I happen to be at a family gathering and one of my relatives tells me that they're taking calcium and
vitamin D right and and they're basing it off of a pretty good recommendation as you would
think but what I want to be very clear about is that some of the information in medicine
I'm sorry it's just wrong and it's outdated and it's not right and so what I want to do is be
very clear with you that oftentimes doctors are giving you information that's old and out
of date and so what I want you to start doing is challenging them a little bit and having resources
that you can challenge them with right you don't want to be the relative at the table that's like
yeah well I you know I saw some doctor on YouTube and she was saying blah blah blah they're going
to stop listening to you but if you come with your own data from some from a clinical trial
or a study then you will be the champion at the table and I want you to be the champion because
as much school as I've been to through and as much as I consistently try to improve my education on
this piece um you know family members still going to think that I'm the crazy younger sister right
so I want you to have a better outcome when you're presenting this information to them
and and so just to be clear you know when we look at this so if you look at up to date here
it basically says that you know if you have osteoporosis you should be taking 1200 milligrams
of of calcium and 800 milligrams of vitamin D and as a person of color as a black woman I know that
we have our families on vitamin D you know it just is you know I've been looking at vitamin
D levels since I even started in medicine since I since before I'm as smart as I am now and vitamin
D is amazing but vitamin D without magnesium but an added calcium is a ticking time bomb and you
get calcium from your Tums you get calcium from your multivitamin some people are actually even
taking a calcium supplement and so what I want to do is we will talk about how all of that can
potentially be a deadly combination for some of us and instead of it being something that
anyone could ever tell you about it will come up as being like oh well you know they're black you
know they don't eat right so they had heart disease or heart attack that's why sometimes
you hear about people who maybe seemed really healthy on the outside and everything see you
know they're eating right they're doing all these taking all these vitamins and maybe
they drop dead maybe they had a stroke maybe they had a heart attack what are some of the
potential things that they could have been doing that they thought they were doing right that in
actuality they were doing wrong and I think it's important that I continue to bring this type of
information to you because not only is it going to affect an impact erectile function but it will
impact your heart you know so it doesn't give to us any good if we get the dick working and
then you you have a heart attack on me I've been really excited to share this with you because it
really has really touched me when I when I heard it because I know that my family member may not
listen to me but but you guys might and what I really want you to do with anything that you
hear from me or anywhere else I want you to do a little research on it and feel feel it out so
when we think about heart disease and heart attack and erectile dysfunction and we talk about blood
flow what I want you to start thinking more about is vascular disease blood vessel disease and
ultimately what happens naturally over time whether we wanted to or not there are blood
vessels actually start to age and as they start to age they actually start to lose elasticity
so elasticity when the elasticity of our blood vessels actually starts to decrease
what happens in in in replacement is that it actually starts to stiffen the arteries
and so what I want you to think about and I and I've been kind of drawing this out trying
to figure out how is the best way to demonstrate this to you so that you can actually talk about it
and know about it I want you to think about it in terms of you know so so take a picture take a look
at this blood vessel that I drew here so this blood vessel up top really represents like if
you look at these little red areas at the bottom this represents the lining or the endothelium of
the blood vessels right so what we really want are we want these smooth muscle cells to kind
of be elastic and not stiff so unfortunately what happens just naturally as we age and which can be
accelerated based off of lifestyle and diet and things like that is that these bottom endothelial
layer actually can start to become replaced by by kind of like bony tissue like hardened tissue and
unfortunately what we thought we were doing when we were taking vitamin D and calcium together
um it it to make our bones stronger is in actuality going to deposit bone-like
substances into the endothelium or the lining of the blood vessel so that we actually move from
something that looks like this to something that looks like this so if you notice the decreased
blood flow and the constriction of the arteries because if you remember when we were talking about
even blood pressure one of the things about blood pressure is that you know as you start to age or
as your blood vessels start to catch some type of disease or become diseased or become to the
point where they're not functioning like they should because your nitric oxide levels aren't
aren't causing it to con to expand like you want it to or because the arteries have gotten so stiff
