In this video, the speaker discusses 23 signs that indicate a deficiency in vital nutrients in the body. These signs include white spots on the nails (indicating a zinc deficiency), oily skin (caused by an imbalance in androgens and regulated by zinc), cracking on the corners of the mouth or back of the heels (a vitamin B2 deficiency), flaking skin (a deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids), yellow eyes (a sign of liver or gallbladder issues), chronic cough (a calcium deficiency), bleeding or swollen gums (a lack of vitamin C), night vision issues (a vitamin A deficiency), chapped lips (another symptom of vitamin B2 deficiency), pitting edema on the top of the foot or ankles (indicating a potassium deficiency), craving ice (a sign of iron deficiency), chest pain or angina (a deficiency in vitamin E), leg or calf cramps (a magnesium deficiency), irritability or excessive thinking (a lack of vitamin B1), asthma (improved with vitamin D), loss of the outer eyebrows (a thyroid or iodine deficiency), tightness in the right trap area (likely related to gallbladder issues and a lack of bile), nightmares (mitigated by vitamin B1), a craving for salty chips at night (a sodium deficiency), stiff low back or low back pain (often caused by a vitamin D deficiency), craving dirt (a sign of anemia and a need for iron), erectile dysfunction (linked to low zinc and testosterone levels), and depression (often related to a vitamin D deficiency). The speaker recommends specific supplements or dietary adjustments to address each deficiency.
Key Insights:
- Gut damage, lack of nutrient-dense foods, and consumption of refined foods and sugars are the three main reasons people become nutrient deficient.
- A white spot on the nail can indicate a zinc deficiency caused by consuming too much sugar.
- Oily skin can be improved by taking trace minerals, specifically zinc, which helps regulate androgens.
- Cracking on the corners of the mouth or cracked heels can suggest a vitamin B2 deficiency.
- Flaking skin around the nose or forehead can be a sign of omega-3 fatty acid deficiency caused by consuming too much omega-6 fatty acids.
- Yellow eyes indicate a jaundice situation and a deficiency of bile salts.
- Chronic cough can be linked to a calcium deficiency, as calcium helps relax the throat and larynx.
- Bleeding or swollen gums may indicate a vitamin C deficiency, as vitamin C helps prevent vascular permeability.
- Night vision issues can suggest a vitamin A deficiency, which can be improved by consuming sources like egg yolks.
- Chapped lips can be a result of a vitamin B2 deficiency caused by consuming refined grains.
- Pitting edema on the top of the foot or ankles may indicate a potassium deficiency.
- Craving ice can imply an iron deficiency, which can be obtained from sources like red meat or liver.
- Angina, chest pain, can be related to a vitamin E deficiency often caused by consuming refined grains.
- Leg or calf cramps are commonly linked to a magnesium deficiency, which can be addressed by consuming leafy greens.
- Irritability, excessive thinking, and nervous tension can be signs of a vitamin B1 deficiency, which can be improved by consuming nutritional yeast.
- Asthma, characterized by lung inflammation, can be alleviated by addressing a vitamin D deficiency.
- Loss of outer eyebrows can suggest a thyroid problem or iodine deficiency, which can be addressed by consuming iodine sources like sea kelp.
- Tightness in the right trapezius area can suggest a gallbladder problem and a deficiency of bile salts.
- Nightmares can be minimized by taking vitamin B1, which helps regulate the amygdala and prevents excessive thinking.
- Craving salty chips at night may be a sign of a sodium deficiency, which can be balanced by consuming sea salt.
- Stiffness in the low back or low back pain can be linked to a vitamin D deficiency.
- Craving dirt may suggest an iron deficiency, which can be obtained from sources like red meat.
- Erectile dysfunction can be related to low testosterone levels, often caused by a zinc deficiency.
- Depression may be a sign of a vitamin D deficiency, as vitamin D boosts serotonin levels in the brain.
Transcript
Today, we’re going to talk about the 23 different signs that your body is deficient in vital nutrients. Now, the problem with me teaching you this is you’re going to pretty much evaluate everyone you know, so you’re going to have to withhold that temptation because people will be offended if you start explaining why they have these little white specks on their nails or why they might have erectile dysfunction.
