Nutrient IV Therapy w/Dr. Christopher Davis

This paradox , as I view it , is the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between fitness professionals and our medical community . This podcast is all about closing off that gap by disseminating the latest , most evidence-based and most engaging information in the health sciences .

And to do that , in episode 115 , I'm going to be talking with Dr Christopher Davis . He's the chief medical officer for Liquavida . They are a nutrient IV company , and this conversation is going to be around just that nutrient IV therapy , and you'd almost have to be living under a rock nowadays to have not seen the proliferation of the nutrient IV space .

And so this is a conversation that is going to dive into a little bit of an understanding of nutrient IV therapy who it's appropriate for , who we should be cautious with nutrient IV therapy with , and then , I think , most importantly , kind of how you should think about approaching this as an exercise professional .

What you're going to hear in this conversation with Dr Davis is that there's still a lot of emerging science that's really getting out there on this , a lot of emerging regulation and standards , but it's here and people are using it , and those of us that are working with patients or clients need to be informed on this topic , and that's exactly what this podcast

is designed to do is inform you on this topic . Now I will say that some of this could potentially get a little bit into you , moving out of your scope of practice .

So , as we'll talk about in the episode , partnering with a functional medicine physician , partnering with a registered dietitian or other medical professional that may understand this a little bit better , would likely be a safe way to protect yourself as well as provide your patient or client with the information they need to make an informed decision as to if this is

something that they want to engage with . So there definitely is a lot of considerations around this . This episode is really designed to be an informational starting point for those of you that are curious about nutrient IV therapy .

Any information we'd like to share with you from the episode can be found at the show notes page , that's , by going to wellnessparadoxpodcom . Forward slash episode one , one , five . Please enjoy this conversation with Dr Christopher Davis Today . We're delighted to be joined by Dr Christopher Davis . Dr Davis , thank you so much for joining us .

It's going to be around nutrient IV therapy and , as I was saying to Dr Davis before we got in the air , this is a topic that I'm very interested in discussing , in part just for my own knowledge , but also in part because we've not covered it in the podcast before , and it's an area that's really proliferating , you know , very quickly .

So we're going to talk about a lot in this conversation , but before we get into the nuts and bolts , can you give us a little bit of an idea of your background , just to provide some context for the discussion ?

About five or six years ago I decided to practice medicine a little bit differently and doing more functional medicine approach , more integrated medicine approach and more looking at root causes of illness , particularly in heart disease . Approaching people from looking underline root causes of their problems achral fibrillation , their heart , their blockages in their heart .

And in the midst of doing that , you know what I've ? What I've found is I still practice a lot of cardiology . But I practice mean I see lots of everything , things from , you know , mold and lime to people with all kinds of other chronic illnesses as well .

I got involved with a IV nutrient therapy company called liquid Vita and after that was my first step into kind of bringing another source of a different approach to medicine into my cardiology practice .

So I brought a liquid Vita into my cardiology practice and from that point on I just continue to expand on the functional medicine realm and then I became the chief medical officer of liquid Vita . So I'm a cardiologist that does a little bit of people like to call me a unicorn cardiologist .

My newest saying , and what I base my practice on in general , is like I think we get sick and old because of a lot of the toxins we're exposed to , right , and we can measure mitochondrial function and oxidative stress , and so for me now my passion is really kind of addressing those things and making sure everybody is optimized from the perspective .

A lot of times we can't avoid those things in our environment because they're just there , and so it's about knowing how to deal with those things , and I've been doing therapy as a great part of kind of how to optimize everybody so that we can deal with all those stressors that we're exposed to .

Just so we're all on the same page , right , right ?

So these nutrients get into the cell better , and so one of the things that I think is important to realize is that when we take , when we eat , whatever we're eating , our foods that have the B vitamins in it , for example , when we absorb these things they get into our bloodstream , but not always do they get intracellular , because our cells are plagued with ,

again , some of the things I just talked about , all of the toxins . They change the cell membrane structure .

So a lot of times , the nutrients that we are , even if we're absorbing them from our gut , we may not be getting them intracellularly where they need to be to carry out all the processes and the cofactors that they you know , the cofactors that they are .

So IV nutrient therapy is giving those minerals , vitamins , amino acids in an intravenous format so that they bypass the gut for absorption .

So when it comes to effectively absorbing nutrients , that's one thing that we are , as time goes on , we don't do . I mean most people are not absorbing those nutrients as well as they should . The other part of this is let's think about our food source in general . The nutrients in our food sources , the nutrients in the soil , are the food of today .

