Oxalates: Interview with Sally K Norton, Author of "Toxic Superfoods"

welcome back to another episode of

Christian Natural Health today I'm

excited to have Sally Norton with us

Sally K Norton is a distinguished expert

in dietary oxalates with 35 years of

Health Education and Research experience

she holds a nutrition degree from

Cornell University and a master's degree

in public health from the University of

North Carolina Chapel Hill her path to

becoming a leading expert on dietary

oxalate includes a prior career working

at prestigious medical schools in

medical education and public health

research Sally champion of 5-year

National Institute of Health funded

program at UNC medical school that

educated students and faculty about

holistic alternative and integrative

healing her personal ex healing

experience inspired years of research

culminating in the release of her

groundbreaking books toxic superfoods

which was released in January 2023 and

is available everywhere books are sold

welcome Sally thanks for joining us

thank you Lauren I appreciate the

opportunity absolutely okay so for

people who are not familiar with

oxalates let's start there tell us what

they are and why we care yeah actually

nobody knows what they are right the

heck is an oxalate right it's a little

chemical that's very abundant in nature

plants make a lot of it soil funguses

make it polluted air makes it it starts

off as oxyc acid which is this end

product it's a two carbon molecule with

four oxygen on it it's so tiny that we

don't have a way to metabolize it and

break it down and make it untoxic and uh

you can breathe it in polluted cities

and in moldy rooms because uh aspergilus

the black mold one of the major apet

toxins is oxyc

acid so and plants are pretty good at

making oxalate although it's really

Divergent the way they make it how much

they're making of it what forms they're

putting it in really interesting the

plants need the oxyc acid and they they

what happens with oxalic acid is it's an

acid that has a charge on it and it can

have two charges because there's two

places where hydrogen's can disappear

then you have these negative charges and

when there's the two empty negative

charges it fits very nicely with things

like calcium so in nature it tends to go

towards calcium oxalate so now you have

this salt bond that creates this

molecule that likes to structure up as

crystals all salts tend to crystallize

and you get eight or 10 pairs of them

and they crystallize into a seed

nanocrystal and the nanocrystals

incredibly toxic so is the acid itself

and the nanocrystals are often they grow

into microcrystals plants build specific

shapes of these microcrystals they they

put out a scaffolding scaffolding made

of amino acids and different amino acids

have this uh tendency to have calcium

bonds and so calcium oxalate sticks

beautifully to amino acids and you can

build specific structures and plants

build some of them in this toothpick

shape it's a double pointed Arrow that's

designed as a defense

Weaponry plants actually invented

Warfare uhuh yeah absolutely they're

trying not to get

eaten yeah so and what foods are high in

oxalates the sort of poster child is

spinach and then beet greens and swiss

chard and beet greens and swiss chard is

actually the same plant and rhubarb and

the rhubarb Leaf is so concentrated in

oxalate that it's pretty much a murder

weapon if you go to boil up rhubarb

leaves and thinking it's wisard you have

a 98% chance of being dead the next

day so it's pretty toxic and uh then

other plants that that we're eating as

foods that tend to be high in oxalate

include the Beet Root as well sweet

potatoes which was I thought my best

friend for years the baking potato yeah

the nuts especially almonds cashews and

peanuts the c a couple berries

blackberries and raspberries are

terrible starf fruit is known to slay

people very high in oxalate there's

quite a bit of research on star fruit

poisoning uh chocolate the dark cacao

element and chocolate is loaded with not

just lead and theob bromide but you've

got your oxalic acid there too and then

the pseudo grains when you go on a

gluten-free diet you tend to put these

higher oxalate foods like quinoa te

buckwhat aor root these things are much

higher in oxalate than wheat is that's

in the brand when a brand you know

grains are basically a seed and seeds

have these coats and layers to them and

one of the outer layers around the brand

area is loaded with oxalate crystals and

so the brand the whole grains are much

higher in oxalate than the refined

grains it kind of makes sense that

humans have been eating white rice and

white flour and refining grains because

it removes a lot of indigestible chaff

that's right actually bad for us right

so let me clar ify really quick so it

sounds like you're saying that oxalates

are bad across the board is that

accurate do you think that everybody

it's a poison like other poisons and

we're designed to handle exposure to

oxalate to a small degree okay the

kidney researchers who've been trying to

work this out for years and spending

generations of of millions and G

zillions of dollars have decided that we

tolerate about 25 milligrams of oxalate

in the kidneys a day okay and your Li

produces oxalate from vitamin C

breakdown and some connective tissue

breakdown and inflammation so you

produce about 12 and you can handle

about 25 so you can handle you absorb

about 10% maybe 15% if you have healthy

gut so if you up that balance of 15 you

can have like's say 15 milligrams safely

every day in your kidneys that that if

