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CNN Larry King Live

Interview with Dr. Andrew Weil

Aired March 05, 2003 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Tonight, Dr. Andrew Weil. Is alternative medicine safe or can it kill? He's here for the hour. He'll take your phone calls. The doctor is in the house next on LARRY KING LIVE.
First, a couple of quick notes. Tomorrow night we'll be in Washington. The special guest, a rare interview, Senator Robert Byrd, the dean of the Senate.

Dr. Andrew Weil is the best-selling author and renowned expert on integrated medicine. He's founder and director of the program in integrated at the University of Arizona's Health Science Center. His Web site, www.drweil.com, and his most recent book, "The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life and Spirit," co-written with Oprah Winfrey's former chef, Rosie Daly. There you see its cover.

Dr. Weil has been a frequent guest on this program. It's always good to have him.

Let's deal with the most important topic being talked about, ephedra, the supplement that apparently involved in the death of Steve Bechler, the Oriole pitcher.

What do you make of it? It's legal.

DR. ANDREW WEIL, M.D., CO-AUTHOR, "THE HEALTHY KITCHEN": You know, this plant, ephedra, it's a Chinese species, is the oldest medicinal plant of which we have written records.

KING: Really?

WEIL: It goes back thousands of years. The Chinese discovered this, used it for the treatment of asthma.

I've given it to asthmatics in the form of the whole herb made into tea. Has some useful therapeutic properties. It's a stimulant. The main drug in it is called ephedrine.

I think the real problem we've got today is there are a lot of stupid uses of it.

KING: Weight loss.

WEIL: People are using it for weight loss and for energy. There are many products.

KING: That's why Bechler was using it.

WEIL: Many products out there that put very high doses of it in that combine it with other stimulants, various forms of caffeine.

KING: So you wouldn't ban it.

WEIL: I think -- I think the sales of these products has to be regulated much more closely and I think, also, there needs to be education at all levels about the dangers of it.

KING: The government, as we understand it, has called for new labels on ephedra products to warn consumers was risk of heart attacks, stroke and death and Secretary Thompson is considering banning it outright.

WEIL: Well, I'm not in favor of an outright ban, but I'm certainly in favor of trying to ban products that claim that this is a safe method for weight loss. It isn't. Or that's a good thing to take for energy. It isn't.

There was, by the way, an interesting study just published in the annals of internal medicine, that showed that although ephedra sales account for way below 1 percent of total herbal sales, it accounts for 64 percent of adverse reactions reported to herbs.

KING: Really?

WEIL: It's a huge disproportion there, but that also says something about the safety of other herbal products. You know, ephedra's -- the lion's share of the problems that people report.

KING: If baseball asked you, should we ban it, what would you say?

WEIL: I think it's fair if a baseball team says to ban it. I think they have the right to do it.

KING: What about the baseball league? Major League Baseball says it can't be used?

WEIL: I think that's perfectly OK.

KING: Because football does ban it and basketball bans.

WEIL: I would be in favor of that.

KING: OK.

How do we know -- you have supplement, right?

WEIL: Right.

KING: You sell supplements?

WEIL: My Web site sells vitamins...

KING: Right.

WEIL: ...which I think are the best quality out there on the market.

KING: How do I know if it's good or what?

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: It's a jungle. It's really consumer beware.

I think how great it would be if your doctor could advise you about what products are safe, which aren't, how to get, what brands to buy when you go to the health food store. This is not in medical education at the moment and that's one of the things that I'm working for is to make sure that doctors of the future are trained in this area.

KING: Why isn't it?

WEIL: It's been looked at as soft subject matter, you know? I think it's the same reason nutrition is not included in the medical curriculum, really. I think it's looked at as home economics. You know, it's not as important as the real stuff, biochemistry and pharmacology.

KING: So how do we, as consumers -- we can go into any store, grocery store and buy anti-oxidants and...

WEIL: I think you have to arm yourself with good information, which means seeking out reliable books or Internet sites that can give you the information so that you can be a discriminating consumer.

KING: Well, can you say just buy Dr. Weil products and you're safe or can you overuse those?

WEIL: Anything can be overused. I try to put out good information. And, you know, also, the -- my products, let me just say this because I don't want to sound self-promoting here. But all of the profits that come from the sales of those products, my profits, are donated to a foundation, the Polaris Foundation, to support integrated medicine. So I get nothing from that.

KING: Define integrative medicine.

WEIL: Integerative medicine, I think, is the medicine of the future. This is the thoughtful combination of alternative and conventional medicine, but in a system...

KING: It doesn't deny conventional.

WEIL: Absolutely not and that really emphasizes healing, puts the emphasis on health and healing, on the doctor-patient relationship, on looking at people as whole persons, not just physical bodies.

You know, this is to me sensible, common sense medicine. It's what people want. And gradually there is a movement in this direction. We now have a consortium of academic health centers for integrative medicine that now 16 medical schools -- leading medical schools.

KING: You're a Harvard graduate.

WEIL: I am.

KING: Did you -- in medicine, right?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: Did you get much attention on nutrition?

WEIL: The total education I got was 30 minutes, which were grudgingly allowed to a dietitian in one hospital.

KING: How did you discover this?

WEIL: You know, I really did this on my own. It was when I got out of my clinical training, I was interested in the subject. I became aware of the gaps in my education. I learned myself. I began reading; I began working with people who were knowledgeable.

One -- my colleagues and I at the University of Arizona are organizing a conference for health professionals for next March, March 2, '04, which we think will be the first, really, event that presents cutting-edge information for health professionals. We hope this will be an annual event.

KING: And the idea is to combine -- you don't deny open heart surgery and you don't deny...

WEIL: Look, I say, if I'm in an automobile accident, I don't want to first go to a shaman or an herbalist, I want to go to a trauma center and get put back together.

KING: And do you agree that certain -- that lipitor is good to cut cholesterol.?

WEIL: Yes. It works. It works. It, like many of the new treatments that we use in conventional medicine -- it has side effects. Lipitor, in some people, is toxic and there are natural alternatives to it that people should know about.

So I just want people to know that there are both out there and that while the conventional methods work, they are often risky. When it's right to use them, that's what you use.

KING: All right, where do you stand in the debate -- we've been doing it here. Fat versus carbs.

WEIL: Where I stand is, I think, both of these camps are partly right and partly wrong.

Dr. Atkins has a piece of the truth. You know, he was the first person to call attention to the fact that carbohydrates in the diet rather than fat may be what drives obesity in the majority of people in our society.

KING: Is he right?

WEIL: He's right about that. However, the diet that he came up with is not a healthy diet. It's got too much meat, too much protein, which is hard on the kidney. It's deficient in fruits and vegetables. It's deficient in the essential fatty acids that we need for sports...

KING: Why do people lose weight with it?

WEIL: You can lose weight on any diet.

KING: Eating bacon.

WEIL: You can lose weight on any diet. Many people who are carbohydrate sensitive, if they go on a very low carbohydrate diet, will lose weight. The trick is how do you transition off that initial weight loss period on to a diet that's going to maintain optimum health over time?

So, I think, to Atkins' credit, he's the first person that forced the medical establishment, the nutritional establishment, to look in the direction of the carbohydrates.

KING: What about the opposite side of him?

WEIL: I think the low-fat advocates have had their day.

KING: Really?

WEIL: I do. I think we're passing out of this. It's clear that we need certain kinds of fats. We need the monounsaturated fats, olive -- olive oil, avocados, nuts. We need the omega-3 fatty acids that we get from oily fish like salmon and sardines.

There is good fat and bad fat. There are good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. So I think both of these sides have part of the truth. The trick is how do you design for a lot of people a healthy, low carbohydrate diet?

KING: How do you do it?

WEIL: You eat lots of fruits and vegetables, you include some of the good carbohydrates, which are things like beans and some sweet potatoes or winter squashes in moderation, even some whole grains like wild rice or barley in whole grain form.

KING: And Dr. Atkins hates rice.

WEIL: He hates all these. But I think it's a blanket -- it's just like the anti-fat people hate all fat. You know, it's not black or white like. It's, as I said, partly right, partly wrong.

KING: Why are we so obese? WEIL: I think there's of reasons.

We're eating more, in two ways. We're eating bigger portions. You know, when I was growing up nobody ate buckets of popcorn in the theater or Big Gulps of soft drinks.

KING: Never saw any thing like that.

WEIL: Or oversized muffins. It's amazing.

And we're also eating all day long. We snack. So I think, in many ways, we're taking more calories in. We're probably also less active.

And I think the worst thing,and this relates back to what we talk about carbohydrates -- more and more people are eating more and more highly refined and processed foods. It's all of the fast food, junk food, snack foods -- these are full of the bad carbohydrates that drive obesity and the bad fats that undermine health.

KING: We'll get a break and come back. Some ore questions for Dr. Weil and a lot of your phone calls. Promise you. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're going to get to calls early for Dr. Andrew Weil. A couple of other things and then I'll disperse questions as we go on.

WEIL: Yes.

KING: What part does the psyche play? If I'm happy will I live longer? If I pray, if I'm believer, will I live longer than a nonbeliever?

WEIL: I think the chances are you will. And I think there's a fair body of medical research supporting that. I think the psyche is hugely important.

And by the way, just as with nutrition this, is another whole area that is basically not part of the medical curriculum. You know, we really want to see more doctors that are trained in mind-body medicine. There's lots of ways of teaching people to be in better mental frames of mind. You know, you can teach optimism, for example. You can teach people how to control thoughts. I think that has a huge influence on the body.

KING: I understand you're going to do a book on again.

WEIL: I'm at just about starting work on it now.

KING: You're going to reverse aging.

WEIL: No, that's not my goal. I think it's impossible to reverse aging. And I'm very against the whole concept of anti-aging medicine. I think aging is a given. That's something we all experience. And if you set up yourself opposed to that, that's not a good relation to be in with nature. But I think there are lessons to be learned from looking at very healthy old people to see what do they do...

KING: Can you learn lessons from that group in Russia that lived to 120?

WEIL: That's, I think, looks fraudulent because there's a question whenever you find these claims, are the birth records accurate? The only places I know that have really been studied and verified, interesting, two islands, Okinawa in Japan and Sardinia off of Italy.

KING: They live long?

WEIL: Live long, and we have good documentation of birth records.

KING: Scarborough, Ontario, for Dr. Andrew Weil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, Mr. King, I love your show.

KING: Thank you, what's the question?

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I'm just wondering, what is your opinion on the Herbalife product line?

WEIL: You know, I think that is a very poor quality supplement.

KING: Really?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: They're very big, aren't they?

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: They're big, but they have contained diuretics, laxatives. This is not a good thing to be on. Really, I would stay away from that and things like it.

KING: Other than that, you're crazy about it. San Antonio, Texas. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Larry, thanks. Great show. I have a question for Dr. Weil involving green tea.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And we've heard that it's high in polyphenols which can be cancer reduction...

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: ... herb. But my question was if you drink large quantities of it and you're on prescription medication, or even over- the-counter such as ibuprofen, could there be toxins that can build up?

WEIL: You know, I think you want to get good quality green tea and my prejudice would be try to get organic green tea. You can find these on the Internet. You can find them at good quality Asian grocery stores or good tea merchants.

And I think with anything that looks good, too much of it can be a bad thing. You know, I'd recommend sticking to no more than say four cups of green tea a day. I don't think you'll run to problems there.

KING: What do you think of Botox? They're involved in a big lawsuit.

WEIL: Really?

KING: A lady claimed that they told her it would cure migraines and it like ruined her life.

WEIL: Well, again, as with all of these things, these are powerful treatments. They shouldn't be done lightly. They have their uses. Botox has legitimate medical uses.

But I worry about the psychology underlying that. It's again an attempt to reverse or deny effects of aging. I think we should come to grips with the aging process.

KING: In other words, age.

