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In this episode, you will learn about chronic kidney disease and how to address the Kidneydemic with Renology.
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About My Guest
My guest for this episode is Dr. Robin Rose. Robin Rose, MD began a journey into holistic healing in her teens in the mid-sixties beginning with nutrition and botanical medicine and yoga and meditation. Over the years her journey included time living in India and working with both village doctors and healers. She became a health food chef and inspired many to change their habits. Before long she was enrolled in an RN program and then a family nurse practitioner program. Aware that the education wasn’t complete, she attended University of Arizona College of Medicine; while also serving as a medical student board member for the American Holistic Medical Association. During residency, she continued learning Chinese medicine, acupuncture, osteopathy, energy medicine, and herbal medicine. Her main practice was in Ashland, Oregon where she served a community eager to integrate many healing modalities into the conventional setting, including innovative care in the hospital. In the past decade after her own alarming health challenges with kidney cancer and advanced kidney disease, she became agile in regenerative medical approaches to kidney care. She created a new specialty called Renology; a new concept of "Kidney Success" not Kidney Failure. When she discovered peptides and especially bioregulator peptides, she led the brigade to new heights of seeing success in a field that had not embraced this kind of care. Her recent book "Renology Peptides" is a nearly 800 page text on how to achieve this renewal of health. Her current intention is to raise awareness of the role of kidney in wellbeing and how we can all celebrate this success.
Key Takeaways
- What is the purpose of the kidneys?
- What symptoms are observed in chronic kidney disease?
- Is kidney disease a catabolic process?
- Is kidney disease genetic or epigenetic?
- What are the stages of kidney disease?
- What are the best tests and lab markers?
- What might elevations or phosphorous or potassium suggest?
- What is the kidney-gut axis?
- What is the role of endothelial health in kidney disease?
- What role do the mitochondria play?
- How do infections and environmental toxicants contribute to kidney disease?
- What is the role of oxalates in kidney health?
- How might carbon dioxide guide treatment?
- Does cellular senescence play a role?
- What is the connection between the kidneys and the teeth?
- How do the limbic system and mental/emotional health impact the kidneys?
- What treatment intervention warrant exploration?
- Where do dialysis and transplantation come into the discussion?
- What role might peptides and peptide bioregulators play?
Connect With My Guest
Interview Date
May 21, 2025
Transcript
Transcript Disclaimer: Transcripts are intended to provide optimized access to information contained in the podcast. They are not a full replacement for the discussion. Timestamps are provided to facilitate finding portions of the conversation. Errors and omissions may be present as the transcript is not created by someone familiar with the topics being discussed. Please Contact Me with any corrections.
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:01] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts, empowering your better health. And now, here's Scott, your BetterHealthGuy.
The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or is information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.
[0:00:35] SCOTT: Hello, everyone. And welcome to episode 218 of the BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts series. Today's guest is Dr. Robin Rose, and the topic of the show is Addressing the Kidneydemic with Renology. This is part two of our conversation, which started in episode 217, where you'll find Dr. Rose's bio and more details about her important work. In episode 217, we talked about Dr. Rose's personal kidney journey, symptoms of kidney disease, primary functions of the kidneys, stages of kidney disease, lab testing, phosphorus and potassium, gut and metabolic health, endothelial health, and mitochondrial health.
And here in part two of our conversation in episode 218, we're talking about infections and toxicants, carbon dioxide, uric acid, cognitive health, cellular senescence, the limbic system and mental emotional contributors, dental considerations, treatment interventions, and peptides and peptide bioregulators. And now, part two of my interview with Dr. Robin Rose.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:49] SCOTT: Many people listening today are dealing with, because of my community, chronic Lyme disease, chronic viruses, parasites, fungal colonization, chronic infection. I want to talk a bit about how infections impact the kidneys. Can the kidney itself be infected? Is it more the infection or is it the toxic byproducts that are produced in the body by microbes like endotoxin, like TMAO? And are there some key infections that you've maybe correlated to chronic kidney disease, maybe some useful tools for addressing those? And then building on that, do chronic UTIs and interstitial cystitis have an impact on the kidneys? Any thoughts on that potential connection?
[0:02:45] DR. ROSE: Definite real issues. I mean, infections anywhere. Everything circulates through the kidneys. And so, both organisms themselves, which can circulate and end up dropping off in kidney. And whether they infect the kidney or just annoy it. And then there's the cytokines happening and the inflammation. I mean, we know people get pyelonephritis and they're sick and often end up with chronic kidney disease, whether it's recognized or not, sometimes it isn't.
Mold is an issue. And in that community as well, often it's like, "Well, if you have Lyme, you also have mold." And so, there are specifics with that. I mean, with mastocytosis, too, some of the chemicals of that syndrome are very kidney toxic. There's reason to look. Somebody's doing great, they're fine. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars because much of this testing, of course, isn't covered by insurance. And yeah, with that person who just came and not doing well, and they can afford it. And that's often an issue.
There are some people that I see who I'm seeing them out of the kindness of my heart, and they can't afford stuff. I have to be creative, like garlic and ginger as opposed to Endocalyx, so to speak. But honestly, all that testing is a gift. Do you want to do a mold test on somebody? Sure. If they're in a potential Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia situation, all those really do just inflame the whole body, and the kidney has to push against that. It's already struggling with the chemicals and the toxins. And now on top of it, the distress of an infection with byproducts. And yeah, they translocate and we see elevated cytokines that, in time, destroy the little tiny microscopic structures.
[0:05:05] SCOTT: It sounds like we can have some infections in the kidney. Is that kind of a primary thing where an infection is a big issue in the kidney? Or are a lot of these UTIs and microbes involved in interstitial cystitis more bladder, urinary tract than they are actual kidney?
[0:05:25] DR. ROSE: It's like pushes upstream kind of thing.
[0:05:28] SCOTT: Kind of like SIBO. Yeah.
[0:05:30] DR. ROSE: Yeah. I mean, often, people I talk to will tell me, "Oh, when I was younger even," not even currently, "Oh, I had so many – when I was pregnant. When I – blah-blah-blah. Many, many UTIs." And sure, I mean, it's all connected. And so those cells are communicating. If you get really quiet and meditate on what's going on in there, it's like there's a lot of conversations. And some of them are not good conversations. They're inflammation conversations. And so, in time, there's struggle.
Same with prostate. And I've been dealing with a few men who their kidney function declined because the prostate was causing back pressure, and that matters. And that will cause enough kidney decline that unless you do something, it'll just keep going.
[0:06:21] SCOTT: How much of the kidney impact of microbes is from the infection versus maybe autoimmunity triggered by an infection or a toxicant? You mentioned low-dose naltrexone. Is there a place for immune modulation in the context of kidney disease? Is there a hypervigilant or over-activated aspect of the local immune system in the kidneys where maybe we just need to create more tolerance, more integration with the microbes that are within us?
[0:07:02] DR. ROSE: Good question. How do I want to say? Immunity is compromised with CKD, another of my early realizations. People end up getting sick and staying sick longer with whatever the bugs going around. The people with kidney end up saying, "I've had this for two weeks." It's a definite thing and a reason that I love having thymus support, which allopathic medicine only looks at the thymus, basically, when you have a tumor. And from the wellness perspective, optimizing what thymus has to offer really can help kidney a lot. I mean, the section in the book about that is pretty elaborate. And there's a lot of options.
My current favorite one for just day-to-day support is Thymogen Alpha-1, which is not TA-1. I don't like that they named it that because people get confused. It's actually two bioregulators.
[0:08:04] SCOTT: Is that the one from Integrative Peptides?
[0:08:07] DR. ROSE: Yeah. And I'm learning a lot from Dr. Alex Greenberg, who I did an interview with him. It's in the book. He's an immunologist from Russia and did research for decades. Gosh, in the Soviets, where these researchers got big money. And he told me he got way more money than Khavinson did, which I thought was kind of cute. And he got out of Russia in the '80s, and I think that's when he said he left and ended up – he's in San Francisco.
And he's done some teaching that I appreciate in really fine-tuning the differences between these. It's not like, "Oh, just throw some thymus in there and everything will be good," which was a little bit my level of understanding until I had him do a talk for this doc group that I'm part of to explain each one is a little bit different. And he tends to stick to Thymulin, which is a little bit of a more primitive and not just start slamming TA-1 on people with autoimmune stuff. Sometimes you can overdo it.
And I have to admit, I had a Crohn's person who I was enthusiastically using a high dose, and that was not a good thing. Fortunately, she was compassionate with my learning curve and sharing with her. But this is the stuff you want to avoid in your practice. And so, knowing that there's immune issues, when there are co-infections or any infections, we know, and we see it often, a patient's labs will dip. We see their function goes down. And so if I see somebody and I know they also have Bartonella going on, I'm concerned. If they have mastocytosis, is there Chromogranin A? Because that's bad for kidney.
[0:10:03] SCOTT: Or maybe even just mast cell activation syndrome and not true mastocytosis because that's also creating inflammation and lack of modulation in the immune system.
I'm hoping, my understanding is that Kent Holtorf has been working on a new combination kidney peptide bioregulator that I would love to get my hands on. So, I'm trying to find out more about that.
You coined the term Renal Detoxicology, which I love. Because in my mind, most or many chronic illnesses, detoxification and drainage are the foundational, most important aspects of recovery. And I don't think that most of the things that we struggle with today as a society from a health perspective would be an issue if we didn't have so many environmental toxicant exposures.
If we think about mycotoxins from mold, like you mentioned, they're known to be nephrotoxic. We think about metals like cadmium, which can damage the tubules. There's so many chemicals and pesticides like glyphosate. Now we have to think about microplastics. All of these environmental toxicants, how much of the contribution to chronic kidney disease are those environmental toxicants?
And then building on that, one of my observations over the years was we can get too aggressive in our attempts to detoxify. And I did that with heavy metals, and I saw my kidneys kind of take an unhappy hit in some labs. And so as much as the toxicity is a contributor, it seems like we still sometimes need to kind of be gentle, intentional, and thoughtful about how we reduce those things in the body, or we can create another stressor.
[0:12:09] DR. ROSE: Yeah. I mean, that's one reason I like Acacia senegal. It's gentle and it turns the gut – the Chinese call it intestinal dialysis. And that's useful. And the book has a very long chapter about carnosine, which is my strategy for heavy metals. I mean, I think it's quite effective. I've seen my own and other people's levels normalize. And carnosine comes with some issues that are worth knowing about. I'm learning more since I've done the book. I need some amendments. But it's a very real piece of this. And that's why I coined that term. Detoxicology is like let's get this stuff out of here somehow.
Sweating without doing too high of a heat, you can overdo it. You don't want to go higher than 104. You can damage kidney. But exercise, and sweating, and magnesium baths, things that can add to detoxing by other means. Use the skin, cry. You can shed toxins that way. If you want to laugh enough to cry, that's good too.
[0:13:34] SCOTT: And when you say magnesium baths, are we talking Epsom salt baths essentially?
[0:13:38] DR. ROSE: Yeah.
[0:13:38] SCOTT: Yeah. Interestingly, that was part. And I think I'm a rare happening here, but that was part of what actually led to me stressing my kidneys because I had some genetic inefficiencies in sulfation. And by repleting the sulfate with four times a week Epsom salt baths, my pain kept getting worse and worse and worse until I went, "Oh my goodness, Epsom salt baths can mobilize heavy metals." Right? And so, another example where I maybe got a little too excited about something.
[0:14:12] DR. ROSE: I know. We all do that. I love this. Yeah. I mean, with kidney, it's like gentle. That's why I like Stonebreaker in my tea. I mean, we used to pull it out of our garden until the person we get duck eggs from came and said, "You want this. I stopped pulling it out of the garden. Well, if I pull it out, I hang it and dry it." I mean, there are gentle ways.
And sometimes people are in an emergency, and the allopathic system will take care of big, bad emergencies, often with good outcomes, sometimes not. But that's good. But most of life isn't that intense. And so, it really comes down to what am I willing to do? Am I storing food in plastic in my refrigerator? No. Am I storing water in glass? Aha. I mean, there's just intention and educating yourself.
I mean, you have, I'm sure, a listener, cadre of people who are pretty educated about this stuff. It really takes not doing things out of social pressure. Not being a people pleaser. If other people are like, "Ah, here, take this." Uh-uh. Like I said earlier, to me, organic matters. I don't want glyphosate. There's all kinds of other chemicals that show up in the food you get from Safeway or wherever, the markets that don't focus on providing organic foods.
And then you got to realize, I mean, even with some stuff, they don't use glyphosate to grow it with, but they sprinkle it on after the fact. I was looking that up about garbanzos because I'm making these crepes, and we get it from a small farmer who's organic. I trust them. But if you don't get organic garbanzos, it's not the issue like with soy. With soy, you got to do organic. I mean, it's like, utterly, don't do it otherwise.
[0:16:25] SCOTT: Well, and it's also one of the reasons why hummus is oftentimes very toxic because there are pesticides that are in – unless you're making your own organic hummus. I didn't know that until fairly recently, but that is not a health food if you don't have the right things going for you.
[0:16:46] DR. ROSE: I mean, tofu is the same. I like tofu. I love tofu, in fact. It's one of the proteins I depend on, but I won't do it if it's not an organic company and a company that I know and trust as well as you can trust anything these days.
[0:17:03] SCOTT: You mentioned sauna. And I think similarly with sauna, we have to be aware of our drainage pathways. Are we supporting the liver, the kidneys, the lymphatics, the gut not constipated, all of those things? Because I think people kind of think, "Oh, I'm sweating all this stuff out." Well, true. But at the same time, the way I understand it, we can also be mobilizing toxins internally that then the body has to do something with. And if our drainage pathways or channels of elimination are not open, we may just be redistributing some things in the body, which may not be ideal.
You mentioned not wanting to go higher than 104. Now, are you talking about the temperature of the sauna itself? Are you talking about, ultimately, the temperature internally of the kidneys?
[0:18:00] DR. ROSE: The way I was told, this also came from Jenna Henderson, is don't go over 104. That can damage kidney. And so, we got a sauna bag. We don't have the room to put one on the house that we have. And so, I'm just very careful. I mean, I like doing it. And I can hop out and go jump in the ocean, which is –
[0:18:28] SCOTT: As Neil Nathan would say, eat your heart out, right?
You, in the book, talk about the overexpression of transforming growth factor beta 1 or TGF-β1. We talk about that a lot in the context of biotoxin illness, mold illness, Lyme disease. Elevations of TGF-β1 can lead to fibrosis, or essentially a scarring that you talked about a bit earlier. You say that fibrosis is the end of the line, no matter what the cause. Are you attempting to support the reduction of fibrosis by reducing galectin-3 with something like modified citrus pectin? What are some of the tools that you like specifically to reverse fibrosis in the kidneys?
[0:19:21] DR. ROSE: I like the bioregulators. That's part of what I love about them. Thymic support has a role in that. And the whole array of these, again, each person is unique. When I sit down and try to create a protocol for somebody. It's like, "What are they bringing to me? What's happened to you? What are your antecedents? What exposures have you had?" So then, okay, liver, I like. Blood vessels, I like. Brain, eyes. You know what I mean? You start cycling. And they all have some action in that way to diminish the audacity of these cytokines. And that's one of the things I liked about that. It's like one size fits all.
And you have to be careful. Not every small substance is a bioregulator. In other words – so here's my cartoon. Peptides are big. They need a receptor to get into cells. That's more expensive chemically. Transporters just are like little escort services. And so, the bioregulators are tiny enough, they get in the cell, they get in the nucleus, and what they do is they lodge in the DNA, stretch it open, and start doing their thing. Not all small peptides actually do this DNA gene switching.
And so that's something to be aware of, because there are some things that are being marketed as bioregulators that are actually extracts. That's not bad, but it's not – I'm sort of a precision freak about this. It's like the middle section in the book is really a lot of the science of how companies work and what's all the differences between them. Because when you're looking for precision, where am I aiming with what supplements I'm using, then it actually matters. There's a place for extracts and even glandulars. On the other hand, once you drive the Porsche, you don't really want the broken-down Volkswagen.
[0:21:31] SCOTT: You also mentioned in the context of fibrosis in the book things like butyrate. You've mentioned other peptides like Vilon, BPC-157. I think even GHK-Cu can help with some scarring and fibrosis as well. Lots of good stuff that people can learn from your Materia Medica about the peptides and bioregulators in the book.
I want to talk about oxalates as another toxin. They're known to be plant toxins, but they can also be created endogenously resulting from fungal overgrowth, from mold exposure, from other metabolic processes as well. We know they impact the kidneys. We know they're a common cause of kidney stones. Not all, but a common cause of kidney stones. Talk to us a little bit more about oxalates, the impact on the kidneys, some of your favorite approaches for addressing oxalates. Chanca Piedra, I'm thinking, is going to be one of them. And then are you addressing this primarily with diet, even though we've talked about the kidneys favoring a plant-based diet that could, by definition, be higher in oxalates? Are you using thiamine? Are you using Chanca Piedra? What are your favorite tools to support and protect the kidneys from oxalate-induced stress?
[0:22:57] DR. ROSE: Well, one thing to know is whether people have kidney stones or not. With CKD, oxalates are like little razor blades going along the tubules. And so, there's a way to find out. Do you have a specific tendency? Candida, by the way, is one that enhances oxalate issues. I mean, diabetics often are dealing with that. People who have been treated, say, in the Lyme/Bartonella community with big antibiotics will often get Candida and oxalate issues.
And one thing that I found, my husband was that. And so, I knew he had an oxalate thing going on because he decided he was going to use beetroot powder. I'm like, "Don't do that. That's too much." But he did. And he was like, "He's whining. He doesn't feel good." And I said, "Well, I told you." It was his doctor who actually convinced him with some testing.
Cronometer, again, can tell you how much oxalate you're getting. When he first started looking – and this was because I could N of 1 right in front of my nose. What we learned – and I was shocked because I thought, "Okay, I'm fairly agile with don't eat beans, don't do this and that." He found, instead of the 50 milligrams of oxalate, that would be a reasonable intake for him. He was getting about 500. Why? Ginger, mint, basil. I mean, a lot of things that were perceived in our life as wonderful things to include. Berries.
And you're right. For me, I can handle that. I've tested. I don't test up normally eating the blueberries with my breakfast, the tofu with my dinner. Everybody is really quite unique. However, yes, Chanca Piedra in my cup every day. And I make a big teapot of stuff and I'm drinking all day, adding water to it, basically, so I hydrate well.
But I personally think the lifestyle aspect has to happen. True confession. Just scarfing things down, chocolate. I mean, there's a lot of things that are oxalate unfriendly. And if you can drop your level down, it will do better no matter if there's an exogenous form. Because there's a reason to believe that lifestyle protection can allow for that balance that the body needs. The body wants to heal. I mean, I really believe in innate healing. And stop punching yourself.
I have a story, this is an old, old story of a patient who had very bad Crohn's disease years and years and years ago. And he was talking about he hated – and I basically got him to punch himself in the belly. Not hard. And he looked at me and he was like, "Oh, I'm causing a lot of my own problems, aren't I? It was so enlightening for both of us. We're both like, "Wow. That was amazing."
And to me, that was like this portal. He changed his lifestyle. He really listened to me. The guy got really amazingly better. He was a fisherman. He'd bring me these gorgeous, big Oregon salmon. And so, yeah. The Oxalobacter, you can add that. That's useful. I don't have a big array that I use. You may have more ideas than I do about this.
[0:26:53] SCOTT: Well, I've read and heard people talk about using thiamine, or B1, or thiamine derivatives to support oxalate metabolism.
Before we move on from our discussion here on Renal Detoxicology, are there some medications, whether over-the-counter or pharmaceuticals, that we should be thinking about that maybe people don't realize are another kidney toxin and maybe nephrotoxic and causing harm?
[0:27:26] DR. ROSE: I mean, always be cautious. I mean, it's a hard one, because sometimes people do need their meds. I mean, I have cases of people with lymphoma. They're using meds that are challenging to kidney cell. You have to do stuff to support. In cases like with antibiotics, if you can avoid that, cool. If you can lower your need for blood pressure meds, diabetes meds. There's reasons to use medications. I don't want to be this like, "Oh, never take meds." Because as soon as you say that, you're going to need one. And then the emotional distress is challenging. I've been there.
Antifungals, anti-herpes meds, really not good. BPC is good for herpes. If you have a tendency to herpes, maybe depend on some of these other tools. Be proactive rather than – instead of treating it, "All right, I'm going to use common sense to avoid getting stuff." And that's not as easy as – it's easier said than done.
[0:28:39] SCOTT: You've said that you like CO2 or carbon dioxide to be closer to 30. And that the slope of kidney disease is acidosis. So CO2, that gives us some insight into bicarbonate, which buffers an acidic pH. I live at altitude, which many say also reduces CO2 levels. And my local doctor suggests that most of her patients are on the low side when we look at carbon dioxide. Are you primarily using CO2 as an indication of metabolic acidosis? And then is that bringing us back to tools like bicarb or baking soda? And if so, should we be worried at all about alkalinizing the stomach pH and negatively impacting our digestion?
[0:29:29] DR. ROSE: Good question. I tell people don't ever take it with food. This is across the board. Either first thing in the morning and you don't eat, or last thing at night and you sleep with it. There are people who tend to take it throughout the day. You really have to be mindful to do that because, yeah – and then on the other hand, add DuoZyme with food so that you're offsetting the potential of lowering stomach acid, which then is a risk for SIBO and now digestion of nutrients.
I like using bicarb. I mean, if I see a CO2 of 19, I'm in. It's like you need to be doing this. And let's try to optimize. I also have liked using citrate. It's a little gentler. It's kind of a little precursor, so you get a little bit more steps to get there. All right, potassium citrate, if somebody has a potassium issue, you don't want to do that.
I find that magnesium citrate is interesting because you're giving magnesium. Many people with CKD, at least earlier, really do need more magnesium rather than less. Well, later, more advanced cases, you can overshoot. And there's consequences of too much magnesium. People tolerate a lot. But, still, with kidney disease, they're fragile.
And so, mag citrate. It's what you use for colonoscopy, right? Actually, a little bit of mag citrate can really help keep the bowels in shape. That's an important thing because constipation really exacerbates the uremic toxemia and dysbiosis. Here we have another trick. I just have a bottle by my stove where I cook, and I just pour a little bit on the food. It's not a huge amount. It just optimizes the alkalinizing benefits without compromising the gut.
People eat my food, and I don't think I'm making anybody else sick. It's not huge amounts, but it's like just having these tools. I like nutritional yeast, because it gives you some B vitamins. I used to think, "Oh, it made Candida worse." It really doesn't.
[0:32:07] SCOTT: We're using carbon dioxide then as an indication of acidosis, using the bicarb or baking soda to help mitigate the acidosis. And as I understand, you're usually using about a half a teaspoon of baking soda in water per day, correct?
[0:32:26] DR. ROSE: Correct. And again, some people might need more. Jou just have to follow labs. And remember, when you get a CO2, it's in that moment. If you were to monitor all along, it might fluctuate all over the place. I tend to like to watch trends. How long has this been going on? Because somebody can just linger in the low 20s. And what I see is improvement in PTAs, in uric acid, in potassium, and phosphorus. I mean, it's remarkable and so simple.
Personally, I found drinking bicarb in water to be unpleasant. And I was not compliant. I also tell this story as I went to the local thrift store, which on my island is one of those wonderful, really cheap. And find designer clothes for 50 cents. Anyway, there was a brand-new bottle, bicarb tablets. Not expired. Not even opened. I took it as a message from the divine. Took it home, started taking this reliably, and I continue to do so. I take two of them at bedtime. That's what's optimized my – a couple of times I've noticed my CO2 went down to 25. That's okay. Oh, it's in the normal range. Again, optimal lab versus just okay is really a different concept. And kidney optimalizing means a little bit different laboratory assessment.
[0:34:04] SCOTT: And are those sodium bicarb tablets somewhere around 500 milligrams?
[0:34:09] DR. ROSE: 650.
[0:34:10] SCOTT: 650. Perfect.
I want to touch on gout again. We talked about it a little bit earlier, the buildup of uric acid that's more common as people age. How much of a correlation is there between the stages of chronic kidney disease and the incidence or severity of gout? And what are some of the tools then that we might explore to reduce high uric acid? Does that remove stress or pressure on the kidneys? And then does working more holistically to improve kidney health have the potential to reduce high uric acid?
[0:34:46] DR. ROSE: Yeah, all that. Absolutely. There is a tendency for uric acid to elevate with kidney disease. And so it is of value to monitor it. Just because it was normal once doesn't mean – people change. Circumstances change. Chanca Piedra, by the way, also works for uric acid, which is cool. That's a nice strategy. Again, watching the diet, hydrating, alkalinizing seems to help. I think carnosine has a role in helping with that process.
[0:35:25] SCOTT: So many people these days either have a fear of cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimer's. Is there a correlation that's been observed between chronic kidney disease and cognitive decline? And does supporting the kidneys support long-term cognitive health?
[0:35:46] DR. ROSE: Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. It's interesting. One of my doc friends, Kat Toups, who's a brilliant brain researcher, she and I have compared notes. And the stuff that works with the brain helps kidney and vice versa. Another axis and cycle. People with dementia often have kidney decline. Kidney definitely influences brain. I mean, I remember when I was really sick, I couldn't really process information. My executive function was compromised, and that was a little scary. Homocysteine is a fact. It is not just one thing. And that's the complexity of it. Whether it's brain, kidney, or heart. I mean, all this stuff, complicated.
Again, I think bioregulators play an enormous role in this. And the Brain and Pineal bioregulators cycled through. It depends. How sick is that person? Some of them are as effective as Cerebrolysin. We have better access, it works. Some of the bioregulators. I was just reading this this morning, considered medication. Well, that's because you inject them. And they can be injected. Some physicians actually think it's better to use bioregulators as injectables, which there's 10 of those. I'm happy with them orally. I'm a needle phobe. I'm not in love with the needles.
And so, because they're so small, they are the size of what the stomach breaks proteins up into. They're already broken down and can process along. And the interesting thing with them is – I've looked up the two amino acid bioregulators. Why don't you just use the two amino acids, right? I mean, what's the difference? There's something about those peptide bonds that changes the whole routine and action of these. And I'm still learning this. My biochemistry is good enough, but I really want to get a little bit more accuracy on what does that do. Because that's a powerful thing.
And as it's going down, it's not these things going around doing what they're doing. It's definitely a connection that matters. And so, in terms of brain health, use longer term bioregulators along with all the other stuff for the inflammatory and the vascular changes. I mean, you mentioned galectin-3. That supplementation makes a difference. All of the vascular stuff, the TMAO, and the ADMA, and the homocysteine, they all interact in that cycle of brain and kidney.
[0:38:56] SCOTT: You have some great friends. Dr. Kat Toups is another hero and just so incredible in that space. She's amazing.
EPO or erythropoietin is often reduced in CKD. It can lead to anemia. So, wondering a little bit about the iron conversation. Do we find that some people need to supplement iron? Maybe some people are taking exogenous EPO. And then on the other side of the coin, excess iron can also damage the kidneys. I know many people, myself included, tend to accumulate iron and have to work to reduce iron. How important is monitoring and treating around iron and iron dysregulation? And how much does that contribute to kidney disease?
[0:39:46] DR. ROSE: Earlier stages it's less of an issue. And I tend to depend on the CBC. If I see those indices getting a little wonky, then I start doing the whole elaborate testing to make sure. If somebody has hematuria, I might want to be looking. And so ultimately, it's more of a more advanced disease issue. On the other hand, we have a bone marrow bioregulator, which absolutely contributes to support at that level. And again, because I'm looking at earlier stuff, which I like finding things that nobody else is talking about. It's like here's a person suffering, but I don't worry. It isn't really the kind of advice you and I want to give people.
And so, again, common sense. I mean, I like cooking in iron. I know I've been criticized for that by another famous doctor friend of mine who was trying to talk me out of it until I told him that carnosine actually covers up whatever concerns that are there, which isn't trivial, but it's like everything in balance. And so, I've often encouraged people to cook in iron to maintain their levels. Sometimes men tend to get levels that are too high and you go, "Uh-uh. Go find yourself some nice ceramic cookware."
[0:41:26] SCOTT: You talk about cellular senescence in kidney disease, essentially a buildup of pro-inflammatory cells in the body that increase as we age, in part due to an inadequate cleanup crew or cleanup process, or what's called autophagy. How much does senescence play a role in kidney disease? And what are some of the anti-senolytic therapeutics that can help us mitigate these zombie cells, so to speak, and the impact on the kidneys? You mentioned epicatechin in the book. Some talk about rapamycin to inhibit mTOR and increase AMPK or autophagy. Some talk about fasting. What are some of the tools that you reach for to address the senescence component of kidney disease?
[0:42:19] DR. ROSE: The first thing to know is, yeah, it's a big deal with kidney. There is a bit of SASP happening where you go from, basically, a cell deteriorating to the point that it's not functional, but it's still there, eating to infecting the neighbors, and then you have trouble. And that's the inflammatory nature of kidney. That's one facet of it. There's not just, "Oh, one thing, and you're done."
But I personally love FOX04-DRI. It is an intense experience. I did a cycle of it and had a huge herx. And I was like, "Oh, no." I mean, it was a little alarming. What happened? Am I broken? Two days later, I was like, "Whoa, I feel so much better." Next time I cycled it, none of that happened. Because these senescence cells can reproduce after a few months, you might have a recurrence, but then there are strategies.
I mean, I have not jumped into the Dasatinib quercetin much. I have colleagues who do use it and find it very useful. I like fisetin to cycle that. And also, in reading some of Professor Khavinson's works on the bioregulators, they have anti-senescent skills as part of their gene switching as they're working at that level. And so it's really a combination of things, plus doing all of the stuff. Are you exercising? Are you doing your breath work? Are you meditating? The lack of those things compromise the way to surpass this process.
I mean, again, innate healing is a real thing. And so, by feeding the dog, so to speak, it's going to function better. And making sure that you're not breathing toxins and things that cause senescence. It sounds simplistic, but it's free. You're free to do these things, but you have to actually do them.
[0:44:45] SCOTT: Before we move into our final section on treatment and therapeutic interventions, I want to touch on one more topic, which we've already hinted at, but I think is so critical in this realm.
You talk about the limbic system. You talk about limbic system impairment. This is such a common issue in our listener community, whether it was from mold exposure, or chronic infections, or trauma, or many other factors. You highlighted that there are certain terms we should not use like pre-dialysis or kidney failure, things that are going to set up some limbic looping.
We also know that fear is a negative emotion that impacts the kidneys. And my mentor, Dr. Neil Nathan, suggests that we must feel safer in our world and safer in our bodies to move our health in an optimal direction. How might limbic system retraining programs like maybe DNRS, or the Gupta Program, or Primal Trust support people working on kidney optimization?
[0:45:53] DR. ROSE: Absolutely. Stop, stop, stop.
[0:45:57] SCOTT: My brain is stuck in a rut.
[0:46:03] DR. ROSE: Paul, who was the masty, Bart-mold person, was like the poster boy for DNRS. And I peripherally supported it, but I definitely do this. It's like impressions, symptoms come up, and that's part of the innate healing. Uh-uh. In Hawaii, no. Again, it takes that willingness, and intention, and intuition, and listening to self.
Yeah. I mean, the other one is you won't ever get better. When will you be ready for dialysis? Let's not plant fear. Chinese medicine says kidney is about fear. Fear not. And so, I think that it's an enormous thing. Because when you don't feel good or you go to the doctor and you're like, "Oh, you're going to da-da-da. There goes the limbic system." And it's like how do I offset that?
Years ago, there was a little cool little book called Creative Visualization. This might have been even in the 70s. And I had a lot of copies. I would give them out to patients and teach. Even with the little cartoons, the cancer patients with little Pac-Man going around. All of these strategies are very real. And so these programs that we have now, different people are drawn to different ones.
I mean, my husband loved DNRS. He didn't as much like some of the other ones. It worked for him. Other people are like, "I can't stand this stop, stop, stop thing." And so, it really is you're obligated. You're an adult. One of the things that I tell people, they talk about, "Oh, it's a cheat day." Or, "Oh, this is cheating." This is no game. Ain't no game here. It's like, "I'm an adult. I could choose. I may choose something that isn't perfectly optimal." That's okay.
In the bigger picture, no. Okay, maybe I'm going to have some chocolate here or there. Not the worst thing in the world. I choose not to do it to excess. And so, we can choose our thoughts. And I think that's part of it, is how am I positively manifesting? Oh, my God, I have to eat this diet. Oh, I can't have what I want. Well, that's like bang-bang-bang. Instead of like, "Wow, I'm grateful to have the means to choose foods that make me healthier. What a blessing."
[0:48:52] SCOTT: Building on that, you have said that kidney disease is an autonomic disease with sympathetic dominance. That's that fight, flight, or freeze mode. Wondering if we need to work on calming the autonomic nervous system to shift to a parasympathetic sympathetic response. And very commonly, when working on the limbic system, it's suggested that we can have more benefit by simultaneously working on the vagus nerve, calming the nervous system, shifting to a ventral vagal response that supports healing. How important is calming the nervous system, shifting into parasympathetic and vagal tonification in supporting the kidneys?
[0:49:38] DR. ROSE: Probably amazing. The way that I describe it is everything's connected. When the kidney is struggling, there's innervation. And it's communicating that to our brain and emotions. And so, this is a real thing. And I tell people, go to Vagus. As in the vagal nerve. It's one of my tongue-in-cheekers, because going to Las Vegas sounds utterly stressful to me. I live somewhere where we have no traffic lights. And so, the idea of all of that is that's the joke. Go to Vagus.
And so, it's absolutely true. And then there's things like, "Does the person have COMT?" Because that means, "All right, you're not breaking down." Life is full of stresses. Boom. Something happens. You're reacting. I watched this. Hubby will just react, and he's done with it. Me, the next day, I'm still reacting. What am I reacting to? Oh, the chemicals are still floating around.
There's also an enzyme that kidney makes called renalase. What does it do? It breaks down catecholamines. Also, some of the nitric oxide pathway, there's catecholamine breakdown that's sluggish. You have a lot of reasons, along with that there's inflammation in the kidney and it's communicating in a sympathetic nervous system like, "Hey, get up. Something's wrong. Deal, deal, deal." And you're like, "Okay, I'm dealing." Blood pressure can be elevated. I mean, blood sugar can be elevated because of this. Again, vicious cycling, worse kidney outcomes. And so, yes.
[0:51:32] SCOTT: And so what I'm hearing there is in terms of the stress response and that component, that there can be mental, emotional factors, but there can also be physical, biological factors that are contributing to our stress response.
[0:51:47] DR. ROSE: And it helps to know that. For me, it's like, "What? Where's the fire? What am I reacting to?" It seemed stupid to me, like, "What is going on?" And when I learned that, then I could go, "Okay, that's what's happening." It's like you have a baby crying, "What's wrong? You need a diaper change? You have an ear infection? What's up?" And so when you know what's up, "Okay, I can stop." I've learned to say no. I don't allow stressful people in my world as much as I am capable. Turn off the news and play the ukulele. I mean, it really is. There's lots of strategies.
Artwork. I do this thing called Neurographics. Here, I just did this on the cover of my notebook today. It was a Russian psychologist who came up with this. You just draw lines. You can have an intention, something that you want to do, and then you start rounding it off, and it changes the brain. It's remarkable stuff. Playing music. Doing gentle, not like – I mean, that can be agitating. Gentle movement, Tai Chi, and dance, and listening to music, listening to the wind, listening to the ocean. I mean, all these things are free for the harvesting. And then there's some of these gizmos for enhancing the vagus. I think that's worth it.
And again, are you anxious? Exactly. Are you anxious? Cop to it. Is this my personality or is this my physiology? I mean, my own doctor was like, "You knew to get a handle on your anxiety." I was like, "Wait a minute. This is my illness. Talk to me differently." It felt blamey.
[0:53:40] SCOTT: And even some of the things you talked about earlier, like Bartonella, commonly will create anxiety, rage, OCD, all of these infections and neuroinflammation. I mean, they play a role.
Before we jump in now to treatment, I want to extend a little bit on the limbic system, which from my lens can be mental-emotional in terms of the trigger, but it can also be 100% physical, that the limbic system is impaired by mold, or pesticides, or chemicals, or chronic infections. I want to think a little more about the emotions that affect the kidney, like fear or shock. How important is working on those higher levels, the mental, emotional body, to support the physical body?
And you say that a kidney success protocol must foster self-love. Have you found that tools like EMDR, or Rapid Eye Technology, or maybe EFT, or tapping, or somatic work, or homeopathic flower remedies, or other tools to process and release emotions, and the cellular imprint that they may have on the body can synergistically support kidney health protocols?
[0:54:57] DR. ROSE: Definitely. And again, we personalize. What does somebody have access to? Whether it's where they live, their finances. But yeah, I mean, all of these things really do matter. Because you're right, the body is creating abnormalities. And the intent to get better includes that. And it's a self-sabotage.
And what I'm working on now is it's also a spiritual thing. At a spiritual level, the body reflects that. And so, again, it can be a positive loop rather than a negative one. I mean, anger, somebody's angry all the time, deal with that. Why? Are you angry because you're sick? Are you angry because your partner's assaulting you? Let's get some clarity here. I mean, there's a lot of issues that agitate the whole system.
Being morose, being negative about your situation. Sure, you have to grieve. I would come home – I have to travel far to go see these specialists, and I would come home and go to bed and cry because I was getting such negative stuff early when my brain really wasn't – I didn't get into like, "I'm getting past this now." I mean, I had to get a little bit fired up and say like, "I'm on this."
And so, yes, grieve, but don't linger there. And so all of these, I think that faith has a place for people who use that tool, whether it's some organized religion or the belief in the divine nature of life, and cosmic energy involvement. I think meditation is a lovely thing. Chanting. And people who are churchgoers, who find solace in that, it works, it helps. And so, as above, so below. And so, we can look. I look at kidney as discernment.
And sure enough, at a level, at a higher level of discernment, it's all the same thing. And so working on those levels really does have some impact. You can't just say, "Well, I'm meditated and I'm not better. What's going on, doc?" It's not just that. And yet, it's all about it.
[0:57:39] SCOTT: If we look at the dental organ meridian relationships, we can see that the kidneys can be impacted by issues with teeth 7 through 10 and 23 through 26, the upper and lower incisors. How often do you see a dental issue, such as an infection or a root canal in one of those eight teeth that we may need to address to significantly move the needle with kidney health?
[0:58:08] DR. ROSE: Yeah, yeah, it's real. I mean, periodontal disease is very real. And I had a delightful relationship for a while with a biological dentist who was also a naturopath. And so, we dialogue quite a bit about this. And he had the chart in his office. It was really cool to find that chart in a dental office. And here are the teeth that are related to different organs.
Oral maintenance is critical. And that means, get your tongue scraper and be using a Waterpik. I just found out, I'm going to replace mine with a – you can do a combo, Sonicare, Waterpik, which sounds really appealing. All this is very real. If you can find a biological dentist, go for it. It's not cheap. And yet, I had a lot of dental work as a child. And my mother thought soda was an appropriate thing for a child. And I had tooth issues.
Also, looking at fluoride. I wrote a blog post recently about fluoride, and what I found was early in life exposure to fluoride, yep, can mess up your kidneys. That was me. And so, I realized since. It's a conversation now with our new secretary there, actually attending to some of these toxins. Thank God. I wanted to address, like, "Look at what this does to kidneys." It's a good blog post to read. I have a few that I'm getting into it. It's fun to kind of come up. This would have been in the appendix, but I had to let the book get born before it would be –
[0:59:57] SCOTT: As we move into therapeutic interventions, I may be just going to summarize a few things that we've already talked about, then I'll ask a few more questions. So, we want to remember that it is important to consider lifestyle. Exercise, sleep, stress management. I think that's already been made clear by Dr. Rose that those are major players in improving kidney health. We talked some throughout our conversation about the Kidney Optimal or Kidney Kosher diet. Thinking about more plant protein rather than animal protein, potentially lower salt or sodium, potentially lower oxalates, potentially lower potassium, lower phosphorus. A number of things that we can think about from a dietary perspective to support the kidneys as well.
[1:00:46] DR. ROSE: Excess protein is really not a good idea. And just today, Elizabeth Yurth is a peptide doc who I have enormous admiration. She's promoting the meat and lots of protein. I keep going, "Make sure you know that the person doesn't have CKD." She gave me a thumbs up today. I was like, "I don't want to offend your passion for this." But I know. I've seen it with so many people. Too much meat, too much protein. Lower that. Wow, they're doing so much better. There's just so many factors. And again, there are people who, with a huge oxalate issue, they're eating the meat. Okay, well, let's make sure you're not too acidic. And supplement things that they need.
[1:01:35] SCOTT: She talked about Acacia senegal as a significant tool in chronic kidney disease mitigation. You talked about it for uremic toxins, possibly for creatinine. You suggested that it's a dialysis of sorts. And fiber is really important in the conversation about unburdening the kidneys. Wondering, does the Acacia have an effect on the environmental toxicants as well? Do you think of it as helping to reduce mycotoxins, and metals, and endotoxins, and potentially other environmental toxicities?
[1:02:12] DR. ROSE: Every time I look this up, I find out, yeah. Again, you're triggering me a few more hours of digging into this stuff. Because one thing that I like that it does is it enhances butyrate in the large intestine. Right there, that's a real benefit. Those cells are actually capable of functioning. I have been finding out, look up, "Oh, does it bind and excrete this?" Yes.
[1:02:43] SCOTT: I'll be, myself, ordering tomorrow Heather's Tummy Fiber, which is the Acacia senegal that Dr. Rose is talking about. One of the benefits that you just mentioned is increasing butyrate. Butyrate can help with systemic inflammation, modulate that gut-kidney axis, can help to reduce some of the uremic toxins as well. It can support microbiome diversity. So many good things. If we think about the Acacia stimulating butyrate production through its impact on the microbiome, which then creates butyrate, do you think there's still a place where we may want exogenous butyrate as well? Or do you find that the acacia is generally adequate?
[1:03:27] DR. ROSE: There are times when people are struggling with gut issues with CKD, and I've recommended butyrate as a supplement. Again, there's only so many things you can supplement. And so, it's really choosing. Somebody's taken 40 pills a day. It's a lot. This is what I like about bioregulators, because you don't have to take them all the time. Cycle.
[1:03:58] SCOTT: My mentor, Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt has often said that the number one remedy for the kidneys is water and hydration. When we're thinking about hydration, what is the right type of water? Obviously, it should be filtered. But should it be structured? Should it be reverse osmosis, distilled, spring water? What can we do to the water to make it more hydrating? In this community, we're often thinking about low anti-diuretic hormone. We can drink a lot, we pee it all out, we're still cellularly dehydrated. Maybe adding some trace minerals. Maybe adding some electrolytes. Though we talked about that has potential concerns as well. What is your hydrating concoction for dealing with supporting the kidneys?
[1:04:51] DR. ROSE: I think, first of all, the call to hydrate is compromised with CKD. Right there, what Dr. Klinghardt says is like just drink and hydrate. I mean, I'm aware of that. I kind of make a joke when I'm doing this. And you got to see my cool cup matches my book. Actually, doing it. I think hydrogen water has a nice place. I don't know that distilled water is the best thing because that's a way to get some of these minerals. I mean, not as it's toxic, but there's probably a place for somebody who you want to get rid of all of that stuff.
And so, I haven't really delved that deep into is there one better than another. Almost more like let's optimize. And you can overdo it. More advanced kidney patients can overdo hydration and not be able to excrete enough. And then they start getting puffy and don't know why. It's like monitor. And so figuring out each person's optima. There are some formulas. And I don't even remember them at this point. I'm not a number person. It's more like how are you doing this? And filtration goes without saying. I mean, fluoride is in a lot of the water, still. Could we get rid of this? Groundwater where things are leached from pesticides sprayed nearby your water source. Mindfulness clearly matters.
[1:06:39] SCOTT: I want to talk a little bit now about botanicals or herbs that are top kidney supports. I think of parsley. I think of solidago. I know there's many others. Another one that I see a lot in kidney support formulas is astragalus. I want to talk about what plant medicines you might reach for. And then we know that inflammation and oxidative stress play a role. We've talked about that. Is there a place here for anti-inflammatories, or antioxidants, or maybe things to support NRF2 as part of reducing inflammation, like sulforaphane, for example?
And then one of the things that I wanted to get your thoughts on, because we use it a lot in the chronic Lyme arena, but you mentioned in the book that cat's claw is potentially problematic in someone with existing kidney issues. Talk to us a bit about botanicals and herbs for kidney support.
[1:07:35] DR. ROSE: Well, that's kind of why I'm working on this book, to do the equal deep dives that I did with the bioregulators. The nephrology community is very anti-botanicals. Don't do it. Anyway, my last experience when I went to see a nephrologist was I had got – that was when I got my GFR up to 51. And she was like, "Y'all taking too many things, you're going to hurt yourself." And I'm like, "Well, did you notice? I went from 30 to 51." And she's like, "It doesn't matter. I haven't read about this. Don't do it." And I'm like, "Well, I have. Would you care for some references?" "No."
Anyway, my husband, who has become an herbalist since we've lived in Hawaii, just handed me his phone, which has my renal tincture that he puts together. And I'm happy to read it off to you because it's quite elaborate. Renal Tincture, 1:5, 50%. Ashwagandha, Lonicera japonica, Rheum palmatum, Artemisia annua, Rehmannia, Hoheria, which is lovely, gotu kola, Longan seed, Nettle seed, Milk Thistle seed, Danshen, Tripterygium wilfordii, and ginkgo. Cordyceps is a lovely add. The medicinal mushrooms have a lovely place. Again, oxalate awareness. There's always personalized. Each person has their own little array of demons that they have to dance with and turn into little angelics.
I love cilantro. I mean, cilantro by the fistful, I think, got rid of my mercury level. Everything I cook, I'm like – we buy it by the pound from a local grower. And I love that. Ginger. Turmeric is wonderful. Turmeric is a lot of literature. And even some of the nephrologists recommend Turmeric. Again, oxalate issue. You got to be sensible. Galangal is the other one. Cardamom, I absolutely adore. It's delicious. Dong quai, for women, can have a benefit. Fo-Ti Ting, or Shou Wu, is one that I took for years.
It's interesting because, of course, it's like, "Oh, sure. Let me keep my dark hair." Oh, well, I turned into a blonde. I was getting these purpuric lesions. My dad had it. I saw a bunch of patients who had this. I had a moment where I found this very brief little message about capillary stability. I started using that. They're gone. And then when I got CKD, I was like, "I'm not giving that up." I found that it was a real ally. And again, Fiona Chin, highly recommends that to her patients. And so, I was reassured. The list is so long.
[1:10:41] SCOTT: Interestingly, cilantro and parsley are kind of related, right? It sounds like there is a place for parsley, potentially, as well.
[1:10:51] DR. ROSE: Absolutely.
[1:10:51] SCOTT: Talk to us about what the potential caution is around cat's claw.
[1:10:56] DR. ROSE: There's toxins in it that the kidney doesn't do well. It's basically the simplest version. There's inflammatory changes that are undesirable. And so, everything that people mention, "Oh, this is good, but maybe not for you." And so that'll be one list in that book. Maybe the appendix of that book is don't do these. And there's a number of them. I'm almost not quite up to speed to be doing that conversation quite yet. I'm still kind of completing the peptide and bioregulator conversation, because I like to really dive. And to be honest, having some AI resources is really helpful for doing some of this because it gives me an enormous amount of information before we've been ready.
[1:11:51] SCOTT: There is discussion around Klotho as an anti-aging protein that can be very helpful for the kidneys. What is that? And what are some ways that we can support it? Is supporting it real today? Or is this a tool of the future?
[1:12:08] DR. ROSE: Well, I know there are some people who are using it. Klotho is the progeria reversal tool. I mean, I'm very interested in it and actually would like to start using it myself. It can be found. There aren't many people who are really up to speed with guiding people with that, but there are some.
In that whole conversation with FGF23, Klotho and FGF23 work together. By putting Klotho – I mean, I wish there was a lab that was easily attainable. Apparently, there is, but it's ridiculously expensive still. And so, again, this anti-aging call that we have for progeric CKD, Klotho will be a real, a real boon.
I don't have access. And I can't just kick this out. But there are foods that can enhance Klotho, exercise, good sleep. I mean, again, we still come back to a lot of these things. We can support. More in a supportive rather than therapeutic manner. And what we're looking for with CKD is how do we do this therapeutically. And it's also on my list of how do I find out enough to be able to honestly guide people? Because when I'm saying really can't be medical advice, you need somebody to help support this. There are ways to hurt yourself with things that sound good with kidney. And each person is unique. I mean, I've seen people try something that sounded really good. Uh-oh. That's scary.
[1:13:56] SCOTT: One of my all-time favorite topics is drainage. And in that realm, the realm of German homotoxicology. I really like tools like Pekana's RENELIX, or Energetix's Kidney-Tone. Of course, they have other tools for supporting the liver, the lymphatics, the extracellular matrix, and broad drainage support as well. But wondering if you incorporate any homeopathic drainage support into your kidney protocols?
[1:14:24] DR. ROSE: I haven't. But hearing you say that, it's like, yeah, that's something that I know about. It just hasn't been part of my practice. Some homeopathics. I used a lot of homeopathy in my medical practice when I was in my busy 80-hours-a-day kind of lifestyle. But, yeah, I like that idea.
[1:14:48] SCOTT: My personal drug of choice is melatonin. What are some of the mechanisms through which melatonin supports the kidneys? Is it because it's antioxidant, or anti-inflammatory, or supporting the mitochondria, or reducing fibrosis, or helping with blood pressure, or helping with circadian rhythm?
[1:15:09] DR. ROSE: All of it. Yes.
[1:15:11] SCOTT: Of course. And when would you reach for melatonin? How big of a tool is that in your toolbox? And do you support the use of higher dose melatonin protocols like some are doing with 50 or more milligrams grams per day?
[1:15:27] DR. ROSE: With kidney, I'm a little nervous with that high. I'd go to 10 to 20. And again, it may just be I tend to be very cautious. And with kidney people, when you do something, it's like you don't want to do that to somebody. And it may be fine. But if I'm not really sure that it'll be fine, I tend to be a little bit of a slow-poke about this stuff. But there's actually renal melatonin that's produced. And the immunity aspect of it, I think, is a primary concern for me.
The sleep aspect. It's not a sleeping pill. But without it, the sleep is crummy. That's one of the reasons I really like Epitalon, the pineal bioregulators, because it enhances that innate healing of being able to produce the melatonin. But I take it. I recommend it to pretty much everybody unless they sleep 12 hours a day and everything's fine. Some high-stage two people who are doing preventive stuff, maybe that's one thing you don't need.
But I agree, all of the above. The cardio benefits, the immune benefits, the circadian benefits are really critical to this complicated – I kind of call it the tree of lifestyle, that there's so many facets. And with each one, there's a whole array of therapeutics. And again, if you use every therapeutic for all of those facets of kidney health, it's almost too much. And put that Oura ring on and find out how your sleep is doing.
[1:17:18] SCOTT: Very, very recently, we have access to ozonated glycerin, which I understand you've been exploring. Maybe adding a quarter teaspoon to your tea as well. What do you see as the benefits of ozonated glycerin when we're talking about kidneys? Is it the nitric oxide support, the mitochondria, chronic infections? How is that fitting into your protocols?
[1:17:43] DR. ROSE: All of it. Well, I was blessed fairly recently to have house guests, Robert Rowan and Terri Su. Terri Su was a friend of mine back when I was in my internship, and we hadn't seen each other since I finished residency. It was utterly fabulous to have them. They said they're going to come back. And they were the ones that brought OG to our attention. They brought us some. We're now making it. We have a tank and an ozonator, which I'd asked Terri about several years ago.
And I can't say I was thrilled about using rectal ozone. Again, the bicarb, yeah, I'll do it, but I wasn't that reliable. I like the OG. I think it's wonderful topically and internally. I mean, everything you said, there's a lot of ways that it offers that oxygenation benefit to kidney, which can struggle with that, with the circulatory aspects, with the nitric oxide aspects. And I think it has a role as an anti-aging substance. With infection, it goes without saying.
And a lot of people have like pre-infectious annoyance. It hasn't declared itself clinically. And yet, low-grade, I think that that's a really nice kind of primary to primary and a half prevention to offset things you don't even know you have yet.
[1:19:23] SCOTT: I want to throw out a few other potential adjunct therapies that we might consider for the kidneys and get your thoughts on which ones you resonate with versus not. If we think about acupuncture, maybe for increasing kidney chi, if we think about red light therapy for mitochondria, maybe ionic foot baths for heavy metals, things like Frequency-Specific Microcurrent. Maybe neural therapy with procaine. Maybe the Biomat. What are some of the integrative and alternative tools that you found to be the most helpful?
[1:19:59] DR. ROSE: I have many of those, actually. Got a Biomat. I love it. Especially when it gets cold in Hawaii, we all freak out because we're not used to that. And so, I'll just lay on my little amethyst mat. I like that. Got a Rife machine recently. And it's interesting. I was, for a period of time, having blood pressure spikes with solar flares, which was like, "What's going on? I'm fine. What's going on?" And it was Dr. Rieders who said, "Ah, they're solar flares." And I started tracking. And so, I had a blood pressure spike, and I sat down with the Rife machine, normalized it, 15 minutes. I mean, it was stunning. I'm really seeing lovely things happening. And so, I'm trying to sit – it's like you have to sit still. Sometimes I got things I want to do. But I love that.
[1:20:57] SCOTT: And are you using frequencies that are specifically for supporting the kidneys?
[1:21:02] DR. ROSE: Sometimes that. I have Dupuytren's, which is dramatically better. I wish you can see this. My hand was like this. Family history. Basically, all the men in my dad's side of the family.
[1:21:16] SCOTT: Which is kind of a fibrosis as well, right?
[1:21:20] DR. ROSE: Exactly. I mean, I'm delighted. I couldn't straighten my hand. This is going away. I'm also using DMSO on it, which is another tool that I like. Acupuncture. I do acupuncture. I long ago first went to Sri Lanka and studied with a physician who had a whole hospital. It was an amazing experience. And then did the Joe Helms UCLA program that was specifically for physicians, which was a bit of an accelerated program. Irritates the actual Chinese-trained acupuncturists. But it worked for me. I did it quite a bit in my practice. And I think that there's a place for it. I encourage people to do acupuncture.
And I have been a neural therapy person for many years. I really love Sarapin Pitcher Plant extract, which is actually available. Spectrum is the company you can get it from. It's injectable. Injected into trigger points and areas of concern. Lovely stuff. Into scars. Amazing. I was trained to do it with lidocaine, and I have since learned lidocaine can be a little bit harsh. So, I'm less inclined to do it that way. But I still think there's probably people doing that, and it's benefiting folks.
[1:22:44] SCOTT: And I think a lot of people with neural therapy are using procaine?
[1:22:48] DR. ROSE: Right, which I think is better. Although I had this awful experience many years ago. I tend to be sensitive to the caines. You can't call it an allergy because you can't have an allergy to the caines. But I was interviewing with a doc in Southern California to join his practice. Ate at a roach mobile, Mexican thing. Got food poisoning. And the doc, without asking me any questions, gave me an IV with procaine in it, and I lost consciousness and almost lost track of my body. And so, I'm a little bit like, "Okay, procaine, be cautious." But that's just my quirk. Like you say, I mean, you have your own biological uniqueness. And I think that there's benefit. I mean, I haven't done that. Though it'd be interesting to do a little injecting kidney meridian. I would inject along meridians. I love doing that. I've used B12 along the meridian and also BPC along meridians, which is really fun.
[1:24:04] SCOTT: You're a fancy.
[1:24:06] DR. ROSE: I mean, it's kind of like getting a new set of paints and going, "Ooh, let's see what this does." I mean, you can be creative. As long as you're not hurting people and you're educated enough, be creative, too. That's evidence. We talk about evidence-based research. I think we're evidence to promote progression in the world and science that we have.
[1:24:34] SCOTT: As the world of stem cells and exosomes evolves further, have you observed any benefit for kidney health in particular in that realm?
[1:24:46] DR. ROSE: Yeah, I think that there's a useful place for that. And personally, I haven't done it. A lot of what Khavinson would talk about is that bioregulators actually promote exosomes and promote stem cells to manifest and be active in the body. Again, maybe it's triggering the innate healing to be more effective.
[1:25:10] SCOTT: Before I jump into a few questions about peptides and peptide bioregulators, I want to talk a little bit more about some of the conventional therapeutic interventions. Are there pharmaceutical medications that are consistently helpful for people dealing with kidney disease? Would you consider ACE inhibitors, or angiotensin II receptor blockers, or SGLT2 inhibitors, or phosphorus-reducing medications? Do any of those have a primary place in your toolbox?
[1:25:42] DR. ROSE: Because I'm really focusing on earlier cases. I tend to send people to the nephrologists who were doing functional stuff for more advanced stuff. Basically, I like being primary care. A lot of people think it's boring, but I love it. I'm like the subtle. And so, a phosphorus binder, I've probably have chosen a lot of things first. ACE inhibitors really do have a role. It is an issue with potassium, like you say. So, then you use a diuretic to lower, then you need to – it gets complicated.
But again, personalizing. If someone's lifestyle doesn't support not using it, then you use it. Maybe in the year following, you can work with them, convince them, "Now you're feeling better. Let's try – what are you eating for breakfast? Gee, you're not hydrating enough." I mean, all those things. There's no easy fix, really. SGLTs have a place, and they're interesting to me. The GLP1s are quite interesting. They're peptides. And so that's kind of fun.
And there are some concerns. There are side effects. Some of the bio hackers that are just slamming this stuff without knowing what they're doing worries me. It's a little cringe for me because stuff happens. And yeah, there's a good place for it. I mean, sometimes calcium channel blockers are more effective. Compounded. I prefer pharmaceuticals compounded because there's titanium and silicon dioxide in pills, which I tell people to avoid. And so some of it's not that expensive to have it compounded, and you just have to find an amenable compounder to work with.
Some people use gout medications, allopurinol. Okay, if someone's really suffering, it's a kindness to use a pharmaceutical without hurting them, and then work on the slower process of finding out where are you emotionally? How can you adapt? Because not everybody's like Health Food Hannah, and not just, "Sure. I want to do this."
I mean, talking to you, you're willing. And you'll try stuff. A lot of the patients I've seen have been wonderful in that regard. But a lot of people are whiny. They have all these problems. And some of them have real issues, family stresses that are enormous toxins.
[1:28:29] SCOTT: Being aware of the terminology in this question and not scaring people, but wanting to also get some information out, I want to talk about some conventional end-stage treatment options, which the whole point of our conversation is to avoid getting to these places of dialysis and transplantation. How close to the many features that the kidney does for us can dialysis approximate? Is it one-to-one? Or are we still sliding further into kidney disease over time? Is dialysis a solution or a Band-Aid? And how long can someone live on dialysis before they need a transplant to survive?
[1:29:14] DR. ROSE: You know, it's a complex question with a complex answer because everybody comes with their collage of issues. When I hear that they're serving cookies and God knows what to dialysis patients, you go, "Okay, that's not going to work." I mean, I've assisted people who are on dialysis, who are motivated to really do the right thing, to eat healthy, because it does some stuff, and it doesn't do everything. And so, you still have some issues with inflammation and with toxins that compromise the sense of well-being and actually being optimal.
There are people who live a very long time and seem to tolerate dialysis. Other people despise it, they're miserable, they're depressed, they get sick and die. And yet, you can do okay. I mean, many people are able to do home dialysis through the abdomen as opposed to through a shunt. And that can be easier. It also can be more complex. Having to go to the dialysis center several times a week and have that experience, people describe feeling really drained. And so, to me, that would be the day you get a massage, and do acupuncture, and all of those things to optimize.
There are people who do end up just direct transplant. That's interesting. I mean, if somebody's that sick and they're really not ready to end their life, it's an interesting option. I'm not in love with implanting body parts. But I haven't been faced with that. I could say, "Oh, I don't want to do that." But you don't know until you're there, or what's that important. And there's a lot of drugs that people have to take. And yet, I've known people who have thrived with a transplant and have even diminished the amount of drugs they're using with various botanicals and supplements.
[1:31:30] SCOTT: If someone donates a kidney, is it true that they can still be completely healthy with one kidney, or do they technically have chronic kidney disease the moment the kidney is removed? And if someone has kidney disease and receives a kidney transplant, does that immediately mean their kidney disease is gone?
[1:31:55] DR. ROSE: Well, I found an amazing article by Dr. Colin Taherzadeh, who is a nephrologist. I think UC San Diego. Somewhere in California. He's a really inspiring man. And his article made it clear. The second that kidney comes out, it's CKD. It may be early CKD. Okay, you get an infection. That's the worst thing with early CKD. You might think everything's fine. And then, bango, it's not. There's a vulnerability. And so with people who I've talked to who have given up a kidney, it's like pay attention. Don't eat excessive amounts of protein. There's no one-size-fits-all with this.
[1:32:46] SCOTT: If they have kidney disease and get a kidney, that means the kidney disease is gone?
[1:32:52] DR. ROSE: Not really. Because, I mean, people lose their transplant. I think Jenna Henderson has made that public. It's something I can talk about. I mean, she is a naturopath who has CKD. I think some genetic, hereditary thing. I don't quite remember the details, but was on dialysis, got a transplant, lost the transplant back on dialysis. I don't have a statistic for that, but that is a possibility. Still, with a transplant, be diligent, be mindful. Not cavalier about, "Ah, I can eat whatever I want." Not necessarily. I mean, the tree of lifestyle still is critical medicine, no matter.
[1:33:47] SCOTT: And it also seems to me that if the problems that led to the kidney disease in the first place are not corrected, then even after a transplant, it would seem that we're potentially on that same path with the same end result at some point. If we still have all of these environmental toxicants in our system, those are still going to impact the kidneys. If we haven't done the holistic part of this whole conversation and we just get a kidney transplant, everything else in the body is still not addressed in a way that then is going to magically all correct itself, right?
[1:34:27] DR. ROSE: Exactly. Bingo, I mean, it's absolutely true. And there's no cheating. There really is no cheating.
[1:34:36] SCOTT: And then we potentially have the impact of the anti-rejection drugs on our immune system and the development of systemic chronic infections, right?
[1:34:47] DR. ROSE: Yeah, yeah, which then risks the autoimmunity. And round and round we go. And so, I admire that process of transplant. I think it's an incredible thing. And yet, personally, I think that it's addictive. It's an addictive behavior. Rather than doing the work early on. And that's why I have so focused on early, because are we talking about this? I mean, it's much easier to make changes early than when somebody's more advanced, they're sick, their brain's not working that they don't want to.
And yet, this isn't happening enough, so that if somebody really does get to a point where they need a transplant, it's a blessing if they're not really ready to die. And that's a hard conversation to have. But I often ask people, "What's your purpose in life? Who are you living for? What are you living for? Because when you come to that crossroad – I mean, I basically decided I didn't want to do dialysis. I'm in my mid-70s. Good enough. And the irony is I got better. I'm not even close to it. Thank you, God. But I was clear. Went into the dialysis center and said, "Hi. I am just here to tell you, I'll never see you again." They looked at me like a wacko woman. And when I told them what I'd been through and why, they were like, "Oh, good. We don't ever want to see you again."
And I had a cousin who was volunteering, "I'll give you a kidney if you need one." Meanwhile, she died from complications, I think, of COVID injections. And so, I think it's sad to me, but it's kind of this irony because I kept trying to tell her, "Don't do it. Don't do it." She had autoimmune disease, and it just exacerbated. It's not an easy conversation. I can't tell somebody else how they should feel about it.
One of the women who I had in my Facebook kidney group, which I had for a while, a stage III group, she got dehydrated and crashed, and ended up on dialysis. And her daughter gave her kidney to her mom. And she's doing great. I mean, I'm still in touch with her. And it's a beautiful story. The daughter is eating healthy and taking care of herself to prevent any consequences of having one kidney. And the mom is living a lovely life and gets to be with her grandkids, and has a husband who she loves.
And so, who are we to say that's a bad outcome? That's a gift. And yet, to me, the gift is getting better. All right, I'm not going to eat stuff. I don't eat pizza. I used to love pizza. I grew up in New York, the best pizza on the planet. It's worth it to self-diagnose emotional stuff. I'm eating. I'm stress eating. Okay, I'm going to deal with the stress. You know what I mean? Whatever it is. It's like self-assessment. So that you can then choose. It's like being your own baby. If you had a kid that was sick, you would do stuff, you know? Do it for yourself. That self-love thing is so powerful.
[1:38:25] SCOTT: As we get into our last section here on peptides and peptide bioregulators, a few more questions before we wrap up. The focus of your book, Renology Peptides, is peptides and peptide bioregulators. Let's touch on that as a tool in the toolbox that can really lead to kidney success. It's worth reminding listeners that peptides and peptide bioregulators are not magic bullets. They are still best incorporated in a context of a healthy diet and lifestyle to optimize their benefits.
You touched on many of the peptides. We talked about BPC-157, MOTS-c, SS-31, Thymogen Alpha, and a few others. Are there any other key peptides in the kidney arsenal that come to mind that we should know about?
[1:39:19] DR. ROSE: I really like ARA 290. It's kind of promoted as a peripheral nerve tool. Kidney has peripheral nerves. I mean, it was recommended to me by my cardiologist. I was thrilled and used it because peripheral neuropathy actually can be associated with kidney disease as well. That's one. AOD has a nice role.
I haven't been that encouraging about the growth hormone-related array. I'm still not clear. It's like IGF-1 you want elevated enough to avoid the sarcopenia on one hand. Yet, it can actually compromise kidney. And so, I just don't have the clarity for myself. Maybe if somebody in your audience is listening, come find my website and tell me what you think. Because I think that it's a little concerning, and yet there’s probably a place, Melanotan, and like that. But I do love KPV, because it gives that edge.
[1:40:32] SCOTT: Let's talk for a moment then about the peptide bioregulators like Dr. Khavinson's Pielotax or what is called Kidney in the Nature's Marvels realm. I've done several months of the kidney bioregulator myself. And wondering if you're seeing that make a significant clinical difference for people. And then would you start the peptide bioregulators early in the process? And then are there specific combinations that you're finding work best, like maybe Kidney and Blood Vessel, or Kidney and Parathyroid? You've mentioned a number of them through our conversation. What are some of your favorite combinations?
[1:41:12] DR. ROSE: Well, you have the book, so you've seen the idea. And check out the artwork. It's a Ukrainian artist who just nailed it. I described what I was looking for, and he really did a great job. I'm so grateful. The kidney bone is connected to the brain bone. The kidney bone is connected to the eye bone. In other words, all of the bioregulators have a role in the syndrome of CKD. That doesn't mean each person needs every single one of them.
But I was part of Bill Lawrence's bioregulator study. He was replicating Professor Khavinson's longevity work and has continued to do so. I learned from him how to cycle these. And so, he works with each person. And my husband and I had different ones that we were taking in sequence, and that's something that I do for people. I will create a year's protocol for them. And it depends on are you a cardio mostly patient? Do you have autoimmune? Have you had cancer? Then, heavier use.
I asked Marios Kyriazis, who wrote that wonderful little bioregulator book. Worth getting. It's cheap and simple. It's not the detail that you need to really prescribe. But wow, it was wonderful. And he has a case in there, which I replicated in my book, and asked him if it was a problem to take Pielotax for a prolonged period of time. And basically, he said, "It's fine." Okay, so that's something I've done, months on end. Not all of them, but that one. When I stop, I'm like, "I need it. Where is it?"
And the case that he presented, the person was about at dialysis stage. All he did. And this is not how I do it. But all he did was give Pielotax. And he got him to a GFR of 60. But when he stopped, it declined. That was when I went, "Okay, there's a point of this." And so, everybody has vascular issues with kidney. And so, I tend to stick with those.
The phosphorus thing is addressed by Bonothyrk, which is parathyroid. I love saying this. I don't know Russian at all. These words are like tongue twisters. I love the pineal peptides, whether it's the Endoluten that you can do orally or the Epitalon, which can be oral as well because it's only for amino acids, or injectable.
There's a trend that's been promoted to use doses higher than is necessary. And I think it came from this. Epithalamin is a big molecule. It has nucleic acids and minerals. It's a bigger, bulkier molecule, which has to be injected. Epitalon, little. The recommendation to use 10 milligrams of Epitalon is actually unnecessary because that's the Epithalamin dose. It's bigger. You need a bigger amount. And so that's just of interest. There's also some people talking about Pinealon is a pineal peptide, but it isn't. It's a cerebral cortex bioregulator. The language complicates things for people.
[1:45:08] SCOTT: How long does it generally take to see a clinical difference in kidney health when we're using peptides versus bioregulators? Is it generally the case that peptides could be a little faster, but that the bioregulators may have more of a long-term beneficial effect on restoration and regeneration?
[1:45:30] DR. ROSE: Yeah. Well, the injectable bioregulators, the Russians use first. I mean, they do. I'd love to go to St. Petersburg and experience their clinic. I mean, they do IVs. They do IM stuff as well as using them subcutaneously. Dr. Greenberg is convinced that's the best way to do it. We don't have that clinic in America. And so often, what they do is the injectable first. It's more rapid and intense. And then switch to a prolonged period of time of the orals.
And so, again, I mean, Khavinson would say, "If your lifestyle isn't good, these aren't pill for ill wonders." You can't really say, if somebody's eating bad, stressed out, whatever, the negatives, they may not do as well with bio regulators." And that's an interesting piece of it, because it really takes this diligence that I don't see with corporate medicine to really get in there and follow along with people and encourage. Instead of chiding, "All right, you're eating bad. No wonder you're not doing good," to me is not medical care. What is going on? What is keeping this person from absolutely caring for themselves?
I was a nurse practitioner before I went to med school, and one of the papers I wrote early, early on in my master's program, was looking at infantile reflexes, which are self-protective. The one where – it's the monkey grabbing mom as he's jumping to another tree. And yet, what the paper's point was, was, over time, we lose that inclination for self-protection. Why? It was a co-an. I mean, I ended it as a co-an. We need to understand this.
And so, with each person, whether there's been trauma, abuse, all these conversations really impacts how somebody's going to end up doing. And whether they can take care of themselves wisely or not. Then you put on your psychiatry hat and start assessing mental health issues, which are real, and they cause physiology. Or the physiology, like the microbiome, causing depression. Okay, we're not going to give you a Prozac. We're going to give you a probiotic.
[1:48:14] SCOTT: A psychobiotic.
[1:48:17] DR. ROSE: Exactly.
[1:48:18] SCOTT: There is some discussion around the use of glandulars or organ supplements. Many companies now have things like beef kidney and a capsule that is said to have a wide spectrum of healing peptides as well. What are your thoughts on the use of organ supplements to support kidney health?
[1:48:36] DR. ROSE: Yeah, before I knew about the bioregulators, I used a bit of glandulars in my practice. They do different things. They're not the gene switches. They're not mutually exclusive. Somebody was asking me the other day, it was actually a physician who I'm working with about, "Well, here I'm trying to do a plant-dominant diet. I hear this thing comes from animals." And I sent her back the thing. I was like, "It's not enough. This isn't dietary stuff."
But anyway, I've heard people say, "You don't need the bioregulators. Just do the glandulars." But I think I addressed it in the book somewhere. It really is different. And so bioregulators are the ones that are going in and actually changing that. Again, maybe it's a nice Chevrolet compared to the Maserati. It's very precision-focused to do the bioregulators.
[1:49:40] SCOTT: As we start wrapping up, what is the outlook for those with chronic kidney disease with all the tools in the Renology toolbox? Can someone fully move beyond chronic kidney disease, move on with their lives? Or do we have a lifelong vulnerability that requires permanent changes to our lifestyle approach to sustain and maintain the benefits?
[1:50:06] DR. ROSE: I'm old school. I love the old paradigm of prevention. Primary prevention, secondary prevention, tertiary. Primary prevention may be what those people who really get improved are mostly focusing on. Do that which maintains your health. On the other hand, once you've had kidney decline, there's that imprint. I think some people really get better, but that doesn't mean you start popping bubble gum, and candy bars, or whatever. There's common sense. That's really that basic preventive outcome.
But you get somebody up in the 90s. When I see my husband with a 98, he's not worrying about kidney. And he actually has been dealing with ochratoxin, which is nasty for kidney. It's like, "Oh, okay, we're monitoring. This is doing well." I've seen people do better after like an AKI, an acute episode. They drop, do stuff, come back up. But some of those folks will have issues and kind of fluctuate. And so get better, but stay smart.
[1:51:24] SCOTT: How do listeners continue to learn about your work? And then how do people listening find a good, holistic, functional kidney doctor that maybe has mentored with you or uses a lot of these tools and approaches? Where can people struggling with kidney health issues find knowledgeable practitioners?
[1:51:47] DR. ROSE: It's on my to-do list, my website, which is RenologyIsKidneySuccess.com, all one word. And there's blogs, and there's a lot of podcasts that I've done. And I have a section for patients, for professionals. And I've just now evolved a relationship with Dr. Daniel Rieders that we're calling Renology Associates where he's basically doing the initial consultation and I jump in and kind of do my thing. And he and his office kind of take care of stuff. I don't have the same infrastructure.
There are a few nephrologists I want to talk to them to ask them if I can put them on the website as reach out. Here are our resources. There are a few docs who I know who I think are kidney agile. And I want to enhance this on the website because it's really a problem. I mean, so many people come to me and they tell me, "Here's what my doctor told me." I'm just like, "Oh, no." Just either giving drugs that are dangerous, making lifestyle suggestions that can be dangerous, giving supplements that are like, "No. There's too much phosphorus in this. And look, your patient's phosphorus is four." "Oh, but that's normal." No. Yeah, nudge me along with that. I want to start getting that section together.
[1:53:20] SCOTT: My last question is the same for every guest, and that is, and we know several of them, so you can be brief. But what are some of the key things that you do on a daily basis in support of your own health?
[1:53:32] DR. ROSE: Ah. First thing I do when I wake up is do a gratitude prayer with breath practice. I do a lot of – the famous. What is it? Four, seven, eight? The vagus breathing. I do four, eight, 16. That's the vagus. I do yoga. I dance. I grew up doing classical dance and performing in New York. And got into doing Middle Eastern dance and teaching women in my practice as a feminine art to strengthen the pelvis and the abdominals.
And my diet is organic. I do an intermittent fast. I usually don't eat breakfast until 10 or 11. And working on my sleep has been a huge thing because I wanted to stay up till three in the morning. I was born at three in the morning, and I like it in the middle of the night. It's wonderful in the middle of the night. Okay, I have to choose differently. That's the level of giving up stuff you love. Sacrifice on the altar of holy health.
And so I garden, I do artwork, I play music, sing, chant. Keep friendships healthy, or basically change them to acquaintanceships. I found people would tox me. You should live and be well, but not in my space. Loving friendship and loving relationship with husband, as in peace in the home, is absolutely critical.
Assessment. What am I thinking? If I see I'm thinking thoughts, it's like, "Oh." Journaling to dialogue with my own self. A lot of research. Studying everything. Oh, now with ChatGPT, you can look up anything you want, and you end up with too much information. All that. I take lots of supplements. I'm very passionate about being in the water. Less to live at the ocean. And even if I just put my feet in the water as this experience of nature, grounding, that whole idea. It's like being with the trees. Listening to what the plant mentors are telling us. That's why I love the garden.
And troubled about something? I'm messing around with the garden, and I have the answers. I know that. And you mentioned ancestors. I do a lot of talk with the ancestors, calling for their support and guidance. Lead me to know what I need to know to be healthy.
[1:56:24] SCOTT: This has been a mind-blowingly incredible conversation. You've been so generous with your time. I've learned so much. And I know that people listening will not only learn a lot, but will be able to take this information and make their lives better. I really want to honor you, not only for an 800-page book, Renology Peptides, that goes into great detail on everything that we covered, but for taking the challenges that life sent your way and making those your purpose, your passion, your mission, and helping so many others through your important work. Thank you so much, Dr. Rose.
[1:57:10] DR. ROSE: Well, thank you. This has been fabulous conversation. I mean, I didn't really know the extent of what you know and do. And back at you. I mean, this is awesome. Thanks.
[OUTRO]
[1:57:25] SCOTT: To learn more about today's guests, visit RenologyIsKidneySuccess.com. That's RenologyIsKidneySuccess.com. RenologyIsKidneySuccess.com.
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a positive rating or review, as doing so will help the show reach a broader audience. To support the show, visit BetterHealthGuy.com/donate. To get my newsletter, visit BetterHealthGuy.com/newsletters. To follow me on Facebook, Instagram, X, or TikTok, you can find me there as BetterHealthGuy. This and other episodes can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Odysee.
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Disclaimer
The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or as information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.