they're not expanding like you wanted to what what happens over time is that that naturally
happens and then what we're doing is the calcium which is supposed to stay outside of the cell
the calcium and the phosphate together that are kind of these electrolytes that are floating
around in our system that are the phosphate is released from our bones they actually are going
to combine and form a calcium and phosphate substance that then causes stiffening of the
blood vessels and unfortunately when these this calcium and phosphate comes together to form
a calcium and phosphate Bond they take and put bone-like deposits into the lining of the blood
vessels so that now the blood vessels actually start to become stiff and hardened and we call
that vascular calcification so the the thing that I want to be really clear about is that it
is very old school information to tell patients to take vitamin D and calcium and unfortunately
a lot of doctors haven't gotten the memo and then unfortunately some of the multivitamins that you
may buy might have it in there and particularly as a person of color vitamin D becomes one of those
things right we're on vitamin D because you know you want to keep your vitamin D levels elevated
but if you have higher levels of calcium either because you're taking Tums did you know that
Tums is basically calcium so if you're taking Tums on a regular basis and maybe some vitamin
D on a regular basis you are potentially setting yourself up to stiffen and Harden your arteries
at an exponential rate right so stiff blood vessels are associated with you know so vascular
calcification is associated with hypertension heart disease stroke kidney disease circulation
problems and blood clots show me you know if you happen to be a black person show me a person a
person of color who doesn't have a family member that has had one of those things right so with
that being the case you don't want to be on anything that could potentially worsen your
your risk of developing that so so what I want you to start doing is thinking about what exactly are
you taking and what are you taking it for every supplement every vitamin that you take should
be taken with intent and it should be taken with purpose because unfortunately this is a fine-tuned
balance this is a machine that God created to be in a balanced State and if you throw in the
balance off by putting on vitamins and supplements that your body does not need but not only does not
need but cannot handle that is when we we make disease that is when we make things worse right
so I want you to think about it like this are you taking Tums there's so much calcium in it
um and are you taking a potential medication that could be increasing calcium right and if
you're doing that and you're taking vitamin D on top of it this is a ticking time on because What
vitamin D does is vitamin D helps just open up the channels and escort that calcium and
phosphate combination right into the lining of the blood vessel and it is deadly I am not the type
of doctor that makes a whole lot of energy just trying to scare you because that's not who I am
I I feel like everybody's different and you know there's no need to be scared there's no bit of
alarm even when there's an emergency situation I handle it in a slow meticulous fashion because I
know that if we you know if we Panic all hell breaks loose but I do want to know that it you
have to be in an extremely cautious state if you are taking anything that elevates your calcium
and on top of that some vitamin D or if you happen to have elevated calcium in your body
for whatever reason and you're taking vitamin D on top of it because that vitamin D will escort
that calcium as it forms a crystal right into the blood vessels and create stiffened arteries
so you get so another thing when you're taking a vitamin or a multivitamin that has calcium in it
and you're taking vitamin D you've got to got to got to add magnesium into the mix magnesium is a
natural calcium channel blocker and it can help reduce the stiffness or the calcifications that
can accumulate into the blood vessel that makes them stiff so you know if you notice there's been
a couple high profile African Americans that have either died or had a stroke recently and
loved ones will say listen this is a very healthy person they exercise they watched what they ate
and so on and so forth so what which cues you in on the fact that there's there's way more to this
than just diet and exercise right you've got to take into consideration what are the electrolytes
doing what are the what are the minerals doing in my body and are they serving me properly and one
of the things that I think that the majority of us could use more of is magnesium and you've got
to add magnesium into the mix if you're taking calcium and vitamin D together as a matter of
fact vitamin D without magnesium can't really work and what it will do instead is it will
sit around in your body and find other things to do other than what it should be doing and that's
ultimately part of the problem we we throw these vitamins and these supplements into your body
thinking well if I get more of it I'm going to be healthier I'm going to be better but what you're
not taking into consideration that everything that comes into the body needs to be used and
if it's not used it needs to be removed from the body and so if you're putting some stuff in there
that the body doesn't know what to do with or it already has too much of it it can create
pathological situations and calcium is a perfect example of something that the doctors are telling