WEIL: Age.

KING: Jackson, Mississippi. Hello?

CALLER: Even with legitimate uses of ephedrine -- it's kind of a two prong question -- are there people that should never use it? And, sir, is it too early to get my Christmas list to you? Thank you.

KING: Thank you.

WEIL: Well, that depends if you've been a good boy or a bad boy.

I would say that people with high blood pressure, people with a history of heart arrythmias should be very careful. People with anxiety disorders, insomnia, all of these things ephedra or ephedrine can greatly worsen.

The problem in these young athletes is we've seen that many people have congenital heart problems and they can be push over the edge...

KING: Who should take ephedra?

WEIL: As I said it works for some asthmatics. It is a stimulant. But in almost every category of use, we have better drugs. So I wouldn't say that anybody should use it.

KING: Sao Paulo, Brazil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, good evening, Larry. Good evening Dr. Weil.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I'd like to ask you some questions about anti-cells and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and how deep are the studies of the doctor on this subject.

KING: What is it?

WEIL: OK, jillray (ph) is a healing technique from Japan. It's associated with a religion in Japan, but it's a hand-healing technique. People hold up their hand and transmit energy without touching you, like that.

And there are some studies, some done by a researcher at UCLA who has looked at this method as a way of increasing natural killer cell activity in the blood. This is part of your defense against cancer.

I think this research is interesting. The studies are small. They should be attempted to be replicated. Actually, at the University of Arizona, we have some ongoing studies of this kind of energy medicine.

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: I'm open to lots of things. Then I want to see the proof.

KING: Las Vegas, hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I enjoy good health, I believe thanks your vitamins I take every day. I am hypoglycemic and I have a 50/50 chance of getting diabetes.

WEIL: The most important thing that you can do, two most important things. One is to really have a regular program of regular aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is even more important than diet in controlling blood sugar and preventing the development of type two diabetes.

The other thing you should do is really get good information about what's called the gylcemic index, the scale in which carbohydrate foods are rated as to the impact they have on blood sugar. I recommend a book out there called "The Glucose Revolution," not by me, but by a group of doctors that's got good information the subject, or look it up on my Web site.

Teach yourself about which carbohydrate foods to avoid, exercise regularly, you should be able to prevent that precondition from developing into diabetes.

KING: By the way, Dr. Weil's Web site is www.DrWeil, that's one word, d-r-w-e-i-l.com.

Phoenix, hello?

CALLER: Your program recommended the product colistin.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I had excellent results with that. I want to thank you for that. And I was wondering if there was a similar product available for weight loss for people 55...

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: ... the product that she's referring to is a red yeast rice extract from China which is the natural alternative to Lipitor that I mentioned and is, I think, very useful.

But in terms of weight loss, I don't recommend products. I think the secret of weight loss is eating less, exercising more and eating right. Which means informing yourselves about which kinds of foods are most likely to produce unwanted weight gain.

And for many of us in America it's going to be these refined, processed foods. It's foods that have been handled by the modern food technologists. Chips, chips, pancakes, fluffy white things, pastries, breads. Where we take grains and we strip them of their fiber, we pulverize them into a very fine starch and then we make them into things...

KING: And they taste good.

WEIL: And they taste good.

KING: Kennewic, Washington, hello?

CALLER: Yes, I have a question for Dr. Weil. I have two questions. First question is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of the esophagus. What's a good herbal product that would help that.

KING: And what's your second question, sir?

CALLER: Second question is -- I'm on Pevacid for that. Would that help?

WEIL: Well, rather than using this strong acid suppressive drugs, one of the recommendations that I would make is to try a product that you can get in health food stores called DGL. It's a licorish extract that is nontoxic, that increases the mucous coating in the esophagus and makes it more resistant to acid.

And I'd also learn some good relaxation techniques that might be better than any herb for the problem you describe.

KING: Back with more with Dr. Andrew Weil and more of your phone calls. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're going to get to calls early for Dr. Andrew Weil. A couple of other things and then I'll disperse questions as we go on.

WEIL: Yes.

KING: What part does the psyche play? If I'm happy will I live longer? If I pray, if I'm believer, will I live longer than a nonbeliever?

WEIL: I think the chances are you will. And I think there's a fair body of medical research supporting that. I think the psyche is hugely important.

And by the way, just as with nutrition this, is another whole area that is basically not part of the medical curriculum. You know, we really want to see more doctors that are trained in mind-body medicine. There's lots of ways of teaching people to be in better mental frames of mind. You know, you can teach optimism, for example. You can teach people how to control thoughts. I think that has a huge influence on the body.

KING: I understand you're going to do a book on again.

WEIL: I'm at just about starting work on it now.

KING: You're going to reverse aging.

WEIL: No, that's not my goal. I think it's impossible to reverse aging. And I'm very against the whole concept of anti-aging medicine. I think aging is a given. That's something we all experience.

And if you set up yourself opposed to that, that's not a good relation to be in with nature. But I think there are lessons to be learned from looking at very healthy old people to see what do they do...

KING: Can you learn lessons from that group in Russia that lived to 120?

WEIL: That's, I think, looks fraudulent because there's a question whenever you find these claims, are the birth records accurate? The only places I know that have really been studied and verified, interesting, two islands, Okinawa in Japan and Sardinia off of Italy.

KING: They live long?

WEIL: Live long, and we have good documentation of birth records.

KING: Scarborough, Ontario, for Dr. Andrew Weil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, Mr. King, I love your show.

KING: Thank you, what's the question?

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I'm just wondering, what is your opinion on the Herbalife product line?

WEIL: You know, I think that is a very poor quality supplement.

KING: Really?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: They're very big, aren't they?

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: They're big, but they have contained diuretics, laxatives. This is not a good thing to be on. Really, I would stay away from that and things like it.

KING: Other than that, you're crazy about it. San Antonio, Texas. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Larry, thanks. Great show. I have a question for Dr. Weil involving green tea.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And we've heard that it's high in polyphenols which can be cancer reduction...

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: ... herb. But my question was if you drink large quantities of it and you're on prescription medication, or even over- the-counter such as ibuprofen, could there be toxins that can build up?

WEIL: You know, I think you want to get good quality green tea and my prejudice would be try to get organic green tea. You can find these on the Internet. You can find them at good quality Asian grocery stores or good tea merchants.

And I think with anything that looks good, too much of it can be a bad thing. You know, I'd recommend sticking to no more than say four cups of green tea a day. I don't think you'll run to problems there.

KING: What do you think of Botox? They're involved in a big lawsuit.

WEIL: Really?

KING: A lady claimed that they told her it would cure migraines and it like ruined her life. WEIL: Well, again, as with all of these things, these are powerful treatments. They shouldn't be done lightly. They have their uses. Botox has legitimate medical uses.

But I worry about the psychology underlying that. It's again an attempt to reverse or deny effects of aging. I think we should come to grips with the aging process.

KING: In other words, age.

WEIL: Age.

KING: Jackson, Mississippi. Hello?

CALLER: Even with legitimate uses of ephedrine -- it's kind of a two prong question -- are there people that should never use it? And, sir, is it too early to get my Christmas list to you? Thank you.

KING: Thank you.

WEIL: Well, that depends if you've been a good boy or a bad boy.

I would say that people with high blood pressure, people with a history of heart arrythmias should be very careful. People with anxiety disorders, insomnia, all of these things ephedra or ephedrine can greatly worsen.

The problem in these young athletes is we've seen that many people have congenital heart problems and they can be push over the edge...

KING: Who should take ephedra?

WEIL: As I said it works for some asthmatics. It is a stimulant. But in almost every category of use, we have better drugs. So I wouldn't say that anybody should use it.

KING: Sao Paulo, Brazil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, good evening, Larry. Good evening Dr. Weil.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I'd like to ask you some questions about anti-cells and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and how deep are the studies of the doctor on this subject.

KING: What is it?

WEIL: OK, jillray (ph) is a healing technique from Japan. It's associated with a religion in Japan, but it's a hand-healing technique. People hold up their hand and transmit energy without touching you, like that.

And there are some studies, some done by a researcher at UCLA who has looked at this method as a way of increasing natural killer cell activity in the blood. This is part of your defense against cancer.

I think this research is interesting. The studies are small. They should be attempted to be replicated. Actually, at the University of Arizona, we have some ongoing studies of this kind of energy medicine.

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: I'm open to lots of things. Then I want to see the proof.

KING: Las Vegas, hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I enjoy good health, I believe thanks your vitamins I take every day. I am hypoglycemic and I have a 50/50 chance of getting diabetes.

WEIL: The most important thing that you can do, two most important things. One is to really have a regular program of regular aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is even more important than diet in controlling blood sugar and preventing the development of type two diabetes.

The other thing you should do is really get good information about what's called the gylcemic index, the scale in which carbohydrate foods are rated as to the impact they have on blood sugar. I recommend a book out there called "The Glucose Revolution," not by me, but by a group of doctors that's got good information the subject, or look it up on my Web site.

Teach yourself about which carbohydrate foods to avoid, exercise regularly, you should be able to prevent that precondition from developing into diabetes.

KING: By the way, Dr. Weil's Web site is www.DrWeil, that's one word, d-r-w-e-i-l.com.

Phoenix, hello?

CALLER: Your program recommended the product colistin.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I had excellent results with that. I want to thank you for that. And I was wondering if there was a similar product available for weight loss for people 55...

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: ... the product that she's referring to is a red yeast rice extract from China which is the natural alternative to Lipitor that I mentioned and is, I think, very useful. But in terms of weight loss, I don't recommend products. I think the secret of weight loss is eating less, exercising more and eating right. Which means informing yourselves about which kinds of foods are most likely to produce unwanted weight gain.

And for many of us in America it's going to be these refined, processed foods. It's foods that have been handled by the modern food technologists. Chips, chips, pancakes, fluffy white things, pastries, breads. Where we take grains and we strip them of their fiber, we pulverize them into a very fine starch and then we make them into things...

KING: And they taste good.

WEIL: And they taste good.

KING: Kennewic, Washington, hello?

CALLER: Yes, I have a question for Dr. Weil. I have two questions. First question is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of the esophagus. What's a good herbal product that would help that.

KING: And what's your second question, sir?

CALLER: Second question is -- I'm on Pevacid for that. Would that help?

WEIL: Well, rather than using this strong acid suppressive drugs, one of the recommendations that I would make is to try a product that you can get in health food stores called DGL. It's a licorish extract that is nontoxic, that increases the mucous coating in the esophagus and makes it more resistant to acid.

And I'd also learn some good relaxation techniques that might be better than any herb for the problem you describe.

KING: Back with more with Dr. Andrew Weil and more of your phone calls. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Don't forget, in Washington tomorrow night with Senator Robert Byrd. Friday night, Bob Woodward.

Our guest is Dr. Andrew Weil. Oakland, California, hello?

CALLER: Hello.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: Hi.

KING: Go ahead.

CALLER: This question is for Dr. Weil. What is the natural remedy for thyroid replacement as opposed to the pharmaceutical? WEIL: You know, I really think if you've got documented thyroid deficiency, the best strategy is to take thyroid replacement.

But there are different kinds of thyroid replacements. I recommend some of these newer preparations. One that I recommend is a prescription drug called Thyrolar, which gives you both forms of thyroid hormone, T-3 and T-4. I think that's better than just one of them, which is in the usual forms. But I don't know about alternative strategies for boosting thyroid function.

KING: Some things, they have no alternatives.

WEIL: Exactly.

KING: Fontana, California.

CALLER: Hello. Larry King, I am a big fan of yours.

KING: Thank you.

CALLER: I have a question for Dr. Weil.

(CROSSTALK)

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I know that you're a big advocate of soy products and my cancer was estrogen positive.

WEIL: And are you taking Tamoxifen?

CALLER: Well, no. You know, I had to stop taking it. I had horrible side effects with it. It's horrible.

WEIL: Well, you know, if you've got hormone receptor positive breast cancer, I would say to err on the side of caution, I would not eat soy. I think that we don't know enough, but I would be cautious there.

KING: Don't eat soy. Thank you. Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, hello.

CALLER: Yes. Dr. Weil, my question to you is is there an alternate to lipitor?

WEIL: There is and I mentioned this briefly awhile ago.

There is a red yeast rice extract from China. It's from a yeast called manascus. You can't get this in the U.S. anymore. You have to get it from Canada Or Europe, but it's made under the name Chalestin....

KING: How do you get it?

WEIL: If you go to my Web site -- go to my Web site and you'll find the information about how to get it.

KING: His Web site again is www.d-r-w-e-i-l -- drweil.com.

WEIL: Right, and there are other brands of this that you can still buy in health food stores here -- here, so you want to look for that.

KING: Toronto, hello.

CALLER: Hi, yes. Good evening, gentlemen. I am calling to ask a quick question. It's rather two pronged.

Apart from horse chestnut, what supplements might you recommend to reverse spider and/or vericose veins. And I'm wondering if there's any thing topical.

WEIL: There is a horse chestnut cream that you can get, which is useful. And the only other thing that I would recommend as a supplement -- well, I'd certainly recommend taking some Vitamin C, which helps maintain the strength of vessel walls. And you might want to take one of these anti-oxidant pigments, either grape seed extract or pine bark extract that you can fine in health food stores. I think that also is helpful.

KING: Arlington, Virginia, for Dr. Andrew Weil, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weils.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I just wanted to know if you knew anything about alternative medicine for animals and would you suggest -- would it be worth -- you know, investigating that?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: I never heard that question.

WEIL: Very interesting question.

I have two dogs, which I love very much and I have used many natural methods on them including osteopathic manipulation, acupuncture, herbal medicine.

KING: Or the veterinarians.

WEIL: There's a quite a movement now of veterinarians practicing natural medicine, alternative medicine. You can track this through Internet. Most communities have veterinarians doing this.

By the way, some of the techniques have been used very successfully where there's's lot at stake. For example, acupuncture has been extensively used in race horses with very good results. So I -- it's out there. I would find out about it and I recommend it.

KING: Birmingham, Alabama, hello. CALLER: This is for Dr. Weil.

(CROSSTALK)

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I'm taking coral calcium.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: Is that a good thing to take? I'm arthritic.

WEIL: You know, I think there are better forms of calcium out there. I recommend calcium citrate, which is the most absorbable form. It's much cheaper.

KING: Coral is the one from Okinawa.

WEIL: Yes, and by the way, I've gone to Okinawa a lot. I'm going there again in May. I've never heard any thing about coral calcium in Okinawa.

KING: They don't talk about -- they live longer though.

WEIL: They do, but they do lots of things different from us.

KING: Yorba Linda, California hello.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weil?

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: I have a small question.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: My question is, I have been -- I'm 84 years old.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I'd like to have a drink of nice high spirits every night, about 2 ounces. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I'm married for 62 years to the same woman and I enjoy life. Is there -- and I notice a lot of times you don't criticize people with alcohol, but...

WEIL: I wouldn't rock the boat. You know, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

KING: If you're 84, have a shot.

WEIL: Whatever you're doing --whatever you're doing, keep doing.

KING: But is liquor good?

WEIL: I think -- there are -- there is more...

KING: The heart patients drink red wine. WEIL: There is more and more evidence for benefits from alcohol. I would not tell anyone who doesn't drink to start drinking for medical benefits. But if some body is drinking moderately, that's OK with me.

KING: Kobe, Japan, hello.

CALLER: Yes, hi. I would like to ask Dr. Weil about uterine fibroids. I have one that's two inches in diameter...

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: ...and I'm also slightly anemic....

WEIL: OK.

CALLER: ... because of that. And I was wondering what you would recommend if I wanted to shrink this fibroid and I also raise my iron level.

WEIL: And how old are you?

CALLER: I'm 39. Going to be 39 next week.

KING: Tell us what this is.

WEIL: Yes, this is these benign tumors of muscle in the uterus that are quite common in women. They feed on estrogen.

So one thing you can do is try to cut -- lower estrogen levels by increasing exercise, by cutting off, taking in outside estrogen. And the easy way to do that is to stop eating beef, which has growth- promoting hormones in it, to not eat ordinary dairy products except organic dairy products, to add soy to the diet. These are all ways of regulating your hormonal chemistry.

There are some herbs. If you go to a -- consult a natropathic physician, they may be able to give you herbal strategies. I think you have to certainly correct the anemia by taking iron, because these things cause heavy bleeding at periods. They tend to disappear at menopause.

KING: They do?

WEIL: If you don't take -- and a woman's 39, there's going to be a lot of years before menopause.

So I think you have to monitor this. If the fibroid grows large, if it's interfering with function that's causing anemia, you may want to have a surgical treatment for that. But there are ways of trying to shrink that.

KING: Lets more to go with Dr. Andrew Weil. More of your calls. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Before we take our next call, two products popular in health food stores. DHEA.

WEIL: It's a hormone. I'm cautious about recommending hormones. There are -- I don't think you should take it unless you have a blood level determent that you're low in it. It can be useful for patients with Lupus on Prednisone. It may get by with lower dose of Prednisone.

KING: C210

WEIL: CO-Q10.

KING: CO-Q10.

WEIL: This is a useful natural product. I take this myself, as you do.

KING: I take. I don't know why I take it.

WEIL: It's a powerful anti-oxidant. It helps to treat diabetes, extends survival of breast cancer. Great protective against gum disease, good general anti-oxidant protection.

KING: Indianapolis, as we go back to calls for Dr. Andrew our best selling author and expert on integrated medicine.

CALLER: Hi there, Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I watch you all of the time and I love your guests.

KING: Thank you.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I've read two of your books one of them dealt with your having treated a nurse named Mary, whether she was an employee or patient or whatever for hepatitis c.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: I am very put to it as I've had this since I was 19 years old.

WEIL: Right.

CALLER: Now 52, ouch!

KING: What's your question, dear?

CALLER: One b general type and I've tried no Schering-Plough works for me, of course with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I've been on Inforgen (ph)...

KING: What's your question?

CALLER: I have to give him just a little background, Larry.

KING: OK.

CALLER: And I'm getting ready to back bake on the Infrogen 15 micrograms daily.

WEIL: All right. Let me just interrupt you and tell you this. If you would go to my web site, DrWeil.com look up hepatitis, c, you will be directed to a doctor in New York, Dr. Jong (ph), a Chinese M.D. who has an herbal protocol for the treatment of hepatitis c. I have referred many patient to him. There's research being done on this. It is very, very helpful.

KING: Follow up on that, ma'am. It may save you.

St. Bernard, Louisiana. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, Dr. Weil, I enjoyed your book on spontaneous healing. And I had a lower back injury about three years ago and due to that I contracted a deep vein thrombosis in my right leg. And I take a lot of pain medication, and I just am trying desperately to get off all these medicines and I am finding it almost impossible.

WEIL: OK, here's what I'd recommend. Go out and get books by a man named John Sarno, s-a-r-n-o. A M.D. in New York at Rust Institute of rehabilitation. One called "Healing Back Pain." One called, "mind over back pain." Read them, they will help you enormously and will help you get off the medication.

KING: Really, you can cure back pain?

WEIL: A lot of back pain, the majority of it is probably a mind/body mechanism. It's a vicious cycle of contractions of muscles that originates up here and you can break that cycle.

KING: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil.

I have a reoccurring a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and started chemo this week. And I want to hear any suggestion to boost my immune system.

WEIL: Well, there's two. An easy one is to get an herb called a straglus (ph). This will not interfere with chemo, it's not an antioxidant, but it helps protect immune function. I also recommend most patients with cancers through chemo and afterwards to take a mixture of Asian mushrooms that have significant effects of this sort...

KING: Where do you get them.

WEIL: You get them in many health food stores. There is a product out there called Microsoft that I like, there's another product called Host Defense. Read the labels, go to my web site for more information about it.

KING: Chemotherapy is kind of a bad word, right.

WEIL: Look, for some cancers that's the best thing we got. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) may kinds of leukemia, you can be cured by chemotherapy. If you got testicular cancer, you can be cured by chemotherapy. You know, there are many cancers which chemotherapy is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, for most of the common cancers that kill people, chemotherapy is not very good.

KING: Why does everybody get it.

WEIL: It's the best thing we've got and it's all (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have to recommend.

KING: Are there any way -- any things that you can take living with it easier.

WEIL: Absolutely. There are specific problems that come up, whether it's nausea, hair loss, you can use hypnosis for many of the symptoms. There are herbs you can take like the DGL, that I mentioned earlier, that can help with the stomach problems. You can take herbs like a straglus or these mushrooms to protect the immune system. I predict sooner than later. I think sooner, chemotherapy will be obsolete and it will be replaced by newer forms of treatment like gene therapy, immune therapy. Other forms of treatment that are more precise.

KING: Radiation?

WEIL: I think radiation will tend to be phased out. These are crude treatments for some cancers. The best we have at the moment. They will be obsolete.

KING: Tampa, Florida, hello?

CALLER: Yes. Hello, Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I seem to lose a lot of iron. And I was in the hospital three times last year and they can't seem to find the reason why. And I take iron pills and I drink Alfalfa tea, but I was wondering.

WEIL: You've got to find out why you're losing iron. There is always a reason why iron is being lost. The most probable one is it's being lost somewhere in the gastrointestinal tract. Whether this is from micro bleeding they haven't found. I would go back. Go to someone else, get further testing done. There's got to be a reason why you're losing blood.

KING: Lufkin, Texas, hello.

CALLER: Hello, Dr. Weil?

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: Do I need to modify your eating recommendations for severe coronary artery disease?

WEIL: No. Not at all. I think the general recommendations that you'll find in my recent books in "Eating Well for Optimum Health" or "In Eight Weeks for Optimum Health" or the cookbook "The Healthy Kitchen" are very appropriate for people even with severe coronary heart disease. These are the modern recommendations that take account of which fats are good, which carbohydrates are OK. I think all of that's appropriate for you.

Lexington, North Carolina. Hello.

CALLER: Dr. Weil, appreciate you very much.

WEIL: Thank you.

CALLER: And I have a disease that's called polymyosightis (ph). I cannot do steroids. And I am now on (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Do you have any idea of any...

KING: What is it.

Yes. It's an auto immune disease that involves the muscles. It can be quite severe. It's usually treated with Prednisone, but she can't tolerate that, so she's on another immune suppressive drug. I would recommend looking in my books, go to my web site, look up auto immunity. This one you have got to deal with on a lot of levels. Definitely use a mind body approach like (UNINTELLIGIBLE), hypnosis.

There are herbs that can be helpful. There are natural anti- inflammatory herbs like ginger and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that are useful. You want to be on the right exercise program. This would be a good thing to take to a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, for example for example. A lot of room to maneuver with disease.

KING: Staten Island, New York, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Larry. Love your show.

KING: Thank you.

CALLER: This question's for Dr. Weil.

KING: Sure.

CALLER: I'm a 46-year-old female and I've been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

WEIL: Yes. Tremendous amount you can do for rheumatoid arthritis.

KING: Really?

WEIL: It's an -- absolutely. And I'd say begin with nutritional strategies. You want to be on an anti-inflammatory diet which means lots of fruits and vegetables, decrease the -- all junk process, refined foods. Make sure you're getting a lot of omega-3 fatty acids. You want to eat salmon, sardines, walnuts, flax, all of those sources.

KING: How about the omega-3 pill.

Absolutely. That's fine. And you want to use a natural anti- inflammatory. You know, there are products outside there that combine ginger, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and other herbs. One which I use which you can get in many health food stores is called Zyflamend that's made by a company in Vermont. Z-y-f-l-a-m-e-n-d. I give this to lots of patients. Again, to go to my web site for more details on this. But I've seen a lot of rheumatoid arthritis patients who do very well. Stay with your rheumatologist. Tell them what you're doing. See if you can cut down on the dose of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) after a while of being on this program. I think that's the ideal of integrated medicine.

KING: Back with more of Dr. Andrew Weil. Senator Robert Byrd tomorrow night. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Can we prevent medical mistakes, Dr. Weil? The heart, lung -- the mishap.

WEIL: There are always going to be mistakes.

KING: Duke University.

WEIL: There are always going to be mistakes. That one in particular, that shouldn't have happened. That's like -- there should be pretty basic safeguards there. But we have to accept in a system as complicated as medicine there will always be mistakes.

KING: Glen Falls, New York, hello?

CALLER: Doctor, I'd like to ask a question about the rage of calcium in the diet and how calcium, how large doses of calcium can turn the body alkaline and the diseases can't survive in an alkaline...

WEIL: First of all...

CALLER: Is that true?

WEIL: The alkalinity acidity of the body, especially the blood, is very tightly controlled. The body can't take chances with this. So, in general, nothing that you eat or drink normally is going to affect the acidity or alkalinity of your blood. So I don't buy into that theory.

Calcium, I think, is a very confusing subject, especially for women who have told (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they ought to take calcium to prevent osteoporosis.

KING: Can too much be bad?

WEIL: Yes. It probably can. It certainly is constipating, it might do other things. But the real problem is how do you know what type to take? What amount?

KING: How do you know?

WEIL: It's difficult. I generally recommend that women take around 1,500 milligrams a day. My preferred form is calcium citrate because it's better absorbed.

There's been some research suggesting that calcium supplements can increase prostate cancer risks in men, possibly by interfering with vitamin D metabolism in the prostate. So with men I'm a little more cautious. Maybe 1,000 milligram supplementally. And you want to get as much as you can from food.

KING: Wright, Wyoming, hello?

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weil. I have sarcoidosis and I take your alternative to prednisone. What I would like to know if you can recommend something else on top of this?

And what is up with these auto-immune...

WEIL: This is a strange auto-immune disease that often produces lesions in the lungs. It looked like tuberculosis, but there's no infection there.

You know the interesting thing about sarcoid is that it can suddenly disappear. It has a very high potential of going into remission and actually, the less you use these very strong immuno- suppressive drugs the greater the chance of going into remission.

I would really use a mind/body approach if you're not doing that. Find a good, creative hypno-therapist or guided imagery practitioner. See if you can activate healing through your mind that can change your immune status...

KING: You can really do that?

WEIL: Absolutely.

KING: Morristown, South Dakota, hello.

CALLER: Hey, Dr. Weil?

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I've got two questions for you.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: My first one is I've got MS and I was wondering if you heard of Dr. Roy Swank and what you think of him? And number two, what do you suggest people with MS to use? WEIL: I have heard of him, but I don't know enough about what he teaches to give you an intelligent answer.

KING: What about MS?

WEIL: MS in general, I think -- first of all, it's a group of diseases. You've got to find out what pattern you have. The conventional treatments are indicated for some types.

KING: Not curable. Right? Treatable but...

WEIL: Not curable, but I have to tell you, you'll find in my books the story of a family practice doctor, Patricia Amman (ph) who's in Ridgeway, Colorado. She's also one of the associate fellows of integrated medicines who had MS and is now apparently free of the disease. And she used only alternative methods, nutritional strategies, herbal strategies.

Again, if you go into my books or Web site, you'll get a long list of suggestions to do. This can be done in conjunction with conventional treatment...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: ... who was unoperable prostate cancer.

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: Absolutely, now he's very acidulous...

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: And I have another patient, same thing, ten years ago told inoperable, incurable. He's fine.

KING: London, England. Hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Larry. Good evening, Dr. Weil.

KING: Hi.

WEIL: My question is regarding depression. I'm a long-time sufferer and I've been on various medications, every combination imaginable. And I believe I have atypical depression. And I was wondering if what you believe about mixing (UNINTELLIGIBLE) thyroid drugs (UNINTELLIGIBLE) proven to be effective...

WEIL: I think you can certainly try that. I think that needs to be monitored by whoever is giving you the medications. But I want to be sure that there's two strategies that you're following that your conventional doctors may not have emphasized to you.

The first is regular, vigorous aerobic exercise which really changes brain chemistry and both prevent and treat depression, even sever depression. And the other thing is really making sure you're getting a good intake of omega-3 fatty acids, whether from supplements or the foods.

KING: That helps depression?

WEIL: That has a major influence on brain function.

KING: Toronto, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weil. I think you're fabulous.

WEIL: Thank you.

CALLER: I have two questions. The first one is vitamin E. The benefits for, OK, menopause for women, youth, the fountain of youth. And the second is what can you recommend other than Beano for things that help relieve gas when you eat vegetables and stuff like that?

WEIL: OK, first of all, there are no chemical fountains of youth. That's part of this anti-aging mentality. But I would be very wary of that. Vitamin E is useful for all of us. It's a powerful antioxidant and the doses that look optimal are more than you can get from your diet.

What you should know about vitamin E, as nature produces it, it's got eight different components. Four tokoferols (ph), four tocotrienols. Most vitamin products that you take are only giving you one of these, Alphatocopherol.

You want to try to get all of these in a mix. The vitamins you'll find on my Web site have that. A few others on the market have that. I think if you take the right dose of that it's very useful as part of a general antioxidant defense strategy.

KING: Is any of it good for the heart?

WEIL: It's good for the heart. It's good to help prevent cancer. It has lots of beneficial effects and it's good to take. And your other question was?

KING: Lost it. We're sorry, ma'am. Check with the Web site, he can respond.

We'll be back with our remaining moments and more calls. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Our crack staff remembered the other part of the lady's question. Beano.

WEIL: Yes, she asked about flatulence from fruits and vegetables.

WEIL: When you go into an Indian restaurant there's a bowl of sugar seed, they're fennell seed. Fennell helps the passage of gas through the intestinal tract. You can buy sugar fennell seeds at Indian groceries or regular chew a half teaspoon or make a tea, that's one thing to try. There's a product called Beano out there. You put a drop of it or two, on the offending food before you start eat it, it may help somewhat reduce that. And pay attention to the combinations of foods that do it to you and avoid those.

KING: Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. Hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil and Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I have type one diabetes, and in addition I have symptoms of asthma that my physician has related to as silent gurd.

WEIL: Right.

CALLER: Have you ever heard of this?

WEIL: Yes. Gurd, this is esophageal reflux, and sometimes the symptoms of gurd can masquerade as asthma because it's -- actually that irritation which is producing the cough. Right.

So sometimes in people that present with coughing asthma we should always make sure that that's not the problem, because that's an easily treatable problem.

KING: Victoria, British Colombia. Hello.

CALLER: Good evening, gentlemen. Dr. Weil, thank you for making yourself available. I was wondering, I've had -- I've suffered from sinusitis for years now, and I have a medical second opinion that I shouldn't pursue surgery, thus I heard about oregano-based products. Can I have your opinion, sir...

WEIL: First of all, surgery is always a last, last, last resort.

KING: You're not a surgical man.

WEIL: You want to do everything you can first before you resort to that. These oregano oil products have been touted as anti- bacterial, but I think the scientific evidence for them is not great. The one strategy that I would absolutely recommend to you if you haven't done it, get all cow's milk and cowl's milk product out of your diet. See what happens after two months. Many people with chronic sinus conditions see an improvement.

KING: Windsor, Ontario, hello.

CALLER: Hello to both of you. My husband suffers from psoriatic arthritis.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And he was on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) 8. Help his (UNINTELLIGIBLE) not his arthritis. Arava or Avera, ruined his liver.

WEIL: Yes. Yes. . CALLER: And now he just started on Monday with enbrill (ph) shots.

Are you familiar with that?

WEIL: This is a very powerful drug that has been used for rheumatoid arthritis. I have to tell you I saw one patient at our clinic in University of Arizona, a university professor, woman, who had very severe rheumatoid arthritis, went on enbrill.

The rheumatoid arthritis disappeared as if by magic, and then she got uterine cancer, and breast cancer directly caused by the drug. She had to go off it, the arthritis came back worse than ever. Try to find some other strategies. It's like psoriatic arthritis, like rheumatoid arthritis. Similar strategies for managing them. Look it up on my web site, you get whole list of things to try..

KING: What's a good tip to boost the immune system.

WEIL: Exercise boost the immune testimony system. Using the mind in the right way boost the immune system. Taking anti-oxidants boosts the immune system. A lot of things to do to.

To Aurora, Illinois. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. I was wondering if Ephedra can cause symptoms like irritable bowel. And the reason I'm wondering is because my sister has been taking it and she has developed so many problems and I am so worried about her.

WEIL: It certainly could.

KING: Irritable bowel symptoms.

WEIL: All stimulants have an effect on the intestinal tract, often immediately causing laxative effect, chronic diarrhea. Anyone with a tendency in that direction should not be using any kind of stimulants. So, Ephedra could certainly be producing it or complicating it.

KING: Otis, Oregon, hello.

CALLER: Hello. Dr. Weil, I have a question. I'm 59 years old. I have had limb gurdel muscular dystrophy for about 25 years. But my question is regarding a female problem. I had vaginal bleeding for a couple of years. I went in and had an ultrasound treatment which showed a 20 millimeter thickening of the lining. I finally decided to get brave enough and have a biopsy, uterine biopsy and the results were negative. They put me on Provera. Twenty milligrams a day for five days.

KING: We're running short of time.

What's the question?

CALLER: I did that for three months and then went off. It stopped the bleeding, it was very heavy bleeding during these times.

KING: What's your question?

WEIL: What's the question?

CALLER: Well, I don't have any more bleeding, but they wanted to do all kinds of surgical things and everything...

WEIL: I think you should have the condition monitored because this is something that potentially can be dangerous. You want to have that monitored, you might have to have a repeat (UNINTELLIGIBLE) biopsy just to see what's going on there.

KING: I only have a minute left. Alzheimers.

WEIL: Well, we still don't know what this disease really is, we have evidence that anti-inflammatory drugs help prevent it. That includes things like Motrin or the anti-inflammatory herbs. One of those (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is eaten in great quantities everyday in India. India has a very...

KING: There are new drugs that slow the down the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

WEIL: Yes, but they're not great. So I think this is something if you're worried about Alzheimer's. You want to practice some preventive strategies early in life. Exercise, using your mind, taking anti-oxidants, taking anti-inflammatory, either herbs or products.

KING: The key part of your message is prevention.

WEIL: Absolutely. The body has a wonderful capacity to heal itself. You want to facilitate that, not interfere with it.

KING: Always good seeing you, man.

WEIL: Good to see you.

KING: Dr. Andrew Weil, best selling author and renowned expert on integrated medicine, founder and director of the program of Integrated Medicine at the University of Arizona's Health Sciences Center.

The web site is www.drweil.com. And his most recent book a best- seller coming in paperback, "The Healthy Kitchen, Recipes For a Better Life, For Body Life And Spirit."

We'll come back and tell you about tomorrow night right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Tomorrow night we're in Washington with Senator Robert Burd. All sports fans don't forget to read my column "Sports a La King." It's on every Wednesday on CNN's Sports Illustrated on the web. The address to get to it is www.cnnsi.com/larryking and "Sports a La King" is interactive. So give it a read. Send me your e-mails and we'll answer them each week on the mailbag portion of the column. Once again the address is www.cnnsi.com/larryking. Long on tonight we'll talk sports.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired March 5, 2003 - 21:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, CNN HOST: Tonight, Dr. Andrew Weil. Is alternative medicine safe or can it kill? He's here for the hour. He'll take your phone calls. The doctor is in the house next on LARRY KING LIVE.
First, a couple of quick notes. Tomorrow night we'll be in Washington. The special guest, a rare interview, Senator Robert Byrd, the dean of the Senate.

Dr. Andrew Weil is the best-selling author and renowned expert on integrated medicine. He's founder and director of the program in integrated at the University of Arizona's Health Science Center. His Web site, www.drweil.com, and his most recent book, "The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life and Spirit," co-written with Oprah Winfrey's former chef, Rosie Daly. There you see its cover.

Dr. Weil has been a frequent guest on this program. It's always good to have him.

Let's deal with the most important topic being talked about, ephedra, the supplement that apparently involved in the death of Steve Bechler, the Oriole pitcher.

What do you make of it? It's legal.

DR. ANDREW WEIL, M.D., CO-AUTHOR, "THE HEALTHY KITCHEN": You know, this plant, ephedra, it's a Chinese species, is the oldest medicinal plant of which we have written records.

KING: Really?

WEIL: It goes back thousands of years. The Chinese discovered this, used it for the treatment of asthma.

I've given it to asthmatics in the form of the whole herb made into tea. Has some useful therapeutic properties. It's a stimulant. The main drug in it is called ephedrine.

I think the real problem we've got today is there are a lot of stupid uses of it.

KING: Weight loss.

WEIL: People are using it for weight loss and for energy. There are many products.

KING: That's why Bechler was using it.

WEIL: Many products out there that put very high doses of it in that combine it with other stimulants, various forms of caffeine.

KING: So you wouldn't ban it.

WEIL: I think -- I think the sales of these products has to be regulated much more closely and I think, also, there needs to be education at all levels about the dangers of it.

KING: The government, as we understand it, has called for new labels on ephedra products to warn consumers was risk of heart attacks, stroke and death and Secretary Thompson is considering banning it outright.

WEIL: Well, I'm not in favor of an outright ban, but I'm certainly in favor of trying to ban products that claim that this is a safe method for weight loss. It isn't. Or that's a good thing to take for energy. It isn't.

There was, by the way, an interesting study just published in the annals of internal medicine, that showed that although ephedra sales account for way below 1 percent of total herbal sales, it accounts for 64 percent of adverse reactions reported to herbs.

KING: Really?

WEIL: It's a huge disproportion there, but that also says something about the safety of other herbal products. You know, ephedra's -- the lion's share of the problems that people report.

KING: If baseball asked you, should we ban it, what would you say?

WEIL: I think it's fair if a baseball team says to ban it. I think they have the right to do it.

KING: What about the baseball league? Major League Baseball says it can't be used?

WEIL: I think that's perfectly OK.

KING: Because football does ban it and basketball bans.

WEIL: I would be in favor of that.

KING: OK.

How do we know -- you have supplement, right?

WEIL: Right.

KING: You sell supplements?

WEIL: My Web site sells vitamins...

KING: Right.

WEIL: ...which I think are the best quality out there on the market.

KING: How do I know if it's good or what?

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: It's a jungle. It's really consumer beware.

I think how great it would be if your doctor could advise you about what products are safe, which aren't, how to get, what brands to buy when you go to the health food store. This is not in medical education at the moment and that's one of the things that I'm working for is to make sure that doctors of the future are trained in this area.

KING: Why isn't it?

WEIL: It's been looked at as soft subject matter, you know? I think it's the same reason nutrition is not included in the medical curriculum, really. I think it's looked at as home economics. You know, it's not as important as the real stuff, biochemistry and pharmacology.

KING: So how do we, as consumers -- we can go into any store, grocery store and buy anti-oxidants and...

WEIL: I think you have to arm yourself with good information, which means seeking out reliable books or Internet sites that can give you the information so that you can be a discriminating consumer.

KING: Well, can you say just buy Dr. Weil products and you're safe or can you overuse those?

WEIL: Anything can be overused. I try to put out good information. And, you know, also, the -- my products, let me just say this because I don't want to sound self-promoting here. But all of the profits that come from the sales of those products, my profits, are donated to a foundation, the Polaris Foundation, to support integrated medicine. So I get nothing from that.

KING: Define integrative medicine.

WEIL: Integerative medicine, I think, is the medicine of the future. This is the thoughtful combination of alternative and conventional medicine, but in a system...

KING: It doesn't deny conventional.

WEIL: Absolutely not and that really emphasizes healing, puts the emphasis on health and healing, on the doctor-patient relationship, on looking at people as whole persons, not just physical bodies.

You know, this is to me sensible, common sense medicine. It's what people want. And gradually there is a movement in this direction. We now have a consortium of academic health centers for integrative medicine that now 16 medical schools -- leading medical schools.

KING: You're a Harvard graduate.

WEIL: I am.

KING: Did you -- in medicine, right?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: Did you get much attention on nutrition?

WEIL: The total education I got was 30 minutes, which were grudgingly allowed to a dietitian in one hospital.

KING: How did you discover this?

WEIL: You know, I really did this on my own. It was when I got out of my clinical training, I was interested in the subject. I became aware of the gaps in my education. I learned myself. I began reading; I began working with people who were knowledgeable.

One -- my colleagues and I at the University of Arizona are organizing a conference for health professionals for next March, March 2, '04, which we think will be the first, really, event that presents cutting-edge information for health professionals. We hope this will be an annual event.

KING: And the idea is to combine -- you don't deny open heart surgery and you don't deny...

WEIL: Look, I say, if I'm in an automobile accident, I don't want to first go to a shaman or an herbalist, I want to go to a trauma center and get put back together.

KING: And do you agree that certain -- that lipitor is good to cut cholesterol.?

WEIL: Yes. It works. It works. It, like many of the new treatments that we use in conventional medicine -- it has side effects. Lipitor, in some people, is toxic and there are natural alternatives to it that people should know about.

So I just want people to know that there are both out there and that while the conventional methods work, they are often risky. When it's right to use them, that's what you use.

KING: All right, where do you stand in the debate -- we've been doing it here. Fat versus carbs.

WEIL: Where I stand is, I think, both of these camps are partly right and partly wrong.

Dr. Atkins has a piece of the truth. You know, he was the first person to call attention to the fact that carbohydrates in the diet rather than fat may be what drives obesity in the majority of people in our society.

KING: Is he right?

WEIL: He's right about that. However, the diet that he came up with is not a healthy diet. It's got too much meat, too much protein, which is hard on the kidney. It's deficient in fruits and vegetables. It's deficient in the essential fatty acids that we need for sports...

KING: Why do people lose weight with it?

WEIL: You can lose weight on any diet.

KING: Eating bacon.

WEIL: You can lose weight on any diet. Many people who are carbohydrate sensitive, if they go on a very low carbohydrate diet, will lose weight. The trick is how do you transition off that initial weight loss period on to a diet that's going to maintain optimum health over time?

So, I think, to Atkins' credit, he's the first person that forced the medical establishment, the nutritional establishment, to look in the direction of the carbohydrates.

KING: What about the opposite side of him?

WEIL: I think the low-fat advocates have had their day.

KING: Really?

WEIL: I do. I think we're passing out of this. It's clear that we need certain kinds of fats. We need the monounsaturated fats, olive -- olive oil, avocados, nuts. We need the omega-3 fatty acids that we get from oily fish like salmon and sardines.

There is good fat and bad fat. There are good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates. So I think both of these sides have part of the truth. The trick is how do you design for a lot of people a healthy, low carbohydrate diet?

KING: How do you do it?

WEIL: You eat lots of fruits and vegetables, you include some of the good carbohydrates, which are things like beans and some sweet potatoes or winter squashes in moderation, even some whole grains like wild rice or barley in whole grain form.

KING: And Dr. Atkins hates rice.

WEIL: He hates all these. But I think it's a blanket -- it's just like the anti-fat people hate all fat. You know, it's not black or white like. It's, as I said, partly right, partly wrong.

KING: Why are we so obese? WEIL: I think there's of reasons.

We're eating more, in two ways. We're eating bigger portions. You know, when I was growing up nobody ate buckets of popcorn in the theater or Big Gulps of soft drinks.

KING: Never saw any thing like that.

WEIL: Or oversized muffins. It's amazing.

And we're also eating all day long. We snack. So I think, in many ways, we're taking more calories in. We're probably also less active.

And I think the worst thing,and this relates back to what we talk about carbohydrates -- more and more people are eating more and more highly refined and processed foods. It's all of the fast food, junk food, snack foods -- these are full of the bad carbohydrates that drive obesity and the bad fats that undermine health.

KING: We'll get a break and come back. Some ore questions for Dr. Weil and a lot of your phone calls. Promise you. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're going to get to calls early for Dr. Andrew Weil. A couple of other things and then I'll disperse questions as we go on.

WEIL: Yes.

KING: What part does the psyche play? If I'm happy will I live longer? If I pray, if I'm believer, will I live longer than a nonbeliever?

WEIL: I think the chances are you will. And I think there's a fair body of medical research supporting that. I think the psyche is hugely important.

And by the way, just as with nutrition this, is another whole area that is basically not part of the medical curriculum. You know, we really want to see more doctors that are trained in mind-body medicine. There's lots of ways of teaching people to be in better mental frames of mind. You know, you can teach optimism, for example. You can teach people how to control thoughts. I think that has a huge influence on the body.

KING: I understand you're going to do a book on again.

WEIL: I'm at just about starting work on it now.

KING: You're going to reverse aging.

WEIL: No, that's not my goal. I think it's impossible to reverse aging. And I'm very against the whole concept of anti-aging medicine. I think aging is a given. That's something we all experience. And if you set up yourself opposed to that, that's not a good relation to be in with nature. But I think there are lessons to be learned from looking at very healthy old people to see what do they do...

KING: Can you learn lessons from that group in Russia that lived to 120?

WEIL: That's, I think, looks fraudulent because there's a question whenever you find these claims, are the birth records accurate? The only places I know that have really been studied and verified, interesting, two islands, Okinawa in Japan and Sardinia off of Italy.

KING: They live long?

WEIL: Live long, and we have good documentation of birth records.

KING: Scarborough, Ontario, for Dr. Andrew Weil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, Mr. King, I love your show.

KING: Thank you, what's the question?

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I'm just wondering, what is your opinion on the Herbalife product line?

WEIL: You know, I think that is a very poor quality supplement.

KING: Really?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: They're very big, aren't they?

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: They're big, but they have contained diuretics, laxatives. This is not a good thing to be on. Really, I would stay away from that and things like it.

KING: Other than that, you're crazy about it. San Antonio, Texas. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Larry, thanks. Great show. I have a question for Dr. Weil involving green tea.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And we've heard that it's high in polyphenols which can be cancer reduction...

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: ... herb. But my question was if you drink large quantities of it and you're on prescription medication, or even over- the-counter such as ibuprofen, could there be toxins that can build up?

WEIL: You know, I think you want to get good quality green tea and my prejudice would be try to get organic green tea. You can find these on the Internet. You can find them at good quality Asian grocery stores or good tea merchants.

And I think with anything that looks good, too much of it can be a bad thing. You know, I'd recommend sticking to no more than say four cups of green tea a day. I don't think you'll run to problems there.

KING: What do you think of Botox? They're involved in a big lawsuit.

WEIL: Really?

KING: A lady claimed that they told her it would cure migraines and it like ruined her life.

WEIL: Well, again, as with all of these things, these are powerful treatments. They shouldn't be done lightly. They have their uses. Botox has legitimate medical uses.

But I worry about the psychology underlying that. It's again an attempt to reverse or deny effects of aging. I think we should come to grips with the aging process.

KING: In other words, age.

WEIL: Age.

KING: Jackson, Mississippi. Hello?

CALLER: Even with legitimate uses of ephedrine -- it's kind of a two prong question -- are there people that should never use it? And, sir, is it too early to get my Christmas list to you? Thank you.

KING: Thank you.

WEIL: Well, that depends if you've been a good boy or a bad boy.

I would say that people with high blood pressure, people with a history of heart arrythmias should be very careful. People with anxiety disorders, insomnia, all of these things ephedra or ephedrine can greatly worsen.

The problem in these young athletes is we've seen that many people have congenital heart problems and they can be push over the edge...

KING: Who should take ephedra?

WEIL: As I said it works for some asthmatics. It is a stimulant. But in almost every category of use, we have better drugs. So I wouldn't say that anybody should use it.

KING: Sao Paulo, Brazil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, good evening, Larry. Good evening Dr. Weil.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I'd like to ask you some questions about anti-cells and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and how deep are the studies of the doctor on this subject.

KING: What is it?

WEIL: OK, jillray (ph) is a healing technique from Japan. It's associated with a religion in Japan, but it's a hand-healing technique. People hold up their hand and transmit energy without touching you, like that.

And there are some studies, some done by a researcher at UCLA who has looked at this method as a way of increasing natural killer cell activity in the blood. This is part of your defense against cancer.

I think this research is interesting. The studies are small. They should be attempted to be replicated. Actually, at the University of Arizona, we have some ongoing studies of this kind of energy medicine.

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: I'm open to lots of things. Then I want to see the proof.

KING: Las Vegas, hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I enjoy good health, I believe thanks your vitamins I take every day. I am hypoglycemic and I have a 50/50 chance of getting diabetes.

WEIL: The most important thing that you can do, two most important things. One is to really have a regular program of regular aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is even more important than diet in controlling blood sugar and preventing the development of type two diabetes.

The other thing you should do is really get good information about what's called the gylcemic index, the scale in which carbohydrate foods are rated as to the impact they have on blood sugar. I recommend a book out there called "The Glucose Revolution," not by me, but by a group of doctors that's got good information the subject, or look it up on my Web site.

Teach yourself about which carbohydrate foods to avoid, exercise regularly, you should be able to prevent that precondition from developing into diabetes.

KING: By the way, Dr. Weil's Web site is www.DrWeil, that's one word, d-r-w-e-i-l.com.

Phoenix, hello?

CALLER: Your program recommended the product colistin.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I had excellent results with that. I want to thank you for that. And I was wondering if there was a similar product available for weight loss for people 55...

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: ... the product that she's referring to is a red yeast rice extract from China which is the natural alternative to Lipitor that I mentioned and is, I think, very useful.

But in terms of weight loss, I don't recommend products. I think the secret of weight loss is eating less, exercising more and eating right. Which means informing yourselves about which kinds of foods are most likely to produce unwanted weight gain.

And for many of us in America it's going to be these refined, processed foods. It's foods that have been handled by the modern food technologists. Chips, chips, pancakes, fluffy white things, pastries, breads. Where we take grains and we strip them of their fiber, we pulverize them into a very fine starch and then we make them into things...

KING: And they taste good.

WEIL: And they taste good.

KING: Kennewic, Washington, hello?

CALLER: Yes, I have a question for Dr. Weil. I have two questions. First question is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of the esophagus. What's a good herbal product that would help that.

KING: And what's your second question, sir?

CALLER: Second question is -- I'm on Pevacid for that. Would that help?

WEIL: Well, rather than using this strong acid suppressive drugs, one of the recommendations that I would make is to try a product that you can get in health food stores called DGL. It's a licorish extract that is nontoxic, that increases the mucous coating in the esophagus and makes it more resistant to acid.

And I'd also learn some good relaxation techniques that might be better than any herb for the problem you describe.

KING: Back with more with Dr. Andrew Weil and more of your phone calls. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're going to get to calls early for Dr. Andrew Weil. A couple of other things and then I'll disperse questions as we go on.

WEIL: Yes.

KING: What part does the psyche play? If I'm happy will I live longer? If I pray, if I'm believer, will I live longer than a nonbeliever?

WEIL: I think the chances are you will. And I think there's a fair body of medical research supporting that. I think the psyche is hugely important.

And by the way, just as with nutrition this, is another whole area that is basically not part of the medical curriculum. You know, we really want to see more doctors that are trained in mind-body medicine. There's lots of ways of teaching people to be in better mental frames of mind. You know, you can teach optimism, for example. You can teach people how to control thoughts. I think that has a huge influence on the body.

KING: I understand you're going to do a book on again.

WEIL: I'm at just about starting work on it now.

KING: You're going to reverse aging.

WEIL: No, that's not my goal. I think it's impossible to reverse aging. And I'm very against the whole concept of anti-aging medicine. I think aging is a given. That's something we all experience.

And if you set up yourself opposed to that, that's not a good relation to be in with nature. But I think there are lessons to be learned from looking at very healthy old people to see what do they do...

KING: Can you learn lessons from that group in Russia that lived to 120?

WEIL: That's, I think, looks fraudulent because there's a question whenever you find these claims, are the birth records accurate? The only places I know that have really been studied and verified, interesting, two islands, Okinawa in Japan and Sardinia off of Italy.

KING: They live long?

WEIL: Live long, and we have good documentation of birth records.

KING: Scarborough, Ontario, for Dr. Andrew Weil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, Mr. King, I love your show.

KING: Thank you, what's the question?

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I'm just wondering, what is your opinion on the Herbalife product line?

WEIL: You know, I think that is a very poor quality supplement.

KING: Really?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: They're very big, aren't they?

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: They're big, but they have contained diuretics, laxatives. This is not a good thing to be on. Really, I would stay away from that and things like it.

KING: Other than that, you're crazy about it. San Antonio, Texas. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Larry, thanks. Great show. I have a question for Dr. Weil involving green tea.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And we've heard that it's high in polyphenols which can be cancer reduction...

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: ... herb. But my question was if you drink large quantities of it and you're on prescription medication, or even over- the-counter such as ibuprofen, could there be toxins that can build up?

WEIL: You know, I think you want to get good quality green tea and my prejudice would be try to get organic green tea. You can find these on the Internet. You can find them at good quality Asian grocery stores or good tea merchants.

And I think with anything that looks good, too much of it can be a bad thing. You know, I'd recommend sticking to no more than say four cups of green tea a day. I don't think you'll run to problems there.

KING: What do you think of Botox? They're involved in a big lawsuit.

WEIL: Really?

KING: A lady claimed that they told her it would cure migraines and it like ruined her life. WEIL: Well, again, as with all of these things, these are powerful treatments. They shouldn't be done lightly. They have their uses. Botox has legitimate medical uses.

But I worry about the psychology underlying that. It's again an attempt to reverse or deny effects of aging. I think we should come to grips with the aging process.

KING: In other words, age.

WEIL: Age.

KING: Jackson, Mississippi. Hello?

CALLER: Even with legitimate uses of ephedrine -- it's kind of a two prong question -- are there people that should never use it? And, sir, is it too early to get my Christmas list to you? Thank you.

KING: Thank you.

WEIL: Well, that depends if you've been a good boy or a bad boy.

I would say that people with high blood pressure, people with a history of heart arrythmias should be very careful. People with anxiety disorders, insomnia, all of these things ephedra or ephedrine can greatly worsen.

The problem in these young athletes is we've seen that many people have congenital heart problems and they can be push over the edge...

KING: Who should take ephedra?

WEIL: As I said it works for some asthmatics. It is a stimulant. But in almost every category of use, we have better drugs. So I wouldn't say that anybody should use it.

KING: Sao Paulo, Brazil. Hello?

CALLER: Hello, good evening, Larry. Good evening Dr. Weil.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I'd like to ask you some questions about anti-cells and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and how deep are the studies of the doctor on this subject.

KING: What is it?

WEIL: OK, jillray (ph) is a healing technique from Japan. It's associated with a religion in Japan, but it's a hand-healing technique. People hold up their hand and transmit energy without touching you, like that.

And there are some studies, some done by a researcher at UCLA who has looked at this method as a way of increasing natural killer cell activity in the blood. This is part of your defense against cancer.

I think this research is interesting. The studies are small. They should be attempted to be replicated. Actually, at the University of Arizona, we have some ongoing studies of this kind of energy medicine.

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: I'm open to lots of things. Then I want to see the proof.

KING: Las Vegas, hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I enjoy good health, I believe thanks your vitamins I take every day. I am hypoglycemic and I have a 50/50 chance of getting diabetes.

WEIL: The most important thing that you can do, two most important things. One is to really have a regular program of regular aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is even more important than diet in controlling blood sugar and preventing the development of type two diabetes.

The other thing you should do is really get good information about what's called the gylcemic index, the scale in which carbohydrate foods are rated as to the impact they have on blood sugar. I recommend a book out there called "The Glucose Revolution," not by me, but by a group of doctors that's got good information the subject, or look it up on my Web site.

Teach yourself about which carbohydrate foods to avoid, exercise regularly, you should be able to prevent that precondition from developing into diabetes.

KING: By the way, Dr. Weil's Web site is www.DrWeil, that's one word, d-r-w-e-i-l.com.

Phoenix, hello?

CALLER: Your program recommended the product colistin.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I had excellent results with that. I want to thank you for that. And I was wondering if there was a similar product available for weight loss for people 55...

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: ... the product that she's referring to is a red yeast rice extract from China which is the natural alternative to Lipitor that I mentioned and is, I think, very useful. But in terms of weight loss, I don't recommend products. I think the secret of weight loss is eating less, exercising more and eating right. Which means informing yourselves about which kinds of foods are most likely to produce unwanted weight gain.

And for many of us in America it's going to be these refined, processed foods. It's foods that have been handled by the modern food technologists. Chips, chips, pancakes, fluffy white things, pastries, breads. Where we take grains and we strip them of their fiber, we pulverize them into a very fine starch and then we make them into things...

KING: And they taste good.

WEIL: And they taste good.

KING: Kennewic, Washington, hello?

CALLER: Yes, I have a question for Dr. Weil. I have two questions. First question is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of the esophagus. What's a good herbal product that would help that.

KING: And what's your second question, sir?

CALLER: Second question is -- I'm on Pevacid for that. Would that help?

WEIL: Well, rather than using this strong acid suppressive drugs, one of the recommendations that I would make is to try a product that you can get in health food stores called DGL. It's a licorish extract that is nontoxic, that increases the mucous coating in the esophagus and makes it more resistant to acid.

And I'd also learn some good relaxation techniques that might be better than any herb for the problem you describe.

KING: Back with more with Dr. Andrew Weil and more of your phone calls. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Don't forget, in Washington tomorrow night with Senator Robert Byrd. Friday night, Bob Woodward.

Our guest is Dr. Andrew Weil. Oakland, California, hello?

CALLER: Hello.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: Hi.

KING: Go ahead.

CALLER: This question is for Dr. Weil. What is the natural remedy for thyroid replacement as opposed to the pharmaceutical? WEIL: You know, I really think if you've got documented thyroid deficiency, the best strategy is to take thyroid replacement.

But there are different kinds of thyroid replacements. I recommend some of these newer preparations. One that I recommend is a prescription drug called Thyrolar, which gives you both forms of thyroid hormone, T-3 and T-4. I think that's better than just one of them, which is in the usual forms. But I don't know about alternative strategies for boosting thyroid function.

KING: Some things, they have no alternatives.

WEIL: Exactly.

KING: Fontana, California.

CALLER: Hello. Larry King, I am a big fan of yours.

KING: Thank you.

CALLER: I have a question for Dr. Weil.

(CROSSTALK)

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I know that you're a big advocate of soy products and my cancer was estrogen positive.

WEIL: And are you taking Tamoxifen?

CALLER: Well, no. You know, I had to stop taking it. I had horrible side effects with it. It's horrible.

WEIL: Well, you know, if you've got hormone receptor positive breast cancer, I would say to err on the side of caution, I would not eat soy. I think that we don't know enough, but I would be cautious there.

KING: Don't eat soy. Thank you. Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, hello.

CALLER: Yes. Dr. Weil, my question to you is is there an alternate to lipitor?

WEIL: There is and I mentioned this briefly awhile ago.

There is a red yeast rice extract from China. It's from a yeast called manascus. You can't get this in the U.S. anymore. You have to get it from Canada Or Europe, but it's made under the name Chalestin....

KING: How do you get it?

WEIL: If you go to my Web site -- go to my Web site and you'll find the information about how to get it.

KING: His Web site again is www.d-r-w-e-i-l -- drweil.com.

WEIL: Right, and there are other brands of this that you can still buy in health food stores here -- here, so you want to look for that.

KING: Toronto, hello.

CALLER: Hi, yes. Good evening, gentlemen. I am calling to ask a quick question. It's rather two pronged.

Apart from horse chestnut, what supplements might you recommend to reverse spider and/or vericose veins. And I'm wondering if there's any thing topical.

WEIL: There is a horse chestnut cream that you can get, which is useful. And the only other thing that I would recommend as a supplement -- well, I'd certainly recommend taking some Vitamin C, which helps maintain the strength of vessel walls. And you might want to take one of these anti-oxidant pigments, either grape seed extract or pine bark extract that you can fine in health food stores. I think that also is helpful.

KING: Arlington, Virginia, for Dr. Andrew Weil, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weils.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I just wanted to know if you knew anything about alternative medicine for animals and would you suggest -- would it be worth -- you know, investigating that?

WEIL: Yes.

KING: I never heard that question.

WEIL: Very interesting question.

I have two dogs, which I love very much and I have used many natural methods on them including osteopathic manipulation, acupuncture, herbal medicine.

KING: Or the veterinarians.

WEIL: There's a quite a movement now of veterinarians practicing natural medicine, alternative medicine. You can track this through Internet. Most communities have veterinarians doing this.

By the way, some of the techniques have been used very successfully where there's's lot at stake. For example, acupuncture has been extensively used in race horses with very good results. So I -- it's out there. I would find out about it and I recommend it.

KING: Birmingham, Alabama, hello. CALLER: This is for Dr. Weil.

(CROSSTALK)

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I'm taking coral calcium.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: Is that a good thing to take? I'm arthritic.

WEIL: You know, I think there are better forms of calcium out there. I recommend calcium citrate, which is the most absorbable form. It's much cheaper.

KING: Coral is the one from Okinawa.

WEIL: Yes, and by the way, I've gone to Okinawa a lot. I'm going there again in May. I've never heard any thing about coral calcium in Okinawa.

KING: They don't talk about -- they live longer though.

WEIL: They do, but they do lots of things different from us.

KING: Yorba Linda, California hello.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weil?

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: I have a small question.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: My question is, I have been -- I'm 84 years old.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And I'd like to have a drink of nice high spirits every night, about 2 ounces. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I'm married for 62 years to the same woman and I enjoy life. Is there -- and I notice a lot of times you don't criticize people with alcohol, but...

WEIL: I wouldn't rock the boat. You know, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

KING: If you're 84, have a shot.

WEIL: Whatever you're doing --whatever you're doing, keep doing.

KING: But is liquor good?

WEIL: I think -- there are -- there is more...

KING: The heart patients drink red wine. WEIL: There is more and more evidence for benefits from alcohol. I would not tell anyone who doesn't drink to start drinking for medical benefits. But if some body is drinking moderately, that's OK with me.

KING: Kobe, Japan, hello.

CALLER: Yes, hi. I would like to ask Dr. Weil about uterine fibroids. I have one that's two inches in diameter...

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: ...and I'm also slightly anemic....

WEIL: OK.

CALLER: ... because of that. And I was wondering what you would recommend if I wanted to shrink this fibroid and I also raise my iron level.

WEIL: And how old are you?

CALLER: I'm 39. Going to be 39 next week.

KING: Tell us what this is.

WEIL: Yes, this is these benign tumors of muscle in the uterus that are quite common in women. They feed on estrogen.

So one thing you can do is try to cut -- lower estrogen levels by increasing exercise, by cutting off, taking in outside estrogen. And the easy way to do that is to stop eating beef, which has growth- promoting hormones in it, to not eat ordinary dairy products except organic dairy products, to add soy to the diet. These are all ways of regulating your hormonal chemistry.

There are some herbs. If you go to a -- consult a natropathic physician, they may be able to give you herbal strategies. I think you have to certainly correct the anemia by taking iron, because these things cause heavy bleeding at periods. They tend to disappear at menopause.

KING: They do?

WEIL: If you don't take -- and a woman's 39, there's going to be a lot of years before menopause.

So I think you have to monitor this. If the fibroid grows large, if it's interfering with function that's causing anemia, you may want to have a surgical treatment for that. But there are ways of trying to shrink that.

KING: Lets more to go with Dr. Andrew Weil. More of your calls. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KING: Before we take our next call, two products popular in health food stores. DHEA.

WEIL: It's a hormone. I'm cautious about recommending hormones. There are -- I don't think you should take it unless you have a blood level determent that you're low in it. It can be useful for patients with Lupus on Prednisone. It may get by with lower dose of Prednisone.

KING: C210

WEIL: CO-Q10.

KING: CO-Q10.

WEIL: This is a useful natural product. I take this myself, as you do.

KING: I take. I don't know why I take it.

WEIL: It's a powerful anti-oxidant. It helps to treat diabetes, extends survival of breast cancer. Great protective against gum disease, good general anti-oxidant protection.

KING: Indianapolis, as we go back to calls for Dr. Andrew our best selling author and expert on integrated medicine.

CALLER: Hi there, Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I watch you all of the time and I love your guests.

KING: Thank you.

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I've read two of your books one of them dealt with your having treated a nurse named Mary, whether she was an employee or patient or whatever for hepatitis c.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: I am very put to it as I've had this since I was 19 years old.

WEIL: Right.

CALLER: Now 52, ouch!

KING: What's your question, dear?

CALLER: One b general type and I've tried no Schering-Plough works for me, of course with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I've been on Inforgen (ph)...

KING: What's your question?

CALLER: I have to give him just a little background, Larry.

KING: OK.

CALLER: And I'm getting ready to back bake on the Infrogen 15 micrograms daily.

WEIL: All right. Let me just interrupt you and tell you this. If you would go to my web site, DrWeil.com look up hepatitis, c, you will be directed to a doctor in New York, Dr. Jong (ph), a Chinese M.D. who has an herbal protocol for the treatment of hepatitis c. I have referred many patient to him. There's research being done on this. It is very, very helpful.

KING: Follow up on that, ma'am. It may save you.

St. Bernard, Louisiana. Hello.

CALLER: Yes, Dr. Weil, I enjoyed your book on spontaneous healing. And I had a lower back injury about three years ago and due to that I contracted a deep vein thrombosis in my right leg. And I take a lot of pain medication, and I just am trying desperately to get off all these medicines and I am finding it almost impossible.

WEIL: OK, here's what I'd recommend. Go out and get books by a man named John Sarno, s-a-r-n-o. A M.D. in New York at Rust Institute of rehabilitation. One called "Healing Back Pain." One called, "mind over back pain." Read them, they will help you enormously and will help you get off the medication.

KING: Really, you can cure back pain?

WEIL: A lot of back pain, the majority of it is probably a mind/body mechanism. It's a vicious cycle of contractions of muscles that originates up here and you can break that cycle.

KING: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil.

I have a reoccurring a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and started chemo this week. And I want to hear any suggestion to boost my immune system.

WEIL: Well, there's two. An easy one is to get an herb called a straglus (ph). This will not interfere with chemo, it's not an antioxidant, but it helps protect immune function. I also recommend most patients with cancers through chemo and afterwards to take a mixture of Asian mushrooms that have significant effects of this sort...

KING: Where do you get them.

WEIL: You get them in many health food stores. There is a product out there called Microsoft that I like, there's another product called Host Defense. Read the labels, go to my web site for more information about it.

KING: Chemotherapy is kind of a bad word, right.

WEIL: Look, for some cancers that's the best thing we got. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) may kinds of leukemia, you can be cured by chemotherapy. If you got testicular cancer, you can be cured by chemotherapy. You know, there are many cancers which chemotherapy is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, for most of the common cancers that kill people, chemotherapy is not very good.

KING: Why does everybody get it.

WEIL: It's the best thing we've got and it's all (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have to recommend.

KING: Are there any way -- any things that you can take living with it easier.

WEIL: Absolutely. There are specific problems that come up, whether it's nausea, hair loss, you can use hypnosis for many of the symptoms. There are herbs you can take like the DGL, that I mentioned earlier, that can help with the stomach problems. You can take herbs like a straglus or these mushrooms to protect the immune system. I predict sooner than later. I think sooner, chemotherapy will be obsolete and it will be replaced by newer forms of treatment like gene therapy, immune therapy. Other forms of treatment that are more precise.

KING: Radiation?

WEIL: I think radiation will tend to be phased out. These are crude treatments for some cancers. The best we have at the moment. They will be obsolete.

KING: Tampa, Florida, hello?

CALLER: Yes. Hello, Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: Dr. Weil, I seem to lose a lot of iron. And I was in the hospital three times last year and they can't seem to find the reason why. And I take iron pills and I drink Alfalfa tea, but I was wondering.

WEIL: You've got to find out why you're losing iron. There is always a reason why iron is being lost. The most probable one is it's being lost somewhere in the gastrointestinal tract. Whether this is from micro bleeding they haven't found. I would go back. Go to someone else, get further testing done. There's got to be a reason why you're losing blood.

KING: Lufkin, Texas, hello.

CALLER: Hello, Dr. Weil?

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: Do I need to modify your eating recommendations for severe coronary artery disease?

WEIL: No. Not at all. I think the general recommendations that you'll find in my recent books in "Eating Well for Optimum Health" or "In Eight Weeks for Optimum Health" or the cookbook "The Healthy Kitchen" are very appropriate for people even with severe coronary heart disease. These are the modern recommendations that take account of which fats are good, which carbohydrates are OK. I think all of that's appropriate for you.

Lexington, North Carolina. Hello.

CALLER: Dr. Weil, appreciate you very much.

WEIL: Thank you.

CALLER: And I have a disease that's called polymyosightis (ph). I cannot do steroids. And I am now on (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Do you have any idea of any...

KING: What is it.

Yes. It's an auto immune disease that involves the muscles. It can be quite severe. It's usually treated with Prednisone, but she can't tolerate that, so she's on another immune suppressive drug. I would recommend looking in my books, go to my web site, look up auto immunity. This one you have got to deal with on a lot of levels. Definitely use a mind body approach like (UNINTELLIGIBLE), hypnosis.

There are herbs that can be helpful. There are natural anti- inflammatory herbs like ginger and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that are useful. You want to be on the right exercise program. This would be a good thing to take to a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, for example for example. A lot of room to maneuver with disease.

KING: Staten Island, New York, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Larry. Love your show.

KING: Thank you.

CALLER: This question's for Dr. Weil.

KING: Sure.

CALLER: I'm a 46-year-old female and I've been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

WEIL: Yes. Tremendous amount you can do for rheumatoid arthritis.

KING: Really?

WEIL: It's an -- absolutely. And I'd say begin with nutritional strategies. You want to be on an anti-inflammatory diet which means lots of fruits and vegetables, decrease the -- all junk process, refined foods. Make sure you're getting a lot of omega-3 fatty acids. You want to eat salmon, sardines, walnuts, flax, all of those sources.

KING: How about the omega-3 pill.

