Anshu Bahanda: This is Anshu Bahanda on Wellness Curated. Thanks for joining me on this podcast. My mission is to empower you with health and wellness so that you can then go and empower others.
Welcome everyone. We have here with us Dr Sepp Fegerl from Viva Mayr in Altaussee. Now, Viva Mayr, as a lot of you know, is a medical spa in Austria and it’s based on the F.X. Mayr principle that we become healthy, happy and more efficient by temporarily changing our normal diet. This, I’m quoting from your website. And just to tell you a little bit, I’ve been going to the Mayr clinics for the last 13-14 years now. And the craziest thing I did was I took my little daughter when she was five to one of the clinics and everyone told me I was absolutely crazy. But I think you’re never too young to start learning how to be healthy. And also it appeals a lot to me because we grew up with the concept of Ayurveda where the gut and digestion are very important as they are at Viva Mayr. So I’m going to ask you to explain to us, Dr Fegerl— why is digestion so important?
Dr Sepp Fegerl: Digestion is very important because it allows us to turn what we consume, what we swallow, to be turned inside of our body into gold that is nourishing us, that is providing us with energy and substance so that we can live a happy and powerful life, that we can target and aim to develop further. That is important because besides sunshine and of course experiencing love, it’s the only way how we really allow something good to happen inside of our body that is making us stronger.
AB: What would you say are the main causes of indigestion?
Dr S F: The main cause of indigestion nowadays is that we just consume too much of the wrong thing in too little time and without really spending attention on it. And that is leading to a vicious circle because if I’m not able to digest properly, what I consume, I suffer from maldigestion. And maldigestion is not providing me with energy, but actually is costing me energy. And the only thing that I gain and get is not the nutrients, but really the calories and the calories themselves are not making me happy. The calories are actually very often pushing me into a state of ongoing inflammation that is inside the body. And with the inflammation, we do suffer from so many of the civilization’s diseases that we nowadays have to face.
AB: I like that word, civilization’s diseases. That’s a good word. You forgot to tell me what you would tell us, what you say to me all the time— don’t eat too late.
Dr S F: Thank you. That is correct. We estimate our process of digestion to be finished and done once we manage to swallow the bite we have inside of the mouth. And that is not true, because nutrients that we need are just the size of single molecules and to transform a bite or the fluid, no matter how well it was prepared, into something smaller than that. Really, [although] the size of single molecules is just a bunch of few atoms, we need all of our digestion tools. We need a proper stomach, and acid that is produced, that is working on it. We need fantastic composition of enzymes that are produced by our pancreas, by our small intestine, by the stomach and the liver. And all these things need to be mixed underneath each other and build a proper chain. And this chain then needs to meet an open surface, an absorbable-ready surface in the intestine to really allow the nutrients to then enter the body.
AB: Okay, so what would you say are the first signs that your digestion isn’t working properly?
Dr S F: That’s actually something very simple, very easy to experience. Because if you do feel that what you’re doing to nourish yourself, to allow yourself to be active, for example, and to receive energy, is not working properly and you are feeling pushed out of your ideal state of health, this is then always happening on top of a basic problem, and the basic problem there is maldigestion and inflammation going on.
AB: So you would say that energy levels are what tells us this?
Dr S F: Energy levels, and cravings, for example, are typical. And the problem is whenever there is maldigestion happening inside our belly, it is affecting the biggest surface of all human body surfaces that we have to make a difference between the outside and inside of the body. If I irritate the surface, my immune system starts to try to defend, tries to repair the surface. That only happens through the process of inflammation. And what was starting as maybe a local irritation, because you ate too much or too quickly or consumed too late, is suddenly turning into a systemic inflammation that is leading to a high in cortisol, and a high in insulin, and with that changing my endocrinological as well as my metabolic reality. And suddenly I’m not experiencing myself being the man or the woman that I’m meant to be.
AB: Right, that’s very well put. And the other thing I wanted to ask you is, now how does digestion affect things like mental health and anxiety and depression and stress? Stress is something we all experience. How is that related?
