HouseCall: Elevated Heart Rate at Night, High Potassium, Insulin & Fat Burning, Child Diarrhea, Losing Voice, Chicken Pox

Welcome back to our weekend Cabral HouseCall shows!

This is where we answer our community’s wellness, weight loss, and anti-aging questions to help people get back on track!

Check out today’s questions:

Lorena: Hi there! I’m a 28 year old Vata and IHP Level 1 and 2 certified. Recently, I’ve been noticing that my Oura ring has constantly been telling me that my heart rate has been elevated at night. My HRV as a result is much lower than usual. I haven’t got one night of a normal heart rate and it’s been in “red” in the Oura app (56-62 bpm. At the same time that this started happening, I started to feel some weird neurological symptoms similar to those in MCAS (intense anxiety especially after eating, heart palpitations, brain fog & more). I’ve also suddenly started to experience bloating and gas after whole food meals (not smoothies). I’ve never had digestive issues before and did the CBO a year ago for skin issues solely. Trying to figure out how to lower this heart rate at night. I’ve even lowered stressed massively (at work & stopped working out intensively). Any idea what could be going on? I take a good amount of magnesium before bed too and sometimes even melatonin. Waiting on stool test results because I want to rule out parasites & h pylori. But if the latter is negative, what else should I look at?

Melanie: I always hear you talk about people with high blood pressure needing more potassium in their diet. They would therefore not have to worry too much about sodium. However, my dad has high blood pressure and a few weeks ago ended in the hospital as his potassium levels were very very elevated and it was life threatening. He has high blood pressure, diabetes type 2 etc… I was wondering how this can be possible? I thought everyone with high blood pressure usually had low potassium levels! Btw this event happened the day after he took the laxative to do a colonoscopy so not sure if this is relevant.

Anonymous: Hi Stephen, I have a question about insulin. In the health world currently, there is A LOT of talk about blood sugar and insulin in regards to losing weight. I am regularly reading that insulin must be kept low because insulin halts fat oxidation. Therefore is insulin is up you can’t burn fat. However, there is an abundance of research that shows that under isocaloric conditions, there is little to no difference between LCHF and HCLF diets. I knw you yourself are familiar with the rice, fruit, and fruit juice diet reearch which was basically all carbs and yet insulin sensitivity was improved and weight loss occured. Surely this would suggest energy balance is the overriding important factor in weight loss. If “fat can’t be burned when insulin is present or high” how can such studies be explained? Would love your insight here. Thank you.

Amber: Hello Dr.Cabral. First I just want to say thank you so much for all you do and give. I’m currently getting my level 1 and I truly look forward to learning from you everyday. Ok so in regards to my question… My 7 year old son got covid about 3 weeks ago now. He got hit in the form of mostly diarrhea for two days. I’m only giving that piece of info because the current problem has only happened since having said virus. (In all his 7 years he has been sick about 4 other times.) He’s been hit with the current problem about 3 times in the last two weeks. He’ll be eating and his stomach will start to hurt really bad. One, was on Thanksgiving which I thought ok maybe all the different foods being combined. Then it happened again today two different times after eating something he always eats. Didn’t hit him as hard but still came. His stomach does seem to settle once I give him this ginger drink. My mom intuition tells me something isn’t right and I need to catch it before it develops into something worse. I have some ideas on where to start but I’d love your thoughts first. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Ewa: hello, my son Isak18 can’t seem to get his full voice back after he caught a cold early fall, which happened around the same time last year. Its Really bad especially in the morning when he has to cough, clearing the pflem and scratchyness out. The ENT took a pict of inflamed vocal cords, lots of pflem and gave him antibiotics and steroids. He felt all better for a week before it came back again. He is working outside around damp leaves quite a bit but doesn’t have any other mold-symptoms… Since he was a little puppy his colds always got to his lungs and airways. What do you think doc, whats going on? Much appreciation your way! Ewa and Isak

Malinda: Ive read in medical studies of children who contract the chicken pox virus are less likely to contract shingles later in life, which is so much worse. If this is true what is the best way for them to catch the chicken pox now that so many children are vaccinated against it? What can parents do to avoid their child from contracting painful shingles later in life? As well as naturally boosting myself?