85. Preventing “Pet” Cancers Part I with Dr. Marlene Siegel

Dr. Marlene Siegel 0:03

You can put her out to a pasture and retire her or you could put her down. That was not an acceptable answer.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:12

Welcome to the your longevity blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear from Dr. Marlene Siegel. I first heard of her through Nathan crane, who I recently interviewed about conquering cancer. He said that Dr. Siegel applies the same principles to animals to prevent them from getting cancer and I knew I just had to interview her as well. I know I typically talk about people, not pets on the podcast, but pets are a huge part of longevity, they can contribute to healthy aging and even longer lives. Studies suggest that pets can positively influence factors that contribute to longevity including reducing stress, facilitating resiliency against cardiovascular disease and connecting us to a network of social support.

So in the next few weeks, we're going to talk about how old pets should live and why we're seeing such a reduction in their longevity. We'll discuss what pet parents can do to improve their for children's health and longevity and what strategies pet parents can learn to become empowered. This is part one of a two part interview series. In this episode, we're also going to dive into what a species appropriate diet is for animals. This is going to be a blast. Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of The your longevity blueprint podcast. today. My guest is Dr. Marlene Siegel, who is an international speaker and an innovator of integrative veterinary medicine, her practice Pascoe Veterinary Medical Center in loots, Florida offers the widest array of alternative therapies and detoxification services in the country. She developed her own raw pet food company and supplements. Oh, you're gonna have to help me pronounce this evil love raw, evil, evil love raw.com. More More about that to come. passionate about education. She has online programs for pet parents and veterinarians to teach integrative vet medicine. She's launching spas family wellness in 2021, detox centers for pets and their parents. Welcome to the show, Dr. Siegel.

Dr. Marlene Siegel 2:09

Hi. I'm so excited to be with your audience.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:13

I know our listeners want to know ultimately what they can do to extend their pets lives. Pets are a big part of our life. So tell us first kind of your story. Before we get to that I want to hear your story. What made you kind of convert from traditional medicine to more integrative veterinary medicine?

Dr. Marlene Siegel 2:28

Thank you. And I think it's an important story because it's a story that all of us can relate to in our own special way. So I was practicing medicine for over 20 years already had two daughters and I was homeschooling and we were showing horses. And my plate was full. I just didn't think I could ever take on anything more. But in the writing arena every night with my 10 year old there was something went wrong where the horse all of a sudden was catering in the class and she's not supposed to canter in a walk trot class. So we thought okay, something weird happen.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 3:01

Does that mean what does that even mean for the listeners?

Dr. Marlene Siegel 3:03

So my daughter was a 10 year old in a walk trot class. So the only two gates that they're allowed to perform is walk and trot. They're not supposed to be running. Okay? Okay. So twice during that class. One time the loudspeaker blew up, and all of a sudden the horses running. And that was really scary for me because it was a huge horse that my daughter had never been taught how to bring her down back to a walker trot. So I was looking at a runaway horse, but she really wasn't and they were fine. So the class was over, they call him into lineup and now the judges are making their decisions on who's going to win. And the trainers go in and stand in front of their walk trot writer, so there's supposed to be some safety there. Well, the trainer saw that the horse was starting to do something weird like she was, her neck was twitching.

And the trainer reached your hand up to remove the forelock, that little hair between the ears, and all of a sudden the horse reared in the air. Now, it happens so fast, but the number one cause of a riders death is a horse falling over and landing and crushing the rider. So I had a 50 pound 10 year old sitting on a 1400 pound horse. And it happens so quickly that the trainer couldn't even reach the reins to pull them down. So you see Lily's the horse, she's up in the air, she's climbing with her front legs, trying to get her balance and get back on the ground. But my daughter was literally hanging from the rains. I mean, literally Wow. Literally hanging 50 pounds from this horse's mouth and pulling her over backwards. So it was pretty inevitable. You could see what was going to happen but nobody could move. I don't think anybody was breathing. And so the horse goes over that as she was being pulled over. I'm standing at the rail in front of her and I could see her squat on her left hind leg and push yourself as hard as she could in the opposite direction of where she could feel my daughter was falling in. So as she was pushing yourself, she was trying this. Imagine that worse, you're being pulled over backwards, and you still have the consciousness to try to push yourself away. When she hit the ground. You couldn't see any space between my daughter and her.

