Dr Jenny Goodman

Jingle 0:00
Habits and health episode 52. Welcome to the habits and health podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. Here's your host, Tony Winyard.

Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to one year of habits and health, yes the Habits & Health podcast started exactly one year ago, this day this week, episode 52. Dr. Jenny Goodman is my guest today. She recently released a book or in the last couple of years, called Staying alive in toxic times. And it's an absolutely superb book. I've read it three times, because there's just so much good information in there. And I was delighted that Jenny accepted the invitation to be a guest on the show. We cover lots of different ground around habits and nutrition and toxicity and many other areas. So hope you enjoy this week's episode with Dr. Jenny Goodman. habits and health my guest today Dr. Jenny Goodman, How are you Jenny?

Dr Jenny Goodman 1:11
I'm very well, thank you. Pleased to be joining you.

Tony Winyard 1:14
And I am so happy that you're here. I mentioned to you just now before we started recording, I've read your book numerous times. Now. I think I'm on the third time it may be the fourth. I don't know. But it's it's a fantastic book. For people who who have come to this may be don't know so much about you. When you meet someone in a networking meeting what do you say about your background?

Dr Jenny Goodman 1:38
Oh, gosh, well, um, I've started calling myself a rebel medic, or a radical doctor. And I qualified a million years ago back in 1982. And I, you know, I worked as a junior hospital doctor for a while, I worked in a&e. And I liked that best because I felt everything I was doing was right. But in all other departments of the hospital, I felt everything we're doing is too little too late, or actually making people worse. Or certainly I didn't learn much about healing, and even less about the causes of illness and the prevention of illness. And I used to ask questions on the ward rounds, like why has this person got liver cancer? Or why is this person so ill? And not only did I not get an answer, the very question itself was taboo. Now that's improved a little bit, but not that much. So, you know, basically, I couldn't find a way of doing what I had imagined medicine would be, until very luckily, in the 1990s, I discovered the British society for ecological medicine. Now, that was a bunch of doctors, disillusioned medics, asking all the same questions. I'd been asking, Why is this person got healed? How can we prevent it? Why are millions of us dying of cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, what's going on with all these real pandemics? And these guys were finding answers. So I was very lucky, I did a two year post grad training with them in ecological medicine. And I found them just at the time that course was beginning. So it was serendipitous. And what ecological medicine is, which I've now been practising for 22 years, is it's ecological in two ways. One is that it sees the whole body as one joined up ecosystem. So for example, you might have a pain in your joints, painful joints, and you get sent to the rheumatologist, you also have a persistent skin rash, and so you're sent to the dermatologist, but you also have palpitations and so you're sent to the cardiologist. Now, those three speciality is those three specialists will never speak to each other. They'll never sit in a room and say, what's going on in this person's body, but suddenly, they have these three problems. And if you could magically put them in a room together, they wouldn't know what to say to each other. So ecological medicine is saying, Look, all these things are going on in one person, one body, what is the link? What is the cause? Or more likely, what are the multiple causes contributing to that? And we look for the causes, in terms of nutrition, what's going on, and what's failing to go in for various reasons. And we can come in a minute to why most of us in the West are actually paradoxically, undernourished. Even if we're in beast, we're undernourished. And the other thing, of course we look at is the environment and environmental medicine is crucial, because it's looking at the toxins in our Earth, our soil, and therefore our food, and our water and our air that are making us ill and behind so many of these new post industrial epidemics. Now, the other sense in which ecological medicine is ecological is that it sees the human body within the wider ecosystem of the planet. You know, we are part of nature. And if we try to see ourselves as separate, the consequences are pretty disastrous. So you know, we're extracting All these resources which are finite from the earth and poisonous in the process. And as I think I say, at the beginning of chapter seven, you can't poison the planet without poisoning the people. So ecological medicine, in practice is an education about what we're doing to ourselves on the planet and how to reverse it. But also how to help the individual person, understand why they're lacking in nutrients, why they're poisoned, and how to change it. And there are many, many ways of changing it of getting better nutrition, and avoiding the environmental toxins. And they're simpler than you might expect.

Tony Winyard 5:40
When you said in the 90s, you joined the Society of ecological medicine...

Dr Jenny Goodman 5:47
society for ecological medicine?

Tony Winyard 5:51
I gather from what you said, it wasn't so big then, Are there many more people now?

Dr Jenny Goodman 5:57
I believe it started back in 1983, I think from the merger of two societies, one about nutrition and one about allergy and environmental toxins, it was called something different back then it's getting bigger all the time. And we've got more and more doctors applying to join. And not just GPS anymore, but all sorts of consultants from every speciality, who want to know how to really help their patients, and how to help them long term, improve their health and stay well, rather than just suppress the symptoms and treat what presents in the moment. So give you an example. Again, if you go to your doctor, your GP and you say, Oh, I've got symptoms in every system of the body, my head hurts, I've got a headache, I'm exhausted, I've got muscle pain, I can't think straight, my brain is not working properly. And let's say you're a woman and your menstrual cycles, all disrupted, and your joints are hurting, and you're a bit short of breath. Now that is symptoms in about five or six different body systems. Your poor old beleaguered GP will scratch her head and say, Do you know what it's all in your head, nobody can have that many illnesses at once, and will give you a prescription for an antidepressant, which of course will only make things worse. But the irony is that when the GP says it's all in your head, they may be literally correct, because most of the toxins in our environment that are damaging us are things like pesticides, or plastics, plasticizer, chemicals, and petrochemicals, all of which are fat soluble, technically, they're called lipophilic, which means they dissolve in fatty tissue, that means they'll get through the skin, for example, the benzene in a commercial perfume, and then they'll get through all the cell membranes into all the cells. And they will accumulate wherever we have most fatty tissue, which is in the brain. Right? So our brains are being damaged at every stage of the lifecycle by these fat soluble petrochemicals, which are everywhere. And chapter seven, and my book is full of all sorts of tips on how to avoid them, and identify them and get them out of your system permanently if they're in there. Yeah, so the GPU says it's all in your head maybe being rather more accurate than he thinks.