Dr S F: Please forgive me for this example, but I think all of us will agree, that it makes us happy to have received a beautiful meal, to feel nourished afterwards and satisfied and not heavy or like a victim. It’s also beautiful to have a good bowel evacuation and bowel movement, for example. If this is complete, I’m feeling healthy. If this is not working properly or if I’m feeling, after the meal, like a victim, just fighting still with the meal itself, I’m pushed out of my balance, emotional balance. The deeper truth behind that is that the intestinal surface is the place where we are building a lot of neuroendocrine substances; neurotransmitters, such as, for example, serotonin. Serotonin: the happy-making hormone that we hope to find inside chocolates. And this serotonin is produced by the intestinal cells. And if those intestinal cells are facing an environment where bacteria starts [to grow] because I’m not able to digest my food properly, those bacteria start fermentating and decay through the process of maldigestion. This is harming and irritating the cells and the serotonin levels produced inside of my body and the happiness produced with it, is going down. At the same time, it is not that the serotonin is only making me happy but the serotonin is [also] making my peristaltic movements inside of the intestine go. For those of you who have never heard about peristaltic movements, the gastrointestinal system is a very long muscle hose. It starts here [points to the mouth] and ends at the anus, and it has a length of approximately 28 to 32 ft length, so pretty long. To clean itself, it starts a movement like a little caterpillar, like it is a ringworm. It is squeezing partly together and shifting the content to the next department. Then it’s forwarding its content to the next department.
AB: So that starts here [points towards the mouth]?
Dr S F: Yes. Once you swallow, a peristaltic wave is bringing everything down. This is why you can eat something and swallow it and it will find its way into the stomach even if you are upside down and doing a handstand.
AB: Okay, wow. Okay.
Dr S F: So we need our intestine. If our intestine is in a good state, we are receiving a lot of neurotransmitters from it and some of them are responsible for our happiness. Some of them are also important and necessary for us to fall asleep, to experience a rhythm, to have a peaceful and restful sleep at night. There was a beautiful book written and published last year that was called ‘The Inflamed Mind: A Radical New Approach to Depression’. So we underestimate how often depression or anxiety is linked. So what’s important to know is that inflammation is making us feel sick and age a little bit before time, and making me feel weak and alert, and all those qualities don’t go together with the feeling of emotional balance and also of happiness.
AB: Okay, so that’s inflammation and that probably causes some stress inside your body which gets reflected in [your] mental stress. Correct?
Dr S F: That is also correct. Because if there’s an inflammation going on, and again the intestine is holding the biggest surface of all our human body’s surfaces against the outer world. And if the surface is penetrated or irritated too much, then our immune system, that’s placed to more than two-third of it, inside of our intestine, is starting an inflammation. This inflammation is communicated through the blood circulation and the lymphatic liquids and it’s leading to a change of hormone expression inside for example the pancreas or the adrenal glands. It is the cortisol emitted that is making me alert, making me also a little bit restless, making my stress resistance melt down to almost nothing. It is also making my insulin rise. Higher insulin levels lead to a higher metabolism. Initially, that sounds fantastic because whenever you are stressed or inflamed, you are almost melting away. The beauty is that with time, this is leading to insulin resistance and that is a pre-step of diabetes. So we have two things. One, the inflammation is affecting my metabolism as well as my hormonal system and because of that, leading to an unhappy feeling. Secondly, if my gut is not in the best state, it is not able to produce the hormones, the actual hormones that are making my brain experience happiness and comfort.
AB: Right. So would you say this leads to different levels of stress, anxiety, and depression?
Dr S F: Of course, in a lot of cases…
AB: Or inflammation in the body?
Dr S F: Yes.
AB: Wow. Okay, so the next question is how does digestion affect immunity and energy levels? Which is a big issue at the moment, right?