We say this all the time . It's not the food of 50 years ago , it's from a nutritional perspective . So so we're getting those nutrients into the system , into the system , into the system in circulation , by bypassing the gut .

But , more important , the concentrations at which we can get in the serum are such that it's much easier to if you remember this concept of diffusion , it's much easier to push whatever those nutrients into the cell because of the diffusion grade , a concentration grade .

It seems like it's an emerging area , so we might be early in some of the evidence , but admittedly not something that I'm looking at in journals . So , from your perspective , what do you see ?

You're not going to find a lot of published trials on IV nutrient therapy in big journals like that , but there is quite a bit of data on IV nutrient therapy and what I'd like to mean . I'll tell you where my source is . I mean , there's one main source and I'm giving this guy some big pub right now because he really has helped me with my education .

There's a guy out in Seattle , washington , named Dr Paul Anderson and he's a natural path that's worked with NIH and he did lots and lots of studies with the NIH with IV nutrient therapy , with things like vitamin C and some of the other vitamins , and a lot of his work is . He has a fantastic .

If any of you guys are interested in learning more about IV therapy , he has a website called consult Dr Anderson and , honestly , I use it . I use it at least four or five times a week for my education and there's lots of educational material there , videos that really describe IV nutrient therapy .

He does a lot of cancer work , but the concept of IV nutrient therapy he deals with beautifully with that educational website . He also has a book . I actually have this book too , and it's called the Scientific Reference for Intervenous Nutrition Therapy . So if you want to know the evidence here , it is Okay .

So there is a lot of evidence , particularly around things like vitamin C . I mean , vitamin C probably has the most evidence of all of the nutrients that we use .

So I guess , as you're going down this conversation , let's talk about some of the potential benefits and side effects of this . So I mean , there's kind of some extend the benefits you talked about a little bit earlier , but then also talk about you know , with anything there's good things that provide you . There's also potential downside .

So can we look at both sides of the coin ?

The most basic vitamins that a lot of people are deficient are the B vitamins , and I think that if anybody's keeping up in the literature these days , or even on social media these days , you'll see a lot about methylation and B vitamins and understanding your genetics , of this MTHFR , which is a gene that is important in methylation .

There are a whole lot of other genes that are important in the whole methylation process , but suffice it to say that B vitamins are very important in this process called methylation .

And methylation is a process by which we break down , our break down hormones , we metabolize neurotransmitters , we detoxify by methylation pathways when there is any type of insult to our DNA . Methylation is a process by which we heal DNA , thus lowering the risk of cancers because of some type of DNA damage by going through methylation processes .

People who don't methylate well have higher incidences of neurocognitive diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and heart disease . So , giving B vitamins and I never thought a million years , I mean me taking this jump into this space not in a million years would .

I've realized that B vitamins were so important , right , and so there really are , and so that makes up the crux of a lot of our IV , nutrient therapy , our B vitamins , when we think about some , so they can be used for all of those things , all of those conditions that I just said , and it's not to say that they cure those things , but I'm just seeing how

methylation is an important role in all of those conditions . Other things energy . A lot of people use IVs just to get energy . Like what does energy mean ? Obviously , I think that your audience knows that . You know our currency of energy is ATP , which we know that we need important and normal mitochondrial function to do that .

Well , the mitochondria require lots of cofactors in order to function appropriately . I eat me some of the amino acids carnitine is an important part , coenzyme Q10 is an important part . There are lots of important molecules and we talk about maintaining oxidative stress balance , radox balance .

A lot of these cofactors are important again , things like manganese and zinc , and all of these things can be given intravenously as well to improve mitochondrial function , which then improves our ATP production , which then improves our energy , right ? So that's just kind of one way to think about it . Nad same thing . Nad improves or increases mitochondrial biogenesis .

So that's just . The energy is one of those things . Things like migraine headaches A lot of migraine headaches are really responsive to mineral magnesium . Magnesium deficiency is rampant . Okay , so simply giving things like magnesium and our IVs are super important . Vitamin C I told you that's probably the most important one of all the nutrients that we use .

We talk about vitamin C with respect to balancing the immune system . We talk about vitamin C with respect to its . Depending on the level of vitamin C and how much you're giving , it can be an antioxidant or it can be an oxidant . So very high dose vitamin C can be used for I mean .