Tony Winyard 8:27
You mentioned about the growth of the the Ecological Society and, there seem to be many other sort of similar movements such as integrative medicine and functional medicine. Around the world, this looking at everything holistically seems to be happening much more now. It's

Dr Jenny Goodman 8:45
taking off. And frankly, doctors have been slow on the uptake. Because for hundreds of years, we've had herbalist, herbal herbal medicine is the oldest medicine in the world. It's simple. It's earth based, you take the plant, and you learn over hundreds of years. Empirically what makes people better although herbalist now of course, have all the biochemistry backing up what they've been doing all along. So holistic medicine has been very much in the alternative medicine world but the past three or four decades, doctors have been rushing to catch up. Functional Medicine is the American term.

And I have a problem with it because it doesn't tell you much. But in conventional medicine, functional has the association of imaginary or psychosomatic or being all in your mind. So it's confusing for us over here. Ecological medicine is the British version. It's been going for much longer. The British society for ecological medicine is an educational charity. Basically we want reran trainings, the Institute for Functional Medicine while it does absolutely brilliant trainings, it is a commercial organisation you know, it is not not for profit, it is for profit. And so they're much bigger, much louder and they have the Very intensive five day trainings, which are very good, because graduates of that training have sat in with me on my consultations, and they know their stuff. So this is blooming everywhere, especially in the past couple of years. And a lot of it, it's just common sense, you know, if the body is not working while you ask yourself, What's it missing? What does it need, and often what it needs is the nutrients that are or should be in our normal food. Okay, so vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, plenty of water, plenty of good proteins should simply be part of our food. But even if you're eating a really healthy, so called balanced diet, or we could argue till the cows come home, or the lentils come home about what constitutes balance, and but even if you're eating everything, right, it's not necessarily the case that your vitamins and minerals and everything you need is in that food. And this is where we cannot separate health from modern agricultural practices. Okay, so after the Second World War, there was this panic about food security. And the idea that we must be self sufficient, and therefore, we must, although we're not, and we must grow much more intensively. So farmers were encouraged to use all these pesticides and nitrogen fertilisers, which make no mistake were derived from nerve gases used in both World Wars. And you know, once the war was over, the manufacturers needed an outlet. And that combined with the government's desire to produce food much more intensively. So what we're looking at now many decades later, is we're looking at soil that's utterly depleted of its nutrients. Because if you force the soil to grow three or four crops in a year, was previously it was only sustaining one crop. And if you put on so much fertiliser, that you've forced the plants to take all the nutrients out of the soil, then you've got depleted soil, you've got depleted crops, if you eat those vegetables, and those fruits, and those grains and those pulses, there's not enough nutrients in them. And if you eat the animals that have been fed on those crops, you're also eating food that's been depleted. And not only are they depleting the soil, they're poisoning it with the pesticides and with the fertilisers. And by the way, one of the waste products of the phosphate fertiliser industry is fluoride, which they're not allowed to release from factory chimneys get this because it's too toxic. So they're trying to put it in our water supply. And they've already put it in toothpaste and in the drops that the dentist puts on your kid's teeth without asking you or telling you, and so on. So, it's an inter woven Web. As Daniel Barenboim said, everything is connected. And that's why some of us some of the time, need nutritional supplements, because there just isn't enough in our food. Now, you can increase your nutrient intake, for example, rather than just eating salad, you can reduce it. And you can make a lot of vegetable juice, which has got concentrated nutrients. And of course, if you eat organic, if you eat real Soil Association approved organic, then you're not eating the pesticides, and you're not eating my fertilisers. And I think that's the single most important change and the first change even if it's the only change to make. Now people do say to me, but you know, organic food is so expensive. Well, the first thing to say is yes, it is and it shouldn't be and write to your MP and say, Why does the government continue to subsidise the big agro chemical farmers who cover our landscape with these uniform mono crops of rapeseed oil and, and ruin the biodiversity in the soil, which leads to lack of biodiversity in our gut? damages our microbiome? Why aren't they subsidising the good old organic farmers who are keeping us healthy? So that's one response. The second response is, what proportion of your income do you spend on food? Because in the 1950s, we spent about a third of our total income on food. It's gone down and down and down. Now it's about 8%. On average. Yeah, I mean, I have some lovely neighbours down the road, who say to me, gosh, how can you afford all that organic food? Oh, by the way, and I got to cancel next week's that social gathering because we're going to Australia for six weeks, which is obviously a story from before the pandemic, right. And these people literally went on a six week holiday to Australia and claimed they can't afford organic food. Now, I can't afford a holiday in Australia. Not that it would be my chosen destination right now. But because I choose to prioritise eating organic, and the third thing or the fourth thing, whichever it is, it's If you're a meat eater, if you're a carnivore, then changing to organic means that instead of eating chicken or beef or lamb or pork five or six times a week, you can afford to eat it only once or twice a week, but make sure it's organic, and free range. And that's better for you and the planet in lots of different ways. So the sad thing is, we end up in a situation where however, well we try to eat, some of us need some supplements some of the time, you know, in a British winter, we need vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc. And in a viral pandemic, I would say we need those even through the summer, although that may not be the case this summer 2022.