So I didn't she actually landed on or not. So I'm jumping over the rail Lily catches her breath, and she gets up. My daughter wasn't moving. By the time I got to her, thank God, she was fine. The only thing she hurt was her pride. But back home, there was another incident where my daughter's both of us were writing and I'm writing and I hear some commotion going on on the other side of the arena. And I look over and I see the trainer, yanking my daughter off the same horse and just out on the horse's mouth and I go, What are you doing? And she said, Well, she started doing the same thing she did at the arena with that little neck contortion I thought she was going to rear. So she thought that the horse was speaking at something. This is a very season this horse was a United States national champion in the open division, which is trainers riding them. So the most intense competition and she was a Canadian, US national champion. And she could go in the arena with my trainer when her class and then 15 minutes later take a walk trot writer safely around the arena. So you know, you go from being all pumped up and you know, put everything you have into it to being calm and mellow.

That's a priceless, worse. Yeah. So the third time it happened, I happened to be standing right next to her. And I could see this like seizure spasm go up her neck. So we had equine veterinarians come out, look at her. And they said Dr. Siegel, we're really not sure exactly what's wrong with her. But we'll tell you that number one, she's not safe to ride, she'll never be shown again. And here are your choices. You can put her out to a pasture and retire her or you can put her down. It is still there's a core inside me that still gets triggered by that because that was not an acceptable answer. And I, for the first time really understood that people must feel like when they're told, I'm sorry, go home, pack your bags, there's nothing more we can do for you. I just knew something in my core woke up and said, there has to be something else. We just don't know what it is yet. Right. And that's what set me on my quest. And I also made a promise to my pet owners that I would never, ever utter those words.

Because I really do believe there's always something that we can do, even. And when I say this, it's not minimizing it, even if it's quality of life. That's the most important thing we're aiming for. So whatever time you have on earth school, it needs to be quality of life. Doesn't matter how long you're here has to be quality of life. So that's what my focus is, is helping to teach pet parents, what can they do to help increase the quality and quantity of their pets life? What does that look like? So the end of the story because everybody asked I always forget to tell is Lily and my daughter went on five months later, after being told that she would never be written again and never be shown again, with all the alternative therapies that I had picked up in that short period of time. They went on to win the United States youth reserve National Championship, which is the most contagious horse show in youth showing and she's still alive in my backyard. She's Oh games out comes up to Windows. And we just love honor.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:25

I love that my dog's name is Lily. So we great minds think alike. We grew beautiful story, I want to just dive into exactly what you just said, like how can we extend the longevity of our pets? Because I think we're seeing a reduction in that. So tell us how long should pets really be living? I do have a lot of listeners that have horses, but primarily dogs and cats, I think are the most common pets that many of my, many of my patients have. So how old should pets be living to? And why are we seeing this reduction in longevity in them, they

Dr. Marlene Siegel 8:58

should live into their 30s. And there is a cat in the world Guinness book of record. That was 38 years and three days there was another cat that was 34 years. And these were owned by a plumber in Texas. So we're not talking that they had any kind of crazy medicine being done that extended their longevity, they probably were indoor outdoor, it didn't say in the article, but they were they probably had some form of species appropriate diet. And and back then there wasn't as many toxins in the environment as well. So you're right, they are not living as long as they should. In fact, there are statistics that show that dogs are living seven years shorter than they did 20 years ago. And that is totally due to toxicity,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 9:45

which we I want to get into. But before we get into toxicity, let's go back to the species appropriate diet that you just mentioned. So in your opinion, what is the species appropriate diet for animals?