Now, let me first just tell you the three reasons why people are deficient. Number one, their guts are damaged, so they can’t absorb nutrition. That’s called malabsorption, it’s a digestive barrier. It could also be that you’re missing a gallbladder or you’re lacking bile, and you can’t pull in the fat-soluble vitamins (vitamin A, D, E, and K). Or it could be that you’re not eating enough of the right foods, or the foods that you’re eating are not nutrient-dense, which is a big problem because the soils, unfortunately, are really, really poor quality. So, if you’re growing food on soil that’s not soil but it’s actually dirt, you might get a really nice-looking tomato, but it’s going to be tasteless. Why? Because the flavor chemicals are tied in with the nutrient density. So, we get these beautiful-looking vegetables that taste like nothing, and then you’re going to be craving Doritos and wanting other spices to try to flavor them up when, in fact, they should normally come there with nutrition. So unfortunately, the farmers sell these products based on weight and volume, not nutrient-dense type foods. And then the third way that you become deficient is consuming refined foods and sugars that deplete you and rob you of nutrition.
So let’s just go through the list.
Number one, white spot on your nail. What does that mean? That is a zinc deficiency, but it’s not really a zinc deficiency. It is consuming too much sugar that robs you of zinc. So if you look at your nail and you see this little white speck about halfway down the nail, you know about three months ago you had a lot of sugar or refined carbohydrate, like let’s say you had this huge birthday party and you ate the whole cake, and that depleted zinc from your body, creating that little white speck. So you have two options: you can stop eating sugar, or you can take some zinc.
Number two, oily skin. This is usually a problem with the oil glands of your body, called sebaceous glands, that make something called sebum, which is a type of oil. And that usually occurs when you have an imbalance with androgens. You’re producing too many androgens, which is the male hormone. And so, one really key nutrient to regulate androgens is zinc. So, oily skin can be greatly improved if you start taking trace minerals, specifically zinc. Now, if you’re female and you have too many androgens, you may have something called polycystic ovarian syndrome, and in that case, that’s coming from too much insulin because the carbs are too high, and of course the combination of that sugar depleting zinc as well as lacking zinc and having an uncontrolled androgen situation. So, with oily skin, you just need to take some zinc, and you need to make sure that your sugar is not very high. As you can see, zinc is involved with quite a few things.
Number three, cracking on the corners of your mouth or cracked back of your heels. Okay, so that is a vitamin B2 deficiency. It could also be a vitamin B3 deficiency, but it definitely involves the B vitamins. So, the B vitamins are very, very important in preventing these small fissures on your skin. And so if you have enough B2 or B3, you won’t get them. Now, you see a lot of people in the winter that get these fissures in their skin, and that normally comes because they don’t have enough vitamin D because they’re not in the sun, and vitamin D feeds the microbes, and your microbes make the B vitamins. So, there is a connection between crack heels, cracked corners of your mouth, which I used to have as a kid, and it could be very easily handled by taking vitamin D or vitamin B2 in the form of nutritional yeast.
Next one is flaking skin. A lot of times, you’ll see that around the nose or even the forehead, where the skin is kind of like a scaling flakiness. That is a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids, and that occurs because you’re consuming too much omega-6 fatty acids. So, the essential fatty acids that our body needs because the body doesn’t make it is both omega-3 and omega-6. So, if your ratios are off because you’re doing too much six and not enough three, that’s what happens with the skin. It becomes dry, flaky, white little flakes, usually around the nose or the forehead. So, you need to do two things: you need to start cutting down the omega-6 fatty acids, that means reduce the amount of nuts or peanut butter or chicken or fried foods or going out to restaurants or fast food, all are very high in omega-6 like corn oil, soy oil, cottonseed oil. And you need to eat more fish, sardines, and cod liver oil. In fact, cod liver oil would be the quickest thing to handle this flaking skin.
Next one, yellow eyes. That is a jaundice situation, it’s a liver problem. It could be a gallbladder problem where the byproducts of your red blood cells are backing up through the system, through the liver, and into the blood, and the byproduct of these red blood cells have a yellow color. And so if your skin or the whites of your eyes are yellow, that is definitely a backup of the liver and the gallbladder, and that is usually a deficiency of bile salts. Bile salts allow the flow of stuff through the liver and through the bile ducts, and if you don’t have enough bile, this thickened cholesterol sludge tends to back up, and you develop these yellow eyes. So, a simple remedy would be to take some purified bile salts to open up this kind of clogged drain plug to allow the body to eliminate the byproduct of red blood cells.