Tony Winyard 15:43
You were talking about the organic food and how the soil has so many more nutrients and the plants and so but something else as well about the organic food, which I think a lot of people don't don't know about is when the vegetables haven't been subjected to all those so called protection, pesticides and herbicides and so on. They then have to fend for themselves. So they create additional sort of nutrients, which are beneficial for us as well,

Dr Jenny Goodman 16:14
indeed, and in regenerative agriculture, they're utilising that capacity of plants to protect themselves. So there have always been predators. There have always been pests. But yes, you're right. Plants have always produced substances to protect themselves from their their enemies in nature. And one of the ways to make this work even better is what's called companion planting. So you get these problems with pests and predators. If you have monoculture. If you only growing one crop over a vast area, then any pests that like to feed on that crop will will come in and will overgrow will multiply hugely with if you've got 10 or 12 different types of plants in one small acreage, then they protect each other in I mean marigolds like calendula and garlic will protect other crops because they'll fend off the predators and so on. So agro ecology, including agroforestry, or forested agriculture, is utilising this so you don't just have the crop you're growing, you have lots of different crops, you have trees, and you have animals doing what animals have done on farms for 10,000 years, which is wandering around and pooing. So they naturally fertilise the soil. And they some of the things that you don't want to be there. Some of the things that you do want to be there, but it's all about balance. So mixed Farms is the way to go small scale, family size mixed farms, where you grow a little bit of everything. And there are lots of really exciting ventures happening in this regard now. And I'm hoping to put a lot about regenerative farming in my next book, because you know, we cannot separate what's happening in the field, from what's happening in our gut, which just takes me back to another point about why we may be nutritionally deficient deficient, even if we're eating well, and that is that our guts aren't working so well. Our small intestine and stomach generally is not as good as it was a few generations ago at absorbing the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids from our food. Because the microbiome is compromised, we haven't got so many friendly good bugs in there. And we've got an awful lot of unfriendly ones. And that's because, firstly, we've been eating foods that's contaminated with pesticides. So just as those pesticides kill bugs in the soil, they will kill bugs in our intestine. But it's also because of antibiotics. And the antibiotics are not just what you get from your GP. They're what you get from eating non organic, non free range animal food. And they may even be coming out of your tap. Because every animal that's been dosed with antibiotics, and every human that's been taking antibiotics is paying and that goes down the loo into the sewage into the water table into the water system. And the water companies bless them. They take bacteria out of our water supply, but they do not take antibiotic residues, pesticide residues, fertiliser residues, which have runoff from the soil into the reservoirs. They don't remove heavy metal traces, and they don't remove the hormones. Now the hormones are in there because of all the women taking the pill or taking HRT. And now after Brexit, it's not illegal to inject hormones into animals, and therefore animals may be injected with hormones and that may get into our water table as well. So for all those reasons, but particularly the antibiotics and pesticide residues, our guts are not working as well as they might be. Taking the contraceptive pill also interferes with the balance of the bugs in the gut in coverage is the overgrowth of funky, fungal organisms. And of course, some funghi are good and some are bad, but it's all about balance. So there are lots of reasons. And of course, the main one is eating sugar. If we eat lots of sugar, we feed the unfriendly bugs in the microbiome. And just cutting sugar out the diet and having lots of dark green leafy vegetables can be enough to shift the microbiome to a healthier balance. And then your whole gut will start digesting and absorbing better.

Tony Winyard 20:31
You mentioned there about the water and all the various toxins and so on in the water. So for anyone listening to this, who's alarmed by what you just said, What recommendations would you make about what they could do?

Dr Jenny Goodman 20:44
Don't be alarmed, get a water filter. And in Oh, I think chapter seven and quite a few other places in the book, I do recommend, how to choose a water filter and how to get a good one. But a couple of criteria are make sure that the company you're buying from has been in the business of making water filters for a few decades. Make sure they didn't just jump on the bandwagon last week. And secondly, I would advise if you can, if you're living in your own home, to get a plumbed in water filter, not just the countertop one. And the couple of I mean if you if you're a student in a bed set, then a countertop water filter is absolutely better than nothing. But it's not ideal because the jug into which the water is filtering may well be plastic. Now if it's hard plastic and you keep it somewhere cold, that's all right. But it's soft, if it's soft plastic and the sun is shining on it through the window. Then the plasticizer chemicals like BPA Bisphenol A and others can get into the water. Ideally, you also want to plumbed in whole house water filter because it's not just that you want to be drinking water that hasn't got chlorine and fluoride and all the other nasties in it. You also want to be cooking your rice or boiling your pasture if you're still eating faster or whatever. With water that hasn't got those toxins in they want to be making a cup of tea with water that hasn't got those toxins in and you also want to be having a bath or a shower in water that hasn't got those toxins in. I mean, it took me I have to be on for years and years and years to get round to this laughter I knew about it. So only about two years ago. Did we finally get rid of our plumbed in water filter that was for the kitchen only and get a whole house water filter. Okay, holidays cancelled lockdown happened to get a plumbed in water filter. And I noticed the difference immediately