Dr. Marlene Siegel 9:55

Well, whenever I'm asked that question, I refer back to nature Because I didn't make this up and watch National Geographics are back in my day was Marlon Perkins and the Wild Kingdom. But whatever show that you watch where they're studying animals in the wild, carnivores eat another animal. So they hunt it, they kill it, and they eat it right there in the spot. They don't drag it to a kibble processor. They don't put it into can put preservatives in it. And they eat a combination of meat, fat, bone and origami. And then whatever was in the intestines of that animal as their I know, it's gross sounding. But this is how nature is right? So there, they kill an animal, they go into the abdomen, they're tearing out the entrails. They're getting some of that in their mouth. That's the probiotic and prebiotic. Yeah, right there. Because all of that's been pre digested for them. So as a point, dogs and cats don't have amylase in their saliva, right? So if nature intended them to eat carbohydrates as a primary source, they would have put amylase in their mouth, but they didn't.

So when I say I refer back to nature, I look at the biology of an individual species. And we're talking about carnivores right now with our dogs and, and I say, How did nature design them to thrive, and then I just tried to model that as close as I can. So a raw diet is literally a diet that isn't cooked, because they need to eat the enzymes that are in the living tissue. So we reason why we die and rot is because there are enzymes being released from our cells that are aiding in the breaking down of that tissue so that we can decompose and be recycled. Well, if you cook food, as your audience probably knows from you, then you destroy those digestive enzymes. Yeah, now the only thing these animals are able to digest with is their pancreas. Well, over time, they're using up their pancreatic enzymes, they're making the pancreas angry. So we see a lot of pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, and certainly a plethora of gastrointestinal diseases, particularly digestive disorders. So a raw diet. And a raw diet has to be grass fed grass finished, just like for people, because otherwise you're getting all the hormones, chemicals, toxins, glyphosate, etc. So we want to make it as clean as we possibly can. And they need a good percentage of Oregon made because organ meat is where so many of our other nutrients lie.

And then they need a proportion of fat, of course, in there, and that's their macronutrients. So when I created my diet, I was looking for how can I create the healthiest diet out there. Most pet foods to be called complete and balanced, have to add in the vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. Well, we all know, when you add a fatty acid to a diet, a fish oil based fatty acid, it's going to turn rancid when it's exposed to air. And then they can't keep the vitamins and minerals in the food without doing something to it. So they added synthetic vitamins and minerals. So here we have all these pet parents that are feeding what they think is the best what they think is the most expensive, and it's supposed to be complete and balanced. And of course it has it on the label. So wouldn't that be the truth? And every day somebody says to me, Well, if it's so unhealthy, why are they allowed to sell it? Well, probably the same reason why they sell half the grocery store to us loaded with sugar loaded with glyphosate loaded with canola oil. It's sad, but we have to be a more proactive community and become responsible for our health and the health of our pets and the health of planet Earth as well. Right Mother Earth is being polluted because of all the decisions that people are making, that are getting dumped into Mother Earth.

So it's a global problem. And we as individuals can do a major impact by simply choosing healthier lifestyles, looking at your labels, and don't buy things that are process that have a lot of chemicals that are not organic. And we the consumers are going to be the ones that drive the industry to provide our needs, we have to stop spending money on the things that are bad, because if nobody buys it, they won't make it any more. So this is not even a hard battle. This is simply it's a battle for your dollars. So choose where you want to spend them. So number one species appropriate diet means a raw diet that is grass fed grass finish, and has the proper balance of meat, fat, bone and organ meats. Now I separated out my micronutrients, the vitamins, minerals and fatty acids, because I wanted to be able to a dose them appropriately for body weight, and B make sure that they were the highest rate most bioavailable, ie the animal has to be able to absorb it and use it and it's it synthetic it may not be able to do that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 14:51

So when you say you separate it out, do you mean there's a supplement for that separate from the food okay?

