Jodi: Hi, I’m Jody Cohen, your host, and I’m beyond honored to be joined by Anne Louise Gitelman, who I so admire. She is a brilliant trendsetting pioneer in the health inhaling area. She holds an MS in nutritional education from Columbia University and the title of Certified Nutritional Specialist from the American College of Nutrition and a PhD in holistic nutrition. She’s an award-winning author of more than 35 books, including several New York Times bestsellers. She’s super prolific and brilliant. Gittleman has also served as the chief nutritionist of the pediatric clinic at Bellevue Hospital and is the former director of nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Monica. She’s a highly respected international leader in diet, nutrition, and environment, and I’m thrilled to have you here today. Welcome.
Anne Louise: It’s so good to be with you, Jody. We share the same alma mater.
Jodi: I know, but I got an MBA, not a nutrition degree.
Anne Louise: Oh my goodness.
Jodi: Yeah, it helps in marketing, I guess. But I want to be respectful of your time and jump in and ask, how do you define resilience?
Anne Louise: Oh, such a good question. I define resilience as the ability to bounce back after every adversity. I believe you have to make setbacks into successes, and that’s how I’ve lived my life.
Jodi: And one of the things that you do better than anyone is really talking about the gallbladder bile and how that plays into both your physical and your emotional health. And I’m wondering for people who are listening that haven’t had the pleasure of hearing you before, if you could just give a quick overview of the gallbladder, the roles it plays in both our physical and emotional health.
Anne Louise: So the gallbladder is a storage tank for bile, which is made by the liver. And the bile has many different functions. It not only is the emulsifier of fats, but it’s also a detox method of the liver, which is very much overlooked. It’s a binder of toxins. It helps with metabolism, and it’s the recycling of some of your spend hormones. So it’s exceedingly important for every hormonal digestive immune as well as weight loss issue. It’s very overlooked because everybody’s getting it out because they’re abusing their gallbladder. It’s also the repository for resentment and bitterness. So anybody that is exhibiting those qualities, we have to do a gallbladder cleanse at least twice a year, Jody, twice a year minimum.
Jodi: And we were talking before about the gallbladder and its role in emotions and the meridians. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? So people that are just, they’re grumpy all the time and they don’t know why.
Anne Louise: Well, according to traditional Chinese medicine, the gallbladder is one of the largest meridians, kind of one of those energy anatomic lines that runs through the body. And for those people that are exhibiting problems with aches and pains in their right shoulder, problems with gallbladder dysfunction in terms of inability to digest fats or heavy metals or toxins, it all has to be tuned up. I have people that have been deaf that when they get their gallbladder fixed, they’re able to hear. So it’s a real issue in terms of the proximity of the meridian with the ear canal as well as the hair. People have been able to regrow hair once the gallbladder is nourished and is fed properly. The problem is that we’re very big on high fat diets like the ketogenic diet, which I think is an SOS urgent diet. It’s not a diet that people should be using on a daily basis. Most people, if they don’t have their gallbladder not digesting all that fat, so it becomes stored, it becomes toxic. And without the stored fat being metabolized properly, you’re using the inability. You have the inability to use vitamins, A, D, E, and K, which is the fat-soluble vitamins. So I think a lot of immunity, metabolism, and thyroid issues are all connected to the health and the wellbeing of the thyroid as well as the health and wellbeing of the gallbladder, the storage of the bio, which to me is like liquid gold.
Jodi: Yeah. And you mentioned some symptoms that people might not have been familiar with. I am curious. I had heard that tinnitus, morning sickness, motion sickness. What are some other, for listeners who are like, oh, I hadn’t thought about that, that might be me. What are some other symptoms that a gallbladder that’s not working might present us? Well,
Anne Louise: You mentioned ear ringing is typically one of them. Deafness could be another one. The other is the metallic taste after you’re eating fats. The other is the inability to digest proteins and fats, problems with your GERDs and sometimes heartburn, sometimes h pylori issues with leaky gut, issues with limping issues with the whole right side of the body burning, aching and inability to metabolize hormones properly. So it’s connected to the, again, it’s the hormones, metabolism, and even the thyroid. So we were having an epidemic of hypothyroidism. I say, go to the gallbladder first, fix the gallbladder. The thyroid will right itself.
Jodi: So when we think of the gallbladder, can you talk about, first of all, what’s going wrong and what might be happening for people?