inserted my grown up kids and my husband who said Oh, having a long hot bath isn't irritating my skin anymore. I've stopped itching after the bath or after the shower. And now I can smell the chlorine in the water in other people's homes. And I really noticed that I can get in the shower however long I stayed It doesn't smell of chlorine. Now of course it's it's a small amount compared to the swimming pool, but it's every day. So I think again, that's an investment worth making. Now it shouldn't be necessary, but it now we'll be more than ever. I don't know if any of you have noticed our beloved and beleaguered Prime Minister Dr. Boris Johnson a few weeks ago discovered a sudden deep concern for Children's Dental Health. Isn't that remarkable how much he cares about children's teeth. So he said we've got to put fluoride in the water supply throughout the UK. Now, it's already been in the water supply in some parts of the UK for a very long time. Birmingham and the West Midlands. Now in my practice, I've seen children as well as adults from all over Britain and Ireland in Europe. And many of them have neurodevelopmental disorders, whether or not it's diagnosed as autism or whatever neurodevelopmental delay, and some of them have bone disorders. And there is a disproportionate number of those kids that I've seen. This is just my experience from Birmingham in the West Midlands where they've had fluoride in their water supply for many decades. I think they were the guinea pigs for this in the UK. And the number of kids with bone and brain problems from as I've seen is quite extraordinary. And back in the 90s, I saw statistics that they had a much higher rate than the national average of osteosarcoma, which is a very dangerous primary bone tumour I can't find those papers anymore. But the point is that it used to be up to the local council the local authorities to decide what they would put in their water supply. And there are other parts of the UK now that I think have this um, Southampton and parts of the Northeast parts of Cheshire and the Republic of Ireland has it as well. London doesn't at the moment, but it's very Interesting that most states in America do have fluoride artificially added to their water supply. And Scandinavia has never done it. And nowhere in Europe now has fluoride in the water, they've made that decision for the good of their population. So I think we need to campaign against it. Fluoride alert, there's fluoride alert group in the UK, you need to write to our MPs about it, but if it goes through, we must filter our water. Now, for those of you who did chemistry GCSE, or O level, if you're as old as I am, you remember that fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and Id are all in the same group. On the periodic table of the elements, they're all what's called halogens. And they look a bit similar to the body, they all have seven electrons in the outermost orbit, and therefore they can displace each other. So one of the ways in which fluoride has been damaged in us is to push iodine out of the body, we need it. And it's crucial for not just the thyroid, but the stomach, the breasts, the saliva glands, the prostate, the ovaries, so it can damage or that can damage the kidneys and the bones as well. So taking a little bit of IRD is to some extent of protection against this. But the most important thing is to make sure you're drinking from it's not naturally part of the human physiology.

Jingle 26:27
We hope you are enjoying this episode of the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you're looking for the fastest and most effective way to transform your energy and wellbeing, we invite you to join Tony for an upcoming habits and health workshop. This five week group workshop will empower you tools to disrupt unwanted habits and make positive changes easy. You'll enjoy sound asleep, better energy, less stress, and a happier mood Workshops begin on the first week of every month. And you can sign up now at the Tonywinyard.com. Now back to the show.

Tony Winyard 27:08
A few minutes ago, you you touched upon supplements. And something that I've noticed recently is I listened to quite a few podcasts. And I'm often reading and it's there's a few doctors who I really respect in some of the information that they give out and some of the podcasts that they're doing. But there's a couple of people who I do enormously respect and give great information. That something that's kind of disturbed me recently is they've been printing lists of supplements, they take. I don't know if I'm reading this wrong, but as far as I'm concerned, what supplements are suitable for one person depends on their metabolism, the gene history and so many other things. And these doctors that are printing, "this is what I take" Well, that doesn't mean most of the people looking at that list, it would be appropriate for

Dr Jenny Goodman 27:59
Yes, I think that's right. I mean, you think you know, nutritional supplementation, like any medical intervention should be individualised. It should be personalised medicine. And it is the case mostly mostly the what's right for you. And what's right for me may not be identical. Not only is it different for different people, but it's different for the same person at different stages of their life cycle, depending on their age, and at different seasons of the year. You know, so what I need in the winter and what I need in the summer are different. What I needed pre menopause and what I need post menopause is different. Gender makes it different, you know, if you're pregnant, you need vastly more nutrients of all kinds if you're breastfeeding also. So yes, it should be individualised. But, but particularly with a pandemic, there are certain nutrients that absolutely all of us need. And the first one I would say is vitamin D, vitamin d3 that we would normally get from the sunshine. And before the Industrial Revolution, most people probably got enough during a British summer to just about lost them through the winter, although it would be a struggle. So if you're working outside all day with your arms and legs exposed from April to October, you'd probably make enough vitamin D to just about last you through the winter. But now, even if we have a decent summer, most of us are working indoors. Frankly, unless you're a full time gardener in the British climate, you must have vitamin D supplement to see you through the winter. If you have got dark skin you need more, much more because the sunshine in this country is just woefully inadequate for all of us. But the darker our skin the more woefully inadequate it is. So I would generalise that we all need vitamin D through a British winter. And I think with viruses around we need vitamin C as well through the winter. And lastly again because With the virus, I do think we need think beyond that it does need to be individualised. For example, if you're a vegan, you probably need vitamin B 12.