Dr. Marlene Siegel 14:56

Yes. So our pet parents they buy the macronutrients meat that billion origami. That's the evil of product, which by the way, the name is love backwards and forwards. So it has a lot of the name. Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So they buy the meat backbone and organ meat, and then they buy the essential vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. And that way at home, they're putting together the diet that they need for that animal. And then we have superfoods that we can add to that in the minnows that we can add. And there's other things that we test for to see what they're nutrient depleted in.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 15:31

And that just triggers so many questions. So so how would you transition? Well, actually, before we even transition, let me go back to kibble. So essentially, you're saying all kibble is bad because it's processed, the nutritional value is destroyed, there's, is there a kibble? In a perfect world, we would all transition our animals to raw and that this may be the first time listeners are hearing that so they may not do that overnight? Or maybe they will, then you're providing a solution as far as how to do that. If they don't like from a kibble standpoint, is there any kibble that's better than others? Is there a benefit to finding like a hypoallergenic? I know, my dog, I think had chicken allergy. So I got off chicken and on salmon, but then I think, is it salmon really good for her to be consuming? Because what'd she have that in the Wild Wood? I don't know. I

Dr. Marlene Siegel 16:15

wouldn't have had it in the wild. And it's high mercury. So so we go back to that question is why is kibble bad? So number one, it's been heated to very high temperatures to destroy the pathogens, because most kibbles are, are not human grade food. And then number two, they have to form that kibble to make it a nugget right has to

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:36

yeah, yes, yes. Compressor when I do find it with

Dr. Marlene Siegel 16:39

in the past, it used to be corn, but some kind of a grain in order to be able to get it to stick together. Well, we know that 90% or 95% of the corn used in commercial industry in the United States is genetically modified. So if you see that there's corn listed in your ingredients, don't buy that, or soy. Both of those are really bad beats, because the beats that they use are not the organic beats. It's the greens of the beats that are being thrown away from the beef industry. And they are the most concentrated toxins in there.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 17:10

And what if it's corn and beet and soy free? Because that's because my dog food is right. It's sweet potato,

Dr. Marlene Siegel 17:16

right? So grain free is not carbohydrate free. And that's our next problem is the carbohydrates. So we're talking about obligate carnivores being our cats have no dietary requirements for carbohydrates. So let me say that again. They have zero No, not a Nuka carbohydrate requirements. They were not designed to eat carbohydrates. They got complex carbs in their diet, but as a primary source of eating them. They're not designed to us that dogs are carnivores not obligates because they've been eating off a man's garbage a lot longer. They have some adaptability to some carbohydrates, but we're talking low. Okay, all kibble all kibble will have 40 to 60% carbohydrates. And then grain free, since you brought it up grain free is actually the worst because not only does it still have the carbohydrates, they use potato starch, pea starch and all that. But we're seeing a tremendous uprising of dogs with cats with heart disease, and they think it has something to do with the taurine deficiency.

Cats are obligate, they have to eat organ in their diet, and they get that from their meat source. And that's why cats not getting a meat source, are prone to getting cardiomyopathy. So what the pet manufacturers did many years ago, when we had this onslaught of cats dying of cardiomyopathy, they added taurine to the diet. So they didn't tell pet parents, oh, your cats dying of cardiomyopathy, because there's no meat in the diet. They take taurine. Yeah, they just added the taurine. But there's a ton of other things that meat provides that is more than just taurine. So again, going back to species appropriate. So the problems with all processed foods, whether it's a kibble, or whether it's an a can, is it's going to be no enzymes, it's going to be devoid of enzymes, it's going to have high carbohydrates. If it's not organic, it's going to be full of hormones, chemicals, pesticides, etc. And then the extra problem for kibble is that it's dehydrated. So animals were designed by nature to get 70% of their water intake from their diet, eating it in the meat. So what we are made of 70% Water, right animals are made to 70% water, so it killed something and they ate the meat in the state that they killed it in. That was 70% of their moisture that they got in the desert.