Dr S F: We do know that people do age in different ways. And if I’m looking left and right, to my siblings, for example, if I’m watching my parents or grandparents or friends, it is sometimes unfair how differently they age. We nowadays know that the process of ageing is ruled by either the number of free radical assaults that we experience, like sun bathing, smoking, for example, consuming alcohol, or living in a very toxic environment, but also related to the number of micro inflammatory processes that are taking place inside of our body. And again, there, three-quarter of your immune system or two-third of your immune system cells are located inside of your intestine. So if they are alert, the last third of the immune system is alert, as well. If your intestine is not suffering from maldigestion, it’s not suffering from irritation and sensitivity, then the whole body is experiencing less inflammation or can deal with inflammation much better. That means you have more resources left for defending against a virus coming from outside or defending against the bacteria coming from outside. Instinctively, we are doing the right thing. If I’m feeling affected by a virus acutely, I stop eating, and I lose all my appetite. This is not because I don’t need antioxidants at this moment. It is just my body tells me, look, if you are now eating something, you will always [create] risk with it that can cause irritation inside of your gut, making part of your immune system now take care of that, whereas now it would be more needful and useful to defend this particular virus.
AB: Okay, so now you know how all of us have, well, I would say 90% of us, have some sort of issues. What are your top tips for fixing our digestive system?
Dr S F: First of all, really take the signs and the symptoms of your body to be valuable feedback. It’s not an enemy that is in dialogue and fighting with you. This is your body. You are hosting a human animal. And this is normally, beautiful living, in coexistence with your mind, with your fantasy, and with your emotions. So if your body is making you sense, for example, an acid stomach or a painful stomach, or if your bowel movements are suddenly completely [in] riot and you are suffering from diarrhoea, then constipation or the act of defecation is not proper. Or if you feel bloated a lot, that is information that something needs to be improved when it comes to your digestion. So the most important thing is whenever you feel something, don’t run away and don’t panic. When you have the feeling it could maybe be connected to the intestine, what is true in 98 out of 100 cases, please start to enjoy your meals from the bottom of your heart. The smell on your meals, look at them. Have a small bite, taste it, and let the bites melt on top of your tongue. You will notice that if your meal is attracting you in a friendly and positive way, you have them across the day, a minimum of two to three [times]. [These are] very beautiful experiences. Beautiful experiences are sometimes rare, especially now, right? I highly appreciate it and they are lifting my mind in total. Secondly, don’t drink with the meal. The body is composing according to what it feels and tastes inside of your mouth, a proper mixture of digestion liquids. Liquids— that means if they are concentrated, they are very efficient in working and transforming all your food and turning it into nutrition. But if you dilute it by drinking, for example, half a litre of water, no matter if hot or cold, or with lemon, with ginger, with turmeric or just green tea, whatever you add in this liquid will dilute the digestion liquids and with that, you reduce your digestion power.
AB: So how long before and after the meal should you not drink?
Dr S F: I would recommend normally to stop drinking around half an hour, 15 minutes prior to the first bite and start again with the drinking and the act of hydration about 1 hour after the last bite you have had.
AB: Okay.
Dr S F: That will give you a good time to digest and enjoy your meals. It is important to be well hydrated because liquids that you produce require liquids, that are coming and allowing, that are inside of your body. So drink a good amount of water between the meals. We underestimate how much is necessary. The fourth thing is you should leave the table the moment you feel satisfied. And satisfaction is not happening here [points towards the mind], but satisfaction is a gut feeling. So if your belly is feeling warm, a little bit distended, but not heavy, not bursting full, leave the table. Sometimes, maybe, it is hard to believe that everything should be satisfied right now but leave the table. And if you are uncertain if it was a good idea or if you left too late, climb some stairs afterwards. If you’re climbing stairs afterwards and you are feeling your stomach competing with your diaphragm and it is competing with your breathing, you had too much. If you find it easy to climb the stairs or as easily as before the meal, you did perfectly well.
AB: Oh, fantastic. Okay.
Dr S F: Well, thing is, if after the meal, 1 hour later or one and a half hours later you feel like being narcoleptic, or very sleepy, for example, that you find it hard to stay awake on your desk or in the car or wherever. Try to identify which food it was that you now introduce that you normally don’t have because it’s most likely that you didn’t digest or didn’t tolerate this particular ingredient very well. The fifth thing is nothing raw in the evening. Everything that is raw is unprocessed and holding off a lot of antioxidants, fantastic things and nutrients.
AB: So no salads, no sushi…?
