Gut Brain Health And Healing With Josh Dech

In this episode, we’re peeling back the layers on how gut health isn’t just about food. Josh dishes out some vivid analogies (think your body as a bathtub!) and critiques the medical system’s go-to of prescribing meds instead of addressing root causes. We’ll chat about the basics — diet, sleep, and stress management — and how they are essential for achieving a balanced life.

Transcript

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show,

The next evolution of the Adult Share Podcast.

I am Michelle Chalfant,

And my goal is to help you to awaken to your true self.

Together we will break through your barriers so you can find your purpose and live a soul aligned life.

Each week,

I'll bring you powerful conversations with thought leaders,

Spiritual teachers,

Healers,

And change makers,

Along with actionable insights to help you to transform your life from the inside out.

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show.

Hello everyone,

And welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show.

I am happy to be here with you today.

We are talking today to holistic nutritionist and physician consultant,

Josh Deck.

Wow.

We had an incredible conversation around,

Because this guy knows his stuff,

Let me tell you,

Gut brain connection,

The communication between gut,

Brain,

Bacteria,

Brain chemistry,

Neurotransmitters,

And everything that happens in the gut.

We talked about the curing of diseases.

We talked about something that he actually specializes in is Crohn's,

Colitis,

Irritable bowel.

He has actually reversed over 300 cases of Crohn's and colitis,

Which were previously thought to be impossible to fix.

So this guy knows his stuff.

He has a top podcast,

And he's been recruited to the Priority Health Academy as a medical lecturer helping educate doctors,

Get this,

I love this,

On the holistic approach to gut health and inflammatory bowel disease.

So we had a big conversation around all of these things.

I cannot wait for you to meet him again.

Here we go with Josh Deck.

So welcome to the show,

Josh Deck.

Michelle,

It's a pleasure to be here.

Thanks so much for having me on board.

I'm so happy to have you.

We're going to get into it today.

We got a lot to talk about.

So much.

I'm really excited for this one.

It's rare we have these types of conversations outside of a podcast.

So I'm glad we're back on a podcast doing it for those who have yet to hear it.

Yes.

I'm excited.

Ooh.

So you and I were just talking before the show about so many different things,

But what I'd like to start out with is,

Well,

You know what?

Let's start with this,

Josh.

We were talking about how so many people in the world silently suffer,

Whether it be with ADHD,

Anxiety,

Depression,

Irritable bowel,

Colitis,

Crohn's,

There's so many things that we do not want to share with others,

Which is fine.

That's fine.

But what I realize is,

And again,

I said,

You know,

I live in the United States.

I think it's,

I think there are other ways.

And now again,

I'm not putting down doctors.

I am not,

You know,

I think there are some good ones out there,

But I also think many of the doctors that are trained now are limited in what they know and in how to help us humans to become healthier.

And I think,

I don't know.

You know this more than I do,

But is that maybe like a worldwide theory that I don't know?

I don't know medical schools in other countries,

But I know in the United States,

Things like nutrition,

Let's say,

They get,

I think I just heard this the other day.

I think going through med school,

You get like two classes on nutrition,

Unless of course that's your major.

But if you're going and becoming a medical doctor,

Two classes on nutrition and nutrition is key to changing our health.

So let's start there.

I feel like I just opened up a big giant door that we're going to walk through.

So go for it,

Josh.

You did.

That's a whole bomb.

Here's what I can tell you.

We live in a world that is no longer compatible with our own human biology,

And this is the biggest detriment.

And unfortunately,

It's this lack of compatibility.

It's like taking a fish and having them sleep in the bed with you outside of their bowl.

They're going to die.

Now the fish is going to die quickly,

But humans,

We're dying slowly.

We have seen,

Especially in the last 75 years,

We have seen massive increases in all sorts of diseases.

I mean,

We've seen bowel diseases increased by 3000% since the 1950s.

Obesity is an epidemic where 40% of North Americans are considered obese,

70% overweight,

Infertility rates are on the rise,

Cardiovascular disease has increased over 300%.

It's unbelievable.

Cancer,

36% in the last 20 years.

Respiratory disease is something like 50.

We're dying slowly.

And these aren't a human condition.

This is an industrialized world condition.

And so what's happening is we've created a world around us full of artificial foods,

Toxins,

Chemicals,

All kinds of stuff that is not compatible with our biology.

It's sand in the engine and it's slowly wearing down over time.

We're wondering why we're all leaking.

Why are we all sick?

And this is the disease epidemic we're facing today and it's our own doing.

It is.

Yeah.

So what's the first thing that we need to,

So again,

Again,

I know myself,

I know with myself with issues that I've had in my own body,

But so many of us in the world are suffering.

What's the one thing that we need to,

And I know that's going to be hard to narrow down,

But I'm wondering what's the one thing we need to really pay attention to?

Is it the gut brain connection?

Is it microbiome?

Is it,

What is it?

You know,

As a gut specialist and gut disease specialist,

I'd love to say it's the gut.

You know,

You give me a hammer for long enough,

Everything looks like a nail.

Eventually I go,

It's all the gut,

The brain,

The gut,

The lungs,

The gut,

And it really is all connected.

But I think the gut is suffering of all things,

More of a bystander effect,

Right?

Even though this is where I specialize,

It is still a bystander effect of really three main things.

It's going to be our food and not just the fact that we got to eat more greens.

I personally don't eat a lot of greens anyway,

But it's our diet,

60 to 80% of the North American diet.

We call it the standard American diet.

Irony enough,

The acronym is S.

A.

D.

And we use this diet,

60 to 80% is food that is processed,

Full of chemicals,

Artificial dyes,

Food coloring,

Preservatives,

And the amount of chemicals,

I can't even begin to tell you,

Michelle,

The amount of chemicals we throw in our food,

3 billion plus pounds per year of toxic,

Harmful pesticides and things that kill small organisms that damage us.

And we're doing this to ourselves.

That's why I say our diet,

Yes,

It's eating whole foods that we've eaten since the beginning of time.

We've eaten more of them than ever in the last 75 years.

Is it any wonder in 75 years we've seen these diseases increase?

So diet's number one,

Where our food is coming from.

Number two is lifestyle.

Our modern world is not conditioned to strain us,

To stress us,

Not at least in the way it used to be.

People who are active are healthier.

That's across the board.

Now there are people who go to the gym,

That's one thing,

But our lives used to be manual labor.

We used to get up and plow the fields by hand.

We used to get up and walk a mile to the river,

And there are still hunter-gatherer tribes and communities all across the world who still do this.

Coincidentally,

They don't have the same diseases we do.

They don't understand infertility.

They don't understand gut disease.

They don't understand cancers because they just.

.

.

Here's the thing.

We break down over time.

We have elderly,

Elderly folks in nursing homes who are rotting and ready to die.

They have elders who are still contributing to the community at 80 years old,

Going out and hunting in their 70s and 80s.

And that's the breakdown process we face that they don't.

We are cars parked outside,

Rusting in the rain and snow,

And they are well-kept from the inside out.

And so we've got our diet,

We've got our stagnant lifestyle,

And then,

Of course,

It's stress,

Which goes hand in hand with sleep.

We are stressed constantly with modern stressors,

Micro-stressors,

The news,

Politics,

Relationships,

Food.

This conversation,

Everyone's like,

Oh shit,

I'm eating toxic food,

I'm going to die.

That's a stressor.

We never used to have those.

Ancient stressors were short burst,

Run away,

Hunt,

Fight a tribe,

Come back home,

Eat and live your life for a year or two or three till the next trauma happened.

But to us,

It's chronic stressors.

And these are really the things in our modern world that are killing us slowly and creating these diseases and this epidemic of disease.

So my hope is for this show today with you,

Josh,

Is not to scare anybody,

Of course,

But it's to empower people.

That's why I was excited to have you on.

I really want to empower people,

Again,

Because we're going to doctors that might not be trained in helping us to heal.

They just might be someone that,

Oh,

You have this,

This is the medication.

Again,

And I'm not saying not to do that by any means.

Please go to your doctor.

However,

I want to compliment,

Again,

I want to educate today.

I want to empower today people that are listening going,

Well,

Gosh,

What can I do?

What do I need to understand?

What do I need to change?

How do I get well?

So what do we need to understand more of in order to help ourselves get healthier?

First thing I can say is nobody cares about your health more than you do.

You ultimately have to take responsibility and agency.

And it's so easy to go to your doctor and assume they know what they're doing.

Like you mentioned,

There's very little nutrition,

Food and nutrition.

This is a fuel for your engine.

It is the fundamental thing that makes you run.

We used to,

Between you and I,

I was a bit of a delinquent teenager.

Lots of run-ins with the police,

Vandalism,

All that nonsense stuff.

And there was somebody who we just,

It was a whole to do.

And I had friends who went over and they put sugar in the gas tank.

Now,

Sugar in their gas tank will clog things up.

I'm not a mechanic,

But it'll basically destroy the car.

You put diesel in a gasoline engine,

It's going to destroy the car.

It has to be replaced.

And so we put the wrong things into our body,

But our doctors are going,

Well,

Let's just replace the parts.

Let's do surgery.

Let's give you medication.

And what's happening is we're not even putting the right fuel in to begin with.

Out of a seven to 13 year schooling for a doctor,

Whether they're a GP,

A specialist,

Anesthesiologist,

Whatever field they're doing,

Seven to 13 years,

They have an average of 0.

006 to 0.

013% of their entire medical schooling has to do with food and nutrition fractions.

So they're not even dealing with the inputs that we're putting in.

Imagine this.

This is sort of a really great way,

I think,

To,

To understand how broken our system is or a perception of health.

Imagine Michelle,

You go out and you're going for a walk and you step on a nail.

That nail goes through your foot and it hurts and it's infected.

And you're like,

Shit,

I can't take it out myself.

You go to the doctor and the doctor looks at you and goes,

Ooh,

Michelle,

That is a bad looking nail,

But I'll tell you what,

There's nothing we can do.

It's just part of your body now.

It's part of your DNA.

So I'm going to give you some numbing cream.

I want you to use this for the rest of your life.

And if it doesn't help,

We can cut off your foot.

How insane would this be?

You could slap them,

You punch them,

They'd lose their license.

But you come down at 20,

30,

40,

50 years old,

Perfectly healthy.

Suddenly,

Boom,

You get a disease,

A diagnosis.

Your doctor goes,

Well,

Michelle,

It's just bad luck.

It's just genetics.

It's part of your body.

There's nothing we can do,

But I'm giving you some medication for the rest of your life to manage the symptoms.

And if it doesn't work,

We do have a surgical option.

Why is this not as insane to us as a nail stuck in the foot?

We can see the nail.

We look for the root cause of a puncture of an infection,

Something else.

When it comes to a chronic,

Long-term debilitating wear and tear,

Progressive disease,

We go,

Well,

It's just genetic.

I will tell you now we have mapped the entire human genome.

There is not,

There's not these chronic diseases that are killing us today.

In fact,

93% of the leading causes of death in North America are connected back to our guts anyway.

Not one of these diseases or chronic inflammatory conditions has a gene that causes it.

There is correlation.

We say,

Well,

20,

30% have this gene.

Who gives a shit?

It doesn't matter.

There's no cause,

Genetic cause.

So we're blaming the wrong thing.

Therefore,

We're not looking for a solution.

We're not looking to fix it.

We're just looking to patch.

And if you believe diseases are inevitable parts of your DNA and biology,

All you do is look to patch.

But if you understand there's a nail in my foot,

Something that's causing this problem.

I have to go back and figure it out.

A disease today,

Most chronic diseases,

Inflammatory diseases,

Alzheimer's,

Parkinson's,

Heart disease started 30,

40 years ago,

But we're not going back that far in time.

And this is why so many of us are sick,

Stuck on medication and dying.

60% of North American adults have a chronic inflammatory disease of some kind and they're medicated for it.

60?

Six,

Zero,

60%.

Wow.

USA and Canada.

So let's call us North America.

We are less than 5% of the global population.

We are almost 70% of the pharmaceutical industry's corporate profits.

Wait a minute.

Say that again.

We are 70% less than 5% of the population is 70,

70% of the global pharmaceutical corporate profits.

We are a nation of disease.

We are being milked like cash cows because we are training our physicians who,

By the way,

Pharma pays for 25 plus percent of medical schools,

The studies they learn,

The textbooks they go through,

The education they get,

Lobbies,

The FDA,

All these boards and things.

And they say,

Here's what you're going to learn.

And 0.

006 to 0.

013% of that is nutrition.

It's a fraction.

Here's what we should be eating.

Okay,

Moving on.

Here's the drug we give for this disease.

Here's what we should be eating.

Okay,

Moving on.

Here's a surgery we give for this condition.

We are cash cows and we are being milked like it.

And we are bar none,

The sickest nation on earth per capita.

We spend the most money in the world than any other country,

$4.

7 trillion a year on healthcare.

And we're the sickest nation on earth.

50% of children before age 18 will be diagnosed with a medical condition of some kind.

You don't see this in other countries because we are poisoning ourselves with our diet,

Our lifestyle,

And frankly,

Dare I say our medications.

Wow.

And you have seen results from your patients like turn their lives around.

You're saying using,

Is it nutrition or what are you doing that's different?

Yeah.

You know,

It's an interesting question.

I get asked a lot because by trade,

I am a holistic nutritionist.

I used to be a paramedic.

I've been a trainer.

I've been all kinds of stuff.

And now I work as a nutritionist,

A medical lecturer.

I'm a physician's consultant.

I do all kinds of great stuff.

And people think,

Well,

Cause you're a nutritionist by school.

It must be just food.

I'll tell you at least where I specialize in gut disease.

So severe IBS,

Crohn's colitis,

Digestive dysfunction,

Food is 2% maybe of what I have to do.

It's very much.

We'll say a root cause focus.

I'm looking for the nail in the foot,

Helping you pull it out,

Clean the wound and then give your body the tools and resources it needs to heal.

Food is important,

But most of us,

Here's what we can say.

If you are generally ill,

You know,

You've got a small infection,

You're prone to getting the flu very often.

Little things that might be considered relatively benign nutrition can often be the only thing you need to straighten yourself up,

Get rid of the pesticides,

Get some fresh air,

Exercise more often,

You'll probably be fine,

But when you have what's what we call a diagnosable condition,

Picture your body like a bathtub,

This bathtub starts to fill up and you start to develop symptoms,

A little bit of bloat today,

A little bit of gas,

A little bit of nausea,

A change of appetite.

It continues to fill up and it overflows.

Like I'm having blood and mucus in my stool.

I'm having debilitating pain.

I go to my doctor.

Now you have a diagnosable condition because what they're looking for is a condition that is so severe.

We call it diagnostic criteria.

You check enough boxes to say,

Yep,

You have this condition.

It's just part of your body.

Nothing we can do except for medication and surgery.

Where they're not looking to say what filled the bathtub.

That's my job.

What filled your tub?

Number one.

Number two,

What's preventing it from draining?

Why can't your body get rid of these things on its own?

Number three,

When it's overflowed,

What other residual damage has happened?

Like what,

What's wet now,

What other systems or functions in the body have become damaged that we now have to go back and correct.

And this is how we can reverse what is what we're told by this dysfunctional system are irreversible genetic conditions.

It doesn't have to be that way.

It's they're all fixable.

Dare I say all of them.

And I think it's just a matter of time to the world realizes that.

Okay.

So what do we do?

God depends on the condition.

I know it really depends on the condition.

Cause I'm,

I'm thinking to myself,

ADHD,

Is it an all time high anxiety,

Depression,

In addition to the things that you mentioned,

The,

The,

All the bowel issues that we have arthritis,

People are earlier and early.

I'm talking to people.

I'm like,

You're,

You're 50.

How do you have arthritis?

I've talked to some of the other day.

She was in her forties and I'm like,

What is going on?

We're getting sicker and sicker earlier and earlier.

And again,

You didn't even touch on infertility,

All of that kind of all the hormone imbalances that we have.

I'm not even talking about menopause.

I'm talking about people in their twenties,

Thirties,

Forties.

So.

We're,

We're seeing an all time high.

Yeah.

Male and female infertility.

Where,

Where do we begin?

Okay.

So I'm going to guess most people listen to this.

If they don't have something going on,

They know of somebody.

So where,

Where does someone begin?

Because most people would,

Let's say,

Go to their doctor or that's what we've been trained to do.

Statistically speaking,

60% of your listeners,

60% of people listening to this episode right now have something going on that's been diagnosed by their doctor.

We know that that's just the math.

If you don't have a diagnosis yet,

The question is,

Is your bathtub filling up?

Maybe it's not overflowed enough yet to have enough symptoms to the degree of severity or doctor goes.

Yup.

You have this condition.

I mean,

How many of you listening have gone through this process where you went to your doctor?

You go,

I feel terrible.

Here's my symptoms.

I feel sick.

And they go,

Well,

Let's run some tests.

You're fine.

Here's some antidepressants head on home.

You're just anxious.

It's all in your head.

We call this medical gaslighting because you're sick,

But you're not sick enough yet for your doctor to intervene.

Like imagine you dislocated your shoulder.

Well,

They're not going to intervene until it's actually fallen off of your body.

How crazy is this?

And this is the same thing with,

With medical conditions,

Not just physical trauma.

They intervene because they can see it.

But until we have a name,

We don't have a drug.

It's like cookbook medicine.

We check the boxes,

We give it a name,

We give you a drug.

And then years down the road,

You keep getting sicker because that condition continues to progress.

And now you have more drugs to manage those symptoms.

And then you have drugs to manage the symptoms that are caused by all the drugs you're taking.

It's crazy.

This is,

This is why we're so sick and medicated and spending trillions on what I call sick care,

Not healthcare.

So the question is,

What do we do,

Michelle?

Here's what I can tell you.

Number one,

Let's handle the basics.

Diet,

Lifestyle,

Sleep stress.

We get exposed to about a hundred times more light at nighttime than we should.

Your,

Your brain,

Your sleep cycle,

We call your circadian rhythm is based on light.

It's why we wake up.

That's how we fall asleep.

We have too much light exposure at night.

So we're not sleeping properly.

We're tossing and turning.

We don't get to sleep.

We don't get into our stages of sleep.

We don't get into deep sleep.

We don't get that.

We call REM sleep.

We don't have this proper cycle.

So we're not waking up arrested.

So your body taps into its extra fuel reserves,

Your adrenals,

For example.

And so if you're listening,

You think,

Okay,

Well,

I have trouble getting to sleep.

Number one,

I tend to wake up two to 4.

AM is that prime time people are waking up.

And then I wake up.

I'm not super well rested.

I'm groggy.

I'm getting in a bed in the morning,

But I get my second wind.

I get my caffeine around lunchtime,

Mid afternoon,

And I'm popping.

I'm ready to go.

Or I crash in the afternoon is the other one.

And then nighttime comes and boom,

I got a spike of energy again.

This is because your rhythm is completely disrupted.

So basic sleep,

Blue light block on glasses at nighttime to change that light coming in,

Cause that trains your brain to go to sleep basics of food.

If it's in a package,

A freezer,

A box,

Drop it.

Don't bother eating.

It's not going to help you.

If you are high stress all the time,

We can't fix stressors in our life.

We,

But you can sure as shit,

Turn off the news or spend less time on social media because we don't realize it,

But that's a stressor we are constantly believe it or not entertained.

Our world is short bursts of dopamine.

I,

This cell phone in my hand is a dopamine factory nonstop.

Go on Instagram,

Tik TOK,

Facebook,

Scroll,

Scroll,

Scroll hits a dopamine.

We were never intended to do this.

We were intended to be bored.

You've ever wondered why so many of us are less creative because of our brain doesn't have time to unpack.

You go for a quiet drive.

What do you do?

All this stuff starts coming up.

You almost get anxious.

She's like,

I got to do something to distract myself.

No,

No,

No.

You got to unpack.

You're shoving clothes.

So many things into the closet and slamming the door.

The second it opens,

You freak out cause you can't deal with it.

And these are the basics we're ignoring in our lifestyle that really impact us in ways that we honestly can't even comprehend.

So dealing with these fundamentals is the first one.

And the second thing I'll go back to,

Because it is a bystander effect of our modern world.

But most of us have gut dysfunction beyond the point of just eat better and sleep better and we'll be fine.

We're at the stage where you have so much dysfunction.

We need supplemental intervention.

We need help because our guts are so destroyed.

And I'll say this and we'll go whatever segue you want to go from this one,

Michelle,

Our digestive system is connected to every single part of your body.

Your reproductive organs,

Female reproductive organs are literally touching your bowels.

That's connected to your brain.

It's connected to your skin,

Your fingernails,

Your breath,

Your oral health.

I mean,

Think about it.

The mouth is a top of the butt,

Right?

Everything that comes in affects the rest of your gut and it comes out in whatever form it comes out.

Every system without exaggeration is directly connected to your gut,

Your brain,

You name it.

And so if we're not addressing the very basics of our gut health and gut function or dysfunction,

We are setting ourselves up for failure now or many years down the road.

So how do we start addressing our gut?

Like what do we need to do?

How do we know?

Like how?

So again,

I heard all the things you said before,

The stress,

The sleep,

The nutrition,

All of that de-stress.

And I agree.

And that's hard.

You know,

A lot of people listening are going,

Well,

I can't sleep less.

I got to get up and get the kids or I got to get up and get all of those things.

We do have to slow down and reconsider all those things.

But I want to focus on the gut because I think it's so important.

It's not talked about enough.

So what do we,

How can we start learning about what's going on within our gut?

How do we know if there's an issue within our gut?

That's such a great question.

I will tell you the lucky ones are the ones who physically have gut symptoms.

Now we'll brush off things like bloat and say,

Okay,

I'm bloated,

Whatever.

It just happens.

We're all bloated.

Yeah,

We're all bloated,

But we shouldn't be bloated.

Right?

Just because depends on the data we look at 70 to 60 to 70% of North Americans complain of some kind of digestive issue on a weekly basis.

So what we consider benign gas,

Bloat,

Pain,

Constipation,

Diarrhea,

Nausea,

Vomiting,

Acid,

Reflux,

Whatever it is,

Picture it this way.

If you're going for a walk,

Going for a hike and you're wearing a pair of shoes,

Brand new pair of shoes and you forgot your socks,

What starts to happen?

That heel starts to rub and it gets red and it blisters and it bleeds.

This is what's happening in our guts right now.

The heel starting to rub.

I got a little bit of bloat today.

Tomorrow it's constipation,

Diarrhea,

And I'll tell you if you're going any less than once a day,

You're constipated any more than three times a day.

Your bowels are too loose and there was too high of a transit time.

And so we're just rubbing a little bit right now.

And what happens a year or two down the road,

You start developing depression,

Anxiety,

Menstrual issues,

Skin issues,

Something that he'll starts to rub more and more.

And then we get further down the road and now you have a digestive disease.

You have heart disease,

You have arthritis,

You have asthma,

Whatever it is because what's happening there.

Think of this.

You eat and you poop.

So do your gut microbiome or your gut microbes.

Dr.

Yoshida Schoenfeld from Tel Aviv University is a very well-known immunologist.

He says,

We are born,

I realize I'm skipping all over the place and I will come back.

It's my ADHD,

But it says we are born 99% human cells.

1% of us is microbes.

Our body's covered in it,

Coming through the birth canal,

Breast milk,

The environment.

By the time we die,

These microbes have grown so much.

We are 90% microbes,

Only 10% human cells.

That's the important of our microbiomes.

A microbiome,

This microbe is just,

Think of it as bacteria,

Fungi,

Yeast,

Viruses,

Parasites,

And the biome is just a community.

So we have this community of microbes not only living inside of our gut,

There's upwards of a hundred trillion of them.

It is about 10 trillion to 20 trillion human cells.

They live inside of our gut,

But you have a microbiome inside of your mouth,

Inside your scalp,

In your groin,

In your armpits,

Everywhere on your skin,

You're covered in microbes.

And so we also have what's called the hollow biome,

Which is this about six feet,

Ironically enough,

In the last few years,

Six feet where these microbes will actually extend like,

Like pig pen from Charlie Brown,

This cloud of microbes around you.

In fact,

There's even forensic research showing that the next couple of years,

Decades even,

We'll be able to measure the microbes in an ecosystem to know who done it,

Based on you've been there and here's your microbial footprint.

So there's a lot of really interesting stuff.

So we have to understand just like you eat and you poop,

These trillions of microbes living inside,

You also eat and poop.

The question is,

Are they eating good things and pooping good things?

Are they eating bad things and pooping bad things?

And this circles back to our conversation of what do we do?

We've handled sleep stress food.

Now we have to look at our microbes.

What are they eating and what are they pooping?

Because if they're pooping out bad things,

You're going to have things like body odor.

You're going to have things like ADHD.

You're going to have joint pain,

Inflammation.

You're going to have arthritis or asthma.

All these conditions,

Like I said,

93% of the leading causes of death come back to your gut and your microbes.

That's cancers,

Parkinson's,

Liver disease,

Kidney disease,

You name it,

All comes back to our gut.

So now we have to start looking into,

Do I have symptoms?

That's an obvious,

Let's fix your gut.

If you have another symptom outside of your digestive system,

Then we also have to look,

Is it coming from your gut?

So how does someone,

So if they have symptoms,

Then they've got to look at their gut.

So without getting like a gut test,

Right.

Or a poop test,

There's so many great poop tests.

Like there's like Genova.

I just took one.

It's tiny something.

What's the one tiny health.

Yeah.

You know what I use?

I used to not be fan.

I love tiny health.

And I've actually met with Cheryl who owns it.

She's brilliant.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I did.

I used to do the Genova test all the time.

And then I just did that one for the first time.

So someone shared with me that that was just as good,

But even without doing the poop test,

Or do we need to do that in order to know how,

I mean,

I think the poop test is phenomenal because it really tells you everything about what's going on in your gut.

But let's just say,

I don't want to do the poop test right now.

What can I do right away?

Which you kind of said it as far as the food goes,

Because you got to think about your microbiome,

This whole colony of bacteria inside of your gut.

I mean,

Like you said,

It's in your nose,

It's in your mouth,

It's in your armpits,

It's in your,

It's all over.

But if we're looking at specifically in our gut,

What are some things that we could do today to help start to shift that gut microbiome?

That is such a good question.

So mine is the basics we've covered.

And there's an important note to talk about here as well.

Going in,

I think a lot of people want,

Cause it's a new and it's fun,

But it's exciting.

A GI map,

We call it,

That's your stool test.

You're talking about where you basically poop in a box.

You look the FedEx guy in the eye and give it to him knowing it's your poop in the box and he sends it to the lab and then they test it and just come back and say,

Here's on ice.

It's never a fun conversation.

It's this,

You know,

Human non-infectious human specimen in the box.

But you get back this report and it says,

Here's all your microbes,

High,

Low,

Medium,

Here's as many as we can measure.

It's helpful information in the right hands.

But like you said,

If you don't want one good,

Don't bother getting one.

Your microbiome if it's messed up,

This is the downstream issue.

What I want to know is,

Okay,

I'm downstream.

Everything here is all messy.

Do I want to deal with the issue here or do I want to go upstream to the top to figure out what caused the problem down here?

And so when I'm looking at a gut microbiome,

Even with what we're doing now,

Correcting what's supposed to be uncorrectable diseases,

We are seeing that gut microbiome.

I used to think it was a be all end all when it came out,

But I'm learning now.

We've been implementing this for years that something had to cause that problem.

So we want to know is why,

Not only what is going on,

But why is it happening?

That's what we're interested in.

So you can,

If you actually study this stuff,

You can dive in and understand the language we call symptomatology.

I'll keep it brief because it's a whole practice and specialty by itself.

But if you think about your digestive system,

It speaks a language.

Now whether you have the stomach flu,

Irritable bowel,

Crohn's or colitis,

Your digestive system says a lot of the same words.

It just says them louder in a severe condition.

It will say things like constipation,

Diarrhea,

Cramping,

Bloat,

Pain,

Nausea,

Vomiting,

Acid reflux,

Even blood or mucus in the stool.

It will say these words in any gut condition.

It has that potential.

What we want to know is what is the rest of your body saying?

So for example,

Psoriasis,

Eczema,

Sleeplessness,

Trouble digesting fats,

Early hair loss.

There's dozens of them,

But these might be signs of a parasite for example.

And then if you have somebody coming in with brain fog,

ADHD,

Irritability,

Acne is a big one or nail fungus,

Oral thrusher or vaginal thrush.

So yeast infections,

That's going to be a fungal issue.

That's candida.

And it just because it might be in your mouth or your vagina,

It doesn't mean that it's local there.

More often than not,

It's coming from your gut because what starts in the gut travels everywhere.

This is that conversation about both leaky gut and just how the gut functions.

So these microbes get everywhere and they cause issues outside of the body or outside of the digestive system.

And so what we want to do as clinicians is start to learn our symptoms.

So if you're listening to this right now,

You go,

I do have some other symptoms.

I'm irritable.

My menstrual cycle,

I got a lot of PMS,

A lot of bloating,

Breast tenderness,

Moodiness,

The blood is dark,

Thick and clotted.

These are actually hormonal issues and possibly even an estrogen dominance.

So maybe your body's recycling estrogen.

This is where we go back to cleaning the liver and the bile,

For example.

Now I know we're getting into the weeds a bit,

But if you can learn to understand the symptoms you're experiencing anywhere in the body,

There's a damn good chance it's coming from your gut.

And as a gut specialist,

Again,

Maybe I,

I over-credit the gut,

But I'd say 90 to 99% of your symptoms you're experiencing start in your gut.

I mean,

We have literature to back it up that it's not only possible,

But probable.

And so read your symptoms,

Take an inventory,

Every single thing I have.

And you know what,

Go to chat GPT.

You have to prompt it.

It'll say,

Go to your doctor,

But tell it from a functional medicine view,

Understanding this might be coming from my gut.

Take into account,

This is the words you can give them,

Take into account common microbial infections or digestive issues in my gut microbiome.

Here are my symptoms.

What might be driving it?

And that can give you a layout and say,

Hey,

It's going to pull from,

You know,

My blogs and my podcast,

Dr.

Josh Axe,

And whoever's famous doing this stuff.

It'll say,

Here's some of the conditions that are associated.

Now it's not to say you do,

It's non-diagnostic,

But it gives you a place to look.

Your doctor wouldn't say,

Go,

Well,

Here's an antidepressant.

Here's,

I'll tell you,

Michelle,

I had acne for years when I was probably 18.

There was not an inch of my back that did not have acne,

Either a pimple or a cystic.

I had joint pain.

My early twenties,

I had my,

I got ADHD,

Dealt with it my entire life,

But you never know unless you live with me and see me leave my socks on the floor or something else.

But I used to have mood swings,

Depressive episodes and like severe anxiety.

And when they put me on medication,

We're out of my system.

I'm talking explosive outbursts,

Severe depression,

Suicidal thoughts,

Like joint pain at 18 years old to go with arthritis.

It was not,

I had a severe candida infection.

I've gone through 15 bowel movements a day,

10 minute transit times.

I eat and it comes out.

I've had blood in the bowel.

I've had all kinds of stuff.

And my doctor said,

Yeah,

Well,

It is what it is.

It's just irritable bowel or it's just whatever.

And they want to give a diagnosis to medicate.

And I had to self-teach.

I went back to school.

I had colleagues and friends of mine who taught me.

It was a severe candida fungal infection and it took years to manage and clean my system out.

But I had to figure out what's filling my bathtub.

Why isn't it draining?

Why can't my body get rid of it?

What else has gotten wet?

My skin,

My brain,

My liver,

My gallbladder,

Bile ducts,

All these things became junked up.

And so I had to go back through my symptoms and learn to listen to the language of my body.

What is it telling me?

Just because I don't speak,

You ever speak to someone who speaks a different language and they're kind of bumbling through English and you might think they're stupid.

They're not,

They just don't understand English thoroughly.

They can't speak it the way you and I do fluently.

And your body thinks you're stupid because you're not listening to it either.

And so we have to go back and learn.

I think that's such an important thing that you just said is to pay attention to the body.

And our bodies are naturally built and wired to stay in balance and to be healthy.

Right.

And we,

Based on,

Again,

Like all the things that you mentioned,

The stress,

The eating boxed foods or food coloring,

All that stuff and not sleeping well and all that is making us sick is throwing our body out of balance.

And we don't connect to our bodies.

And this is something I teach all the time.

Like we've got to reconnect to self.

You know,

We put our,

We'll speak to other people or we'll put our a hundred percent of everything into what the doctor said.

Again,

I'm not sitting here bashing doctors.

That's not what I'm doing.

I'm inviting people though to start communicating with your body.

Start listening to your body.

I was walking down the stairs just the other day,

Like a couple of days ago.

And I was like,

Why are my knees so sore?

What is going on?

And I sat down on the couch and I asked myself,

What is going on?

And I tuned into my body and I asked,

And I said,

What is it?

Why are,

And I turned to my knee or just brought my awareness to my knees.

And I said,

Why are you so sore?

What's happening?

And I put my hands on my knees and I sat there and I just got quiet for like a minute or two.

And immediately I had this vision of my friend had brought over sourdough bread.

And I said,

Oh my gosh,

I've had one piece for the last three days.

And I was like,

Oh,

I had forgotten about it because it's healthy and it's a hundred year old starter and all the things.

And,

And I thought,

Oh shoot,

I wonder if it's that bread.

So that was it.

And I said,

I'm just going to stop eating that bread and we'll see.

But it's amazing when we slow down and pay attention and tune into the body,

What the body actually it'll guide us intuitively to the right functional medicine doctor.

Or maybe it's like,

Wait,

I'm going to open up a magazine and I'm going to read about yeast and an overgrowth of candida.

Like you just never know,

But do pay attention.

Cause I really feel like our intuition will guide us.

But,

Um,

Yeah.

Here's what I can tell you.

There's only three reasons.

This is what I've distilled it down to.

And I'll say only three again with,

With an asterisk,

But I,

I will challenge anybody to say,

There's any other umbrellas as to why we get sick.

Here are three reasons why.

The first one is toxicities,

Right?

It's,

It's toxins in the air.

It's toxins in our home.

It's microplastics,

It's chemicals,

Pesticides,

Even mold.

70% of US homes have a mold problem in at least 40 plus percent of us are highly susceptible to mold illness.

And so,

You know,

We have these issues.

So toxicities are the first reason.

These are things your body has to protect you from.

After all,

Inflammation by definition is an acute.

So a short term protective response,

Your body is trying to protect you from or heal you from something to get rid of it.

That's what inflammation is.

So we have it.

It's not there for no reason.

It's not there because you're aging or there because you know,

Well,

That's what happens when you get old.

No,

No,

No.

We have elderly.

They have elders.

We have to go back to this other countries who aren't so toxic.

So it's toxicities.

Number one,

Number two is deficiencies.

That's either nutrient deficiencies,

Dietary deficiencies,

Whatever it is.

We're not getting the nutrients we need.

Our soil is over tilled and over farmed.

So we're not getting our basics.

And the third is microbial imbalances.

Now,

These all three of these things interact,

But the top microbial issues I'd see,

I see even in like bowel diseases is going to be things like parasitic infection.

Now,

Again,

We all have parasites.

We all have Candida,

But it's in an ecosystem and it's these imbalances that cause a problem.

Now,

If you picture your,

Your microbiome,

Picture it like a city,

Right?

The city operates,

You got garbage men,

You got teachers and baristas and police officers and everything.

Everything is working justice.

So everything's in balance.

What happens when the power shifts to one thing or another,

We now have disruption.

Now imagine you got the quote,

Bad guys,

Right?

You got the crack dealers at the gas station,

So to speak.

Now,

Whether we like it or not,

The crack dealers do contribute to the economy in some way,

Shape or form.

However,

If every grocery store,

Every coffee shop,

Every police officer,

Everybody just sold crack,

The whole city would fall apart very quickly.

Now,

If we look at our microbiomes,

This ecosystem,

The same way when we have an imbalance or an overgrowth of things like yeast or parasites,

Because there's nothing to keep it in check imbalance to keep things regulated.

Now we have a problem in our city and our body starts to break down because of it.

And so this is our third major issue.

Toxins cause deficiencies or imbalances.

Nutrient deficiencies cause changes in genetic expression.

Your genes don't work in a vacuum.

They're impacted by nutrients,

By stress,

By microbes that talk to each other.

These deficiencies change.

They turn the volume up or down on these expressions.

And this is what starts to cause a problem.

Now,

Parasites,

Which we all have,

For example,

They're in check and balance.

They work in the ecosystem.

They work in the economy.

We have parasites that actually benefit us and help manage disease.

But when we're not controlled and we're dysregulated,

They overgrow.

And now we have a problem.

And so this is a whole to do about not taking your diagnosis lying down,

But we want to understand there's a root to everything.

Disease is not normal.

It's not inherent.

But how do we know if we have parasites?

So there are a couple of obvious things that we can look at here.

And this comes back to the thing to say,

Look,

Basically if you're alive and breathing,

You have a parasite because again,

They're symbiotic.

Yeah.

I mean,

They're,

They're in our food.

They're in our fish.

They're in our meat.

They're in our,

They're on our lettuce.

They're all,

They're in the water.

They're all over.

But like you said,

And I've had a bad parasite.

I've had a couple of experiences with parasites where they went.

Yeah.

I took a trip down into another country and came back with a parasite and,

Um,

And a couple other times too.

But so how do I know how I know,

How would you,

What is your experience with that?

What would you say to everybody?

Symptoms,

Symptoms,

Symptoms,

Symptoms.

I'll tell you now,

The best parasite tests at best,

You're probably 40% accurate.

We actually had a woman who had eight different parrots who came to us for,

For ulcerative colitis.

She had eight parasite tests over five years,

All negative.

And she had worms two and four feet along.

It was shocking what came out of her,

But we see this all the time.

We had a 15 year old or the 36 inch worm that came out of it.

I got a picture.

His mom pulled it out with chopsticks and wash it off and send me a photo.

Oh my God.

So we can be in there.

But how do you find out though?

How do you know that if you have that?

So we look at symptoms,

Assume everybody has them.

Honestly,

At this stage,

We think,

Oh,

It's a third world problem.

I haven't been traveling recently.

Even your doctor will say,

You know,

It's third world.

It's just a different education.

They're not,

We have them everywhere.

Look at food imports and exports,

Immigration,

Vacation and travel.

There's no isolation anymore.

And so what we want to look at as symptoms is a few basic ones to look at.

For example,

If you have pain when you press on your liver or gallbladder,

Or even like your appendix belly button area,

That can be a sign.

Parasites love to hang out in those areas.

If you have lower back pain,

You can't get rid of with physio,

Chiro,

Massage,

Acupuncture.

Parasites can actually get through the gut lining and burrow into the muscles,

Hips and joints,

That type of stuff.

Rectal vaginal itching,

Symptoms around the full moon,

A metallic taste in your mouth.

You're not taking antibiotics,

Elevated cholesterol.

For example,

Here's what's interesting.

We think cholesterol is the enemy.

It's not.

Every cell in our body is either made of or works with cholesterol.

Cholesterol is hugely important,

But there's some interesting research we now know.

We talked about your gut bacteria pooping out good or bad things.

The bad things they poop out,

What the bad guys poop out is what we call LPS.

That stands for lipopolysaccharide or the affectionate term is endotoxin,

Just means inside toxin.

So these toxins are created as LPS.

They get out through your gut.

They enter all kinds of bloodstream,

Lymphatic system,

Superhighways in the body.

They get around everywhere.

Your body actually produces excess cholesterol to bind to this LPS,

These toxins to try to neutralize because it neutralizes this toxic effect.

Well,

You wonder what Alzheimer's is.

It's a buildup of,

So to speak,

Plaque in these things in the brain.

The downstream effect is dysfunction of your brain and changes of these different types of cells.

But the initial effect could have been toxins that got to the brain.

Your body clogged it with cholesterol,

Heart disease,

Inflammation in the bloodstream and the blood vessels that your body bound cholesterol to,

Which happened to build up as plaque,

Joint pain.

For example,

Your body's binding these toxins and working with them.

You got your immune system working overtime to try to eat or gobble them up.

So cholesterol can actually be a high sign of some toxins,

Low sex drive diagnosis of a condition called SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth,

Grinding your teeth,

Especially at night infertility.

We can look at chronic sinus infections,

Allergies,

Seasonal issues.

These can,

There's so many having your appendix removed.

Your gallbladder removed is a pretty good sign as well,

But there's so many signs,

Psoriasis,

Eczema,

Rashes,

Hives,

Like allergic responses because these parasites drive up the same immune pathways,

For example,

As histamines.

So that's your allergy responses,

Hives,

Rashes,

Throat swelling,

That type of stuff.

If you're eating high histamine foods,

So ferments,

Probiotics,

Canned foods,

Cured meats,

Smoked meats,

Anything like this,

Avocado,

Spinach,

Fried foods,

They're all high in histamine.

They can cause issues,

Bloating,

Irritability,

Sinus issues,

Diarrhea,

Whatever it is.

It can come back to the same immune pathway,

Which can be driven by fungus histamines,

Et cetera.

So there's a lot of symptoms.

There's probably 50 symptoms you can highlight of parasites.

It's not saying you have them,

But it is saying let's consider and talk to a professional to ask.

So I want to be able to let people know what they can do today.

Is there a test that's not $1,

000 or $500?

Like I,

Again,

For me and I know for myself,

And please share with me what your opinion is on this.

I remember when I lived in Nashville and I said,

I feel like I have some sort of intolerance to various foods.

And I was at my doctor and I said,

I'd like to take an allergy test.

And he looked at me,

He goes,

Well,

What do you mean?

He goes,

You just have at the time he said,

You just have ADHD.

And I said,

Yes,

But I believe it has something to do with an intolerance to various foods.

I'd like to take an allergy test.

Cause this is,

Again,

This is my world.

And I don't even know what that means.

He goes,

You just need to take this med and we didn't have an argument by any means,

But he just didn't understand what I was talking about.

And I said,

Okay,

Off to my functional medicine doctor.

I went,

I got the allergy test for foods and it sure it came back.

I was intolerant to wheat and gluten and all,

Or excuse me,

And dairy and so many different things.

And then I changed how I was eating and I felt so much better.

So,

But those tests can also be pretty expensive.

So you're someone that works in this field.

What can people do?

Like,

Okay,

So I'm listening and I'm saying,

Well,

Shoot,

I've,

I feel like I've got a lot going on.

Maybe,

Maybe I've got a parasite.

Maybe I've got yeast.

Maybe I've got this or intolerance.

Where do I even begin?

So I would say,

Here's what Michelle says,

Find a functional medicine doctor and they don't have to be in your town.

You don't have to go in person.

You can find functional medicine docs that are online on zoom.

You can do zoom calls,

Right?

Or naturopathic doc.

So that's my opinion.

What do you say?

I would say exactly the same.

And here's why I wish,

I wish I could tell you that here's a test you can do in a simple DIY.

Your health is not DIY and we have to make time and room for our health today or you will be forced to make time and room for your illness tomorrow.

And it's a very unfortunate,

Harsh reality.

You know,

Some people can pick it apart.

Sometimes it takes years though.

You know,

I get a lot of people who come to see me.

And the first thing I'm told most often is I wish I saw you sooner because how many people do,

You know,

Try to DIY their basement and it's just a disaster.

Things are falling apart.

The light fixtures never got done.

It's a lot of work.

And you know,

People like myself and other specialists,

We spend lifetimes studying this to take out the guesswork and here's the danger.

And I don't want to discourage you from doing something on your own.

Anything you're doing to work in the right direction is better than nothing.

And it's better than masking your symptoms of medication.

Now I want to preface,

I am what I call an integrated practitioner.

I believe Western medicine has a place.

However,

You know,

For emergency surgeries,

You know,

If I,

If I,

In a car crash,

My arm falls off,

I don't want lavender oil.

Like get me the surgeons,

Get me the anesthesiologist.

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

But when it comes down to chronic longterm inflammatory disease,

It's laughable,

If not almost criminal how we treat it.

So you have to advocate for yourself.

See someone who specializes in your condition.

If it comes from your gut and you can identify it as your gut,

See someone who specializes in gut and start there.

But we have to get help.

It is so complex.

It's so layered.

It's not DIY.

If you,

If you great example,

I got again,

Parasites,

Big,

Major cause of gut diseases where I specialize.

And we've had people come in and went,

Well,

I was working with someone who said I might have parasites.

They gave me a parasite protocol.

I ended up in the hospital or a mold protocol and I got horribly ill.

This happens because picture,

Let's go back to a glass of water,

Right?

Let's say a bathtub.

If you got to,

Let's use a sink.

Cause it's a better analogy.

You got to sink and it's full to the brim of water.

If you try to reach your hand in and try to push that drain to pull it up,

What happens?

You overflow that even more because you're,

You're displacing that water.

When you have a digestive disease and you're not preparing your body properly in order to remove the organism or infection,

Whatever it is,

It's causing the problem.

You're reaching your hand at the bottom and it's overflowing and you make yourself very sick.

It's actually called the Herxheimer reaction.

It's one of the things we see.

You move toxins from one place to another,

Heavy metals.

You've got issues in your digestive system or your muscles or whatever it is.

And then you go to try to do it yourself.

Now you end up with Parkinson's or something else because the metals just moved from one place to another and they ended up in your nervous system instead.

We have to understand there's prep work.

There's groundwork.

You don't just build a house with a roof and walls and guests.

You have blueprints made by architects and engineers and designers and everything has to come together.

The electricians and the plumbers and the drywallers,

There are specialties to make this bulletproof.

Otherwise you will have problems.

And so I encourage you see someone at the very least learn about more of what you can do.

And trust yourself.

You know,

So many of us we do go to the doctor and we hand our power over to the doctor.

And I would say,

Don't hand your power over to anybody.

I don't care if it's a naturopath or a functional medicine doc or integrative doc.

I don't care who it is.

Trust yourself and your,

And your gut,

No pun intended,

And your,

And your intuition.

And if it doesn't feel right,

What that person is saying to you,

Then go somewhere else and,

And keep going until it feels right for you.

But do go find someone,

You know,

We have something here,

Um,

In the United States,

It's called any lab tests now and I can walk in right off the street and I can go get a mold test,

An allergy.

I can go get any test I want.

I don't even need a doctor to write a script for it.

It's been phenomenal.

Like when I felt really tired,

I was like,

I'm going to go get an iron test and a vitamin D and V B test.

I walked right in and got it.

So there are those places out there too,

But do your research.

And I think most importantly,

What someone can do right now today are the four,

I think it was four things you mentioned.

Number one,

Seven to nine hours of sleep every single night.

Yes.

Seven to eight blue light power down an hour.

Don't be on your phone.

Right till bedtime.

Get off your phone an hour before.

Yes.

Yeah.

Get off your phone an hour before read a book,

Read a magazine,

Listen to a podcast,

Listen to an audio book,

Listen to a meditation when you're going to bed.

I have a,

I put my little ear,

My ear,

My earphones,

Earphones,

I plug into my phone cause I don't want the Bluetooth around my head,

But I plug in my little air,

My earphones.

And I listened to like a meditation and books at night,

An hour before I go to bed and I fall right to sleep.

Um,

But seven to nine needs to be your goal.

What are you doing about stress in your life?

Because nobody can change the stress in your life.

No,

The news will never stop.

Social media is not coming to an end anytime soon.

So what are you doing to take yourself off of that?

Now you've got to limit your time on those things.

I have cut news completely out.

And in fact,

I just said to my husband,

I think I want to get rid of all TV subscriptions except for like Netflix.

So I can watch a movie on occasion and maybe Hulu or Apple TV,

Right on demand.

You're not being forced to watch.

Whatever is being put in front of you.

I don't want to watch that crap anymore.

And I realized here's what's fascinating.

Josh,

You probably have had this experience.

The further I am away from things that stress me out.

Like I,

I read something,

I don't listen to the news at all anymore.

I don't watch the news anymore at all.

But,

Um,

Something,

I was looking on my phone and something had popped up like a news article.

And it was something about either politics or the news and even reading it made my whole body contract.

I was like,

Whoa,

That like,

Wow.

I was like,

No,

You're tuning into that visceral response though.

My nervous system went and I was like,

No,

No,

No.

And it's not that I'm living with my head in the sand by any means.

Cause people talk about the news all the time.

So I'm still,

I hear about everything.

I'm like,

Oh,

Is that,

My husband walked in the bathroom this morning.

He goes,

I was getting ready.

He goes,

Oh,

Did you hear about blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I go,

No,

Share it with me.

Tell me all about it.

And he told me,

I go,

Thank you.

And I was done.

My nervous system was intact.

And I was,

So my stress level has gone down,

But that's what we have to do.

And then food is of the utmost importance.

I think about Oreos when I was growing up were,

And this is way back in the seventies and eighties,

Like Oreos were chocolate,

Sugar,

Cream,

And one other ingredient.

That's it.

Look at the ingredients of the foods that you're putting in your bodies right now.

I love the food babe.

You know,

Do you watch food babe on Instagram?

What she's doing?

She lives here in Charlotte where I live.

I've watched,

I've watched her for years.

What she's doing right now with Kellogg's.

I want to like do cartwheels around my house.

Why is it that the Fruit Loops,

Let's just say for an example in the United States and not in Canada though,

By the way,

But the Fruit Loops in the United States are full of,

There's so many ingredients I can't even pronounce.

But in addition to that,

We've got red food coloring and all the poisons.

And then you go up to Canada where you are.

And it's like,

Oh,

Fruit Loops are flavored with blueberries,

Turmeric,

Like all like blueberries and strawberries.

That's how they get the food coloring.

And I saw someone do a test on it.

Your Fruit Loops taste better than ours.

And I'm not saying to go out and get Fruit Loops by any means.

And what I'm saying is our food has really,

It might look the same and it is the same.

It looks the same in the boxes from 1970s and eighties.

It's very different.

It's very different.

And it's absolutely shocking,

You know,

And it's the inputs we're putting into our bodies that give us these toxic outputs.

And if you picture your body like a factory,

This picture you're standing outside of the Ford plant and you know,

A bunch of metal and parts come in one side,

Picture this big box,

Right?

Metal and parts come in one side and out the other side magically comes a car.

You don't know how the car got made.

You may not be an engineer,

Mechanical engineer,

But you know,

If you put in the parts it needs,

The factory will just do its job.

And then the car will be produced in our body.

We are putting in the wrong parts.

Our factory is on fire and one of the walls are broken.

And then we're wondering why the car comes out all mangled and with three wheels and no steering wheel,

Because we're not giving it the right inputs.

We've damaged our factory and we have to go back to the fundamental basics.

And like you said,

Just sleep basics,

Food,

Basics,

Movement,

Exercise basics.

And I think we have it.

We have it just so messed up because,

Especially here in the United States with people that say,

I only need four hours of sleep a night or five hours of sleep at night.

I'm like,

What are you talking about?

That's horrible for your body.

Horrible.

And we pride ourselves on working so hard and getting more done and working.

No,

We have to stop and start dropping into the body and tuning in and getting clear about what we need.

And are we taking care of ourselves?

Are we overstimulated?

Cause we live in a world that,

Oh my God,

Like it is stimulation everywhere.

How much time do you spend in nature?

I love your point.

Are you bored?

We should be bored.

We need time to unplug.

And we're not great at that because we take our damn phones with us everywhere.

And the phone,

The text is going off.

Social media is right there and it's a dopamine hit time and time again.

Absolutely.

And this is the,

This is the hardest part.

There are so many basics to go back to.

And if we just look with the evidence of our own eyes and ears,

Not what we're told that we should know,

Not what the studies supposedly say,

Because there is an agenda and alternative to everything.

No one does a study unless they're trying to prove a point and you can manipulate any data you want.

There was a study that came out and said,

Oh,

Too much protein is bad.

Well the protein they used was a Nestle boost with a second ingredient is high fructose corn syrup.

And they look at the disease it caused.

It came out of Harvard of all places to say red meat was bad.

And they use burgers and lasagna with a side of pop and blamed the red meat.

There's always an agenda behind it.

And you have to look at who's publishing the studies.

It's so true.

Cause you know,

You think about how the news is so slanted,

But even like information like you're talking about is slanted.

Like what's the agenda?

We have to start opening our eyes and asking ourselves what is their agenda of the thing that I'm reading right now?

And it goes back to trust yourself.

You've got to get in touch with yourself.

Start trusting your own intuition.

What does this feel right?

Or does it not?

If it doesn't keep looking,

Keep going.

So,

But I love hearing you say,

You've said this before.

You can ultimately reverse or heal from chronic gut diseases.

And you're talking about even Crohn's colitis.

You've healed these things.

We do not have to live with all these things forever.

So there's hope.

Always.

Here's what I can say.

I know we're wrapping up to the end of our time here and Michelle,

And I'll make it really quick.

I want to,

I want to put this umbrella out to any chronic condition,

Chronic inflammatory disease,

Or any diagnosis you've been given by your doctor.

And because my specialty is gut disease,

Crohn's colitis,

IBS,

These types of things,

Particularly is very,

Very much to Crohn's colitis.

I will say this,

Let's unpack bowel disease for a minute.

Now,

If you don't know what they are,

Basically it's ulcers and bleeding.

And colitis is just the large intestine.

Crohn's is anywhere from mouth to anus.

So here's what we need to know.

These conditions.

And again,

I'm not picking on doctors.

It's just a different education.

They will say these conditions are genetic.

So it just happens to you either because it's your family history or who knows,

You know,

It's unlucky.

They'll say it's autoimmune.

This means your body's attacking yourself.

So therefore there's nothing we can do.

Or the third term they use is idiopathic,

Meaning there's no known cause.

Here's what I can tell you.

I want to break the three legs off this autoimmune disease table right now.

And not only just for Crohn's colitis,

But expand this in your mind to every condition you might have or friends you might have.

Number one,

We say Crohn's and colitis are genetic conditions.

Well,

Did you know that there's a family history and genetic correlation?

Only 24 to 28% of the time.

Yet we're saying that's always just genetic.

There's no reason for it.

And the genes that we have,

Remember,

It's not in a vacuum.

It's your inputs,

Your outputs,

The toxins,

The microbes,

They all communicate with each other.

And so we're turning the volume up on poor genetic expression rather than giving a good inputs and turning the volume back down.

And it causes this dysfunction.

There's a study of Nutra genomics,

How nutrition and nutrients communicate to your genes.

So they don't work in a vacuum.

We can never blame your genetics.

Number two,

We say it's autoimmune.

Did you know that in Crohn's and colitis,

There are antibodies.

So autoimmune means there's antibodies attacking yourself.

There are antibodies only 50 to 70% of the time.

So 30 to 50% there's no antibodies yet.

We say it's attacking your own body.

On top of that,

The antibodies we see most one could argue potentially all are not auto antibodies strictly meaning they're not attacking your own tissues.

It is your body is attacking something fungus,

Yeast,

Parasite,

Mold,

Toxin of some kind.

And it's trying to attack what is attached to your tissues inside your tissues.

The bystander effect is that you happen to be inflamed.

So how can it be strictly genetic if genes are only correlated 28% of the time at best,

How can it be autoimmune if there's not really auto antibodies or they're not even attacking your own tissue?

Number three,

We say it's idiopathic.

Well,

We've seen cases 3000% increase in the last 75 years.

They've doubled since the nineties in North America,

UK,

New Zealand,

Australia.

These are the most industrialized countries in the world.

This is where we're seeing the most bowel disease.

In fact,

North America will say less than 5% of the globe has almost 50% of the world's cases of bowel disease.

So there has to be a cause.

And so whether you've got Crohn's or colitis or any disease your doctor's telling you,

You have,

We have to understand they're not just genetic.

It's not just a random,

Your body's attacking you.

It's not just unknown.

There's a reason,

But just because they don't know doesn't mean an answer doesn't exist.

So advocate for yourself.

Do not take a disease or a diagnosis lying down.

It's not innate to your biology is not part of your DNA.

It's not inevitable.

And your body you're inflamed because it's trying to heal you.

We just have to ask,

What is it trying to heal you from?

What is the nail in the foot?

We can find that your body can heal itself.

We didn't even go into my world,

Which is the emotional component and how that affects your physical health,

Which is,

That's my whole world.

It's like,

Cause I've seen it.

I've seen people.

I have worked with people with cancers,

With irritable bowel,

With all of these things.

And when we work with their emotional issues,

Wow.

Wow.

Things start changing physically speaking.

Yes.

Let's talk about trauma and how that affects the body.

This is why,

Which is fascinating and we got to end here,

But I've talked to a lot of people that have,

That have had irritable bowel and their doctor puts them on anti-anxiety or an antidepressant depressant,

Which is fascinating.

And guess what?

It gets better because it's the emotional issue that is creating the irritable bowel,

Which we can go into part two about this,

That the whole show around that,

Because that's my world.

But yeah,

Like I've seen it in my own practice.

People say to me,

This is so weird.

I don't need my meds anymore and my health has gotten better.

Well,

There you go.

So.

Reviews

Really interesting! Thank you! 🙏🏼✨💖

Fabulous!! 🩵🩵🩵🩵

Fantastic talk, lots of ideas to follow up, and he is Canadian 🇨🇦 yay!