And you must have vitamin d3 Because it only comes from sunshine, it doesn't come from any non animal food. So it's not there in the vegan diet. So again, you know, if you eat lots of oily fish, you maybe need a bit less vitamin D. And if you're completely exhausted and you're 85 years old, then some co Q 10 would probably be useful for you. But if you're 25, and fit and healthy, you don't need co q 10. Now, obviously, in my practice, I would measure these things, I would do a blood test to find out what your co Q 10 level is. But for people who are elderly or exhausted or have Parkinson's disease, Kochu tam is a fantastic supplement, you know, and then there's the B vitamins. Now, if our guts working properly, and we're eating a very diet with some whole grains and some animal foods, we should get enough vitamin B. But the B vitamins are used up and greatly depleted by stress, emotional stress. And if you can find me someone who hasn't had any emotional stress in the past two years, find you a liar or someone who resides on another planet. Right. So at the moment, I think we do need a good be complex in the morning, particularly if we're tired or we've had a stressful day or we've got a really stressful day coming up. And then there's the toxins we've put into ourselves. Like, you know, alcohol, cigarettes, smoke, you know, paracetamol, which we may need the paracetamol if we got a lot of pain for some reason, but these things deplete all the B vitamins and vitamin C. So the government's recommended daily allowance or a piece of nonsense, they're based on the amount you need to not die of a deficiency disease like scurvy or berry berry. They're not based on the amount you need to be vibrantly healthy. And they're certainly not based on a world in which stress and pollution are draining those vitamins out of your system as fast as you're putting them in. So our needs have increased, and our intake has gone down. Which is why some of us need some supplements some of the time. And in chapter six of my book, which is the shortest chapter is called nourish and flourish. I have a little rant about supplements. Because an extraordinary number of commercially available supplements are full of junk. And I was really shocked because when I was writing that chapter, I went down to my local chemist with my magnifying glass, and studied the ingredients list on the kind of supplements you would buy in the supermarket or the chemists. Hand I was frankly horrified, particularly by the ones marketed at children. Because actual vitamins and minerals were way down the ingredients list, and were in quantities so tiny, that they wouldn't do anything. And most of the studies by the way that the medical establishment has conducted on vitamins and minerals use such tiny amounts that they wouldn't do anything. So firstly, the amounts were too small, but even worse, they were full of fillers and colorings, and emulsifiers and additives, and sugar, and calcium carbonate, which is chalk and doesn't do any harm, but it just bulks it out. And the reason for this is it's very cheap for the manufacturers, it makes it easy to process the supplements by machine rather than by hand. So decent quality supplements. And I do recommend in my book, How to Find Them have got high levels of vitamins and minerals. And those are the first and only things on the ingredients list. Right? You don't need anything else. So it's a bit of a minefield. But there are a few brands in this country, which are really good and really reliable. And don't put any junk in. But the thing is to go to the health food shop with your magnifying glass and read the ingredients list. And if you're ordering supplements online, and you find something you think is right, and you read the ingredients list, and you're not sure, look at half a dozen other products from that same company. And if they've got things like you know, sugar, and by the way, anything that ends in o s e is a sugar, you know, so lactose or sucrose or dextrose anything owes its sugar, if they've got that or they've got calcium carbonate, or they've got anything with a long nasty name and you don't know what it means look it up. And if it's an artificial synthetic chemical, don't buy it and don't buy stuff from that company. But there's a slight caveat here which is you might see something that looks to me like a long Latin name, but it's the Latin name of a plant. Right? So you know, love ven doula Augustifolia might just mean lavender oil. That shouldn't be in your supplements though. It should be in your natural essential oils that are organic and harmless and that you use instead of perfume, which is neither organics more harmless.

Tony Winyard 35:10
What do you think about... I can't remember who it was who said... "when it comes to supplements, if it's in a really fancy bottle, that's really colourful, then it's often to be avoided. And if it's got a more plain bottle, it's after more, you can trust it.

Dr Jenny Goodman 35:25
That may be true, but I wouldn't rely on that, I would seriously take your magnifying glass and whether it's a supplement, or whether it's a ready meal, which I hope you're not buying anyway. But anything from the shop that comes in a package, you've got to read the ingredients list, you know, and this is not just food, this is cosmetics. So if you're buying shampoo or cream to put on your skin, moisturiser, anything like that, read the ingredients list, because we have a right to know what's being put into our bodies. And there's plenty of completely health healthy safe options out there. And they don't make it easy. And particularly with fragrance or perfume, or whatever it's called. They don't have to put an ingredient actually even on the list if it constitutes less than 1%. And there's an American group called the Environmental Working Group, who looked at perfume in great detail. And they found that the average commercial perfume has got 14 unlisted ingredients. Okay, you can't see them if they're unlisted. But you look at the ones that are listed. And if they're quite frightening, and they're long, synthetic chemical names, then don't go near it. I think, you know, we have to adapt a bit. So if you go to your health food shop and you get some organic essential oils, which are What perfume used to be, it's just that petrochemicals are cheaper and more profitable. You can get wonderful smells like Jasmine, lavender, geranium, orange, flower, Rose, these are simply made from the flower because they're natural, they biodegrade quicker, you know, you put it on in the morning, it won't still be there in the evening. You have to add a dab during the day if you want to. But you're not doing yourself any harm. Whereas almost all our commercial products, not just perfume itself, but other things. You know, from your shampoo to whatever you clean your sink with. They've got fragrance added. Right and this is just the petrochemical industry getting its products into everything you use. So open the cupboard under your sink and look at everything you're using for cleaning because you will clean your windows with vinegar and you can wipe your surfaces with a clean damp cloth and you don't want to be spraying antibacterial rubbish everywhere because it only reduces your resistance and kills the good bugs along with the bad and you don't want to be scrubbing your vegetables with soap you want to be buying organic in the first place and looking bathroom cabinet as well. What are you putting on your body you know your aftershave, your deodorant, all this stuff? That if you're eating really well, and exercising and washing regularly, you don't need deodorant. You know, I spent years advising people to get natural deodorants without Hello minium. Without parabens and people would say it doesn't do anything. It doesn't make any difference. Okay, so forget it, you know, there are more toxic things around than the smell of human sweat. And I firmly believe it only smells bad if it's old. Or if it's the smell of fear, the sweat of fear. But if it's just exercise, and you go and have a shower every day, you know, if you're a you know, a testosterone charged young man of 25, and you're exercising like crazy and you sweat a lot, then you have to wash more often. But they've got the kids at secondary school, spraying this atrocious stuff, I won't name it, you know, I don't want to be sued. But it's a it's a four letter word, the worst brand of spray deodorant. And these kids are poisoning themselves in each other in the changing rooms and the teachers of pee are insisting that they do it. And make no mistake, these chemicals that I'm talking about are carcinogenic, they damage DNA, and so they interfere with reproduction and contribute to infertility and to children being born with serious problems and so on. And they also are contributing to cancer because anything that damages DNA is going to cause both birth defects and cancer. And they also because they were originally you know, nerve gases interfere with the nervous system and what are we seeing we're seeing a pandemic of neurodegenerative conditions, like motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimers, autism. All of these things mean that some chemical that's originally a petrochemical dissolves, in fact, is getting into your brain and in some cases, triggering autoimmune reactions as well. So we need to clean up our act by cleaning up our kitchen cupboards and our bathroom cupboards. And yeah, I described how to do that in chapter seven of the book.