you're 10% absorber that's 150 milligram

in your diet so 150 milligrams and 150

100 to 200 is considered normal

consumption of oxalate by researchers

that's what they say we're consuming now

an ounce of almonds is about 70 um

milligrams so you're halfway there with

a small handful of almonds uh dark

chocolate is close to that too A 1 o

piece of chocolate is close to that

amount a standard spinach smoothie is

somewhere between about 750 and 1,000

milligram of oxy

so that's 10 times eight eight 10 times

beyond what the researchers say we're

equipped to handle right well and so

you're talking about what the kidneys

can handle but we also have other

mechanisms for excretion via the stool

isn't that the primary excretion route

yes um no the primary excretion route is

the kidneys 90% of oxalate is coming

according to researchers which you know

our research and our ideas about oxalate

are highly imperfect but 90% of all

oxalates coming out through the urine is

far that's the standard thing now I

think we could refine that because it's

very clear that there are multiple

excretion routes for oxalate your saliva

will reflect the level of oxalate in

your blood so after a meal it takes

about four or five hours to get that

absorptive Peak but you know food takes

about 24-hour Transit time and you

already get enough oxyc acid in your

blood within 40 minutes of a spinach

smoothie to demonstrate damage to the

circulating white blood cells so they're

now putting out pro-inflammatory cyto

kindes 40 minutes after a spinach

smoothie and you still have you haven't

got the the peak is three hours later

you still haven't like got the highest

quantity of oxalate in your bloodstream

so it's going from your gut between the

gut cells because its paracellular

Transit getting into the bloodstream

already affecting the vascular tissue

and the blood cells themselves that's

been established and it goes immediately

to the liver 100% of the oxalate you

absorb which is variable based on how

permeable your gut is you can have

absorption rates of like 60% instead of

15 or 10 and that so you don't even need

a high oxalate diet to be Overexposed to

oxalate so now the path of exposure has

been your gut your vascular tissue your

blood tissues now your liver which has

to use up its glutathione to protect

itself from the oxyc acid oxidative

stress and the cellular damage that it

creates and then your blood flows from

the liver up just a couple inches to the

heart and the Heart tissues are now

getting not just what you absorb from

your diet but what you also produce from

your inflamed liver and then that's

pumped to your lungs and then your heart

and then back out to peripheral

circulation and later now the kidneys

get a chance to excrete it for you sure

and as it as the levels go up in the

blood and acidity goes up and the

kidneys starts stressing that can turn

on Transporters where you start

excreting it back through the into the

colon and and they believe that in this

paracellular Transit as you're absorbing

it the cells try to grab it some of it

and kick it back into the Lum of the gut

to try to limit how much you absorb but

the more damage your gut those

Transporters break down they can't

function right you get this acidity and

other problems where the protein shapes

are changing in cell membranes and

they're not working as well so there's a

lot of things that can go wrong and with

constant exposure in the

gut with not just the oxalates there's

other anti-nutrients and plants that

have the potential to cause a lot of gut

problems over time well and I like what

you brought out there the fact that

there's a lot of the elevated levels of

oxalates aren't necessarily coming just

from our food it's also the fact that if

the gut is leaky now you're going to

have excess amounts from that and you're

also you mentioned earlier the black

mold so sometimes if there's a fungal

problem you're going to have excess

amounts from that so there's a lot of

other components to it it's from the

food itself potentially at the levels

are super high I am curious about the

the research if if maybe you could share

that um that's saying that most of the

excretion is coming from the kidneys

because my understanding was calcium

binds to the oxalates and that's going

to go through the stool and it's when

you don't have enough calcium or when

the gut is inflamed that you're going to

end up excreting it more through the

kidneys and that's how people end up

with things like calcium oxalate um

kidney

stones yeah the idea of excretion

usually means excreting it from internal

body tissues and what you're talking

about is preventing absorption right

exactly the idea of absorption is a food

an element in the food moving from the

Lumen of the gut into the blood stream

and the body tissues so we don't use the

term excretion for things that you're

just not absorbing so that would be

that's not the concept that fits the

situation so yeah we want a lower

absorption rates as much as we can

unfortunately most people aren't at the

10 to 15% that's considered normal many

many people are at hyper absorptive

levels so even a even a normal oxalate

diet 200 milligrams a day yeah could be

quite dangerous over time sure now the

thing is the body is really really smart

and when the blood levels are high it

knows the heart is at risk because it is

chelating calcium and you can cause

right the droping calcium levels in the

bloodstream yeah the pacemaker doesn't

like that right yeah and you cause lots

of problems like that so the body's

quick to Pro there's a combination of

passive accidental sticking of oxalate

tissues because any cells that are in

the process of duplicating because of

normal maintenance and reproduction are

in a state where they're sticky to

oxalate so wherever you're healing

something wherever you have inflammation

wherever you have infection wherever you

have problems and issues or growth or

maintenance happening those tissues are

stickier to oxil oxalates start sticking

in onto membranes and tissues if you

have vascular or you know excuse me but

the subcellular organel the vesicles and

stuff kind of sprayed out because the

cell is broken or dying that tissue

creates a situation where the soluble

oxyc acid starts precipitating out as

calcium oxalate so you tend to get this

collection or accumulation in areas of

the body that are under stress and this

is a silent process where you don't get

symptoms right yeah body's doing

everything I can to keep you from having

symptoms and keeping it out of Harm's

Way yeah and as you say it's very smart

and it's got all these mechanisms in

order to do all of that but yeah so it

sounds like because the vast majority of

people do have gut issues the the

natural elimination via the gut is often

compromised so yeah in my practice a lot

of times I will see people come in with

oxalate sensitivity and they usually

also have sulfur sensitivity um and a

lot of times they have methylation

pathway backups and things like that so

they're eating like five foods and it

becomes really rest restrictive and

difficult so a lot of times like the

initial approach I certainly agree is

you want to minimize the foods that are

causing you problems while you're

healing the reason why that problem was

there in the first place so that

hopefully you can broaden your diet and

not have to remain on such a restrictive

diet o over over a long period of time

what's your what's your thoughts on

restrictive diets generally oxalates or

sulfates or anything else oh there's a

lot in that and I tell you when I first

started realizing that those of us who

are doing the right thing and eating our

sweet potatoes every day and can't

figure out what's wrong with us and are

falling apart and losing our careers and

you in crutches and Wheelchairs and all

the stuff I've been through right none

of us all the nature paths I knew all

the H PA I knew all the acupuncturist I

knew all the medical doctors I knew I

worked in a medical community I worked

in integrated I worked at that that

interface between integrated medicine

and Medicine nobody could help me I

couldn't help myself so when I went out

to start teaching this for free in my

community I made an effort to spend a

lot of time and money on food and bring

them food and show them the low oxy

vegetables and fruits they could eat

yeah because you know I'm the last

person who would say oh I want to take

away food is me the sad part is what

what has become painfully obvious is

that because we're being raised on

Peanut Butter and potatoes and sweet

potatoes and chocolate willy-nilly

completely unaware of the oxalates and

even the the lectins like I didn't even

know from college that you can't slow

cook lectins you cannot put your beans

in a slow cooker and have that turn out

okay that ruined my gut and I went to

Cornell and I didn't know that so the

sad part is our ignorance level is high

enough that we can maybe don't get out

of childhood enter adulthood with a

healthy gut and the gut is a big place

where the immune system is functioning

yep absolutely and we start deranging

the immune system system as we damage

the gut and oxalate is not only an

immune toxin which is established it is

an established neurotoxin half of your

nervous system is in the gut so it's um

unfortunately because we're not paying

attention to this we end up with this

overreactive immune system this arange

deranged immune system that's getting

trained left and right there's lots of

other assaults that we're giving the

immune system these days and so people

do end up in this position where things

are bothering the heck out of them in

order for them to get out of bed they

have to limit their Foods I would like

us to be in a prevention mindset so we

don't get to that point and you can't be

in a prevention mindset if you don't

have this information it's true yeah

absolutely and it sounds like it's just

like you have to intervene somewhere and

you have to start by getting your body

to the place where you're not in pain

and you're able to rebuild and then you

can actually get to the point where you

get healthy enough that some of these

things won't be so toxic to you is that

accurate would you say well well

lowering your toxicity level is key to

giving your body a chance at healing

right right and the truth is that

because the sequestration is going on

maybe starting in fetal life in child in

early childhood if you start getting

being given sweet potatoes and peroid

beats as an infant you're already in a

sequestration mode where oxalates are

accumulating in your thyroid gland by

the time you're 50 you have at least an

85% chance of having visible Frank

oxalate crystals in your thyroid gland

so the problem with you can't just stop

the acute exposure with every meal and

get totally better because once you

lower the acute exposure the body's like

thank God now I can unload this from my

thyroid gland and my bone marrow and my

tendons it tends to collect in fascia it

tends to cause connective tissue issues

and it's my my feet and legs are

continuing to remove oxalate my back is