you to take that you should absolutely not take ask any functional medicine doctor any holistic
doctor in in the world ask them do you put any of your patients on calcium and we'll all tell
you no because it has been very clear since the 90s that calcium and vitamin D together can be a
ticking Time Bomb for everybody so they say you know like like these recommendations are always
like a thousand to 1500 milligrams of calcium but calcium with low magnesium will calcify
your blood vessels so you want hard bones but you don't want hard blood vessels hard blood vessels
stiffened arteries will lead to stroke heart attack blood clots eventually it just is that
that's what cardiovascular disease really is so it is a deadly combination to combine vitamin D and
calcium together without having enough magnesium on board now keep in mind that two-thirds of us
aren't getting enough magnesium from our diet on a daily basis magnesium isn't under vegetables like
they used to be magnesium is really hard to find so if if you have to ask me Doc what supplements
do you make sure that everybody around you is taking it's magnesium unless of course they have
kidney disease then I leave that up to their kidney specialist but for the average person
magnesium along with vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids that that those are the basics and then you
add on from there but nobody nobody nobody should be on calcium unregulated without the addition
of magnesium along with that vitamin D it is a ticking Time Bomb waiting to happen and calcified
and hardened arteries vascular calcification is really kind of some of the times what we find when
we're dealing with erectile dysfunction right those arteries are stiff they're hard and they
can't relax enough to fill up with blood so one of the things that you always want to do is you
want to start with the pump you want to make sure that you are getting all the nutrients that you
need you want to make sure that you're boosting nitric oxide levels test your nitric oxide levels
don't be afraid to know where things stand nitric oxide test is really easy you take your test strip
you take it out you're going to look for the saliva end it says Place saliva here huh [Music]
put it on your tongue for about five minutes then you fold it and you're going to fold the
two sides together and it's just that simple and 10 seconds later you know whether or not you are
depleted with your your nitric oxide levels you match it up against the chart and you can tell
whether you're very high or whether you're very low nitric oxide is essential to the blood vessel
dilating and expanding or Contracting so you need the nitric oxide to even be able to expand but if
those arteries are stiff and hardened now what we need to do is try to get them unstiff and when you
look at clinical evidence and of even just really knowing that someone has cardiovascular disease
or stiffened arteries there's great clinical data on stiffened arteries whether it was because of
chronic kidney disease or just cardiovascular disease the blood vessels being diseased being
on magnesium for three months six months at a time and actually there's really good data that shows
that there's been reverse a reversal so I want you to want it to be clear that just because you have
diseased blood vessels today doesn't mean that the blood vessels have to stay that way you can really
start to heal and I think the biggest ways to heal blood vessels is to boost nitric oxide production
but also start to decrease the calcification that's present in the arteries in the big way
is to boost magnesium intake whether it's from adding more spinach into your diet pumpkin seeds
that's a big one so we got the pumpkin seeds with magnesium and we got pumpkin seeds with giving
us what we need to to to help suppress prostate issues right so pumpkin seeds are perfect sprinkle
some pumpkin seeds on pretty much everything that you're eating you know you can grind them up and
put them in your smoothies you can snack on them in the car but pumpkin seeds will boost magnesium
and they'll also boost and help with prostate management or of course you can take a really good
process a magnesium supplement and you're going to ask me da what's the best magnesium supplement
and it just really depends on the person because the diff the different magnesium salts that you
see marketed are designed they're either magnesium glycinate magnesium stearate magnesium citrate and
they're adding that that extra component on there that's salt on there so that it can actually be
better absorbed so you know when we're thinking about the different types of magnesium supplements
we are talking more so about well what are some of our goals is it or is the person constipated does
the person have a bunch of anxiety that needs to be dealt with does the person have heart disease
so we really base the different magnesium salts based off of what is the end game so of course
before you take anything you want to check in with your doctor but I'm just going to tell you
if you have a Doctor Who's got you on some form of calcium and and vitamin D together you know
you need to fire the doctor I'm sorry you just do let's just face it some doctors are better
than others and that would be a dud doctor and I challenge any doctor that tells me otherwise okay
um so so so really honestly check your labels know what you're taking and know what you're
taking it for because you don't want your supplements to actually you know that are
designed to help you be part of the reason that you're not feeling great okay so great awesome