Tony Winyard 40:10
You talked about finding ways to use less harmful cleaning products and also in the book you talked about mouthwash and using some combination of herbs and stuff. So I was wondering if in many high streets there are herbalists who could kind of help you with some of this

Dr Jenny Goodman 40:33
and often every high street but certainly practitioners of herbal medicine are brilliant at this. You can find one near you through looking up the National Institute of Medical herbalists the NI MH National Institute of Medical herbalist, any herbalist will be able to make you up a herbal mouthwash, I use one from America called perio, bright perio as in periodontal and the bright without the GH. So br It perio bright, got lots and lots of different herbs in it. If you want to make that or any other herbal mixture even more powerful, add a couple of drops of tea tree oil. Now tea tree is a natural essential oil and it smells like hospitals. You know, it says powerfully antiseptic and everything else. And a couple of drops of Lu golds iodine. Now ideen is still the most powerful antiseptic antiviral, antibacterial antifungal on the planet, which is why they still use it in operating theatres before they make the cut. They swapped the person's skin with liquid iodine. But the thing is, is naturally occurring is cheap. There's no profit in it. So they're pushing all sorts of other antivirals, but the best one there is his Iodine. So a couple of drops of Iodine in your mouthwash is going to improve your oral hygiene tremendously. And so is avoiding sugar. Because if you eat sugar, unfriendly bugs will breed in your mouth and in your gums. And of course, the mouth is the beginning of the digestive tract. So when we talk about gut health and microbiome, you're absolutely right, we have to include the mouth, you can even get mouth probiotics these days, which you can rinse with. And CO q 10, which I mentioned earlier, as an as a supplement to take is also very good for the gums. And of course, so as vitamin C, you know, the first sign of scurvy was gums bleeding.

Tony Winyard 42:32
And in your book there's so many great case studies in there. And we were talking before the recording started, that you had so many other case studies that you'd like to have put in there, but there just wasn't enough space. Does one come to mind...

Dr Jenny Goodman 42:49
There wasn't enough space, Tony. But there's another reason. Some of the other case histories, the publishers considered too scary. I think we need to face being scared a bit in the secure knowledge that there are solutions to these problems. So I'll tell you one of them. And I think it's going to be my next book. A young couple that went on honeymoon to the area between France and Spain in I think it was late March or early April. And they went for a walk through very beautiful orchards, I think peach orchard where the Peach Blossom and the trees were flowering. And they didn't realise till the end of their walk that people were spraying in the orchard. And maybe they weren't flowering because I think they spray before they flower. But anyway, they inadvertently walked through an orchard where people in full protective gear and mosques, which of course these tourists my patients didn't have, we're spraying the trees with some kind of insecticide. And at the end of the walk, the woman collapsed and had to be carried back to the cottage and was vomiting and unable to move for several days came home. Long story short, was ill for over a year before she came to see me had seen a neurologist, a psychiatrist, an endocrinologist and everything ologists. And they'd all said, Well, it's an atypical chronic fatigue. Actually, it's a typical chronic fatigue because pesticide poisoning often contributes to chronic fatigue, although it can be post viral it can be stress can be many other things. So I did lots of tests that I was then able to access and I found two different pesticides at incredibly high level in this woman's fat, right not in the blood because the body's very sensible and it gets these things out of the bloodstream within hours. In her fatty tissue. I found very high levels. Now what these chemicals do, again remember they're derived originally from nerve gases, is they act as an anti colic esterase so they destroy choline esterase. And collagen esterase is the enzyme that breaks down your neurotransmitter acetylcholine, once it's done its job and cross the signups as part of transmitting a nerve impulse through the nervous system. So sorry, this is this is a bit complicated, but basically,