So they literally had to get most of their water from their diet and they haven't adapted well. That's why we see number one cause of death and catches kidney disease. Cancers number two, okay, number one, and it's because they're so dehydrated all the time. especially if they're eating a kibble diet, that everything going through the kidneys is concentrated and filtered. So a little bit of toxin. Well imagine if I had a cup of water, and I had a swimming pool, right two different volumes of water. And I put the same amount of toxin in the cup, as I do the swimming pool, obviously, the cup is going to be more toxic, because it's more concentrated, where the swimming pool is so dilute, you may not get very much in there. So that's what the cat represents. It represents the cup of water in their kidneys, and it's very concentrated. So anything that's toxic, that's going through those kidneys, is going to have the potential for creating a lot more harm.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:38

So interesting. Okay, so for the listeners, how do they transition. So even when I changed my dog from a kibble that had chicken in it to this salmon product, right? The vet says to slowly transition over? Is that necessary, like so let's say I want to purchase some of your dog food and transition my dog over to eating raw? I'm thinking has her body adapted back to that adaptability? You mentioned to eating this kibble? And will she then have to adapt to eating raw meat? And like how does how would she be transitioned over?

Dr. Marlene Siegel 21:07

Fabulous question. And so yes, we do transition, any new diet, whatever, you're going too slowly over a period of four to six days. So if your pet has a grumbly, tummy once in a while, if they go off their food occasionally, if they vomit periodically, if they have intermittent diarrhea, those are all indicators that that GI tract probably has a lot of inflammation, leaky gut. And so there's a lot of damage there. So in addition to making the transition slowly, we recommend using products that help to heal the leaky gut. Of course, step number one, you have to stop polluting the body. So all the areas that you can stop the pollution in the food, the water, the environment, trying to do that first. And then number two is making sure that we're using products that actually repair the tight junctions. And then when you go to the my website, the Ebola raw.com, there's products on there that are that you can recommend.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:03

Can I pause you there, I want to stay here for a moment. This is so interesting to me, because literally how we apply functional medicine concepts to humans, like we should also be applying these to pets. But there aren't a lot of vets that that are doing that. So in chapter one of my book, I discuss leaky gut syndrome. And so there are a lot of nutrients that we're using, including amino acids to help heal the gut and probiotics and enzymes and whatnot. So can you expand a little bit? Let's go to supplements for a minute. So do you have probiotics for dogs? I will say my vet once gave me a probiotic, and I read all the labels, it was one strain. And then it was a paragraph of other crap, excuse my language in there. And I thought, No, this is not even worth me spending the money on like,

Dr. Marlene Siegel 22:41

absolutely. So I've been very honored to work with Dr. Zack Bush. And he developed a pet line for a product that was similar to his restore. And I represented that product in the lectures. And I actually did the original testing of that product in my practice. And so I put that thing in every orifice. It was great. It's on my website. So all of the above that you mentioned, we use digestive enzymes, because we know these animals are depleted. If it's a young puppy, there's not going to be such a big problem. But you know, that list of symptoms that I just talked about, in your older animals already tells us that the pancreas is depleted, they're probably insulin resistant, they've got leaky gut, they're having a hard time digesting to begin with a lot of these animals are overweight, or they have skin problems or ear infections or other health challenges. All of those are symptoms that are letting us know that the gut is not working well. So we use digestive enzymes as a support, not only with the meal, but in between meals, because we want to clean up that extremist protein and junk that's in the body that the body may not know how to get rid of. And so enzymes are important.

And yes, we use probiotics, but we use fermented foods again, I just go back to nature, our microbiome is made up of trillions of organisms. And it's not just the trillions. It's the diversity of those trillions that are so important. So we need to be able to allow everybody to flourish. You know, we're in a time where blaming and shaming viruses and bacteria and parasites and we're we're pointing fingers at them and saying they're the bad guys. They're not the bad guys. The reason they have become out of balance is because the host that we are to all these organisms where their planet, we have become very inhospitable. And so things are out of balance. So they're just trying to survive, and they're letting us know that the ecosystem the terrain is not a good terrain for everybody to thrive in. So what I tried to do is restore the terrain. And there are actually white papers out now that indicate that taking a commercial probiotic long term will inhibit the diversity of the microbiome, because you're now you're making them the bullet Right, you're just flooding the body with these guys all the time, and they become the predominant species, and the other guys don't have a chance to step in and do their job. So one other fact, and I know you know this, but this is really interesting to me that we have a certain number of genes that run our body genes are what actually tell our bodies what to turn on what to turn off, you know how we're going to function.