Dr S F: No, everything that is raw is undamaged. And before I can enter and get in touch with the nutrients inside, I need to break down the fruits, then the fruit cell, then the cell filaments, then the macromolecules and turn them into little bunches of molecules and then I can digest it. And at the end of the day, my stomach is as tired as my brain is, pitta or my muscle or glutes or whatever, and it’s not as good in digestion as it was before or at lunchtime or in the morning. So please, from 04:00 o’clock onwards, afterwards in the afternoon, avoid raw food, avoid juices and also dried fruits because dried fruits are estimated to be or understood to be raw.
AB: Okay, very good point because a lot of people will have prunes at night or something like that to help with digestion.
Dr S F: It is then also of course a matter of quantity. If I’m a proper chewer, if I let my bites melt inside of my mouth, having small bites initially and chewing them properly, I can turn even a piece of leather belt into something digestible. But at the same time, if I’m not chewing the piece of corn that was inside of the salad or on top of my pizza or in the curry, I will find this corn again afterwards inside of the toilet and I had no benefit of it.
AB: So how many times do you recommend chewing? I know you tell everyone who goes to Mayr that.
Dr S F: Look I’m a foodie and I hate to think of something or anything else but eating when I’m eating. So I decide for myself to swallow a bite once it is liquid or feeling-like liquid inside because then it’s easy for me to swallow it and everything is fine. That works even if my schedule is super busy. This also works if I’m eating something that I’m not meant to eat because it’s not great for me but if I’m turning it inside of my mouth into a liquid, you can imagine this liquid is then dropping into the stomach acid. And the stomach acid is destroying it [snaps finger] like that and turning it into a superfluid chain, destructively helping me to turn it into nutrition afterwards. If you need a number 20 times, 40 times, the astronauts initially were asked to chew 100 times, because you cannot do surgery on the appendix, for example, if they are in the stratosphere. So they got the tip to chew, chew, chew, and chew, and then finally they turn the food into astronauts’ foods that are already pre-digested and not very entertaining.
AB: So 100 times, okay, today I’m going to try 100 times for dinner.
Dr S F: Give it a try. And this is a nice thing. If you chew your food and your bites very often, you will first of all swallow it very easily. You will never eat too much. That is not possible. If you don’t have too much, you will not gain weight with that. So it’s an easy way of how you lose weight. You will also not suffer from acidity, because you will feel, very quickly, what is suiting you more and what is suiting you less. Also, sometime you may suffer from a lot of burping. The thing is, if you are chewing properly, you will never consume too much. And you will also identify, inside your mouth itself, what is suiting you well and what is not suiting you well. Because if something is tasting suspicious, look, it’s a human animal inside of you telling you better stop, better not to have it. So trust your feelings there.
AB: Right. So we should never tell our children to hurry up. We should just tell them to take their time and eat.
Dr S F: I don’t know how you manage it at home, but if I’m thinking of my grandparents or grandparents’ parents, it was silent at the eating table. There was a lot of discussions afterwards, there was a lot of social talks afterwards. But during the meals, it was silent. Except, of course, it was a wedding or it was a big festivity. Then everything was different. But in the daily routine, we focused really on the meals, and that is working also for the parents.
AB: So, any other tips before I go onto the questions that people have sent in?
Dr S F: Actually, really, don’t expect the foods to be the golden solution for your actual state of health. That will not happen and you will not find a supplement. It is just the more confused you are and the more you are pushed out of your state of health, of ideal health, and you are feeling unwell, for example, and uncertain of what to do, the more important it is to make it very simple. Simple means— be well hydrated, eat but with your attention and full attention, turn it into something that is beneficial for you to feel good afterwards. If you feel good, you’re on the safe side. And then you have enough energy to be physically active. You have enough energy to also rest beautifully throughout and across the night.
AB: Lovely, thank you. So now I’m going to come on to the questions that people sent in and then hopefully we’ll be able to address some of the questions that are coming in now. So one of the questions was what are the cures you recommend for gastric issues, IBS, and weight loss?
Dr S F: Look, we could easily do seminars that are lasting [for] weeks to discuss each topic. But if you allow me very simple, very simple answers on that. If you have a gastric problem and your gastric performance seems to be weak, attract your system a little bit more and introduce it to the food prior to the act of digestion. So please smell on it, look at it, have a small bite, or you use something, like in the Ayurvedic medicine existing, the bitter herbs, the little bit of acid flavours to make your agni, your fire of digestion burn again.
AB: Fantastic.
Dr S F: That is an easy thing. Also to do abdominal breathing. For irritable bowel syndrome, it is easy to say your symptoms are because you suffer from an irritable bowel syndrome. Please seek a qualificated person that is going with you through your anamnesis, through your medical history and is doing a proper examination with you and then giving you a recommendation. If it’s really just an irritable bowel syndrome that requires a very multimodal therapy, or if it is maybe more often, for example, lactose or fructose intolerance, like it is very endemic. Lactose [intolerance] is also in India.
AB: Right, okay. And what about weight loss? Again, I know you can do seminars on it.
Dr S F: No, actually, there’s a very simple but inconvenient truth behind the weight loss. If I want to lose weight, I need to live a lifestyle that is making me burn calories more than I’m consuming calories. Simple as that.
AB: Right.
Dr S F: So I cannot expect that I eat plenty of something and I’m losing weight because of being healthy. Of course, I can eat plenty of protein, for example, and cut out all the carbs. That is sounding nice and tempting because it is leading to a weight loss.
AB: Right.
Dr S F: The thing is, we know mammals, by clinical trials, that those mammals are losing weight, but they are not living longer and they are suffering in a higher percentage from cardiovascular events. That’s not optimum. If you’re on the other side, you would consume a high amount of carbs and less of the proteins. You are gaining a little bit of weight, but you are living longer and you are living healthier. And if you combine that, for example, with an active lifestyle, with basic and good and daily physical activities, you don’t need to be afraid of having too much of a weight. You will have plenty of energy and everyone will see that.
AB: Right. And the chewing. Chewing helps with weight loss right?
Dr S F: With the chewing, again, you make it unlikely if you eat too much of the wrong things because it starts getting boring. And if your human animal in front of you is telling you look, that’s boring, please stop it. It is not interested. It is not necessary.
AB: Okay.
Dr S F: More carbs and less protein for most of the average human beings. That is correct. Yes. Think of the babies, for example, of how they develop and how well they develop in the first half of the year on this planet. They are not receiving a lot of proteins from the mother’s milk or breast milk. They receive mainly sugars and fat.
AB: So when you’re saying more for carbs, Dr Fegerl, you’re talking about fruits and vegetable, or are you also talking about grains?
Dr S F: Grains, grains, grains, grains, grains… Not everyone is able to digest grains fantastically. But again, if I’m eating grains and I’m feeling bloated afterwards and I’m honestly now questioning myself if I consumed too much of the grains, if this was not the case, then I have to say, okay, this kind of grain is not suiting me well. When it comes to the grains itself, the more warm they are, the more moisture they have, the easier digestible they are.
AB: Okay, thank you. Now, someone’s asking, what do you do for acidity? I know this is your favourite topic.
Dr S F: Now, acidity is something that is normally not so much a problem of the stomach, but it’s much more a problem of the body. Because our body is then abusing our stomach to be an outlet for acids that it is unable to get rid of through other venters, like breathing at the waist, sweating it out, shifting it into the urine to get rid of it or into the bowel. So it starts to force the stomach producing acids, releasing those acids out of the body. The stomach hates acid and is very sensitive on it. So it is asking you for your help and assistance once it’s experiencing this acidity. And you try to dilute it, either with drinking something. But in our attempt to be super-efficient, we don’t drink, but we eat something, then try to keep it calm. We use, in Viva Mayr especially, compound and composition of minerals that are fantastically helping. And those minerals are called the ‘Base [Powder] 5’. It’s actually a bicarbonate of soda with some potassium, magnesium and it is beautifully stopping the acidity inside of the stomach by reducing the acidity inside of the body.
AB: Right. Yes. And I know if you go to Viva Mayr, they feed you lots and lots of basepowder.
Dr S F: Only to help.
AB: I still have it every day. It’s on my bedside table, like you recommended. So someone’s asked if you suffer from mild constipation and anxiety while traveling, do you have any tips? And this happens to a lot of people. Their systems go for a six when they travel.
Dr S F: That is correct. Because you are pushed out of your mess, you’re pushed out of your state of convenience. And if I’m not in my normal environmental condition, I’m feeling stressed. Stress is the opposite of digestion. It’s the opposite of a proper digestion, and proper peristaltic movement. So the best thing would be is really, first of all, try to avoid maldigestion by behaving good on foods. Secondly, hydrate yourself as good as possible. Third is use bitters. Bitter herbs like karela juice or bitter gourd, for example.
AB: Are you talking about Pitta herbs or are you talking about bitter herbs?
Dr S F: Bitter, bitter. The flavour, bitter.
AB: Right. So earlier you were talking about pitta for the ugly, that was different from bitter. Correct?
Dr S F: Actually, both work. Bitter and Pitta go in the same direction. But in this case, if you are suffering from constipation or anxiety while traveling, hydrate yourself, chew properly and help yourself with an extra dose of magnesium. If possible, maybe a magnesium citrate that you take and mix with a little bit of water and consume half an hour before dinner or instead of dinner, drinking it like that. And you will satisfy your brain. You will support your intestine. Normally, it is helping very well.
AB: Okay, and then what is the impact of coffee on the gut?
Dr S F: If you are drinking coffee, you expect yourself to get a little bit more awake, or if you are very sensitive, more nervous. Nervousness is turning the gut into a stone. That is not good. The beautiful thing about the coffee is, it is bitter. And if you are not diluting the bitter flavour by adding almond milk or whatever into it, if you consume it real straightforward and you have the bitter taste, you are heating up, in this case again, your acne. You are making your liver release its digestion liquids and you will perform better on the digestion.
AB: Okay. Now someone’s asking about probiotics. Is it okay to take them every day? She’s asked about probiotics, pre-biotics.
Dr S F: Probiotics are of great medical help if they are used in the right moment, for the right person, for the right condition. But many of the probiotics are, at the moment, sold just because they are big business. You can earn a fortune with the probiotics. So I’m a big fan of taking more care of the right environmental conditions for the microorganisms inside of your belly by avoiding maldigestion and maybe using a prebiotic. But be careful with a prebiotic. Not everyone is working or is affected positively by taking, for example, some coffee or some fibers, for example, not everyone is able to tolerate them well. This is again where I would highly recommend to contact someone who is working with that every day, who is then giving us high quality advice and not just the common recommendations.
AB: And what about things like, the whole world is going crazy about Kombucha and Kimchi and other fermented things. What’s your opinion on those?
Dr S F: They can sometimes really make a big difference and can beautifully help people. Kimchi and Natto are containing some prebiotics that are supporting the mucosal protective bacteria inside of the intestine. Kombucha is containing some probiotic sugar types, but mainly a micro-organism that is allowing me to protect myself against big bacterial overgrowth. But again, there you need to be in a good health state to tolerate that or you need to be guided to use the right tool in the right moment if you’re suffering from symptoms at the moment.
AB: Okay.
Dr S F: Intermittent fasting is fantastic. 16 hours you are not eating something, and also please don’t consume juices then, don’t snack in this time. Just drink and hydrate and then have two meals or just one meal. You will notice that if you are not making your body feel hungry afterwards or starving afterwards, you are beautifully finding bacteria burn.
AB: But Dr Fegerl, people are doing it now as a lifestyle. Is that healthy? Like every day, they won’t eat for 16 or 17 hours. Is that okay?
Dr S F: Yes.
AB: Okay, great.
Dr S F: Sorry, but there are just exceptions, like very young and very old people. They may need more the food in higher frequency, and also some pregnant women. But pregnant women are normally suffering from a huge amount of acidity and therefore example, the basepowder is of great usage and help.
AB: Yeah, someone was asking about basepowder. So it’s ‘Base 5’ and you can get it from Viva Mayr. There’s a clinic in London as well. Dr Fegerl, someone’s asking about apple cider vinegar and sugar separately. Two separate questions. What’s your opinion on those?
Dr S F: Apple cider vinegar can affect us like an attractor, it can stimulate our digestion performance and it is also affecting our body in a little bit alkaline way. But my problem with apple cider vinegar is [that ]it is a histamine liberating substance and histamine is irritative. And as most of us are to suffer from maldigestion at some stage, we are sensitive to histamine almost everyone. That does not mean we are hereditary.
AB: That’s why we get the allergies, right? At pollen time…
Dr S F: That would be, but that’s why we, for example, suddenly experience that our skin is pigmenting quicker than it was pigmenting in the past, or more sensitive. Or my nose, I’m suffering from a runny nose. Or my skin is reacting with redness or trivial trauma or irritation.
AB: Okay, Dr Fegerl, someone’s asking about Crohn’s disease. I don’t know if that’s a much bigger topic or if you have a quick answer.
Dr S F: It is with every chronic inflammatory disease like Crohn’s disease or colitis or cirrhosis. It is worth it to consider a Mayr cleansing this time, and to consider getting more individually composed and usable information from one of us physicians. Because you can always improve your state of health and you can reduce the numbers of triggers that are pushing you into a spiral of inflammation, that is then, in worst case, leading to a massive flare-up of your basic medical condition, for example.
AB: Okay, fantastic. Someone else is saying that they get inflammation in the gut after taking vitamin tablets.
Dr S F: Look, if you take vitamin C, for example, and in its pure form— the ascorbic acid, yeah, of course you will feel that and it’s not a nice feeling. This is why I would recommend clients to take a buffered vitamin C that is not acid and that is easily digestible. It’s then also with trace elements like zinc and copper. Zinc and copper are mainly absorbed inside of the stomach and the first part of the small intestine. If there is an irritation, you will challenge the system in a way that it is not working well. If there is a seborrhoeic dermatitis, as I just see the question, if you have a skin issue or a hormonal issue, for example like, polycystic ovarian syndrome or polycystic ovarian disease, you can help yourself or torture yourself very much by either eating fantastically or not behaving well on the food. And especially the fructose is their matchmaker, the match winner.
AB: So now while you’re talking about polycystic ovaries, there’s been lots of questions that came in about hormones, polycystic ovaries, and HRT. So I don’t know if you want to quickly touch on it or just keep it for a separate session, because it’s such a large topic.
Dr S F: It seems sometimes almost endemic that almost every young woman is nowadays suffering and developing, till her mid 30s for example, polycystic ovaries or cystic ovary syndrome or is suffering from fertility problems or hormonal imbalances or that woman struggle with the hormonal changes than a few years later, it is not necessary to struggle too much. There is help available, there is also help possible and not everything needs to be chemical. A lot can be done by better and more carefully chosen lifestyle, and this is where maybe once in awhile it’s worth to have a chat and go there into details.
AB: Okay. And then there’s been questions about hiccupping and burping by different people.
Dr S F: If you fill your stomach too much with the food and with the meal that you consume, you can expect that the exit is stronger than the entrance and it shows up. And again, if you are suffering from higher state of acidity inside of the body and your body is using the stomach to be an outlet for the acidity, that will always lead to an inappropriate peristaltic movement in between the throat and also the stomach and the oesophagus. So there, for example, the usage of basepowder in a quantity that is not too high, that means like a teaspoon, away from the meals with some water, is always helping and can be used if you are not suffering from a kidney issue for most of your life.
AB: I think a lot of what you’re saying, basically if there are any major issues, it’s probably best to do a consultation with one of your doctors. There’s lots of clinics all over.
Dr S F: Yes. And we are offering, for example, clinic dates all over the world, from the US till the beautiful India as well, for example. And we are offering nowadays telemedical…
AB: Telemedical sessions?
Dr S F: Yes, sessions, with one of us physicians or the nutritionist or the psychotherapist, for example, to help people getting a more detailed and individualized and tailor-suited recommendation when they do suffer from symptoms.
AB: Okay, sorry. I’m going to quickly go through some of the other questions because I know we’ll try and address very quickly as many as we can. What food should be avoided when someone has psoriasis?
Dr S F: Psoriasis is not only food related, but food is of course, triggering, or some foods are triggering. Those are— gluten is not great, eggs and milk products, please [consume] in small quantities, especially with the yogurts, the paneer and the soft cheese and curd. Try to avoid the hot spices that is important, like black pepper chili. And try to avoid all foods that make you feel suffering from indigestion or maldigestion. That is a good information. But someone who’s suffering from psoriasis or neurodermatitis, please consider also the emotional system to having a huge impact. That’s the same also with chronic colitis or cirrhosis or Crohn’s disease. That this emotional axes is having a huge impact on our state of inflammation inside of the body.
AB: Okay, someone’s saying, what is the latest that one should eat?
Dr S F: Look, if you’re eating a meal at night-time, it must not disturb your night sleep. That’s easy.
AB: Okay, so normally, how many hours before you sleep?
Dr S F: For example, some people are night owls and some people are early birds. A teenager is a night owl. I have to force the breakfast in. Why? Just say, okay, look, I allow you not to have breakfast, but I’m eager that you have a proper lunch. Or if this is not possible, silent and quiet and peaceful dinner. I would recommend not to eat after 09:00 o’clock in the evening. The earlier the better. The earlier, the stronger is your stomach, the stronger is your gastrointestinal system.
AB: Okay. If you’re okay Dr Fegerl, can I ask you a few more questions? Because there’s a lot more questions coming in. Are you okay for another five more minutes? Okay, someone’s asked about seborrheic dermatitis.
Dr S F: Seborrheic dermatitis is again something of a skin issue that is related to inflammation, triggered by inflammation. This is normally also assigned for a higher state of acidity in the tissue, not so much in the blood. And you will be surprised to not find acidity in your blood.
AB: So for seborrheic dermatitis, you said avoid…
Dr S F: No fruit juices, no fructose.
AB: Someone else has said I have to take aspirin because I have a blood problem. So how do I calm my digestion knowing that before flying, I have to take large doses of aspirin?
Dr S F: First of all, please contact your physician if it’s really necessary that you are taking an aspirin before your flight, because the aspirin is not protecting you against the development of a thrombosis. First of all. Maybe it’s just a mistake or a good belief that you should take higher doses of aspirin. We do know that the dosages that are bound to 50 to 75 milligram are having the same protective potency than dosages 100 +, without the negative side effects. But if you take an aspirin together with a meal, normally on the safe side or if you start for acidity, please use a little bit of our basepowder in between.
AB: How to improve spleen health?
Dr S F: That’s a big question, but that is always related to the immune system, that is always related to the filters and venters our body has, and to detox and the blood building. Also here, the lesser information is going inside of the body, the better. This blend is like a sponge. So what it needs to deal with should be as liquid as possible. And the spleen requires time to perform at its best. So the lesser you are challenging your spleen with intake from outside, while allowing itself, for example, to focus really on just what is going on inside of the body and not dealing with something with some meals, for example, practicing the intermittent fasting, the better it would be for the spleen. But the spleen is something that is requiring, if it’s really struggling, a very profound therapy strategy. But the simplest thing is keep the inflammation reduced by making yourself experience as little inflammation as possible or in other words, you should live a lifestyle that is making you feel good.
AB: Right. You can all get in touch with Dr Fegerl through the website, we’ve put the Viva Mayr details on. They have Instagram pages, they have a website, and you can call them. You can set up like you said, you can set up teleconference calls. They’ve got offices all over the world. So you can go and visit them in the UK, in India. I don’t know if you do the Far East ever. But the US, they’ve got plenty. They even have a ship that travels all over the place. But thank you so much. That was lovely. It was a very informative session. Thank you for being there. And I know we haven’t been able to address hormones, so we will do another session at some point because it’s such a huge topic. But thank you Dr Fegerl. Thank you very much.
Dr S F: Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.
AB: Thanks for joining us. Hope you enjoyed the Wellness Curated podcast. Please subscribe and tell your friends and family about it. And here’s to you leading your best life.