if the enzyme that breaks it down is destroyed, it doesn't get broken down, it accumulates and what you get in the end is paralysis. Too much signal effectively no signal. So this one, spent the first consultation lying on the couch in the consulting room, couldn't sit in the chair, we had to turn all the lights off. We had to go over to the couch, myself and her husband, and she couldn't tell me the story she could barely speak. He told me 90% of her story. And this is someone who before this holiday had been jogging, and she'd been jogging five miles every day she was fit healthy. And now her body wasn't working in her brain wasn't working. Now, it took me about a year and a half to get her substantially better. And what the programme was, was detoxification focused on these pesticides. I gave her a lot of a supplement called phosphatidylcholine. I made her introduce loads of healthy fats into her diet, nuts, seeds, avocados, all the good oils, which is like hemp seed oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, but not the nasty refined stuff you get in plastic bottles in the supermarket that looks like we we, right we're talking makes like Biona or clearspring dark glass bottles organic kept in the fridge, and cold pressed, not extracted with heat and chemicals, cold pressed oils that you never cook with, you just put them on salad. So she had loads of that she had to have loads of vitamins B, C, D, all the minerals, and of course, Omega three and Omega six, but I measured her level because as you said earlier, it has to be personalised, and lots of rest, and lots of organic vegetable juicing with a bit of the good oils in as well. Some coloured colonic hydrotherapy. And once she was able to which took over a year, some saunas to actually sweat out these toxins and the fat soluble toxins do come out onto the skin, but only for the first few minutes. And only if you keep wiping the sweat off with a clean towel. Otherwise, the skin will just reabsorb it again, because that's what it naturally does. It thinks it's reabsorbing the minerals that it doesn't want to lose. It doesn't know we're trying to get rid of fat soluble toxins. So you know, Epsom salts baths and sprouting seedlings on the windowsill. And all those other detox methods, which I describe at the end of chapter seven of the book, which is staying alive in toxic times a seasonal guide to lifelong health. Now, she got better. And I'm not telling you she got 100% better because she didn't it took about 18 months. And she would say she got 80% better. So she was able to work, she was able to walk she was able to function. But she was never going to be happy with you know, fluorescent lights and you know, an evening of drinking wine, her liver couldn't take that anymore. What's very interesting about this is her husband who walked through the same orchard being sprayed was perfectly alright. And I did genetic tests at their request on both of them. There is an enzyme called Pon one, P O N one, para oxygenase. One I think, which does break down organophosphate pesticides. He had the full version of that he had the perfectly functioning version of the gene to make that enzyme from both his parents. She didn't. She had the defective version from both her parents. So she was homozygous for the genetic glitch, and he was fine. So your genetics determines how you will react to these chemicals. Which is why some people for example, cabin crew on airlines get very ill with aerotoxic syndrome, many pilots do as well, and some are absolutely fine. The genetic difference determines how much our post industrial toxic world will damage you. But I think it's important to be clear what's doing the damage is not the genes. It's the toxic chemicals in our environment. So this lady would have been perfectly well before the Industrial Revolution. And that story

Tony Winyard 49:34
makes me think about... so you talked about they're walking through that field and pesticides are being sprayed. So for people in England who maybe live near a farm or there park, there's you know people are spraying stuff on there. How can they be vigilant about stuff? Well,

Dr Jenny Goodman 49:50
first of all, contact a wonderful organisation called PAN. Pesticide Action Network. The Pesticide Action networks are a fantastic charity And they'll tell you which local authorities have already agreed to stop spraying herbicides, weed killers on the grass verges in the park, and which are still doing it, they will give you some hints on how to campaign about it. But yes, local authorities are using these chemicals. And you have to be particularly weary in spring and early summer. And the only thing to do here is to become an activist, contact your local authority and make sure they're not doing this. Because you don't want to take your kids to the park for a picnic and be sitting on the grass where yesterday, they sprayed insecticides, and even closer to home, pets, cats and dogs. Flea collars are impregnated with these insecticides. And I've had these totally surreal conversations with the vets where you'll say, well, when will it be safe for my toddler to stroke the cat or the dog? And they'll say, oh, within 48 hours? And then you say, and how long will this collar or these drops of insecticides that you put between the animals, shoulder blades? How long will they keep being effective and killing the fleas? And they say, oh, three to six months? Now, hang on a minute, stop and think about that is effective for three to six months, but it's safe for your toddler to pet me animal after two days? No, these are very enduring chemicals. They're persistent, they lost, they're still there. And guess what? They are completely safe, natural alternative ways to keep fleas off your pet. Okay, there's a wonderful herb called neem that's m for no one double E M for mother from the neem tree in India. They have been using it to kill bad bugs for 1000s of years. And if you get the powdered bark or leaf of the neem tree, which you can get from a herbal supplier, and you rub that all over your pet, every few months, you will have a green dog or cat for a couple of days. But that doesn't matter. They lick it off. And in licking it off, it acts as a natural worming powder as well. And they will never catch fleas. And it works to get rid of the fleas as well if they've got them. So, you know, you can do that you can use neem powder. And you don't ever need these nasty insecticides from the vet. I think I've got theory that most vets have this strong genetic makeup where they are well able to detoxify these chemicals. Otherwise they'd never get through veterinary school. You know, and they handle chemotherapy agents a lot as well, because dogs and cats are getting cancer as much as we are now. And they're getting chemotherapy and the vets that can handle those things have got strong detox liver enzyme systems. But some of us haven't. And some of our pets haven't either.

Tony Winyard 52:45
We've talked over quite a bit about your your book, which came out a couple of years ago, was it I think it was 2019. And you've mentioned a couple of times

Dr Jenny Goodman 52:52
it came out in January 2020. Oh, right, precisely two months before lockdown, as the hardback and then the paperback came out in March 2021. And they let me add a couple of pages of nutrition for strengthening the immune system to protect against viral infections. So that's on page 255 to six in the paperback.

Tony Winyard 53:18
You've mentioned a couple times about your your new book. So when do you think that will come out and what will

Dr Jenny Goodman 53:24
embryonic it's embryonic Tony, it's really very new. I only have just wound up my clinical practice and retired in November, in order to focus full time on writing. And I broke my ankle, so everything's been a bit derailed. But I took comfrey tea and put comfrey balm on it and already was taking loads of D three and k two. So the bone healed in double quick time. But you know, I'm still hobbling with ligament and tendon sprains from the same injury because the local council hadn't mended a massive hole in my pavement. Therefore, the book has barely begun. I haven't even got a proposal yet. I've got an outline. I've got hundreds of ideas. I'm meeting with my agent in a month's time. So it'll be a good couple of years before it's out. Because these things take time. But I do have ideas for books three, four and five as well. And now I'm going to be focusing on that full time. So watch this space.

Tony Winyard 54:24
And it's definitely something to look forward to. I mean, if it's anywhere near as good as the current book, then yes, definitely. Someone's look forward.