Anne Louise: We’re not metabolizing the bile. The bile gets stuck in the gallbladder ducts. That’s because it’s not being emulsified because we’re lacking of major nutrients. The fat soluble nutrients of lipotropic nutrients, which are the methionine, the choline, and the octal, they’re very, very highly deficient in the American diet. So most people that have gallbladder or hormonal or thyroid issues should be taking 500 milligrams of choline, 500 milligrams of ocil and 500 milligrams of methionine on a daily basis three times a day. If you take 500 milligrams of choline three times a day, you’ll never have fatty liver ever in your life. It’s known to really, right, a fatty liver, which is affecting 25 million Americans. It can actually make your liver skinny again, and so make you skinny as well. And it can also affect the thyroid because when the bile is released in the system activates a T four to T three enzyme. So you start metabolizing your food much more efficiently. So there’s this unholy alliance between the gallbladder, the thyroid, and your metabolism and your hormones and your detox. And nobody’s talking about it until I started writing about it five years ago.
Jodi: Yeah, it’s really amazing. And people, I’ve heard people leave the gallbladder out of the conversation, say things go from the liver to the gut, not realizing that the gallbladder is the connector,
Anne Louise: It’s the major connector. If you have heavy metals, you’ve got to really clean up the gallbladder. That’s where the choline comes into play or of a supplement I created called bile builder. You need to have all these kind of lipotropic nutrients. That’s where the choline and acetyl methionine come into play. And also, if people have a lot of parasites, we know that Giardia loves to live in the gallbladder duct, so you’ve got to clean out the gallbladder. Gallbladder is the forgotten organ. That is so very important. And if you’re harboring a lot of resentment and bitterness, go to the gallbladder. You’ll see how it affects your whole system.
Jodi: And looping this back to resilience. When you’re angry and bitter, when you clean your gallbladder, you feel different. You can look at the world differently. And so sometimes with resilience, that’s the bottleneck, literally.
Anne Louise: Well, it’s putting on different glasses. It’s looking at the world through different lenses, but feel good. If you don’t feel good physically, you can’t emotionally overcome anything. I really think it starts from the outside in.
Jodi: Yeah. And you mentioned your supplement bio builder that I bet everyone’s going to go buy this now, but can you talk us through a little bit, how do you clean out the gallbladder? What does that look like? What does that entail?
Anne Louise: Well, if you’re eating a higher fat diet, we know we need the essential fatty acids, but the essential fatty acids from the omega sixes and the omega threes need to be metabolized by choline as well as bile acids. So you have to take a supplement if you’re over the age of 40, because most of us have not had enough lesser than choline or bilirubin and cholesterol to metabolize fats properly. So we’re highly deficient. And years ago, we used to use a lot of sunflower and non soy, lesser than, or I should say non GMO soy, lesser than because of emulsifies fats. We’re not using that anymore in our smoothies and in our drinks. So you need to do that on a daily basis. What was your question again?
Jodi: Oh, just some of the, I hear bio binders, bitters. What are some things like, I know you have a great protocol in your book. Can you walk people through kind of the protocol for supporting a healthy gallbladder?
Anne Louise: Well, it’s taking the nutrients I talked about. That’s where the bile acids come into play. That’s where the choline, methionine inital, even a little bit of lipase, which is fat digesting enzyme, and it’s eating a lot of bitters because bitters rarely help to thin out bile. Many people have clogged bile ducts because they’re not taking enough of the less. Then I got off on the less then so in favor of lessen, which can lower total cholesterol and especially lower LDL oxidizing cholesterol. So we’re not taking enough of those nutrients. Number one, we’re harboring resentment and bitterness number two and number three, we don’t have enough HCL hydrochloric acid, which also assists in releasing bile from the gallbladder. So there’s a whole bunch of stuff that really coordinate and coagulate into a perfect storm on a daily basis. Even though I have my gallbladder, thank God I’ve got all my organs so far, except for a few missing teeth, which are actually so important for the organ flow. I would say that on a daily basis, I take the BBI to assist in the metabolism of toxins because it acts as a binder. I know people talk about all kinds of binders and fancy binders and this, that and the other, but nothing beats bile. It really is the missing link in terms of the metabolic switch that will escort toxins out of the body for safe passage.
Jodi: I love that. I want to actually land on that for a second. So what you’re saying is if your bile is flowing in a healthy way, you don’t need binders?
Anne Louise: That’s correct. You know what could get stuck in the bile, the heavy metal that loves to get stuck in the bile is copper. So if anybody has copper dysregulation, you’ve got to really tone up your bile or tone up your gallbladder. And there are lots of herbs that do that, especially the bitters that we were talking about, or even some apple cider vinegar is very important for the gallbladder and the liver. My favorite one, however, is dandelion and dandelion root tea.