Next one, chronic cough. If someone has a chronic cough, they usually have a calcium deficiency. So a little calcium, especially at night, works like magic for these chronic coughs. Calcium both improves the immune system, but it also relaxes the throat and the larynx, just like you might want to take for cramping in your calves. So basically, it helps something called laryngeal spasm or this tightness in the structures of your throat. So, you might want to try that. The type of calcium I would recommend is calcium lactate, not calcium carbonate. And you don’t need much, maybe 200 milligrams before you go to bed.
Bleeding gums or red and swollen gums in your mouth. That is a classic vitamin C deficiency. Another term would be subclinical vitamin C or a very mild version of scurvy. In the vitamin C complex, we have different parts, and one part is vitamin P, which is the bioflavonoids. They don’t call it vitamin P anymore, but that P stood for permeability and or vascular permeability. So in other words, the blood that goes through the capillaries leaks. And if it leaks, you get all sorts of issues, one being bleeding gums. And you can also get nosebleeds as well. But bleeding gums or red and swollen gums is a classic vitamin C deficiency. So you need to consume more leafy greens as well as avoid sugar because the chemistry of sugar is almost identical to vitamin C. And if the body has sugar, any vitamin C that you’re getting from foods or a supplement will not go in. The body will always take up glucose or sugar before vitamin C.
Night vision issues. So let’s say you can’t see in the dark or you’re driving when it’s raining, and you’re just having a hard time seeing clear. That is a classic vitamin A deficiency or night blindness. Now, are people usually deficient in vitamin A? Well, around the world, they are. So there’s a lot of people that have a vitamin A deficiency simply because they’re eating a lot of cereals and refined grains, and they may even be eating plant sources of vitamin A, but those are precursors like beta-carotene, for example. They call it vitamin A, but it’s not the active form of vitamin A called retinol. Retinol usually comes from animal products like dairy or butter or fish, fatty fish, definitely cod liver oil, and animal liver like beef liver, for example, has a lot of vitamin A. And so, if you’re trying to get your vitamin A from plants, it’s going to be very hard for you to convert that into the active form of vitamin A, which is retinol. But a really good source of retinol would be egg yolks. So if you want to have enough retinol, just eat some egg yolks, and you will definitely get enough, and then you’ll start seeing better. The other thing to look at with vitamin A is your ability to absorb it because maybe you don’t have enough bile or maybe your gallbladder is removed or you have some liver issue because it’s fatty, for example, then you can’t absorb vitamin A because vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin. It could be one cause.
Chapped lips. The cause of chapped lips is the same cause as cracking in the corners of the mouth or on the heels. It’s a vitamin B2 deficiency. So what would create a B2 deficiency? It’s either you’re consuming too many refined grains that are depleting B2 because naturally, the B vitamins, especially B2, are normally in grains, but basically when you refine them, they get lost. So one really good thing would be to stop eating grains, any grains. And the second thing you want to do is start taking nutritional yeast. With nutritional yeast, I would always get it unfortified. You’ll get a complete spectrum of the B vitamins, and you’ll notice your skin much, much better. I mean, if you take a look at some of the B vitamin deficiencies, like real severe deficiencies, you get conditions like pellagra. And with pellagra, you have devastating effects on your skin because B vitamins are not just about giving you energy. They’re about helping you form normal tissue, so it’s not too roughened or cracked, it’s nice and soft. A lot of times, people will start using chapstick or a certain type of lotions or oils on their lips, but what they find is that maybe an hour later, it’s right back, if not worse, to being chapped because sometimes they put other ingredients into these products like they might put alcohol or mineral oil, which pulls out a lot of the key nutrients or fats that you need to keep your skin the right texture.