continuing to remove oxalate I've been

I'm in my 11th year of De acccumulation

of ox oate through the diet and it has

severely affected my immune system and I

am severely overreactive to everything

and Frank immune test say yeah most of

the fruits most of this that that's an

end product of the oxalate damage if you

keep eating the oxalate and waight to be

broken that broken state is pretty hard

to come back

from well and then as you I think we

we've mentioned before too that as

there's oxalate toxicity that also tends

to deplete sulfate which then means that

you're not going to produce glutathione

and you're not going to be able to detox

it adequately either so toxicity from

other things usually kind of goes hand

inand with this is that accurate would

you say well I I think one of the things

that hasn't been studied enough and

hopefully we will is that I think

oxalate helps us retain lead and heavy

metals because it's a key later so as

you're building up this oxalate load

you're building up a load of mercury

aluminum lead and and heavy metals and

you are losing nutritional elements of

all kinds you're wasting sulfur you're

wasting potassium calcium magnesium and

there's severe mineral depletion and in

that mineral depleted State you are more

likely to pick up the chlorine bromine

and junk in the water you're more likely

to pick up toxic metals from anywhere

and so it puts you in this really

vulnerable space sure yeah and then also

if there's if you have the sulfur

deficiency then you have to have your

methylation cycle compensate for that

and then you're not going to have enough

left over to make metallothionine which

does keate the heavy metals for sure so

a lot of these people I agree tend to

also be really elevated in heavy metals

too so there's usually multiple L yeah

it's a tricky situation because as you

de accumulate oxalates you're de

accumulating heavy metals potentially

but I have found that goes pretty well

if you don't force the body to do what

you want it to do that there's a lot of

mechanisms in place for healing and

Recovery especially from oxalate because

the body has some inherent knowledge of

it because ox's been part of the natural

world since the dawn of the natural

world right and are there ALS so like as

people are detoxing from oxalates do you

have some specific things that can help

them with that detoxification process

that you recommend yeah it's really

critical I have a whole couple of

chapters on that in toxic superfoods

yeah calcium and citrate are the most

important things of all calcium is

obviously has to keep itting replaced

because you're going to continue to

waste calcium as you as you mobilize

oxalate from the tissues and you

re-release oxyc acid into the

bloodstream you're still causing losses

of calcium in the blood people sometimes

have such severe arrhythmias and

hypertensive attacks end up in the

emergency room because they're de

accumulating oxalate so the calcium is

really important for that it it's also

important to protect the kidneys it

helps you do this gut uh excretion so

the calcium is there as a magnet to help

that gut excretion and really give your

kidneys a break and it helps to calm the

nervous system and deal with this

General deficiency that we have that

adds to neurological problems that can

lead to memory problems and mood

problems and the citrate is fairly

fascinating too because citrate is

alkalizing and all this inflammation

that goes with crystals everywhere and

the de acccumulation of crystals is a

very inflammatory process it requires

immune cells to go in there and be the

Hazmat workers that drill out these

crystals out of your tissues and make

kind of a mess in the process and

increase your cyto levels and so you've

got this inflammation and that tends to

create more acidity it's bad enough

you're throwing an acid back into the

bloodstream but now you're creating

inflammation it adds acidity so the

citrate helps to cut the acidity and it

helps to soften the crystals because the

the chemical bond between citrate and

calcium is stronger than the chemical

bond between calcium and oxalate so when

citrate sits on a calcium oxalate

molecule it softens something that's as

hard as quartz because calcium oxide

crystals are harder than your teeth it

softens to something more like chalk

yeah chewing on the crystals and plants

literally wears down the teeth wow yeah

and causes mechanical abrasion and so

you don't want to be immune cell

breaking up a quartz crystal you want to

break up a chalk Crystal so it's really

citrate is so important because it is

the cator that holds the minerals to The

Matrix of the bones and teeth and so

with the citrate and the calcium and

replacing minerals generally trace

minerals and so on it's pretty easy to

start reversing osteopenia and

osteoporosis on a low oxalate diet if

you're providing some potassium and some

citrate yeah and what are some of your

favorite ways to determine whether

oxalates are a problem for someone do

you have like testing that you that are

your go-tos well in most toxicity

diseases most all we have is a an

evaluation of exposure levels and

symptom patterns and risk factors so

that's the standard in toxicology kind

of things so I've have available for

free on my website and in the book toxic

superfoods an inventory where you can

look at your risk factors do you have

leaky gut do you have kidney failure and

so on look at your exposure level here

are all the high oxalate foods have

these been in your life on and off or on

a lot and here's all the different ways

that can show up when you start finally

getting symptoms for it and when you see

that pattern of yeah one or two or three

major High oxalate foods have been my

daily Darlings and yeah I have these

gout and arthritis and fatigue and

vision problems and back aches or yeah

cloudy urine then you're like okay we'll

try it and then the definitive thing is

how do you do on the diet it tells us a

lot yeah and so what's your opinion of

like oxalate urine testing and things

like that oat testing urinary organic

acid and stuff like

that it's it it's a double-edged sword

because it's helpful if you get a high

oxalate test you can believe that

there's a lot of oxalate in your urine

unless you've just been Downing so much

vitamin C that the vitamin C in your

urine is turning into oxy you have to

preserve that urine properly with a high

amount of hydrochloric acid to make sure

that you're getting an accurate measure

so it it has to be specifically designed

to be accurately done but you can get a

false negative very easily I had that I

am very oxalate poisoned and the the oat

test showed me I was perfect in every

way and did not have an oxalate problem

I can explain why but you know if you a

negative O test does not say you don't

have an oxidate problem not in the least

in fact a negative o test may suggest

that you're so toxic that the body can

no longer excrete oxalate interesting

yeah that or you're just in this period

of protecting your kidneys because you

go up and down and up and down with your

oxalate excretion especially when you're

oxalate toxic so you get pathological

spikes and then nothing up and down and

up and down so it's easy to get a day

where you're taking a rest from oxalate

excretion yeah and so what are some of

the symptoms like some of the most

common symptoms that people can

experience if they have an ox

issue digestive conditions are

considered a Hallmark or were considered

when they first named this problem of

dietary oxalate poisoning it was

1842 in the original diagnosis the most

simple form of it was is there a gut

problem that also has either

rheumatological problems or neurological

problems so the neurological problems

are sleep trouble mood problems um

becoming an annoying human being who's

like

neurotic that was like a symptom of

oxalate poisoning because it is so

neurotoxic and neurop poisoning can mean

things like fibromyalgia too because

it's really the nerves that can't settle

down that are on fire that are causing

muscle knots and causing Tremors and

twitches and even certain degree of

dismotility and spasm with sphincter and

so on can be neurotoxicity I never knew

a lot of this before I would did the

research I was having hiccups every

night you know after my day of sweet

potatoes but at bedtime you're four

hours past dinner you're six eight hours

after lunch and you're really toxic and

I was having every night really bad

hiccups and when I was reading in the

starfruit literature about the deaths of

starfruit and the tests on rats and

stuff the final symptom when the rats

die of oxalate poisoning from star fruit

juice is Hiccups and same with some of

the human cases one of the last symptoms

they had before they expired was hiccups

I'm like oh hiccups are neurotoxicity so

that's a neurotoxicity example and then

the the rheumatological examples are

gout arthritis aches and pains

tendonitis btis all that kind of ucky

stuff with your joints and so on even

TMJ then there's Vision issues if you're

starting to have trouble with night

vision or you know getting eye issues or

getting you know grit or floaters

because the the eyes are very prone to

oxalate accumulation just as much as the

thyroid gland and they're part of the

brain and nervous system and I think the

fluids of the eyes and the fluids around

the eye tissues are one of the ways that

the brain is detoxing junk from the

brain tissues makes sense so what have I

not asked you that you want to make sure

you Le with our

audience well you know I would have

loved to talk about how even biblically

the Bible tells us things like basically

eating plants was the symbol of our

great fall where now we live on cursed

grounds and painful labor requires us to

produce thorns and thistles and and that

plants became a form of punishment and

that's become clear for those of us who

have identified oxy toxicity is the key

thing that's been really dogging our

health um

that there are plenty of older cultural

ideas that might balance today's current

culture that is so embracing plants to

the nth degree that we're leaving no

caution and no sides for two-sided

conversation about the potential

downsides of over loading on Plants yeah

absolutely so where can people go to

learn more about you I have a website

that is Sally key norton.com there's a

lot of free information in there uh and

you'll be able to find a cookbook if you

want to learn how to work with a turnup

or rudaba there's lots of plant recipes

in that cookbook we're coming out with a

companion to toxic superfoods for people

who really want to get into the

nitty-gritty of more data on the oxalate

and foods and I have a YouTube channel

we're sharing testimonials and so on

there that's a lot of fun people are

enjoying that and I'm also on Instagram

but yeah the website's a place to find

me and your YouTube is what what's Sally

K Norton there we go all right so I'm

gonna link all that in the show notes

and thank you so much this has been

really entertaining and interesting

thank you thank you take care care

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