Absolutely. That's fine. And you want to use a natural anti- inflammatory. You know, there are products outside there that combine ginger, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and other herbs. One which I use which you can get in many health food stores is called Zyflamend that's made by a company in Vermont. Z-y-f-l-a-m-e-n-d. I give this to lots of patients. Again, to go to my web site for more details on this. But I've seen a lot of rheumatoid arthritis patients who do very well. Stay with your rheumatologist. Tell them what you're doing. See if you can cut down on the dose of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) after a while of being on this program. I think that's the ideal of integrated medicine.

KING: Back with more of Dr. Andrew Weil. Senator Robert Byrd tomorrow night. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Can we prevent medical mistakes, Dr. Weil? The heart, lung -- the mishap.

WEIL: There are always going to be mistakes.

KING: Duke University.

WEIL: There are always going to be mistakes. That one in particular, that shouldn't have happened. That's like -- there should be pretty basic safeguards there. But we have to accept in a system as complicated as medicine there will always be mistakes.

KING: Glen Falls, New York, hello?

CALLER: Doctor, I'd like to ask a question about the rage of calcium in the diet and how calcium, how large doses of calcium can turn the body alkaline and the diseases can't survive in an alkaline...

WEIL: First of all...

CALLER: Is that true?

WEIL: The alkalinity acidity of the body, especially the blood, is very tightly controlled. The body can't take chances with this. So, in general, nothing that you eat or drink normally is going to affect the acidity or alkalinity of your blood. So I don't buy into that theory.

Calcium, I think, is a very confusing subject, especially for women who have told (UNINTELLIGIBLE) they ought to take calcium to prevent osteoporosis.

KING: Can too much be bad?

WEIL: Yes. It probably can. It certainly is constipating, it might do other things. But the real problem is how do you know what type to take? What amount?

KING: How do you know?

WEIL: It's difficult. I generally recommend that women take around 1,500 milligrams a day. My preferred form is calcium citrate because it's better absorbed.

There's been some research suggesting that calcium supplements can increase prostate cancer risks in men, possibly by interfering with vitamin D metabolism in the prostate. So with men I'm a little more cautious. Maybe 1,000 milligram supplementally. And you want to get as much as you can from food.

KING: Wright, Wyoming, hello?

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weil. I have sarcoidosis and I take your alternative to prednisone. What I would like to know if you can recommend something else on top of this?

And what is up with these auto-immune...

WEIL: This is a strange auto-immune disease that often produces lesions in the lungs. It looked like tuberculosis, but there's no infection there.

You know the interesting thing about sarcoid is that it can suddenly disappear. It has a very high potential of going into remission and actually, the less you use these very strong immuno- suppressive drugs the greater the chance of going into remission.

I would really use a mind/body approach if you're not doing that. Find a good, creative hypno-therapist or guided imagery practitioner. See if you can activate healing through your mind that can change your immune status...

KING: You can really do that?

WEIL: Absolutely.

KING: Morristown, South Dakota, hello.

CALLER: Hey, Dr. Weil?

WEIL: Hi.

CALLER: I've got two questions for you.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: My first one is I've got MS and I was wondering if you heard of Dr. Roy Swank and what you think of him? And number two, what do you suggest people with MS to use? WEIL: I have heard of him, but I don't know enough about what he teaches to give you an intelligent answer.

KING: What about MS?

WEIL: MS in general, I think -- first of all, it's a group of diseases. You've got to find out what pattern you have. The conventional treatments are indicated for some types.

KING: Not curable. Right? Treatable but...

WEIL: Not curable, but I have to tell you, you'll find in my books the story of a family practice doctor, Patricia Amman (ph) who's in Ridgeway, Colorado. She's also one of the associate fellows of integrated medicines who had MS and is now apparently free of the disease. And she used only alternative methods, nutritional strategies, herbal strategies.

Again, if you go into my books or Web site, you'll get a long list of suggestions to do. This can be done in conjunction with conventional treatment...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: ... who was unoperable prostate cancer.

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: Absolutely, now he's very acidulous...

(CROSSTALK)

WEIL: And I have another patient, same thing, ten years ago told inoperable, incurable. He's fine.

KING: London, England. Hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Larry. Good evening, Dr. Weil.

KING: Hi.

WEIL: My question is regarding depression. I'm a long-time sufferer and I've been on various medications, every combination imaginable. And I believe I have atypical depression. And I was wondering if what you believe about mixing (UNINTELLIGIBLE) thyroid drugs (UNINTELLIGIBLE) proven to be effective...

WEIL: I think you can certainly try that. I think that needs to be monitored by whoever is giving you the medications. But I want to be sure that there's two strategies that you're following that your conventional doctors may not have emphasized to you.

The first is regular, vigorous aerobic exercise which really changes brain chemistry and both prevent and treat depression, even sever depression. And the other thing is really making sure you're getting a good intake of omega-3 fatty acids, whether from supplements or the foods.

KING: That helps depression?

WEIL: That has a major influence on brain function.

KING: Toronto, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Dr. Weil. I think you're fabulous.

WEIL: Thank you.

CALLER: I have two questions. The first one is vitamin E. The benefits for, OK, menopause for women, youth, the fountain of youth. And the second is what can you recommend other than Beano for things that help relieve gas when you eat vegetables and stuff like that?

WEIL: OK, first of all, there are no chemical fountains of youth. That's part of this anti-aging mentality. But I would be very wary of that. Vitamin E is useful for all of us. It's a powerful antioxidant and the doses that look optimal are more than you can get from your diet.

What you should know about vitamin E, as nature produces it, it's got eight different components. Four tokoferols (ph), four tocotrienols. Most vitamin products that you take are only giving you one of these, Alphatocopherol.

You want to try to get all of these in a mix. The vitamins you'll find on my Web site have that. A few others on the market have that. I think if you take the right dose of that it's very useful as part of a general antioxidant defense strategy.

KING: Is any of it good for the heart?

WEIL: It's good for the heart. It's good to help prevent cancer. It has lots of beneficial effects and it's good to take. And your other question was?

KING: Lost it. We're sorry, ma'am. Check with the Web site, he can respond.

We'll be back with our remaining moments and more calls. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Our crack staff remembered the other part of the lady's question. Beano.

WEIL: Yes, she asked about flatulence from fruits and vegetables.

WEIL: When you go into an Indian restaurant there's a bowl of sugar seed, they're fennell seed. Fennell helps the passage of gas through the intestinal tract. You can buy sugar fennell seeds at Indian groceries or regular chew a half teaspoon or make a tea, that's one thing to try. There's a product called Beano out there. You put a drop of it or two, on the offending food before you start eat it, it may help somewhat reduce that. And pay attention to the combinations of foods that do it to you and avoid those.

KING: Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. Hello.

CALLER: Good evening, Dr. Weil and Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: I have type one diabetes, and in addition I have symptoms of asthma that my physician has related to as silent gurd.

WEIL: Right.

CALLER: Have you ever heard of this?

WEIL: Yes. Gurd, this is esophageal reflux, and sometimes the symptoms of gurd can masquerade as asthma because it's -- actually that irritation which is producing the cough. Right.

So sometimes in people that present with coughing asthma we should always make sure that that's not the problem, because that's an easily treatable problem.

KING: Victoria, British Colombia. Hello.

CALLER: Good evening, gentlemen. Dr. Weil, thank you for making yourself available. I was wondering, I've had -- I've suffered from sinusitis for years now, and I have a medical second opinion that I shouldn't pursue surgery, thus I heard about oregano-based products. Can I have your opinion, sir...

WEIL: First of all, surgery is always a last, last, last resort.

KING: You're not a surgical man.

WEIL: You want to do everything you can first before you resort to that. These oregano oil products have been touted as anti- bacterial, but I think the scientific evidence for them is not great. The one strategy that I would absolutely recommend to you if you haven't done it, get all cow's milk and cowl's milk product out of your diet. See what happens after two months. Many people with chronic sinus conditions see an improvement.

KING: Windsor, Ontario, hello.

CALLER: Hello to both of you. My husband suffers from psoriatic arthritis.

WEIL: Yes.

CALLER: And he was on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) 8. Help his (UNINTELLIGIBLE) not his arthritis. Arava or Avera, ruined his liver.

WEIL: Yes. Yes. . CALLER: And now he just started on Monday with enbrill (ph) shots.

Are you familiar with that?

WEIL: This is a very powerful drug that has been used for rheumatoid arthritis. I have to tell you I saw one patient at our clinic in University of Arizona, a university professor, woman, who had very severe rheumatoid arthritis, went on enbrill.

The rheumatoid arthritis disappeared as if by magic, and then she got uterine cancer, and breast cancer directly caused by the drug. She had to go off it, the arthritis came back worse than ever. Try to find some other strategies. It's like psoriatic arthritis, like rheumatoid arthritis. Similar strategies for managing them. Look it up on my web site, you get whole list of things to try..

KING: What's a good tip to boost the immune system.

WEIL: Exercise boost the immune testimony system. Using the mind in the right way boost the immune system. Taking anti-oxidants boosts the immune system. A lot of things to do to.

To Aurora, Illinois. Hello.

CALLER: Hi. I was wondering if Ephedra can cause symptoms like irritable bowel. And the reason I'm wondering is because my sister has been taking it and she has developed so many problems and I am so worried about her.

WEIL: It certainly could.

KING: Irritable bowel symptoms.

WEIL: All stimulants have an effect on the intestinal tract, often immediately causing laxative effect, chronic diarrhea. Anyone with a tendency in that direction should not be using any kind of stimulants. So, Ephedra could certainly be producing it or complicating it.

KING: Otis, Oregon, hello.

CALLER: Hello. Dr. Weil, I have a question. I'm 59 years old. I have had limb gurdel muscular dystrophy for about 25 years. But my question is regarding a female problem. I had vaginal bleeding for a couple of years. I went in and had an ultrasound treatment which showed a 20 millimeter thickening of the lining. I finally decided to get brave enough and have a biopsy, uterine biopsy and the results were negative. They put me on Provera. Twenty milligrams a day for five days.

KING: We're running short of time.

What's the question?

CALLER: I did that for three months and then went off. It stopped the bleeding, it was very heavy bleeding during these times.

KING: What's your question?

WEIL: What's the question?

CALLER: Well, I don't have any more bleeding, but they wanted to do all kinds of surgical things and everything...

WEIL: I think you should have the condition monitored because this is something that potentially can be dangerous. You want to have that monitored, you might have to have a repeat (UNINTELLIGIBLE) biopsy just to see what's going on there.

KING: I only have a minute left. Alzheimers.

WEIL: Well, we still don't know what this disease really is, we have evidence that anti-inflammatory drugs help prevent it. That includes things like Motrin or the anti-inflammatory herbs. One of those (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is eaten in great quantities everyday in India. India has a very...

KING: There are new drugs that slow the down the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

WEIL: Yes, but they're not great. So I think this is something if you're worried about Alzheimer's. You want to practice some preventive strategies early in life. Exercise, using your mind, taking anti-oxidants, taking anti-inflammatory, either herbs or products.

KING: The key part of your message is prevention.

WEIL: Absolutely. The body has a wonderful capacity to heal itself. You want to facilitate that, not interfere with it.

KING: Always good seeing you, man.

WEIL: Good to see you.

KING: Dr. Andrew Weil, best selling author and renowned expert on integrated medicine, founder and director of the program of Integrated Medicine at the University of Arizona's Health Sciences Center.

The web site is www.drweil.com. And his most recent book a best- seller coming in paperback, "The Healthy Kitchen, Recipes For a Better Life, For Body Life And Spirit."

We'll come back and tell you about tomorrow night right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Tomorrow night we're in Washington with Senator Robert Burd. All sports fans don't forget to read my column "Sports a La King." It's on every Wednesday on CNN's Sports Illustrated on the web. The address to get to it is www.cnnsi.com/larryking and "Sports a La King" is interactive. So give it a read. Send me your e-mails and we'll answer them each week on the mailbag portion of the column. Once again the address is www.cnnsi.com/larryking. Long on tonight we'll talk sports.

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