The pitting edema on the top of your foot or your ankles. This is a deficiency of potassium. When you don’t have enough potassium or the ratios of potassium versus sodium, like sodium is way too high and potassium is way too low, and by the way, refined sugar causes you to retain sodium and deplete potassium, that’s why diabetics, many times, have so much sugar in their blood that they get a lot of swelling, especially in the ankles and the feet. And if you push your finger into the foot or the ankle, it leaves a dent. Now, believe it or not, when I had blood sugar issues a long time ago in my mid-30s, I used to have pitting edema, and I didn’t even know what it was. I would press into my ankle, I’m like, „What is that dent?“ That was a severe potassium deficiency. So, you want to start eating foods high in potassium. That would be any of the leafy greens. But you need volumes, you need large salads, things like that, that will give you enough potassium versus consuming more salt. Salt’s okay as long as you have enough potassium. Or you might want to get a quality electrolyte with a lot of potassium, but that will push fluid out of the ankles very, very quickly.
Now, if you’re craving ice, chances are you’re deficient in iron. You see this with kids sometimes, you see this with females who are going through their menstruation, where they’re losing blood and iron, and they’re becoming anemic. They start eating more ice, they’re trying to get iron, but unfortunately, ice doesn’t give you iron, so you end up still deficient. The best sources of the iron that you need are red meat. You can get it from liver, you can get it from eggs, and for some reason, if you can’t eat any of those products, you can also get them in a supplement, but not an iron supplement. I would recommend a supplement that is either a grass-fed liver extract, or believe it or not, there are spleen extract products that are loaded with iron. So that’s one way to get it.
Angina, that’s chest pain. So that is where the heart is cramping, and your heart is having an attack, and usually, it’s referred down the left arm. That is a classic vitamin E deficiency. There’s two things you need to know about vitamin E. What creates a deficiency usually is refined grains. When you consume those products that normally have a good amount of vitamin E in it, but when they add chlorine to bleach it, they oxidize it and they kill all the vitamin E. When it sits on the shelf, all that vitamin E is lost. And then when you consume those products, it creates a vitamin E deficiency. The most important tissue for vitamin E is the inside of your arteries. And if you don’t have enough vitamin E, you get a lot of rusting and oxidation, and you start getting clots, the formation of calcium, and all sorts of things that come in there. So, vitamin E is very, very important. And so the best way to prevent vitamin E deficiency is to stop doing the refined grains. And if you want a very good vitamin E, I would get the type that’s a tocotrienol, not a tocopherol. The tocotrienols work about 50 times stronger than the tocopherols, and so it really is great for angina-type chest pain.
Leg or calf cramps, that is a magnesium deficiency. Where do you get magnesium? It’s at the heart of chlorophyll. Where do you get chlorophyll from? Green plants. Again, we’re coming back to that salad, where you get a good amount of magnesium. There’s also potassium in there, chlorophyll, other things. But when you get leg cramps, chances are you’re probably missing magnesium, and they usually go away. There are other deficiencies that might lead to cramps, like potassium, even sodium, vitamin B1, and I’ve done videos on that. But the most common one is the magnesium deficiency.
Irritability, excessive thinking, feeling nervous tension, even grouchy or angry. That is a B1 deficiency. If you take a little nutritional yeast, if you’re irritable, boy, it just chills you out. You’ll feel really calm, you’ll be nice to be around. People will like you a lot better. Also, before you go to bed, if you have excessive thinking, just take some nutritional yeast before you go to bed, and that you can get it in tablets as well. I’ll put a link down below for more information. But you talk about turning off that excessive mind thinking, solving all the problems of the world, which prevents you from sleep. It’s really nice to be able to go to bed and not have to solve a million problems.
Asthma, asthma is a situation where you have inflammation in the lungs, and this can be greatly improved with vitamin D. So if you’re deficient in vitamin D, which most asthmatics are, that can reduce inflammation and help you breathe. This is why during the summer months when kids that have asthma, they’re outside, they’re exposed to the sun, their symptoms go away. There’s a very important video on a breathing method that can help asthma. I’ll put that down below if you haven’t seen it, but there’s a really important way of breathing to pull someone out of an asthmatic attack within minutes, so you can check that out.
Loss of the outer eyebrows. This is usually a thyroid problem or an iodine deficiency situation where they’re not able to make the thyroid hormones because when you get to like T4, T3, you’re really looking at the number of iodine molecules in that thyroid hormone T4 is an inactive thyroid hormone, T3 is the active form because the body strips off an iodine molecule. So if you don’t have enough of either T4, T3, then you could potentially lose the outer eyebrows as one of the symptoms. So if you don’t have eyebrows or you don’t have the outside, just take some iodine in the form of sea kelp. That’s one of the best sources.
Tightness in the right trap area, right through here. If you have tightness right there, suspect gallbladder and suspect a lack of bile salts. If you don’t have the bile salts, things get all kind of stuck underneath the right rib cage. There’s a little nerve called the phrenic nerve that goes right up to the right side. And so if you take purified bile salts, that thins the bile, allows drainage, and all of a sudden your right trap feels loose and it feels better. I have additional information on that. I will share that in the description, but tightness in the right trap, 9 out of 10 times, it’s totally gallbladder related because you don’t have enough bile, and it’s getting all stuck and jammed up, it’s backing up into the system, showing up in your right trap.
Nightmares. One of the best ways to get rid of a nightmare is to take B1 or nutritional yeast. There’s this little thing in the brain called the amygdala which regulates the emotion of fear. It’s involved in this fear response. If you take more B1 (thiamine), boy, does that just chill a person out, and they feel better, and they don’t have nightmares anymore. So if your kids have nightmares, give them a little nutritional yeast. But the real question is why are they deficient? Because they’re consuming refined carbohydrates in the form of all the refined grains, the breads, the pasta, the cereal, the crackers. Those things, as well as sugar, so you need to handle that as well.
Craving for salty chips at night. If your body is deficient in sodium, you’re going to crave salt. But if you’re exercising a lot and sweating, the need for sodium goes up. And so one of the symptoms or signs of a salt deficiency or a sodium deficiency is craving for salt. So if you’re craving for salt at night in the form of chips, the next day, I would start to increase the amount of sea salt and not sodium chloride in your diet. So start beefing that up, putting it on your food, maybe even putting some in some water and drinking that. And get to the point at night you no longer crave salty chips. Then we know you have enough. And so for years, I had this false idea that salt was bad, and I rarely consumed salt. So I always ate foods lacking salt, lacking fat, of course. At night, I was downing all these chips and salty popcorn and salty Doritos. But during the day, I was pretty much salt-free. So I had no concept of nutrition or this whole idea that salt was not bad if it was in the form of sea salt and if I had enough potassium. I didn’t know that at the time. But if you’re craving salty chips at night, you need to balance out your electrolytes by adding more sea salt and make sure you have enough potassium as well. But you will find those cravings will go away.
Stiff low back or low back pain is usually a vitamin D deficiency, especially if it’s in the winter. And all you need to do is take some good amount of vitamin D, or you can even make your own vitamin D. I’ll put that link down below if you haven’t seen my recent video. But vitamin D is one of the best things to get rid of inflammation fast anywhere in the body, especially in the lower back. I would recommend taking at least 10,000 international units per day. And it might be beneficial to take it right before bed or at a meal because if you take it right before bed, it actually enhances your sleep. And if you take it with meals, it’s better absorbed. And the type of vitamin D I recommend is my own brand. And of course, I’m not biased, but I am sarcastic. But in my vitamin D, I have I put the K2 in there, I put the MCT oil so that way you don’t have to take extra oil. Everything gets absorbed nicely.
The next one is you’re craving dirt. Normally, most people don’t crave dirt, but sometimes kids crave dirt or even women that are menstruating, losing blood, anemic, are craving dirt. What they’re trying to get is iron. Even if your animals, like even your dog, craves, starts eating dirt, they need iron. And the best source of iron is red meat. It gives you the best form of iron that’s bioavailable versus consuming spinach, things like that. So if you have anemia or you need iron, red meat would be the best thing to take or some liver with onions, of course.
Erectile dysfunction, that’s low testosterone. That is a deficiency of zinc. Zinc is one of the best things to increase testosterone and handle this symptom.
Lastly, depression. If someone’s depressed, they’re usually vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D greatly boosts serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter. So it’s like a natural form of Prozac without the side effects. So if you’re depressed or know someone that’s depressed, just give them a little vitamin D and see how fast their mood elevates. Another thing to try, as a side note, is to start to do more fasting. That really elevates the mood as well.
Now, if you haven’t seen my video on how to figure out liver problems, check that out.