And an earthworm has twice the number of genes that we do an earthworm. So that fact says that they are genetically more advanced than we are. What we have done as a species is we and our pets have taken these organisms, the viruses, the bacteria, the fungi, all of these parasites, and we're using their genomic information to communicate to our mitochondria, how to run our body. Now think about that for a moment. If we get rid of all of these organisms, then we get rid of most of our genetic communication. So it's super important that we not only foster a healthier very healthy environment for these organisms to thrive in terrain, yeah, but they have to have the diversity in this type of terrain, to be able to function well. So that's super, super important. So it's not the parasites are bad. We're not trying to go out there and kill everybody. We're trying to create an ecosystem where the good guys feel like they can thrive because they have a good environment to thrive in. So we want to develop that terrain, which your audience knows what that means.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 26:44

You've probably heard a lot about fish oil. It's one of the most common supplements available after all, but have you wondered if you should be taking it and why you might want to think about it. The simple answer is yes. If you don't have access to fresh fish several times per week, you can likely benefit from supplementation and may even need to. I tested many of my patients fatty acid levels and found that the overwhelming majority of my patients are low in omega threes. omega three fatty acids are essential cornerstones of human nutrition. They are deemed essential because we need them for proper health, much like certain vitamins and minerals, but unfortunately, we can't produce them on our own. As a result, our only option is to consume these fats either through our diet or through supplementation. omega three fatty acids are known to benefit cardiovascular health, support healthy brain function and cognition, and have been proven to maintain a healthy inflammatory response. For all these reasons. Achieving the proper balance of omega threes is an important health strategy one for which most people require supplementation. Simplified fish oil can help improve your cholesterol glucose help your memory reduce pain, even headaches and menstrual cramps. I typically start my patients with one to two grams or 1000 to 2000 milligrams per day of combined Ecosa bentonite acid which is EPA and docosahexaenoic acid which is DHA daily. Our your longevity blueprint Omegas are stabilized in vitamin E oil and rosemary extract is used to ensure maximum purity and freshness.

This exclusive fish oil is purified vacuum distilled and independently tested to ensure heavy metals pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls PCBs are removed to undetectable levels. Plus, our official has the shortest see to shelf time, meaning from fish to bottle or capsule of only three to six months as compared to the industry average of 18 to 36 months. Seriously. That means most of the fish oil you buy over the counter is old, oxidized, rancid and not helpful that fish oil purchased over the counter could be three years old already before you ingest it. Yuck. With over 10,000 published studies in the last three decades, EPA and DHA from fish oil are among the most researched natural ingredients available and have a long history of safety and efficacy. Check out more product information on our website, your longevity, blueprint calm and use code omega threes for 10% off. Now let's get back to the show. So I have to ask, I don't know how long you've been feeding animals getting raw food even you know your brand. But are you do you see the health dramatically improve in those animals? And do you see the increase in longevity right a number of years in the life?

Dr. Marlene Siegel 29:14

Absolutely. We'll see changes within two or three days. We'll see. That depends on the individual and what their challenges are some things we have to do a little bit more. As an example. Vitamin D is very important for all of us. And we as humans, we get vitamin D from our diet and from the sun. herbivores, which are the cows and the deer and all those guys that we're feeding to our animals. They only get vitamin D from the sun. They eat their grasses and they convert their vitamin D. Carnivores only get vitamin D from their protein source. So they're eating a protein source that is deficient in vitamin D. I can probably is or is and there was a university study that showed that 85% of animals eating a kibble diet for vitamin D deficient. So we all know that vitamin D is not only important, but it's the main driver for our innate immune system. So if your vitamin D deficient or your pets, vitamin D deficient, then their innate immune system can't function. I don't care how many antibiotics you throw at them, I don't care how many drugs you use, it can't work. So these are things that are in the traditional world Sad to say, that veterinarians aren't even talking about, they're not even looking for it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:34

I mean, can you just supplement with vitamin D, or your I understand, I think you're saying the larger the better solution is to transition them to this raw diet, which would then have vitamin D,

