth. We don’t know how hot the plastic got when it was being transported into the store. We don’t know how long it took. So when plastic is exposed to heat like that, there are byproducts of the plastics called BPAs and BSAs, and they get into the food product, whether it’s water or tomato products or whatever. You think you’re doing great. You have a whole bunch of these in your car, and it’s summer now, and you leave your car and it gets hot in the car, and you go in and you drink this warm water, or you bring home these bottles that you spent money on in the store and you put them in the refrigerator.

But those byproducts from being exposed to heat are still going to be in the water. I recommend buying a water filter. I know Sandy also knows these people. There’s the Aqua True Company. You can buy an under-the-sink filter, but you can also buy this fantastic filter that sits on the countertop, which is what I have in my house. It’s when you think about how much money you’re spending on these bottled waters that you realize that they are exposing you to chemicals in your body. This is well worth the investment. It doesn’t cost that much money. I agree that fluoride is often in water. It’s a very interesting thing about fluoride. Nobody has ever asked you, Do you want fluoride in your water? There’s been no study on fluoride and how it impacts people across generations and age groups. There haven’t been any studies on the dosing of how much fluoride they put in the water, so there must have been some huge, shady relationship between the fluoride companies and all these cities and the dentists, making us think that we need fluoride in our water when we don’t because fluoride helps keep leach calcium out of our bones. Fluoride is not doing a favor. It’s doing somebody else a financial favor, but not us. Yes, I’m a big proponent of filtering your water.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

So am I. I have reverse osmosis down at home and a whole house water filter because those chemicals get in your shower. Guess other sources in your home. and I carry not plastic but stainless steel.

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

I have this. Yes exactly.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Yes. I’m going to ask you a little bit more about constipation. What is it? There’s a lot of confusion. Some people think, Well, I’m not constipated, and I go once a week. what would be?

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Oh, my goodness. 

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

What would qualify? There are people like that or who are not sure what constipation is. Can you shed some light on that?

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Sure, 100%? That’s a great question. I’d say over 50% of Americans are constipated. Constipation is not just something that you eliminate once a day. People think that’s great. If you’re healthy in your bowel habits, there should be a major elimination and then two little minor ones. That is the definition of not being constipated. If you are only eliminating once a week, that’s setting up a situation in your body called autotoxicity. What happens then is that the fecal material stays in your intestines, and the toxins that ideally need to be eliminated every day are reabsorbed. You are not; there’s no way you can feel well if you’re only eliminating once a week, and that’s a serious problem from a functional medicine perspective. It’s one of the first things that practitioners deal with outside of anything else. If we don’t get you eliminated first every day, at least once, nothing else is going to get better. Healthy bowel habits are eliminating one major movement every day and then two smaller movements.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Wow. There are a lot of people who do not meet that criteria. What can we do? You mentioned the basics for the smooth muscle. Is there anything else that would be helpful? Magnesium. I’ve heard of vitamin C. Is there anything else you would recommend?

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Well, there is a whole neurosupport protocol that utilizes amino acids for Parkinson’s disease. That’s not the topic of this conversation. That’s a little bit out of the box for standard medical treatment. Let’s just put that on hold. But I’d say most Americans are nutrient deficient. One of the ways you can discover where you are with your nutrients is to work with a functional medicine practitioner or naturopathic doctor. Genova Diagnostic is the name of the lab. It’s called the Nutrafol test. What that does is look at all of your current vitamin and nutrient levels, and that is a great baseline to get started with. You can customize your supplement regimen. If you can’t do that, the best thing you can do is get very high-quality supplements that are made to pharmaceutical quality standards and get multivitamins and minerals. You need to make sure that you’re taking enough vitamin D-3. When I work with people, I recommend 5000 IU a day, not 2000 or 1000. That’s too little. Most doctors do not check your vitamin D level, but you can ask them to check your vitamin D because there is an enormous amount of research about the relationship between vitamin D level and inflammation and not feeling well, and people have vitamin D levels of 20 now, which is very subclinical and dangerous.

If you have a vitamin D level of 20 and your doctor wants to give you a 50,000 IU dose of vitamin D, there is no such thing as a 50,000 IU dose in nature. How we get vitamin D right now is a beautiful, sunny day out. You walk outside, the sun hits your face or your arms, or you’re on the beach or whatever, and that sun hits your skin, and then it’s transferred from an inactive form to an active form of vitamin D in your skin, through your intestines and your urine. In the winter, nobody is out there doing this, right? Also, in the summer, a lot of us have a very inside work life, so we’re not going outside during the daytime. Naturally, we should be vitamin D-deficient. That’s why it’s a very easy supplement to take to increase your levels. I like vitamin D levels to be 55 to 75, and as a functional medicine practitioner, that’s the standard reference range for us.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Thank you. That is very useful. Can you comment on somebody who is constipated? They go to their doctor, and they’re put on Metamucil, and now they say, I can’t get off it because I won’t have a bowel movement without it. How can somebody who is a match predictor, go on, let’s say they are interested in doing other strategies as you’ve been discussing?

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Great question. Well, the chia seeds are a great substitute for Metamucil, increasing your fiber, and if you can’t do this smoothie at all, the ingredients are too much for you. It’s very easy to find organic chia seeds. Just start with the chia seeds and put them in water. They don’t taste bad and drink it. As you increase the chia seeds, you can decrease your metamucil, so you can go slowly. The other item I forgot to talk about, constipation, is a probiotic. You want to know that there are lots of probiotics in the health food store, and you want to ask that most health food stores have somebody who specializes in vitamins, and you want to get a probiotic that’s in the refrigerator section because it’ll be a better version of a probiotic. You want to get one that’s dairy-free. They have powder options that you could put in a smoothie, or you can get a capsule, and there are spore-based biotics. It’s a good idea to replenish the health of your gut. With some probiotics, you can easily eat prebiotics. Probiotics are easy to find in fermented sauerkraut or fermented pickles, and you may go, Well, I don’t like sauerkraut. If you eat a teaspoon of sauerkraut or kimchi every day, you are feeding your gut with the prebiotics that it needs to help. You have healthy eliminations.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

I love it. These are great suggestions. I want to add that these are the kinds of things that health coaches can help people with. If you are feeling overwhelmed and thinking, I don’t know if I can do this, or if you have a caregiver who is saying, I don’t know if I can help in these areas, then look at the possibility of working with a health coach. Thank you, and I love your message that healing is possible. Can you comment on some of the mindset that somebody with Parkinson’s might be thinking, “Oh, I can’t do this; it’s all overwhelming and just doesn’t know where to start or just feels very discouraged?”

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

The message from Standard Medicine is one of those. So the more you can put yourself in a bubble of positivity and listen to podcasts that are going to support healthy movement and healthy ways of eating, and all of this is free; it just costs money to go on to YouTube and listen to podcasts. Instead of watching some program on television, which is not going to move you forward, you can listen to a podcast where they talk about a positive mindset, where they teach you how to do yoga or something, or if you can’t get out of your chair. There are chair positions that you can do in yoga positions just by sitting. Movement is health. Don’t underestimate even 5 minutes of movement and how it can shift the physiology in your brain and your gut. The more you move, the healthier you’ll be. Movement is critical because Parkinson’s is a disease of constriction.

It’s a disease where metabolically more and more is taken away from you, and you want to work very hard to keep as much of you as you can. Our society doesn’t talk about work and health. Work has a negative connotation, but work gives you positive benefits for maintaining your health. Wherever you are, if you’ve let certain things slide, you can get some of that back. You don’t need to be where you are. You can move up. As Sandy said, “Health coaches are great for that.” It’s very important to get mindset support because mindset, from where I sit, whether it’s Parkinson’s, breast cancer, infertility, or whatever the illness is, is the beginning of health and transforming your life. You have to believe that you deserve to get better, even if it’s just a little bit. Sometimes a little bit makes a big difference in the quality of your life.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

That’s so beautifully said. The psychologist in me is thinking back to when I was practicing psychology and I did work with people with Parkinson’s. All kinds of imagery flow around; you see the expanding expansion of the breath as you inhale, and just the power of imagery to imagine stillness went a long way. But I want to just touch on something you said about movement and how that could be helpful for constipation. If you care to comment on that,

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Movement stimulates your smooth muscles, whether they’re in your hands, your legs, your esophagus, or your intestines. Movement stimulates smooth muscle, and the more you stimulate your smooth muscle, the more easily the fecal material is transported out of your body. The beauty of functional medicine is that the message is that it’s not just for Parkinson’s. It’s also your lifestyle. It’s your mindset; it’s how you’re eating. It’s how you’re spending your free time. It’s the quality of your relationships. That is the beauty of a functional medicine approach to illness and disease. It doesn’t matter what the disease is. All of these strategies go into helping people recover their health and restore their lives. So when you have a diagnosed source of Parkinson’s, words matter.

Instead of saying I have Parkinson’s, it’s important to shift that a little bit to say I have a diagnosis of Parkinson’s because that keeps you. Parkinson’s is that they’re out a little bit, which we want because you are not Parkinson’s, you, or you have a diagnosis of Parkinson’s. You want to create space in your psyche, and that space enables you to do the work of transforming your life. Clean up your diet, go on YouTube, and find some free content. If you cannot afford to hire a coach, there is a lot of free information readily available out there. Switch to a more plant-based diet. Be very conscious of how you’re spending your food dollars. Divorcing the standard American diet is a radical act for your health, and that is what needs to happen. More vegetables, more organic food, less boxed food, less processed food, and more farm-to-table meats. The other aspect of Parkinson’s is that it’s based on the substantia nigra. You don’t want to be eating a lot of red meat. If you are eating red meat, it must be farm-to-table organic. None of this junk from Costco or Safeway or over-the-counter hotdogs or hamburgers because you’re increasing your symptoms when you do that.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Good to know, Carol. Where can people find you?

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Well, I have a website, which is my name. It’s Carol Lourie. My last name is spelled carollourie.com. There’s a Contact Me page. I read every email I get from people, and I’d be happy if I responded to everyone.

Sandra Scheinbaum, PhD

Thank you. You have provided so much in this interview. many practical tips and so much wisdom. Thank you for being a guest at the Parkinson’s Solutions Summit.

Carol Lourie, ND, LAc

Thank you so much for including me. Bye for now.