Dr Anderson that I mentioned uses a lot of high dose vitamin C to treat cancer patients and there's a lot of data coming up . In conjunction with chemotherapy drugs , vitamin C high doses is very helpful in conjunction with the chemotherapeutic drugs .

At the lower levels of vitamin C , they're very important antioxidants and really important in recycling some of our other antioxidants like glutathione . So I mean honestly , there's so many . I deal with a lot of people with fatiguing illnesses , chronic fatigue , illnesses like mold and Lyme , and using glutathione and vitamin C in those patients .

I mean really , it really changes the game and helping them feel better .

I think another way to frame this up , so we just framed it up from a conditioned perspective . I think another way to frame it up is from a symptom perspective , and I'm going to have a follow-up question for you in terms of , like , how to actually recommend this intervention in a second .

But from a symptom standpoint , what are when you , somebody comes to you and they're presenting XYZ symptom and the bell goes on oh , this is someone that this might be appropriate for . Maybe you can provide that side of it as well .

That tells me , okay , there probably is a mitochondrial problem somewhere . So I'm immediately thinking , okay , what can we do from a nutrient therapy perspective ? What are the common things that are going wrong and that don't allow people ? I mean , that will make you tired and so so .

So that's what I , when people come , I'm thinking that when they come in with those types of symptoms , if there are symptoms like I mean obviously they come in with any type of respiratory symptoms , right , respiratory , like yesterday I had one of my patients come in .

They're going to Europe in a couple of days and he's coming out with this cold , he's sniffling , he's coughing , that is . You know , I don't think I've seen anything that works better than the vitamin C when we talk about improving the immune system .

He came in a couple of days ago and the very next day he came back and he's like oh my God , it's amazing , I can't believe it's the night I looked at him and I was like I told you I don't really make this stuff up . And then we gave him another one today and then leave him for Europe and he feels like a million times better .

So so the immune system component of it , with the vitamin C , hands down they . When people have respiratory type symptoms , the vitamin C is a no brainer . My grains we talked about , I think again the headache part of it . You know not those we touched on those are the common things that I see people come in .

Now we do a lot more specific IVs as well , depending on what their conditions are , and I don't want to get too much into the science of that . Maybe I mean one of the things I'm not going to talk about a lot right now , that is , I mean , really incredibly powerful , is using phospholipids , phosphatide or choline IV .

In today's world of chronic illnesses and all of the exposures we have to toxins that are causing cell membrane issues , the phosphatide or choline is an amazing tool If you know how to use it correctly .

But it's not just an amazing tool for the people who are super sick , for those overachievers , for the people who are the athletes and the people who are trying to understand how to improve overall cellular health .

Phosphatide and that and I honestly don't think it's been utilized as much as it should be utilized in that group we use it a lot for the sicker people , but for the people who actually are looking to , you know , the triathletes who are looking to improve their VO2 mechs , well , we might use NAD .

But I'll tell you , just looking at the science of and cell membrane and how the cell membrane affects mitochondrial health , phosphatide or choline is probably even more important .

A lot of the professionals listening to this podcast they're exercise physiologists , they're personal trainers , they're fitness professionals . I'm curious , from your perspective , how you would recommend that . You know somebody in our audience talks to their client about this , because we also have to be cautious of scope , of practice issues .

We're not , we're not diagnosing anything , obviously on our end . So I'm , I'm and this is , it's a delicate situation because we want to be cautious . So how would you recommend a non-medical professional go about broaching the topic of potentially one of their clients utilizing nutrient IV therapy ?

I try to be objective about everything that I do and can do people . Actually a lot of these include liquid Vita . A lot of people come in and it just gets IVs right . Well , I like to be very objective about what I do and so I get micronutrient .

Micronutrient testing was just looking at amino acids , the minerals , your vitamins on every single patient , because then I can show you where some of the issues are and we can recommend oral supplements . We can recommend , you know , food changes that are going to have more of the specific nutrient that you're missing .

We also recommend IV therapy based on the micronutrient panel . So , with the space that you're in , you know it it when we talk about optimizing health , I mean it's worth every single person doing a micronutrient panel at least once a year just to kind of see what we're dealing with , because if there's a specific micronutrient you're missing .

For example , if you're missing B2 , I mean I don't have to . You know , maybe I just go out and I I don't replete the B2 , or I change my diet such that I'm getting more of the B2 riboflavin in , as opposed to kind of just randomly doing a bunch of stuff .

Okay , at the other , at the other end of the spectrum , those same tests give us ideas about oxidative stress levels we can measure . There's a , there's a marker called 80HDG 8-hydroxyde guanosine . That's a measure of oxidative stress .

If I've got a oxidative stress , first I got to figure out what's causing it and second , those are the people that we can use more antioxidants like the vitamin C and glutathione and alphalopoic acid , all of which be given IB right . So it gives me a picture of what's going on .

So now you're not you're making recommendations based on an educated , you know what's going on with this client . So that's what I would recommend .

You know the kind of panel you're suggesting , so I would you , would you recommend that as a you know possible partnership to facilitate something like this .

I've been speaking with a couple of companies who do that . I won't name any name right now , but if you want to know , afterwards we can kind of talk about that , but there are ways you can have access to testing .

You need to find like-minded individuals that are willing to go on that crusade with you , and that's exactly what I found at the MRF Institute . The team over at the MRF Institute creates educational content for fitness and wellness professionals who are serious about becoming a part of our healthcare continuum .

Getting on the healthcare continuum is all about leveling up our skills to be looked at as that valued resource provider . The wellness paradox is certainly an avenue for you to do that , but we need many different levers to pull if we're going to get there , and the MRF Institute is definitely one of those levers .

You can go to their website , mrfinstituteorg , to find all kinds of great , informative , free , informational content and if you choose to engage with any of their paid content , they've created a coupon code specifically for wellness paradox listeners . You can enter in WP 2022 .

That's WP , and then the number 2022 to the website at checkout to receive a 15% discount on your purchase . I highly recommend you go check out MRFInstituteorg . Now back to today's episode . Hmm , fascinating . So let's get into side effects and kind of red flags .

And so let's start with side effects and then we can move on to red flags where it wouldn't , maybe it wouldn't be appropriate for an exercise professional to say , hey , just go down this route . So let's talk about side effects first , with these .

I think it's the American IV Association to really get a better grasp and developing guidelines on what IV nutrient therapy businesses , best practices , because what we don't ?

We know the benefits of IV nutrient therapy , but we also know that there are some people that's like the Wild Wild West IV nutrient therapy and we don't want the bad actors to shut down a very , very important and helpful case that's helping a lot of people right now . And so what type of things can happen ? All kinds of bad things can happen .

Even there's a risk of death . Something's done the wrong way . And so mixing things together . We're talking about giving IVs . You can't just go in and just start mixing nutrients together . It's not that simple . There are several things that are very important . They are the pH of the solution , the osmolarity of the solution .

Osmolarity means the concentrations of each of those substances , each of those minerals or vitamins in there .

Our human , our body , our blood has an osmolarity somewhere in the order of 280 , 299 , 300 osmol I mean milli-osmol and so we need to be infusing substances , that we want to be careful not to infuse , substances that are hypoosmolar , but they can cause some issues with brain swelling and what comes as a result of that .

So , understanding what you are putting in the bag and how each of those interact sometimes , when we mix the wrong things together , the substances can precipitate out , and so there definitely needs to be an education and someone who actually is educated and know what they're doing with respect to the IVs . I think a lot of companies , including LiquidVida .

We come up with these kits that you can and anybody who buys the kits to distribute to , I mean to give to their patients . You only put what's in the kit in the bag so that there's no chance for you to give the wrong things . Now where the problem ?

Because if people start to say I'm gonna put something else in the bag that's not in this kit and we I mean obviously they're instructed , you know , if they are liquid Vita partners not to do that right . But but certainly that's one of the risks involved with the Osmolarity issue is a big one .

Knowing what can be mixed , which substances can be mixed together , is another one . Then we always have things like okay , we're putting an IV in , in in a patient's I mean in a client's arm , right , there's a risk of , there's a risk of infection , there's a risk of bleeding that's always .

Anytime a needle is involved , there's a risk of bleeding , there's a risk of infection , there's a risk of damage to the vein . Again , hopefully , you're working with somebody who experienced an inserting the vein I mean the catheters to do the to the , to do the IVs . You have to be careful and knowing the patients or the clients underlying medical history .

If you're giving high doses of certain vitamins like vitamin C , there's certain things you need to know . There's something called glucus , g6 PD deficiency , and if you have this G6 PD deficiency , you don't want to give high dose vitamin C because you could cause some hemolysis or basically a rupture of these red blood cells .

You , people who have renal issues , kidney issues you really want to know which I mean people have kidney issues . You really need to understand okay , which I , which nutrients I'm giving . Could we cause more issues with the kidneys , more damage to the kidneys ? People with heart failure , anybody with heart failure .

Obviously , the first thing you want to be careful of you don't want to be giving them lots of fluid in general , right if they . If they can't , mean if they don't , if they don't have good fluid balance in their fluid , overloaded .

And , more importantly , you don't want to give them these hyper tonic solutions with a lot of saline either , because that's going to cause more fluid retention and potentially worse than their overall heart failure symptoms .

partner with for this ? As I said at the top , I feel like there are all of these places that are just popping up all over the place right now that are offering this , and I .

It may be very early in the regulation , you know , from an industry standpoint , to even give this answer , but to the best extent you can , you know , for the fitness professional goes oh , I think my clients , you know , might benefit from this .

Could you provide a little bit of guidance as to , maybe , how they can discriminate between someone who's above board and not ?

Again , I think that sometimes what happens is knowing exactly what's going to be best for that client . You really don't know unless you really have that conversation with the client and we do have . Sometimes we have wellness coordinators that are trained to do that as well . To speak with the client . What I would say have somebody .

The business should have somebody there that can answer your questions , ask you what you're looking for and why you're here . Not you just walk in and say , hey , I want to get X off the shelf and just pick something .

But that that I mean having somebody to help give you some guidance as to ask you what's going on with you and then tell you why they recommend what they recommend . That's one way to I would look at doing it , not just walking in , say , hey , I like to have the super energy boost of whatever it is .

Number three and just and that's what they do , because that that is a red flag to me . If I can just go in and say give me that , that's a problem .

I know a lot of people listen to our podcast , really do partner as part of multidisciplinary teams if it's in their own organization or , you know , across multiple organizations . So I think I think that applies and , from what it sounds like you said , the areas you really have to be cautious here are when people do have , you know , chronic underlying conditions .

Just as we would be cautious from an exercise perspective with those individuals , same thing would exist with this absolutely , absolutely right , absolutely right . So what's the take-home message on this ? We talked about a lot . This was a complicated conversation , a couple points in time , which I greatly enjoy when we can get into the weeds .

But what's the take-home message for our , our fitness professional audience ? On nutrient IV therapy ?

I think that as we as society gets more and more advanced and again we can maybe talk about this later and this is just coming from my experience with environmental toxin testing some of the stuff that I do Part of the thing that makes us get old and sick are the toxins that we're exposed .

So I'll say it again , and I think a lot of what IBM nutrient therapy offers , with the vitamin C and glutathione and some of the fossil lipids , is a way to deal with that .

So , as we talk about optimizing performance and I promise you will hear more about this as we start to kind of a lot of stuff If we were to look at the things I'm talking about and a lot of stuff that I'm going to be talking about in the future , we'll see I want to bring the attention to kind of why people are getting sick and old , because we need

to see it Right , and once you start to see these things , when we start to talk about optimizing performance and longevity , there's a big piece of this we're missing .

There's all kinds of things like the NAD and all these other peptides and facetan and other things that are out there , but at the root of the problem and what's causing the issues with the mitochondria are the things that we're exposed to , so dealing with those is going to be key , and the IV therapy is a great way to do that Right .

We are focusing right now on educating our network of physicians as well One of the things that I talked about with the environmental toxins and things we're going to be educating all of our network about how we evaluate our patients and really give them what we talk about optimal wellness and giving people edges .

We really want to educate our network about that so they can start to employ some of these strategies as well .

I consider the wellness paradox to be the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between fitness professionals and the medical community .

From your perspective as a physician , if you could give the fitness professionals that are listening one piece of advice to close off that gap and have better relationships with physicians like yourself , what would that one piece of advice be ?

Okay , I don't need to be deadlifted in 550 pounds . I mean , why am I doing this right now ?

So having somebody like this , I mean that's a great way to interact , and I think how you interact with me is going to be different from other physicians , because I have an interest in the space , right , but maybe being able to talk to physicians about specifics , about exercise prescriptions and how they can help their , how these prescriptions help their patients ,

giving them some data on that , I don't think enough people do VO2 max testing and it doesn't have to be done by the physician . The technology out there so that the fitness professionals can do that . So what I would do is harness that data that's out there and show how they can help your patients by utilizing this data .

Forward slash episode 115 . Please be on the lookout for our next episode when it drops in two weeks , and don't forget to subscribe through your favorite podcast platform Until we chat again next . Please be well .