Jodi: Interesting. And for people who don’t know, like bitters, dandelion, root milk thistle, can you talk about some of them? Well,
Anne Louise: They’re, bitters is a whole slew of verbs that are considered to be bitters. I think Angelica root is known as a bitter. Ginger is known as a bitter. Garlic is known as a bitter. So some of them that we’re very familiar with already are actually known as bitters, milk thistle and Oregon grape root are two other ones. So whatever you do for the liver and gallbladder you’ll be doing for your whole system, your metabolism, your hormones, the health of your skin, the health of your ability to hear properly and metabolize. And the connection between the gallbladder and the thyroid, I think is one that’s most exciting. Because years ago I began to realize that people that had their gallbladder out three to six months later started having a slow down metabolism. So there’s an interesting relationship there too. So if you take something like bbu or take the bidders, you’ll see that your metabolism is increased and it’s very important for people with autoimmune issues like the Hashimoto’s that’s so prevalent in this day and age. Everything is connected, Jody, that’s really what the bottom line is.
Jodi: I’ve seen you. Can you dive in a little bit more about the correlation between the gallbladder and the bile and the thyroid and the liver, if you want, how those hormones kind of interplay?
Anne Louise: So when the body breaks down or releases bile to break down fatty acids into an emulsified state, it also has the ability to act as a trigger to the enzyme will production of T four to T three and that production of T four to T three from inactive to active thyroid assist your metabolism. We found that to be so in two or three documented studies from Harvard and Tame University in Finland. So there were researchers out there, but people have just not made a big deal out of the gallbladder because it’s such a popular surgery. There’s a lot of money to be made. I’m also a believer that you have to give up certain foods that are very inflammatory if in fact you have gallbladder stones. And guess what those three foods are?
Jodi: Grains, dairy, and I don’t know. The third,
Anne Louise: Quite frankly, not according to the research, the number one, one was eggs, very inflammatory. If you have an allergy to eggs, eggs, onions, and pork, where the big three, and we find if people give up those three foods that you can let sleeping gallstones lie
Jodi: Eggs, pork, and
Anne Louise: Onions
Jodi: Onions, wow.
Anne Louise: The study was done back in the sixties, right around the year you were born, 1968. And it was really very interesting. It was done by an allergist. And we find that if people omit those three foods, they don’t have to get their gallbladder out if they’re on the fence about whether to get the gallbladder out because they’re starting to form stones.
Jodi: Wow. Could you speak a little bit about how bile and the gallbladder also affect your hormones for someone who might think they’re estrogen dominant or their hormones are just off?
Anne Louise: Well, bile is the repository for the spent hormones. So if the bile is not emulsifying fats properly, you’re not going to be able to emulsify and break down the hormones into their usable and their bioavailable parts. So using the bile for that purpose, something like the bile builder would be important, or a particular element called activated sulforaphane, which it actually does break down those hormones into a much more biologically acceptable hormonal metabolites. So the activated sulforaphane with a bile builder would be my recommendation for people that are really having an estrogen dominant, or God forbid, an estrogen fueled cancer situation.
Jodi: And you talked a little bit about having your gallbladder. For the listeners who might’ve had their gallbladder out, can you give some advice to continue healthy bio function and a healthy life?
Anne Louise: Yes. You want timed bile release is what you want, which is why you have to take a supplement with bile acids, oxil, a little bit of batam, maybe bee root if you don’t have an issue with oxalates as well as the choline. I think most importantly is to get that choline in 500 milligrams three times a day so that you’re not forming a fatty liver. So the research is pretty definitive. Choline is a major, major nutrient. It’s a B vitamin. We don’t pay much attention to highly deficient in the diet. So you have to take some kind of supplement.
Jodi: And for the listeners, your book, radical Metabolism does a really deep dive into all of this. Very
Anne Louise: Deep.
Jodi: Yeah, I know. It’s amazing. And they can get a lot more information. So this is really just kind of the high level. You may not even know what your gallbladder, you may not even know how important it is or what it’s connected to. So in the time that we have, I know you’ve done an amazing job kind of creating a line of supplements. Can you talk to people, what’s kind of your standard gallbladder protocol? What foods do you eliminate? What foods do you add in and what do you recommend people do?
Anne Louise: So I like the bitter foods, the bitter fruits. I like grapefruit. If people can tolerate grapefruit or not taking contraindicated medicines, grapefruit, some of the citrus, lemon and water, very highly emulsifying of bile. I love people taking in a daily drink of perhaps the dandelion root once or twice a day. I like the bitter herbs such as arugula, and I love andie, and I love any of the very bitter lettuces, particularly the ones that are grown hydroponically. So the bitter vegetables, the bitter herbs, the bitter fruits, the bitter spices. You need to take at least one bitter a day. And what I do is I put a little horseradish in my vegetable dressings, my salad dressings and horseradish is a terrific bitter, which is very good for the gallbladder, the liver, and to clear your sinuses.
Jodi: Yeah, I actually love horseradish at Passover. One of the Jewish holidays you can have, they grind it up, but you can actually eat it. It’s delicious.
Anne Louise: But I eat it every day of the year. I put it in sauces and I put it in meatloaf. It’s my secret sauce. My secret ingredient for the secret sauce.
Jodi: That’s amazing. And in addition to eggs and pork and onions, what else do you have people remove from their diet?
Anne Louise: Well, grains can be highly inflammatory. We know this dairy can be highly inflammatory. And I’m also seeing that a lot of the nightshades can be highly inflammatory. So depending upon the level of discomfort and level of pain, we first do the big three, which you mentioned in the book, then we go to the dairy, then we go to the grains, and then we go to the nightshades.
Jodi: What do you think of the gallbladder flesh? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Anne Louise: I think it can be dangerous if you have big gallstones. So what I like to have people do if they’re really concerned about the gallstones, is to use my bile builder, take a lot of bitters in the diet and get some phosphoric acid, which is a high phosphorus liquid.
Jodi: Yeah, that’s probably much easier than drinking,
Anne Louise: But it’s safer. A lot of people can get those gallstone stuck in the liver and then have a real serious situation. So it’s not good for everybody.
Jodi: Yeah, the first time I did it, that’s actually what happened. A gall basically. Well, I am fortunate that, but yeah, it’s kind of like you moved something from a place where it wasn’t causing any harm to where it could be causing harm. So I agree
Anne Louise: With you, you got to know what you’re doing with that. But I also like coffee enemas. I think that’s a good way to kind of flush the bile.
Jodi: Yeah, I was going to ask you about, and castor oil packs. Are you a fan?
Anne Louise: Love it, love it, love it. Very healing for the emotions and for the lymphatic system. The castor oil topically can actually go into skin about two to three inches, and it’s very, very calming. So I believe in that. I believe in the colon and hydrotherapy and a little bit of the coffee enemas once or twice a year, maybe even four times a year at the turn of the seasons.
Jodi: And what about some of the other suggestions like saunas, abston, salt, abs?
Anne Louise: Well, I think all those are good, but I really think that the phosphoric acid is the ticket. If you’ve got gallstones, I mean, there’s some merg that you can use as well. Angelica is one of them that’s considered a very good bitter herb to remove gallstones. And actually the other one that we’re using is one that we used to use for kidney stones, but for hard to solve incurable cases of the gallstones and all the gall issues, we’re now using stone root.
Jodi: Oh, okay.
Anne Louise: So we typically use that for kidney stones, but I’m finding it’s very helpful for people that are using stone root or stone breakers is what it’s called. Piera. Shandra,
Jodi: Yeah. I love that. I use that when it’s funny. I can tell when something’s not quite right. I can feel it in the gallbladder. So I use that in choline.
Anne Louise: I adore choline. I live on my vial builder. And again, I don’t have any issues with my gallbladder that I know of, but I find that everything is better, including elimination. The secret to good elimination is to lubricate the gut and you lubricate it with the bile acids. It’s the most lubricating substance known to man. So now every time I eat, I go to the bathroom three times a day.
Jodi: Wow. And tell us more about some of the supplements that you mentioned in your company. And also, I know radical metabolism is the latest book, but if there are other earlier books that people might benefit from in relation to the gallbladder
Anne Louise: Fat flush plant and radical metabolism would be at the new Falo plant, which contains some great information about the bile. The bile builder is quite unusual. We have a magnesium that has four co-factors. So it really hits your heart, your liver, your spine, your nerves, your muscles. We’ve got a parasite formula that has been the, is really the pioneering parasite formula that’s been out there for 25 years. That really, really works. I studied with real life. I didn’t just take this, that and the other from the internet, the way so many people do these days. And also, well, it’s true. It’s like everything that the kitchen sinkers really an art doing formulation. So my original teacher died at the age of 106, Jody, so I learned everything I could from her. I apprenticed with her for 20 years. And now all those secrets are now in the Uni health formulas.
Jodi: What’s her name?
Anne Louise: Hazel Parl.
Jodi: I Knew you were going to say that. Joe Dispenza apprenticed with her as well.