Dr Jenny Goodman 54:30
Thank you. Thank you.

Tony Winyard 54:32
So talking of books. A question I always ask everyone is, is there a book that comes to mind that's really moved you in any way?

Dr Jenny Goodman 54:40
Oh, gosh. You know, I read absolutely constantly and there are so many wonderful books Am I allowed to name two? Okay, so from 1976 There's Marge Piercey's Dystopian and utopian novel called, Woman on the edge of time. And from probably about the same era, I've just read Ursula Le Guins book The Dispossessed everything. Ursula Le Guin writes is absolute genius, but I think my favourite is The Dispossessed. it's about an attempt at a utopian society. But because she's very sophisticated writer not naive, she died recently. Sadly, the utopia is not perfect, and the dystopia is not totally evil either. So she really captures the complexity of life and people's moving and sincere efforts to make a better world.

Tony Winyard 55:35
Jenny if people want to find out more about you and your social media, your website and so on, where do they look?

Dr Jenny Goodman 55:41
Well, my website is simply drjennygoodman.com And on the website, you can find all the links are I'm on all these channels. Now Instagram is far and away the most active one. But I'm posting twice a week now on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. I do have somebody helping me with it because I'm a complete technophobe. But there's a lot of content on there, particularly Instagram. And I can't do it myself, because you have to post a photo and I don't even have a smartphone. That's how low tech I am. And but yeah, I believe that on the website, drjennygoodman.com It's got the links to all those four social media channels. And it's also got the links to the book, and all sorts of other things.

Tony Winyard 56:30
And in the show notes to this episode, I'll put all those links. And also I'll include the links or some upcoming talks that you're going to be speaking at as well.

Dr Jenny Goodman 56:39
Yes, I've got I've got I mean, obviously, loads of webinars and podcasts planned, but I have got three live gigs coming up. Yep. At the nutrition collective on the 24th of Feb. And the Oxford Literary Festival on the 31st of March, if anyone's near Oxford. And at the end of May, I think the weekend is 28th 29th. There's a huge gathering called the Health optimization Summit. And I'm speaking there as well.

Tony Winyard 57:06
Okay. So I'll include all those links so people can find out where if they want to go and see you speak as well. So just before we finish a question I always finish on with every guest is, is there a quotation that you really like?

Dr Jenny Goodman 57:21
Yes. And I'll tell you where I got this quote from, I'm afraid I don't know who first said it. But a new friend came around to visit me after I broke my ankle, and she bought me a t shirt. And she, although she's a new friend, she must know me quite well, because the slogan on the t shirt is, "I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned". And it's a thin short sleeve t shirt. I can't wait for the weather to be warm enough to go out and about wearing it. I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.

Tony Winyard 57:58
I've got a feeling that was one of the ancient Greeks. I'm sure I've heard. I've definitely heard it before.

Dr Jenny Goodman 58:06
think we'll have to go and look it up and find out who said it.

Tony Winyard 58:09
Yeah. Well, Jenny, it's been an absolute pleasure. I thank you for your time and for sharing your wisdom and experience. I'm sure my audience will be really, really appreciative of all the wisdom that you shared with them. So thank you.

Dr Jenny Goodman 58:25
You're very welcome.

Tony Winyard 58:27
So we've got an added bonus here, as I asked Jenny some questions about habits and so Jenny's got some habits she's going to give to the audience.

Dr Jenny Goodman 58:36
Okay, so one is that I start every day with a brisk 45 or 60 minute walk, or three quarter an hour an hour. Obviously, that's a bit tricky when you've broken your ankle, but it's getting better. And I am getting back to that. And I find not only it makes me feel better physically, to have been exercising outdoors, and like you have a green space nearby where I can do that. It also makes me function much better mentally. You know, I sit at my desk and I do better work if I've had a jolly good brisk walk. And if I've had breakfast as well, my second habit is what these days would be called a digital detox. So at least one day a week. It is one day a week, I turn the computer off. I don't have a smartphone right, and I don't have a tablet or iPad or any of those things. So I turn the computer off and leave it off for at least 24 hours a weekend. So if people want me now to phone the old landline and so that's a built in digital detox and again, like the walking I think it makes your brain work better and you come back refreshed, a little weekly holiday and you can survive you know you can survive without being in electronic contact with the whole world all the time. You can even actually see people face to face

Tony Winyard 1:00:00
Well, that's, that's superb and some great habits, to replicate or to aim for anyway. So yeah, it's not quite, 24 hours, but my phone is on aeroplane mode for at least 12 hours every day. Probably more than that quite often.

Dr Jenny Goodman 1:00:19
That's great. Yeah.

Tony Winyard 1:00:22
Well, thank you for those Jenny. And hopefully that will give some people some ideas and some habits they can try to use them for themselves very well. Okay. Next week is Episode 53, with Sarah Tait, who was very successful working in the City of London working in finance, doing really well, when she she got married few years ago, and was doing a lot of preparation for the wedding. And after the wedding, she kind of felt like there was he put so much effort into planning a wedding, she was kind of almost let down afterwards. And so she decided to put all that energy into her work, and was working crazy hours and really put in a lot of effort and to the point where she had a psychotic episode and she actually had a major breakdown, and was off work for a very long time and, and then since then has become a coach and she helps people who do have mental health episodes. And so we're gonna hear a lot more about that story. Next week with Sarah Tait. If you know anyone who would get some real value from some of the gold that Jenny shared with us in this episode, please do share the episode with them. And I hope you have a great week.

Jingle 1:01:42
Thanks for tuning in to the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. Sign up for email updates and learn about coaching and workshop opportunities at Tonywinyard.com See you next time on the habits and health podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai