00:00:00
Doctor.
00:00:00
Alessi, why do I feel exhausted even though my primary care doctor says my labs are normal?
00:00:09
Yeah, that's a good one.
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This is one we hear all the time.
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So the reason everything looks normal, but you still don't feel normal is likely because
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there's something deeper going on under the surface that standard labs, and I like that you
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use the air quotes, standard labs just aren't deep enough to uncover that.
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And so this is when we start to do more digging, we do more comprehensive testing, and
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we find that someone has something like maybe dysbiosis in the gut.
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Maybe they have some type of subclinical autoimmune condition, a thyroid condition that
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if you just test the standard TSH and T4, you can miss that the thyroid is being burnt or
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stressed out, by lifestyle stress, emotional stress, physical stress, things that are
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lifestyle related, but standard labs aren't going to uncover.
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Welcome to Health Decoded, your number one source for real health information with your
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host, Doctor.
00:01:07
Alessi and Matt Tack.
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Welcome back to another episode of Health Decoded.
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I am your host, Doctor.
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Alessi.
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I've got my cohost, Matt Tack, behind the scenes today going through some high level Q
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and As, some questions that we've received lately, both within our clinic, as well as
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followers online, things that people seem to have some confusion around in the realm of
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health wellness, functional medicine, natural health, and all these things, longevity.
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And so I just wanna answer some questions today.
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Hopefully, this can provide some value for you, and likely, you've heard these questions or
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have these yourself, then hopefully I can help you.
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So Matt, why don't you take us away, man, and, get me started.
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Hey, Doctor.
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Alessi, why do I feel exhausted even though my primary care doctor says my labs are quote
00:02:01
unquote normal?
00:02:03
Yeah, that's a good one.
00:02:04
This is one we hear all the time.
00:02:05
So, the reason everything looks normal, but you still don't feel normal is likely because
00:02:11
there's something deeper going on under the surface that standard labs, and I like that you
00:02:16
use the air quotes, standard labs just aren't deep enough to uncover that.
00:02:21
This is when we start to do more digging, we do more comprehensive testing, and we find that
00:02:27
someone has something like maybe dysbiosis in the gut, maybe they have some type of
00:02:34
subclinical autoimmune condition, a thyroid condition that if you just test the standard
00:02:40
TSH and T4, you can miss that the thyroid is being burnt or stressed out by lifestyle
00:02:48
stress, emotional stress, physical stress, things that are lifestyle related, but standard
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labs aren't gonna uncover.
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The reason is, then I'll get off my soapbox, standard labs are meant to look for specific
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things that can then be medicated, and so they look for a very small snapshot.
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We call it the first five minutes of a movie.
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If you went to the movie theater and you watched the first five minutes, you can't claim
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to know whether it's a good movie or not.
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You need to see the whole picture.
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And that's what functional medicine is all about is a deeper picture.
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So, the reason you probably feel abnormal, but your labs look normal is that you don't have
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enough information.
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Can you talk a little bit about cortisol rhythm dysfunction?
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Yeah, cortisol rhythm dysfunction, that's a good one.
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So, that plays into this, right?
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A lot of this is often missed.
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So, your cortisol, your circadian rhythm determines this, right?
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You should have in the morning this spike of cortisol should go up.
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This is almost like that alertness, that kind of get up and go, if you will.
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That should be about through the midday, and then it starts to taper off and it trends with
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the sun, right?
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Your body should then shift from cortisol going down to melatonin being produced.
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And so, body's gonna now start having melatonin being produced to get you prepared for
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recovery, sleep, obviously, and your body reset.
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So, what can happen with cortisol rhythm dysfunction is in a case of someone who's wired
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and tired, right?
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They maybe stay up way too late on the screen working, burning themselves out, stressed.
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They're high cortisol at night and then their body's still trying to maintain that rhythm,
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they're going to wake up exhausted even though they just slept for eight hours.
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And so, this can also be heavily influenced by nutrient status and vitamins and electrolytes.
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If we have any type of deficiencies, it's going to affect the way that our body is able to
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produce these hormones and especially within the right context of the day.
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With that being said, what are some hidden inflammation things that I should know about in
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my body?
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Some hidden inflammation things?
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Just every in regards to hidden inflammation that I may or may not know is happening to my
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body.
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My knees hurt all the time.
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I feel brain fog and I'm having some little level of a neuropathy.
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Yeah.
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When it comes to inflammation, we need to remember that inflammation is not the problem.
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Inflammation is a signal, a natural signal in the body.
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If you sprain your ankle, you want inflammation, it's gonna help to heal that.
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If you have a cold, right, what is a fever?
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A fever is inflammation.
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Your body is actually producing that inflammation to fight off the infection.
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And so, in a way is a good thing.
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It's chronic inflammation that's elevated for too long that becomes a bad thing because then
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the body is not meant to be in that state for that long.
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It's meant to be transient and temporary.
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And so, when we have chronic inflammation, things like joint issues, things like brain fog
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or cognitive issues, what is driving that, right?
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So, it's like inflammation is one thing that gives us a piece, that gives us kind of an
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intro.
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We need to dig deeper and find out what's driving the inflammation because inflammation
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itself is not a root cause.
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Now a root cause of inflammation could be persistent infections in the gut, things like
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pathogenic bacteria that are taking over viruses or candida that are then causing this
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low level kind of systemic inflammation that then permeates outward.
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Leaky gut syndrome is a big one we see.
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People who have leaky gut are having more of a hyper immune response to certain foods.
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And so then little things that they're eating on a daily basis, maybe even foods that you
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thought were healthy, are triggering a low level of inflammation on a constant basis.
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That low level of inflammation builds over time to become global.
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Hey, busy professionals and parents.
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Let me ask you something.
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Do you need help with your low energy, stubborn weight, brain fog, gut issues or hormones, but
00:07:00
you don't know where to start?
00:07:02
Well, you're not alone.
00:07:03
The biggest problem is that modern healthcare is designed to diagnose disease, but often
00:07:09
misses the dysfunction that begins years earlier as under the surface symptoms.
00:07:15
That's exactly why I created the functional medicine starter system.
00:07:20
This is a structured physician led process designed to uncover what is actually driving
00:07:25
your symptoms, whether it's rooted in gut health, metabolic function, inflammation,
00:07:30
nutrient status, or hormonal imbalance.
00:07:33
No guessing, no generic protocols, just real data and a clear plan.
00:07:38
So, you're tired of searching for answers, but you're not sure how to begin solving your
00:07:43
health issues, go to the link in the podcast show notes to learn more about the Functional
00:07:48
Medicine Starter System.
00:07:49
Because once you have clarity, you can finally start to feel like yourself again.
00:07:54
Now, let's get back to the episode.
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How do I know if my gut is actually the root cause of my symptoms?
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That's a perfect segue question.
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So, to know if your gut is actually the root cause of your symptoms, you need to test.
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And so, just colonoscopy or an endoscopy like you would get from a standard GI doc, you need
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actual internal tests, so like a stool test.
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And we actually do a combination of stool and urine to check for metabolites that are
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excreted into the urine as well.
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And so, knowing if the gut is the root cause of say joint pain or joint inflammation, we would
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want to look for certain markers, specific strains of gut bacteria that are able to
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control the way our body processes carbohydrates, processes proteins and amino
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acids, and then determines whether or not our gut is actually healthy.
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So, we talk about, again, leaky gut syndrome and the lining of the gut and the way that it's
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arranged, it should be tight.
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You should have this tight lining in the gut.
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Now, when the gut gets permeable and leaky, we start to get things going into the bloodstream
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that are gonna trigger inflammation.
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The body can get confused when that inflammation is on long term and start to now
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cause the joints to hurt, can start to go across the blood brain barrier and you start
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having cognitive issues, things like inability to focus, memory, ADHD, stuff like that.
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And so, to get to the answer there, the way to find out if your gut is at the root cause is to
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test it.
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There's no other way.
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Guessing, just following things on Google, it's not gonna get you enough unless you actually
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look into your gut.
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I've been having issues with bloating, reflux, constipation, and my primary doctor says that I
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have IBS.
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Can you speak into that?
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Yeah, IBS is kind of a confusing one for people because IBS is really just a label.
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It stands for irritable bowel syndrome.
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It's really just the doctor telling you something you just told them.
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This is my opinion, take it for what it's worth, but if you went to your doctor and said,
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Yeah, my stomach hurts all the time.
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I feel like I can eat certain things and I have to run right to the bathroom, or when I have
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high levels of stress, it's almost nauseating to my gut, and they say, Oh, you have irritable
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bowel syndrome.
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That's almost like they just repeated back to you what you just said to them with a label, if
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you will.
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And so, it's always like, what is causing this irritability?
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Again, is it leaky gut?
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Is it the fact that your body can't tolerate certain things that they come in and they
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trigger inflammation and almost like a low level of pain to your gut?
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Is it that your gut brain axis is off?
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You're living in this sympathetic state where you're stressed out all the time.
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It's not allowing you to get into parasympathetic rest and digest and actually
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process things.
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And so, to get to the bottom of irritable bowel syndrome, it's a lot deeper than just the
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diagnosis itself.
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What is causing that irritability?
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And that's where we need to look into some level of gut testing.
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I'm a 50 year old woman, and I've been having skin issues, anxiety, and brain fog.
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Is that related to gut issues?
00:11:16
Yeah.
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So, for a 50 year old woman experiencing anxiety, gut issues, bloating, brain fog, this
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very well could be related to the gut.
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These are actually probably the most common symptoms we see with somebody who has something
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like SIBO, dysbiosis, and leaky gut.
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And that's usually like the triad that we find.
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I'd say that's eight to nine out of ten patients that come in with these kind of
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things, we find that kind of combination of SIBO, dysbiosis, and leaky gut.
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And that's because those three things all kind of play on each other.
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When we have a dysbiotic gut, meaning the imbalance is off, there's too much of some
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strains, not enough of others that are maybe protective, we get these overgrowths and that's
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the SIBO piece, right?
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We get this overgrowth of pathogenic or commensal bacteria, which then can damage the
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lining of the gut because it creates a level of inflammation.
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And so it's often that the SIBO and the dysbiosis can trigger and enhance and worsen
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the leaky gut which then again is gonna hyperimmune state lead to inflammation and
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cause symptoms.
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Remember the symptoms aren't necessarily the problem.
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What is that the root cause of those symptoms?
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I've been to a number of doctors, including functional medicine doctors and primary
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doctors.
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None of them have really given me real answers or real results.
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What makes you different?
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Yeah, well, would say the two things, if I could put two things on what make myself and
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our clinic different, is that number one, I don't stop until I find the answer.
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And so, if that's more testing, if that's more evaluation, I'm not going to just take good
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enough as the answer.
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I need to know exactly what it is, not just to get a diagnosis.
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Diagnosis is cool, but again, it's just a label.
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But to get answers as to what is the dysfunction, what is causing the issue.
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And now, sometimes that isn't what people want to hear, that hey, what you're doing, your
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lifestyle, the way you're living is actually making you sick.
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I'm not afraid to tell that to people.
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And so, that's probably what the second thing that stands out about us is that we are gonna
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be firm in what's actually happening and what someone needs to do to fix it, but in an
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empathetic way that like, hey, I've been through that before as well and I had to do a
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reality check on my state of health that, hey, what I'm doing is not actually setting me up
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for health, but the opposite.
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Right?
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It was leading toward a state of disease.
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And so, you know, it's all about what needs to be done without overdoing it.
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And then two, how do we get concrete answers with specific tests, not just standard broad
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range testing.
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It seems like you have a lot of experience with the gut.
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What what is your story?
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Yeah, so my story when it comes to gut health and how that affected the rest of my body, it
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goes back to when I first became a doctor.
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I was a chiropractor and I was basically working in a very busy clinic, adjusting a lot
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of patients, treating a lot of people.
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I had just had my sons who were twins.
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And so, I had a lot of stress in my life.
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And I was able to manage and kind of push through for a long time until I hit almost like
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a burnout state, at which point it was my thyroid and my adrenal system was completely
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fried.
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And so, with some functional medicine testing, I was able to find I was having an autoimmune
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thyroid flare.
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I had to go deeper than that because the autoimmune thyroid condition wasn't really even
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the answer itself.
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What was causing that?
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And so, did some gut testing, I did some deep digging, really trying to figure out what was
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at the root of this and it came back to be that I had leaky gut syndrome and a dysbiotic
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system.
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And so, again, unraveling all the way down to the bottom of that, I had to really undo and
00:15:04
kind of retrain the way that I was living my life, right?
00:15:07
Managing stress levels, managing my ability to cope with stress, as well as repairing the gut.
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From there, I was able to repair my gut.
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Now, that took me some time because I was kind of learning on the fly.
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I was like my own guinea pig, if you will.
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But through that, I was able to actually create like a system and that's what we help a lot of
00:15:26
patients with in our clinic is this specific structure to completely restore the gut from a
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state of dysfunction and disease to a state of health and thriving, if you will.
00:15:40
So I've been to a number of doctors and this has been a common theme.
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It seems like trending right now, but, detox.
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And do I, do I need a detox or is this just a new trend?
00:15:55
Yeah.
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Detoxing, I wouldn't even say detoxing is a new trend.
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It's been around for a while, the teas and the tinctures and stuff like that.
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And while it's not necessarily bad, it's like, is it necessary?
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And, you know, it all just depends on the person.
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And so, the take on detox is that your body is detoxing 20 fourseven, particularly at night
00:16:16
when we're in a fasted state, right?
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We've been without food for four or five, six hours.
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Our body's able to tap into this clean up process, if you will, and that's why middle of
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the night is where your liver's really active and your gut is processing and metabolizing
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things.
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Detox should always be happening, and we should always be supporting it when it can get backed
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up.
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Think of like a filter.
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You have a filter in your house or in your car that's meant to trap the bad things and let the
00:16:45
good things go through.
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And then what do we do?
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We have to clean that filter out, right?
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It's not like it's just gonna do it itself.
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And our liver is much the same.
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It does need support from time to time.
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More so nowadays because we live in a toxic world.
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We're surrounded by plastic.
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The air is not clean.
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The things we put in and on our body are not what they used to be, you know, our ancestors
00:17:09
were eating.
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And so, it's that much more important to make sure that we're supporting our body's ability
00:17:14
to handle that and process that.
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And so, regular detoxes are good, functional medicine detoxes in particular that support
00:17:22
gut, liver phase one and two detoxification, as well as kidney health too because that's
00:17:28
important for that filtration.
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Doing that on a quarterly or semi annually basis, in my opinion, is a good thing.
00:17:35
And I don't think it's a woo woo.
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I think there are products out there that are snake oily and claim to do one thing but aren't
00:17:42
quite specific enough.
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So, we make sure people understand what they're putting in their body before they do it.
00:17:49
So, with that being said, who should and should not do a detox?
00:17:54
Yeah, people who should do a detox would be maybe people who have been exposed to mold and
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know it, people who suspect they might have been exposed to mold or heavy metals, people
00:18:07
who consume a lot of things out of plastic.
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Not to be too broad, but like if you live in kind of a first world country like America
00:18:16
where things are very plastic heavy and you use beauty products that have things in them, you
00:18:21
should be detoxing regularly and supporting that process.
00:18:28
What are some of the toxins here in The United States that we're actually exposed to or even
00:18:35
overexposed to?
00:18:37
Yeah, there's a lot in this country as far as toxicity goes.
00:18:41
Know, again, biggest thing is gonna the plastics, the BPAs, the environmental toxins,
00:18:47
the phthalates that we have.
00:18:50
All the food products that you buy are covered in something or they're packaged in something,
00:18:54
that can leach into the food.
00:18:56
A big one people don't know is like plastic cutting boards.
00:19:00
You cut your food up on a plastic cutting board, you're almost like cutting and shaving
00:19:03
those little microplastics into the food you're about to eat.
00:19:07
Microwaving food in plastic, drinking out of a plastic bottle that's been sitting in the warm
00:19:12
car that's possibly soaked into the water now.
00:19:14
And so, you know, just being more aware of these things.
00:19:17
Like get yourself a stainless steel is always like a great idea Or glass is very important.
00:19:24
So, if you have glass, I replace all my Tupperware with glass.
00:19:28
Again, I'm mitigating that.
00:19:30
And this goes to kind of what we call the overflow effect when it comes to toxicity,
00:19:36
right?
00:19:37
So, picture a cup.
00:19:38
You got a cup and every little thing that's putting burden on the system is now filling
00:19:42
that cup up.
00:19:43
When that cup overflows is when disease sets in, right?
00:19:47
You're good here, you're a little less good here, here, here.
00:19:51
And then one day, oh my gosh, I have rheumatoid arthritis.
00:19:54
Oh my gosh, I can't think.
00:19:55
My brain just turned off.
00:19:56
I feel massively sick or these people who just burn out, especially high performing people.
00:20:03
And it's because the system got overloaded and basically couldn't tolerate anymore.
00:20:08
So then how can we undo that?
00:20:10
How can we clear out or empty that cup, if you will?
00:20:14
And that's through doing things like systemic like regular detoxes, exercise, walking,
00:20:21
movement, eating clean, managing stress, mindfulness.
00:20:26
All these things help to, you know, empty that cup, if you will, that burden on the system.
00:20:32
I feel pretty good right now, but I always like to optimize.
00:20:36
What are signs your detox pathways are sluggish?
00:20:40
Yeah, signs that you could have slow detox, your body needs support on that.
00:20:45
Could be where not feeling well after food, maybe something that normally you could have
00:20:51
eaten and then you eat it and you feel bloated or you feel maybe foggy or unclear or just that
00:20:57
discomfort.
00:20:59
Things like skin issues, people who get like rashes or acne.
00:21:03
Acne is a big one.
00:21:05
Or even like eczema.
00:21:07
Then the gut or the liver is having problems getting things out and it's gonna almost like
00:21:12
expel that externally through the skin.
00:21:15
And then other ones are a big one is gonna be like cognitive function.
00:21:19
Man, like one day I just I couldn't think or I don't have the memory.
00:21:23
I'm not as quick as I used to be.
00:21:24
When you detox your body and you clean up on the internal side, you feel that energy come
00:21:29
back and you feel sharper.
00:21:34
What's the biggest mistake people make when trying to heal their gut on their own?
00:21:39
Oh man, that's a good one.
00:21:41
The number one thing that I see when someone is, Oh man, I tried to heal my gut and it
00:21:46
didn't work, is they just went and took a probiotic or some fiber, right?
00:21:50
They saw some product online and they thought that was going to be You know, the marketing
00:21:54
was really good and they thought that's going to be the gut fix product, right?
00:21:57
Because it said it was.
00:21:59
However, they had no idea what was actually happening inside their gut.
00:22:03
Now, if you have gut dysbiosis or in particular, if you have SIBO where there's an
00:22:07
overgrowth of certain bacteria and you start feeding that with prebiotics and probiotics,
00:22:13
you're gonna make the problem worse.
00:22:14
We see this all the time.
00:22:15
Somebody got sold a probiotic or some kind of broad spectrum pre probiotic product and they
00:22:22
felt 10 times worse afterwards was because they just fed a dysbiotic gut with more of the thing
00:22:28
that it didn't need.
00:22:30
And so, it's always Step one is always elimination, right?
00:22:34
If you have some kind of gut issue, you don't just put more in, you have to get rid of what's
00:22:39
causing the problem in the first place.
00:22:40
So, it's always remove and eliminate, number one, then replace and rebuild on the back end.
00:22:49
I buy a lot of my supplements on Amazon, and I take a lot of probiotics.
00:22:56
Where's the best source of supplementation?
00:23:00
Yeah.
00:23:01
I would say you gotta be careful buying stuff on Amazon.
00:23:04
There's been a lot of even more nowadays lawsuits, these companies selling stuff that
00:23:10
they claimed was something and then turned out to not be once it was tested.
00:23:14
There's also these companies that are ripping off other companies, like some really good
00:23:19
companies, like NOW Foods is a great brand, but sold on Amazon, turned out it was a fraudulent
00:23:25
company labeling their products as NOW Foods, and it wasn't actually quality supplements.
00:23:29
So, you have to definitely be careful.
00:23:31
It's not an the supplement industry is not FDA regulated, and so that means kind of anyone can
00:23:36
do anything.
00:23:37
So, there are companies that choose to have their products third party and FDA tested in a
00:23:44
facility, and they pay money to do that.
00:23:47
They spend a lot of money when they don't have to to show purity.
00:23:50
And those are the products we use.
00:23:52
They're doctor formulated, so they are a little bit stronger.
00:23:55
You know, the potency of what you're gonna get is a bit more.
00:23:59
And so, that's definitely something you wanna manage with a provider, not just take willy
00:24:04
nilly and hope it helps because it can almost sometimes do more harm than good if you don't
00:24:08
use the right amount.
00:24:09
So, if I had to say, I would say don't buy anything on Amazon supplement wise.
00:24:14
It's gonna be, you know, get kinda get you get what you get.
00:24:18
That being said, just do your due diligence.
00:24:20
Make sure you research things.
00:24:23
I'm a 54 year old male, I went through your gut program, I had phenomenal results, but I do
00:24:30
love some of the foods that I had to eliminate.
00:24:32
Do I need to be on the elimination diet forever?
00:24:36
Yeah, that's a good one.
00:24:37
So, say you went through this process, you completely healed your gut because you were
00:24:42
strict about it and you did all the work and you know, we retested and found that man, your
00:24:46
gut ecosystem is thriving, you're doing really well, your symptoms are gone.
00:24:50
You know, you don't necessarily wanna end up back there, right?
00:24:53
So, there is a level of diligence you need to maintain, and that's just the truth of it.
00:24:58
But, you know, we kind of operate by this eightytwenty principle.
00:25:02
Maybe I kind of edge more towards like eighty five fifteen, but 80% of the time, you're doing
00:25:07
really good.
00:25:08
You're eating the things that are clean, healthy, good for your body.
00:25:11
That way, you know, 20% of the time, you can go to a birthday party and have fun.
00:25:16
Obviously, not go overboard, drink up, you know, 20 margaritas or something, but within
00:25:22
balance that, you know, it's not gonna derail you.
00:25:26
Because what happens is if you're a 100% of the time always living super strict, super strict
00:25:31
elimination, it's stressful on you to do that, eventually that's gonna become burdensome and
00:25:36
you're gonna quit and then it's the other way and you're 80% of the time you're not doing
00:25:40
well.
00:25:40
So, you know, there is a level of balance we would say, but it just has to be for your body
00:25:47
and what works best for you.
00:25:49
If I could only focus on one thing to improve my long term health naturally, what would it
00:25:56
be?
00:26:04
If you had to focus on one thing for your long term health, something you could do naturally,
00:26:12
the number one thing I think you just do not ever skimp on is sleep and stress reduction,
00:26:18
right?
00:26:18
Being able to recover from things because you can always go get a workout in another time.
00:26:24
You can always focus on the healthy diet, but if your body's not recovering and doing the
00:26:28
things it needs to repair and regenerate, eventually it will break down.
00:26:33
And so, if there's one thing you can do is optimize your sleep.
00:26:36
That would be my number one.
00:26:43
Can you talk a little bit about, nervous system regulation and how that improves my sleep
00:26:50
quality?
00:26:52
Yeah.
00:26:53
So when it comes to the nervous system in particular, our autonomic nervous system, this
00:26:57
is the one that essentially just kind of operates on its own, runs our body.
00:27:02
We don't have to think to breathe, right?
00:27:03
Your autonomic nervous system is making your body breathe.
00:27:06
You don't have to contract your heart to make your heart pump.
00:27:09
It's just doing it.
00:27:10
And so we can however influence our autonomic nervous system consciously.
00:27:16
And so that's where it gets pretty cool is through doing things like deep parasympathetic
00:27:20
breathing.
00:27:21
Breathing through our nose and expanding our diaphragm rather than shallow chest breathing
00:27:26
is going to shift our body more towards that parasympathetic state.
00:27:30
Now, to that point, there are times where you want to be in a sympathetic state, right?
00:27:34
Say you have a high level task to do or you're in a meeting.
00:27:38
You got a meeting, you got to present something to 20 people.
00:27:41
It's better to be in more of a sympathetic state because you're gonna operate better.
00:27:44
You're gonna be quicker, you're gonna be sharper, you're gonna have better outcome
00:27:47
there.
00:27:48
However, you don't want to be in that state when you're going to bed.
00:27:50
And so, sympathetic and parasympathetic balance, or being able to control that, is now
00:27:56
like a superpower.
00:27:57
Hey, I just worked out.
00:27:59
I was in a sympathetic state really hard, got a great workout.
00:28:02
How quickly can I get back to parasympathetic rest and recovery state as soon as possible?
00:28:07
And that's what we talk about is like almost that latency or that transition, if you will.
00:28:12
How do we shorten that gap?
00:28:14
And so, things like deep breathing, things like meditation and gratitude, right?
00:28:19
Like mindfulness, connecting back to source, prayer, obviously, if you're spiritual.
00:28:25
You know, connecting with a creator, being able to get back to a state of calm and balance and
00:28:31
not trying to control everything is gonna put you back into that state as well.
00:28:37
I'm a 48 year old female.
00:28:40
I am menopausal and I have, zero interest in having sex with my husband.
00:28:48
Is that related to a gut issue or hormonal issue?
00:28:52
That's a loaded one.
00:28:53
So, if you're having libido or, even like energy, concerns and you feel it might be
00:29:01
hormonal, you feel it might be gut, it's probably both.
00:29:04
And the reason I say that is because your gut is going to influence the level of health in
00:29:10
your body that then determines if you're going to be producing hormones, if you're gonna be
00:29:14
having these optimal drives, right, and energy.
00:29:17
So, think of it like this.
00:29:19
If you did some tests and found that your hormones were imbalanced, but you didn't look
00:29:26
deep enough into the gut, you could get on something like an HRT, or you could get on
00:29:30
that, and maybe you feel better, but for a time until the gut catches up, because the gut is
00:29:36
number one.
00:29:36
And that's where most patients come into the clinic, it's always, okay, we want to address
00:29:40
your symptom, but we want to look deep enough to make sure we fix it for good versus just
00:29:45
make you feel better.
00:29:46
And so, in a situation like that, definitely need to understand what's what's going on in
00:29:51
the gut ecosystem as well as the hormone inflammation thyroid cascade that could be
00:29:56
going on as well.
00:29:59
I'm 37, married, and we don't have any kids, but we've been trying to have kids for a couple
00:30:05
years now.
00:30:06
We've tried everything from in vitro to doing whatever we can to get pregnant, but we're
00:30:11
unable to.
00:30:13
Is this related to potential gut issue?
00:30:17
Yeah.
00:30:18
So that's a really cool question.
00:30:19
And this is actually something we just had a really cool transformation in the office.
00:30:23
And we've actually had a few, probably five to 10, I'd say, in that range, I don't know, on
00:30:28
the top of my head, patients that we've helped to conceive who were having fertility problems
00:30:33
and were told that, you know, like doing fertility medication was the only thing they
00:30:40
could do or in vitro, right, was the only option they had when we had to look deeper.
00:30:47
And so, what we uncovered was a dysbiotic leaky gut that was affecting the way their body was
00:30:53
able to metabolize and process and synthesize B vitamins.
00:30:58
And so, then if that's not happening, the body is not going to optimize, you know, viability
00:31:05
of growing a baby.
00:31:06
And so, we had to basically deconstruct everything.
00:31:10
It was like a house.
00:31:11
We had to take down the walls.
00:31:12
We had to rip the floors out.
00:31:13
We had to rebuild everything in terms of the gut to then build it back up to a state of
00:31:18
foundational health.
00:31:20
And then getting pregnant was actually easy for the patient.
00:31:23
Just the other day, we had a patient who started to rebuild the gut.
00:31:27
And what happened was it was almost like she let herself calm, all the stress of it that
00:31:33
they'd been dealing with, all the doctor's visits.
00:31:35
And then finally, we found an answer and it was like that alone, just that answer alone, that
00:31:40
it was something with the gut, gave her so much peace and calm and she kind of took the
00:31:45
pressure off of it and within a month they found out they were pregnant.
00:31:48
And so, it's just so cool to see that that that's the mental connection to the gut as
00:31:53
well, right?
00:31:53
And the body in general.
00:31:55
If our body is in this state of inflammation and disease and stress and fight or flight,
00:32:02
growing a baby is not the priority at that point.
00:32:04
The body is just trying to stay alive.
00:32:06
So you have to think of it like that.
00:32:07
And so, you know, it's really cool when we see these stories because that's such a beautiful
00:32:12
thing.
00:32:13
But yes, that's something that we've helped a lot of patients with.
00:32:17
I'm 45.
00:32:19
Last question.
00:32:19
I'm 45 and my wife and I are trying to lose weight.
00:32:25
And we walk every day, multiple miles.
00:32:28
We don't eat a ton.
00:32:29
We eat pretty clean, but we just don't seem to be losing any weight.
00:32:35
Could this be related to something else?
00:32:38
Yeah, definitely.
00:32:39
That stubborn weight loss issue that we see all the time, man, I've been doing everything.
00:32:44
I'm working out, I'm eating correctly, I'm really working hard and I'm not getting that
00:32:52
ideal weight loss that I would love.
00:32:54
There's something deeper going on, likely some type of imbalance in the metabolism.
00:32:59
And now, likely even deeper too because our gut health controls our metabolism and specific
00:33:05
strains of bacteria, like achromanacea, can control the rate at which we process and
00:33:11
utilize carbohydrates, balance insulin.
00:33:14
And so if those things are dysfunctional, think of like there's a fire going on.
00:33:19
The body's not prioritizing weight loss, it's prioritizing just equilibrium.
00:33:23
And so what we find, and the cool part about functional medicine is you don't need
00:33:27
medications to lose weight.
00:33:29
You don't need to crash diet.
00:33:30
We just need to get the body back to a state of balance, and then it's gonna do what it's
00:33:34
supposed to do.
00:33:35
And the input you give to it then will determine the outcome.
00:33:38
So we get the body back to a state of balance and you're working out, you will get results.
00:33:42
That's what we see.
00:33:44
And so thank you guys so much for joining us today.
00:33:47
I hope that was helpful.
00:33:48
Again, these are just some of the questions we hear all the time.
00:33:51
If this helped you, if this is of value to you and you think there's somebody you know or
00:33:57
yourself that is dealing with these things, please reach out to us.
00:34:00
We would love to be able to help.
00:34:01
You can go to alessifunctionalhealth.com send an inquiry in or book a consultation with us.
00:34:08
Be sure to mention that you heard about us on the podcast, and we have a special gift for
00:34:12
you.
00:34:12
Hope you have a great rest of your day.
00:34:14
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00:34:16
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00:34:18
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00:34:20
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00:34:21
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00:34:26
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