Anne Louise: Yes. Joe Dispenser was a good friend of mine. May he rest in peace? I’m talking about the original fellow that Co-wrote a book.
Jodi: Yes. Oh, okay. Right. Yes. Okay. And Uni Health is your company where you sell your products?
Anne Louise: Well, I’m the co-formulation. It’s owned by my husband, but it’s uni health.com and you’ll see all the different formulas, especially that bile builder. We have one for the brain that’s based on a Romanian formula that we picked up many, many years ago. We’ve got the adrenal formulas, we’ve got the radical metabolizer, and we’ve got an immune formula that is all the right glandulars that people need in this day and time. I’m not a big believer in people using herbs on a daily basis, by the way, but I just think they need to use glandulars. I think that’s where the secret sauce lies.
Jodi: Oh, tell me more. Why not herbs?
Anne Louise: Because I’ve learned from many, many people over the years, all my teachers and all my kind of masters, the Walk the Earth maybe 20, 30 years ago, that the herbs are medicinal and you only use them when you have a real issue. But you’ve got to still build up your innate resilience. There you go. Innate resilience and make yourself an invincible fortress by fooling the system and thinking it’s young. You do that by balancing pH and by using different glandulars. I use the parotid gland for heavy metals. I use the liver glandular, I use the adrenal glandular. I use something for the brain as well. And all those are in our [email protected].
Jodi: I love it. Innate resilience. Innate resilience with the gallbladder.
Anne Louise: Yes. Innate resilience, because we never know what they’re going to throw at us next. And we’ve got all kinds of variants out there. And the reality is there’s going to be all kinds of things as we grow older, we grow more exposed to these things. The only thing you can do is grow a stronger innate immune system. And this is what we’re doing innate resilience.
Jodi: And on that note, do you want to share a little bit about your new book?
Anne Louise: Yes. Radical. What’s the name of it? Radical Longevity. Radical Longevity is the book we’re talking about. Yes. It’s a book about all the super ages and what you can do to forest all aging. I think we have to postpone it by 30 years.
Jodi: Yes, exactly. And what were some of your favorite new findings or takeaways in the new book?
Anne Louise: Oh, the aha moment was how iron is aging. You shouldn’t be taking an IronRidge vitamin or mineral unless you’re actually designated to be anemic. So we have iron rich vitamins and minerals, and now copper can be creating Alzheimer’s disease, excess copper.
Jodi: Wow.
Anne Louise: Yeah, it’s very aha. People should just get that darn book, radical longevity book.com. You get six free gives. It’s just an amazing book because you won’t read this information anywhere else. I happen to have been in touch with a researcher at the University of Michigan who said that the introduction of copper water pipes directly correlated with the increase of Alzheimer’s in this country and abroad.
Jodi: Weren’t you the one? Isn’t that why people in Rome went a little nuts when they used the copper?
Anne Louise: No, they use lead. Lead was the downfall of Rome. Copper will be the downfall if we don’t overcome this in this country. It’s the modern S scourge of 21st century America. It is brilliant stuff. It’s not my stuff. I’m just a messenger. This is from George Brewer, but it’s all in radical longevity book.com.
Jodi: Amazing. And is there anything else on the topic of resilience or innate resilience that we haven’t talked about that you would like to share?
Anne Louise: One more thing, and that is the other aha moment from radical longevity was the use of lithium, low dose lithium to overcome Alzheimer’s as well, because it acts to facilitate all of the brain stockpiling of the iron and the copper. So it’s a facilitator to remove iron and copper from the brain, and it can actually overcome and reverse Alzheimer’s. Nobody knows about it, but now your audience does. 20 milligrams of low dose lithium per day will keep Alzheimer’s away.
Jodi: Amazing. That’s fabulous.
Anne Louise: Well, we all should spread the word because this stuff really works and it’s cheap. That’s why nobody knows about it.
Jodi: Well, thank you so much for your time and your brilliance. And can you share again where people can find out more about your new book and also your supplements?
Anne Louise: Go to radical longevity book.com because we’ll give you a coupon for the supplements. You get six free gifts and you’ll get a wonderful book that I think you should share far and wide. It’s not for just people that are getting older and in their seventies, I’m privileged to be, but for people in their thirties and forties that want to forestall the aging process and postpone it for 30 years
Jodi: And bolster their innate resilience.
Anne Louise: They’re innate resilience because it’s all about resilience, people, it’s all about resilience.
Jodi: Well, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure to connect with you.
Anne Louise: Pleasure is mine.
Jodi: Thank you. Bye.