Dr. Marlene Siegel 30:42

yes, there's going to be higher sources of vitamin D in the diet. But if these animals already vitamin D deficient, we want to test for that along with the 12 along with magnesium, because vitamin D and magnesium play cofactors together in a lot of metabolic pathways. So you

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:00

literally test animals, vitamin D levels, and B 12. I mean, it makes sense. But if I go to my vet and ask for that, I think they're gonna look at me cross eyed, like,

Dr. Marlene Siegel 31:07

yeah, there's very few people that even know you can do that. It's really crazy. Because we're not taught that in vet school. It was all because of me having to dive into the world of the body's biology. And that's what I do. I don't treat symptoms, you know, do we manage a symptom? Yes, we'll manage a symptom because you want the animal to be comfortable. But I don't treat symptoms, I only manage them, I treat the root cause of the body dysfunction, which is it lies in the body's biology, were in the metabolic pathways, is there a dysfunction? And how can we fix that? Even can we have great success with cancer? Because I want to get

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:47

into that. I want to get into so many things there's gonna be

Dr. Marlene Siegel 31:52

we're gonna have to go for a few hours here. You know, let's make sure we unpack the whole raw diet, because you didn't finish answering your question. How do you transition? Yeah, and so we do transition slowly. In most cases, we're going to do gut repair at the same time. And we may put them on enzymes, if it's indicated, for sure going to put them on some fermented foods. We make kefir in our office, which is a fermented raw cow's milk, you can do fermented raw goat's milk, you can do sauerkraut, of course, all organic, and they don't have to eat all the vegetables, it's the juice, they just need to get the organisms. So eating, having some kind of a fermented food as a probiotic in their diet on a daily basis is super important. The second thing besides of course, the right vitamins, minerals, I do want to mention fatty acids, because fatty acids are essential. And we know that a majority of people are using fish oils, and the like. And most of those are rancid. So most of those are actually causing more harm than they are causing good. In fact, I actually almost had heart surgery because I was taking a very high grade rancid fatty acid not knowing it was rancid, and it was causing a cardiac arrhythmia, really severe went into the doctor, they said, Oh, you have right ventricular outflow tract disease.

This was years ago. And right before I went in for surgery, I was feeling so horrible. I just stopped everything. I stopped the Atenolol, and in the western drugs, I stopped all of my supplements. And within three days, all of my arrhythmias went away, I went into the hospital, they go, you're not having any disease, we can't do your surgery. And then it was years later that I found out about this product that I was taking, and that it was a rancid, fatty acid, and it was causing people to have heart attacks. Who knew. So of course, I don't take that anymore. But we have moved because of a lot of my research into fatty acids and wanting to understand it, we've moved into parents essential oils, and those are the Omega three and Omega six that make up the cell membrane. And then our bodies have the ability to metabolize all the other essential oils that we need for our metabolism, your DHA and EPA, all of that is metabolized from your parents essential oils. So there's a lot of new research coming out that are helping to validate the importance of this. It's all about the cell membrane, we want to make sure our cell membrane is the healthiest that it can be. So we need the right proteins. We need the right Omega fatty acids to make a nice cell wall that is able to transmit electrical potential and all the things that it has to do to keep a healthy cell and that products on my website as well. So

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:37

tell me what is the base of the raw food then, like what's the protein source?

Dr. Marlene Siegel 34:43

We use chicken and we use beef variety is great. Yeah. So we have an all beef we have an all chicken and we have a combination. So people a lot of times say oh my animal is allergic to chicken, like you said earlier. Yeah. And truly it's the leaky gut. So it's not so much We're allergic to a food as we have a lot of inflammation and we have leaky gut. And so when we fix the leaky gut, and we reduce the inflammation, we find that the allergies go away.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:14

This interview was a blast and I'm already feeling so convicted, I need to change my dog's food to a raw diet. Are you feeling that way too? There is still so much more to unpack. So stay tuned to next week's episode where we're going to talk further about pet allergies, leaky gut and animals, how to detox our pets and further optimize their longevity. See you then. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. The podcast is produced by the team at counterweight creative as always, thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting.

The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai