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A Foundational Approach to IBD: Gut Repair, Drainage and Mycotoxins with Dane Johnson

Candida Overgrowth: Triggers, Symptoms and Treatment with Dean Mitchell, MD

Voice Scans, Infoceuticals and the Science of Bioenergetic Medicine with Harry Massey

The Nutrition Mistakes Keeping Women Stuck with Elizabeth Aylor, FDN-P

The Overlooked Role of Nutrient Deficiencies in IBS and Gut Dysfunction with Amy Hollenkamp, RD

The Functional Medicine Approach to Graves’ Disease and Thyroid Disorders with Dr. Eric Osansky

Adapted from episode 171 of The Perfect Stool podcast and edited for readability with Eric Osansky, DC, MS, IFMCP and Lindsey Parsons, EdD.

Lindsey: 

So, can you tell me about your own health story and how it’s shaped your practice?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, so I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and eventually Graves’ disease, and it’s usually a shocker to everyone and to me as well, just as I was in the process of trying to lose weight. I was a little bit overweight, maybe like 10,12 pounds, normally I’m 170 and I was 182 and so I was dieting, detoxifying, exercising intensely, too intensely, but was losing weight. And little did I know that some of the weight loss, I’m sure, was due to what I was trying to lose, as far as the exercising and the dieting, but some of it was as well related to the hyperthyroidism.

And I didn’t catch on until I was walking in a retail store, and I took my blood pressure at one of those automated blood pressure machines, and my blood pressure was normal, but my resting heart rate was a little bit high, and I figured, because I wasn’t fully resting, I was walking around, so I took my heart rate manually the next few days, and it was anywhere between 90 and 110 beats per minute, and so I figured something was up. Went to a regular doctor, got a few blood tests, was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, and then eventually saw an endocrinologist, got the Graves’ disease diagnosis.

And at the time I really didn’t know much about Graves’. My background is as a chiropractor. I didn’t know about Graves’, but as part of my continuing education credits, I would always attend nutrition and functional medicine seminars, and I did coincidentally attend a few functional endocrinology seminars where they focus more on hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s, just because that’s a lot more common, but they spoke a little bit about hyperthyroidism and how there are natural symptom management options. And there are with anything, there’s a cause behind it, so I decided that when I was diagnosed I was going to at least attempt the natural approach.

I had no idea if it would work. I tried to be optimistic, but when you don’t know anybody else who dealt with the same condition that you’re dealing with, you’re a little bit skeptical. But thankfully, what I did worked over time. I was able to normalize my thyroid hormones, my antibodies, the thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins, which are specific for Graves’, and then I just realized that there are so many others with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions, and so I started. This was back in 2009 when I started working with others with these conditions, and just over the years I’ve been known more for hyperthyroidism and Graves’, just because of my experience, and then also there’s just not a lot of practitioners that focus on hyperthyroidism and Graves’, as most focus more on again hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s, just because it’s the much more common condition.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, why don’t you elaborate as to the difference between those two conditions?

Eric Osansky:    

Sure, I could start by talking about the difference between hypo and hyper, and then talk about Hashimoto’s and Graves’. So you have thyroid hormones, the main thyroid hormone that’s produced by the thyroid gland, which is the butterfly-shaped gland in the middle of the neck, and it produces mostly T4 a little bit of T3 but T4 converts into T3, which is the active form of thyroid hormone, and that binds to the receptors. And there’s also T1, T2; we’re still learning about those, and you still can’t test for those at a regular lab, but with hypothyroidism, you have those thyroid hormones on the lower side, and then with hyperthyroidism, it’s the opposite, you have too much thyroid hormone. And then there’s a pituitary hormone called thyroid stimulating hormone, or TSH, and so TSH communicates with the thyroid gland, and so when you have low amounts of thyroid hormone, there’s more TSH, just telling the thyroid gland we need more thyroid hormone, so as a result, with hypothyroidism, with low thyroid hormone, you usually have higher TSH, and again that’s in response to the lower thyroid hormone.

What is hyperthyroidism? Since you have too much thyroid hormone, the pituitary gland is trying to communicate to the thyroid gland: let’s slow things down, there’s too much thyroid hormone, so there’s low TSH, often times depressed TSH. So with hyperthyroidism, you have elevated T4, T3, low or depressed TSH, and then hypothyroidism, you have low T3, T4 and many times it’s subclinically low, which means it might be within the lab range, but on the lower side, so it’s not overtly low, it’s not outside of the range. Unfortunately, many doctors will ignore it because it’s within the lab range, even though it’s not optimal. But again, hypo-low thyroid hormones, elevated TSH, and then most thyroid conditions are autoimmune, so most hypothyroid conditions are related to Hashimoto’s.

And Hashimoto’s is when the immune system attacks the thyroid gland, and that’s over time what causes the low thyroid hormone, whereas with Graves’, Graves’ involves the immune system attacking the TSH receptors of the thyroid, which stimulates the thyroid to produce more thyroid hormone, and there’s different antibodies, I mentioned the antibodies that came back positive for me were thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins, which are specific for Graves’, and then there’s thyroid peroxidase antibodies, or TPO antibodies, which are more common in Hashimoto’s, but actually a lot of people with Graves’ have them as well. I was negative for those, but I do see them in a lot patients with Graves’ and Hashimoto’s, and then thyroglobulin antibodies. Those are more specific to Hashimoto’s. Those are the three main types of antibodies, and so essentially that’s the difference between the two conditions.

And the problem with conventional medicine is that they do absolutely nothing for the immune system, as you know, they focus on the thyroid, so if you have low thyroid, if you have Hashimoto’s, usually they’ll recommend thyroid hormone replacement, like levothyroxine, and then with hyperthyroidism, they’ll recommend either medication, such as methimazole or PTU, or radioactive iodine, thyroid surgery, in some cases. And again, there’s a time and place for conventional medicine, there’s time and place for thyroid hormone, a time and place for antithyroid medication, even a time and place for thyroid surgery, but that’s all they like when it comes to medication. Again, they do absolutely nothing for the underlying cause that is the problem, which again, that’s why people are listening to this and watching this, because they want to know what to do. They don’t want to just take the medication again, maybe you have to take it along with addressing a causative problem, but if that’s the only thing you’re doing, then you’re setting the stage, potentially, for developing other autoimmune conditions in the future.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, I’ve also seen on blood tests sometimes just in a measurement of thyroglobulin, period. What’s that about?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, so thyroglobulin, so that’s a protein of the thyroid gland. So, when you have thyroglobulin antibodies, that means the immune system is actually attacking and damaging thyroglobulin, and you could test thyroglobulin separately. I can’t say I do it on a regular basis. If someone has thyroid cancer, and then they get the thyroid gland removed, then they’ll look, and they’ll test thyroglobulin, just because that should be low or pretty much non-existent, because there’s no thyroid gland. On the other hand, if someone has a thyroid gland, and if they test thyroglobulin, and if it’s elevated, it could mean a few things. Sometimes it’s just elevated because you have those thyroglobulin antibodies. There is some evidence that it could be related to an iodine deficiency. I don’t know if I would rely on that for that. There are some published journal articles showing that when it’s really high, it could be an indication of cancer. Most of the time, it’s not. I’ve seen some high readings, at least when I look at it, when again, it’s usually not cancer, but there’s always a risk. Again, if you have those thyroglobulin and antibodies, it’s not uncommon to also have that thyroglobulin marker elevated as well.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, that’s why I’ve seen it, because my sister had thyroid cancer and had her thyroid removed, and I looked at her blood test; that’s why her doctor ordered those. Yeah, do you have a an optimal reference range for TSH that you like to follow?

Eric Osansky:    

I like to see between one and 1.5, everybody’s different, so if it’s between one and two, that’s fine. If it’s a little bit below one, I get a little bit nervous just because I see a lot of people with hyperthyroidism, but if someone has 0.8, I don’t panic. Yeah, I would say like a sweet spot is one between one and 1.5 but again, if someone has a TSH of 1.8 and everything else looks good, like their T3, T4 within the optimal ranges. Obviously you can’t just rely on symptoms alone, but if they’re feeling good, the other tests are within optimal ranges, I wouldn’t recommend intervention necessarily, just because the TSH is a little bit above what I consider the optimal range.

Some functional medicine practitioners consider an optimal range between one and three, so if someone’s a 2.5 they would consider that to be fine. Most natural healthcare practitioners usually, when it gets above three, there’s the consensus it’s an issue, and the problem is that most labs, their reference range goes up to 4.5 or five, so someone could have a TSH of 4.3 and that usually is indicating a problem, but because the lab says that it’s not a problem, they usually just say keep an eye on it, they might not, if it’s just part of a physical, they might not say to keep an eye on it, just do the next physical, and so that would be what I consider the optimal range of TSH.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, so what symptoms are coming with Graves’ disease, and how do they differ from Hashimoto’s?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, so I could share some of my symptoms. When I dealt with Graves’, I experienced that increased resting heart rate, the tachycardia, which is a pretty common, a pretty classic symptom. I also had heart palpitations, I didn’t have anxiety, but anxiety is pretty common. Insomnia is common. I did experience a lot of weight loss. I mentioned how I was trying to lose weight, and I was at 182 and I ended up at 140, which is definitely a lot lower than  was, I’m sure, due to my weight loss efforts, but again, a good amount of the weight loss, I’m sure, was due to the hyperthyroidism as well. Weight loss is common. Think of it, it speeds up everything. The heart rate increased, the palpitations and anxiety, increased bowel movements. So, frequency of bowel movements, sometimes loose stools, diarrhea, heat intolerance.

Whereas with hypothyroidism, you get things slowing down, you get fatigue, you get brain fog, you get constipation, and commonly instead of heat intolerance, you get coldness. Hair loss is common with both hyper and hypo, depression, probably more common with hypothyroidism, not that people can’t be anxious. And that’s the thing, sometimes you get conflicting symptoms; there are people with hyperthyroidism who don’t lose weight, who have the opposite problem for numerous reasons, and they might have issues losing weight or actually be gaining weight, and that’s even more frustrating because most people, doesn’t matter if it’s women or men, but because you know men, a lot of men, like myself, trying to lose weight, it gets frustrating.

Some people, when they lose weight with hyperthyroidism, that’s like the silver lining. It’s like, oh, it’s a bummer to have Graves’ and hyperthyroidism, but at least I lost 15 to 20 pounds. Whereas someone who was looking to lose weight, and then they are gaining weight, or they can’t lose weight, and they see that one of the classic symptoms is weight loss, and with hyperthyroidism, everything is in the classic situation sped up, and then with hypothyroidism everything is slowed down, but sometimes you do get that overlap of symptoms.

One other thing I should mention that’s common with Graves’ specifically, not necessarily hyperthyroidism, there’s a condition called thyroid eye disease, and that’s when the immune system attacks the tissues of the eyes, and in some cases of Graves’, approximately 50%, even though most cases are very mild, but some cases it’s noticeable, where you see the eye bulging. The person could experience double vision, swelling of the eyes. In severe cases, it could compress the optic nerve. Again, most cases are more on the mild side, but every now and then, I’ll work with someone, and that was their first symptom, they had eye symptoms, and didn’t know what was going on, and they went to an ophthalmologist, maybe first an optometrist, and then eventually an ophthalmologist, and got diagnosed with Graves’ that way, and not through an endocrinologist, which is how most people are diagnosed with Graves’.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, okay. So, what causes Graves’ disease, and how does it relate to gut health?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, great question. In Graves’, as well as other autoimmune conditions, you have what’s called a triad of autoimmunity, also known as a three-legged stool of autoimmunity. There is a genetic component, and you can’t change the genes, you could change expression of genes. But the good news, you could change the other two factors, which is being exposed to one or more environmental triggers, and the third component is that increase in intestinal permeability, which is also known as the leaky gut, and so if you’re exposed to triggers, it could be certain foods, such as gluten, stress could be a trigger, both emotional, physical stressors. I was also, I mentioned, I was exercising intensely, I was over training, so it was in my case. Stress was definitely a factor, but it wasn’t just emotional stress, it was too much exercise. Infections like viruses, speaking of the gut bacteria, like H. pylori, there’s a correlation between H. pylori and Graves’, as well as with Hashimoto’s toxins and toxicants, where, of course, you live in a toxic world. And then again, you have that leaky gut component as well, so the gut plays a role in a few different ways, you get that leaky gut that can make someone more susceptible, and then most of the immune system cells are located in the gut, so just by that alone you need a healthy gut to have a healthy immune system. And then I mentioned certain infections, things like H. pylori, parasites, can set the stage, or at least be contributing factors, when it comes to a development of Graves’.

Lindsey: 

Is there a specific diet you recommend to people with Graves’ disease?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, yes, and no. I wrote in one of my books, The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet, a little bit misleading, because when you hear that, you might think that there’s a single diet, but I actually talk about three different diets. And even with those diets, there are variations, but there’s what’s what I refer to as a level three, level two, and level one diet. The level three is the most restrictive, it’s an autoimmune type diet, like a modified AIP diet, and that’s usually what I recommend for people to start with, and then follow that. It’s like an elimination diet. The way I look at it, it’s not a permanent diet, it’s a starting point, an elimination type diet, and eventually they’ll reintroduce foods, but then a level two is kind of like a modified paleo, so if someone just is not ready to follow a level three, then they could follow a level two, again modified paleo, and then level one is the least strict of the diets. If you’re familiar with Dr. Stephen Gundry’s Plant Paradox diet, it’s a modification of that, though it does allow some properly cooked legumes, beans, lentils, minimal grains, so there’s more flexibility. So if someone’s a vegan, they might choose to follow the level one diet, but, really, we both know there’s no single diet that fits everyone. What we all have in common as practitioners is at least more on the natural side, maybe not conventional, but even conventional, you would hope that they recommend whole, healthy foods, avoiding the refined foods and sugars. And then, of course, common allergens like gluten, dairy, at least while healing, especially gluten, essentially it’s an autoimmune type diet, is what I recommend, but it really depends on the person.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, that’s one of the things that I sort of object to in the Gundry stuff about excluding the beans and lentils, because as somebody who looks at gut health reports all the time, low fiber and low butyrate producers, that’s one of the things I see most commonly on people’s gut reports, stool tests, and so if you take out beans and lentils, which are the powerhouses of providing fiber, then it’s really hard to get enough fiber. And it’s hard to get enough protein if you’re a vegan or a vegetarian.

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, I agree. Even with AIP, more recently I’ve questioned, just because the benefits that legumes have to the gut microbiome, and I know they’re not part of AIP and they’re not part of paleo for the same reason, just because of lectins and the compounds. But then if you’re properly preparing them or pressure cooking them, at the very least it greatly reduces those, and I’ve also thought about, is it absolutely necessary for people to do. People do heal on AIP and paleo, but it is more challenging to get in the fiber-rich foods that way, and legumes also are a good source of protein.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, I used to eat very few until I got a report with high beta glucuronidase, and I knew I needed to cut down on my meat and my fat and eat some more plant-based proteins. So I just went out and I bought several bags of hard beans and started soaking them overnight and putting them in my Insta pot, and all of a sudden it became easy. What seemed like this big obstacle to eating them, it was like, oh no, if I just soak them at night, then the next day I’ve got a solution, I’ve got something for dinner. And for me personally, they definitely help.

Eric Osansky:    

Quick question with that, do you still need to soak them if you put them in a partial cooker, though?

Lindsey: 

I soak and rinse them too. I think that gets rid of some of the lectins.

Have you found that mycotoxins play a role with Graves’?

Eric Osansky:    

In some cases, yeah, definitely becoming more and more aware of the impact of mold and mycotoxins. And 10 years ago I didn’t recommend urinary mycotoxins testing. Now, of course, it’s a lot more common. There are more labs that offer that, which makes it easier, but yeah, that falls in the environmental toxin category. And unfortunately, as you’re aware of, I’m sure it’s a problem that is overlooked, because if someone just doesn’t see a leak, or any signs of water damage, assume that molds aren’t an issue, even though it could hide behind walls, underneath the floor, and then it could colonize the gut as well. Yeah, that could definitely be a potential trigger, and/or impact gut healing as well, if it is colonizing the gut.

Lindsey: 

I’ve been testing it more and more, and unfortunately finding so many people with mycotoxins, and even people who are like, oh it’s a new house, it’s only six years old, and we just moved in. But it’s in Florida, and did it rain while they were making your house, and then suddenly the mold spores are already in there? A new house is no guarantee, and I hate to deliver that news, because it’s a super huge expense, so all I can say is, before you buy a house, before you rent a house, just pay for a mold test, because you’ll save yourself such a nightmare.

Eric Osansky:    

It’s important you mentioned this too, because a lot of people might say, “Oh, you know, I just had the inspector, the inspector said that it’s mold-free, but they’re not mold experts, so when you say do a mold test, you need to go outside of what the home inspector is doing, because a lot of times they’ll miss the mold. Thanks for bringing that up.

Lindsey: 

You talked a little bit about some of the conventional treatments for Graves’. What are the risks of doing those treatments?

Eric Osansky:    

I mentioned that there are typically three treatment options. The first is antithyroid medication; methimazole is the most commonly recommended medication, at least in the United States. And then there’s also Propylthiouracil, or PTU, which sometimes is given, especially during the first trimester of pregnancy, or if someone can’t tolerate methimazole, they might put the person on PTU. Side effects are common. It’s all risk versus benefits. You do want to be safe while addressing the cause of the problem, and there are natural options to help with that. But like I said, there is a time and place for the meds.

But the meds, they affect the liver. A lot of people have elevated liver enzymes, sometimes suppressing the white blood cell count. There’s evidence that it affects the gut microbiota, it affects the composition, affects the permeability of the gut, potentially. It’s one of those things. If someone absolutely needs to take the medication, and a lot of people I work with do take the meds, and if they’re tolerating it well, especially if they’re on lower doses, I’m not going to tell someone to stop taking the meds, because there’s also no guarantee that natural agents like bugleweed, which is what I took, will work. I mean, it worked wonderfully for me.

Bugleweed’s an herb that has anti thyroid properties. The medication side effects are common, sometimes causing rashes, but it’s risk versus benefits. So, if someone’s listening to this, and if they’re taking antibody medication and they’re tolerating it well, it doesn’t mean that you should switch to a natural agent. Again, once people work with me, some people do ask, if I’m on the methimazole, and I’m tolerating well, can I switch to something like bugleweed, and I’ll tell them, I can’t tell you to stop taking the methimazole, but you could add the bugleweed at the same time, and then when you do your updated thyroid panels, if things are looking better, then you can ask the prescribing doctor to reduce the dose of methimazole and gradually wean off that way.

Radioactive iodine is another treatment, and that is pretty much destroying the cells of the thyroid gland. So, goes without saying, you don’t want to do that. That’s a pretty big risk, that you most likely will become hypo, but it’s beyond that. It’s not doing anything for the immune system. None of these things, as I mentioned earlier, whether it’s thyroid surgery or whether it’s radioactive iodine, they’re just focusing on the thyroid gland. So, with radioactive iodine, I don’t know why they do it in other countries, and not here, but they’ll quarantine people for a few days, and again, it’s radiation.. you’re not supposed to get pregnant at six months after getting radioactive iodine, yet they’ll say, “Oh, it’s fine, you know, it’s not a problem, it’s completely safe to do that again”.

And I have some information on my podcast on radioactive iodine, like, oh, another reason too is it could increase the risk of developing thyroid eye disease, and this is also in the research, and most endocrinologists, if someone has thyroid eye disease, they won’t recommend radioactive iodine, but the problem is, sometimes people have a very mild case of thyroid eye disease, and they don’t know it. So, there’s been cases where someone took the radioactive iodine or received radioactive iodine, and then they developed thyroid eye disease, like that. It flared up, so they probably already had it, but it was kind of underlying, and it’s a bummer when that happens. And surgery again, there’s a time and place for surgery. If someone has thyroid cancer, then they very well might need to get thyroid surgery, but with Graves’, I’m not saying there’s never a time and place, but the problem is it’s an immune system condition. So if you get your thyroid removed, you’re not doing anything to address the autoimmune component of Graves’, and then obviously there are risks with thyroid surgery.

If someone listens to this, chooses thyroid surgery, you want to choose a surgeon who has done a lot of them, ideally hundreds of them, just because it’s not uncommon to have damage to the parathyroids, for example. And you could say it’s rare, but it’s not that rare. It’s not one in a million, it’s like 2% and that to me is a high enough percentage, where, maybe in some cases something to consider, but it should usually be a last resort.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, I have a client who had surgery, I don’t know if it was thyroid surgery or a different surgery, but the parathyroid was damaged and she has real trouble. It’s an important gland for regulating the mineral balance in your body. She has real trouble regulating her minerals and keeping the right . . .

Eric Osansky:    

. . . especially calcium.

Lindsey: 

Yeah. Tell me about the natural treatments for Graves’, and I want to hear more about this bugleweed. I’ve never heard of that. How is that used?

Eric Osansky:    

Bugleweed is an herb, so it’s not as common as other herbs, like milk thistle or ashwagandha, for example. It’s an herb that the main property is that it helps to lower the thyroid hormones. And when I took it, again, that was my first experience with it. I didn’t know if it would work, but I started taking it. I took a teaspoon twice per day, and pretty quickly noticed my heart rate was decreasing, but I was having palpitations. So I took another herb that’s common with hyperthyroidism, one called motherwort. I don’t know if you’ve heard of motherwort but that helps to support the cardiovascular system, and has some other benefits too. But I took the motherwort and that helped greatly, and a lot of people I work with take bugleweed and motherwort.

There’s also l-carnitine, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, but l-carnitine, commonly used for fatty acid oxidation and supporting mitochondria. But research shows that larger amounts could block the entry of thyroid hormone into the cell, taking between two and 4000 milligrams per day, that’s another option for some people. There’s also lemon balm as a common herb used in the hyperthyroid world and has some mild antithyroid properties.

When I dealt with Graves’, I didn’t take lemon balm or l-carnitine just because I wasn’t as familiar with them back then. So from a natural standpoint, there are those options. Selenium is very important, just overall for the immune system. A lot of research with not just Graves’, but also Hashimoto’s and selenium. Vitamin D, we know modulates the immune system, omega three fatty acids. There are a lot of natural agents.

One thing I do want to bring up now that you mentioned mold, and for mold people use binders. For mold, a lot of most natural healthcare practitioners use natural binders, but then there’s also what’s called Cholestyramine, which medical doctors use, and Cholestyramine actually has been shown in the research to help with hyperthyroidism as well. Now it’s not my number one go-to, but if someone can’t tolerate the antithyroid medication like the methimazole, and maybe if the natural agents aren’t working, Cholestyramine is something to consider as well. If you could get a prescription, and the way I’ve had people get a prescription is just to show the endocrinologist the research. If they say that I told them to get Cholestyramine, they usually won’t be able to get it, because they don’t want to hear that from a chiropractor. But if they actually show them the published research, and the published research shows that it’s for mild hyperthyroidism, I’ve had some people where their thyroid hormones are pretty high, and the Cholestyramine has worked. It’s not doing anything for the cause of the problem, but neither is bugleweed and motherwort. Those are just natural symptom management options.

And then I probably should – this is not natural either, but low dose naltrexone. Some people take that as well to modulate the immune system with not only Graves’, but Hashimoto’s. I find with Graves’ it’s more hit or miss, that it doesn’t always work, and of course it’s also not addressing the cause of the problem. So usually I try to focus more on the natural agents, correct the nutrient deficiencies. If someone needs adrenal support, of course, do as much as you can from a diet and stress management standpoint, but sometimes give supplementation, sometimes probiotics, prebiotics to support the gut microbiome, and of course try to do as much as you can through diet as well. I like doing testing as well. Some practitioners aren’t big into testing, and I don’t go crazy with functional medicine testing, but I do like to do some testing, some adrenal testing, some gut testing at times, but it does depend on the person. I don’t like to recommend the same supplements for everybody.

I like to see what patterns they have with the adrenals and what’s going on with the gut, and I do blood testing as well. And if someone’s deficient in vitamin D or other nutrients, like iron, a common one too. You probably see this too. A lot of people are deficient in iron, but yeah, sorry, I went off a little bit as far as some of the natural approaches. But if you have any other questions regarding that, definitely let me know.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, no, I was curious if you’ve thought about what the mechanism of action of cholestyramine working might be.

Eric Osansky:    

Well, from what I understand, maybe I’m wrong, but I thought it actually binds to, just like it is a binder, so it’s actually binding to the thyroid hormone, and then the body clears it out. As from what I understand it doing now, and if that’s true, if someone has hypothyroidism, they would want to be careful, especially if they’re taking, and we know this too, if they’re taking any type of medication, not just thyroid hormone replacement. You would want to take the cholestyramine away from any meds, away from any foods, because it could bind to those as well. Right?

Lindsey: 

Right. Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that, because certainly there’s going to be people that I’m working with who are hypothyroid and getting mycotoxin treatment, although I don’t normally, since I’m not a doctor, there’s no cholestyramine involved, but sometimes they do bring in a doctor who does prescribe it, and I was curious, do you see then that adrenal issues are often upstream of hyperthyroidism?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, adrenals definitely, whether you have hypo or hyper, you do want to focus on that adrenal, and that’s why I test. You could also say, if everybody has adrenal issues, why not just address adrenals? But I like to see the adrenals, because in my experience too, I’m a little bit biased, because my adrenals were shot. I had low cortisol, low DHEA. The saliva test I use looks at secretory IGA, which was also in the tank, so everything was low, and it took that to convince me. Because up until that point, I think stress is a factor, but I’m doing a good job managing stress, not also really thinking about the over training that was impacting my body. So I think some people do need that convincing, then to see the adrenals, and then it was nice because I was able to do a retest three months later and see things improve, head in the right direction, but I think without question adrenals are a priority. Not just with thyroid but with sex hormones. I’m not against HRT, but I think a lot of people have low sex hormones because their adrenals are compromised, and again, there’s a time and place for hormone replacement therapy, but why not optimize adrenals, either initially or even if you’re going to do it at the same time, eventually you might not need as much of the HRT if you’re improving adrenal health with hyper and hypothyroidism. I definitely think that’s a big priority.

Lindsey: 

I’m currently using a continuous glucose monitor. I got a free sensor for a couple weeks, and I know that I have stress, but now I can see it in super clear terms, because I can see that as soon as I have a stressful event, my body’s shooting out cortisol, my blood sugar is jumping up, so I can see in real stark terms. I can also see that when my blood sugar drops at night to way too low, my body releases cortisol and my blood sugar shoots up. And you don’t really realize the constant state of stress we’re under, but just working, just the hours in which I’m working versus watching television, the difference in my blood glucose is stark. So to get back to the whole adrenals, can you just adjust the adrenals, or do you really need to address the root cause, which is the stress?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah. No. Oh, absolutely. It’s not just about taking supplements. If all you do is take some adrenal supplements, that’s probably not going to fix the problem. So, to me, that’s extra support. The number one thing you need to do is improve stress handling. In many cases, you’re not going to be able to do anything about the stressor, especially if someone’s like a caretaker or something. There’s situations where it’s just impossible to eliminate the stressor, so it’s all about improving stress handling, and, and that’s great. The example you gave, and someone brought up to me, will they ever come out with continuous cortisol monitors, and again, like you said, there is that relationship between blood sugar, so you could certainly use a CGM for that.

But it would be also cool if they do eventually look at the actual cortisol levels too. And you could see that throughout the day, that would be even more convincing, because a lot of people, when they look at CGM, they’re not making that relationship between stress, they’re just thinking about food and what they’re eating. But you’re right, there is that relationship between blood glucose, insulin, cortisol, and I think that’s a big game changer. Because these days I don’t take adrenal support, I did take adrenal support back then, just for extra support, but it’s been years since I did that. Now, what’s keeping my adrenals in a healthier state is, the two main things is just blocking, like stress management techniques, or blocking out time for stress management, and trying not to take life so seriously, realizing that things could always be worse.

And then the other thing is sleep, just try, and honestly, even that I could do a better job. I was just telling someone, a patient earlier today that, last night I was proud of myself because I got to bed at 9:58, before 10, which some people might think sounds impressive. But my wife wakes up early, so I got up today at a little after five, so that’s in bed for like seven hours. I probably got six and a half, and again I try to aim for seven, seven and a half hours of sleep, but I don’t always accomplish that. So again, I could even improve that, but the two things, stress management and sleep, are really critical when it comes to optimizing your adrenal health.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, no, so I’m kind of questioning, like, do these saliva adrenal tests really capture what’s going on? Because I did a Vibrant Hormone Zoomer, and so you’re getting both the urine and the saliva at the same time, and the first time I did the test, I was super stressed out, because I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, and I normally get up at seven, so I’m totally annoyed that I have to spit for the next 15 minutes at 5:30 in the morning, and then half an hour later, and a half an hour after that, or an hour after that, and take urine samples. And I’m doing all this stuff, and whatever cortisol reading I get, I can tell you it is not reflective of how I normally feel, because I am completely stressed out. And I did it again, and I was not stressed out, so I’m curious to see whether there’ll be a big difference. But the urinary cortisol wasn’t elevated, it was just the saliva, which I assume is a more direct measure of what’s going on right then and there, so I do wonder if we had this continuous cortisol monitor, if we did it day after day after day, or you know, I always tell people, if I’m doing adrenal testing, try and make it a non-stressful day, just a regular day.

Eric Osansky:    

Same here. Yep, and we also do some dried urine testing as well, so not on everybody, but either way, if we see an extremely elevated cortisol in the morning, the first thing we’ll do is, was it a normal morning? Was it where you’re extremely stressed out that morning? Because you’re right, it does make a difference. That’s one of the flaws of going to a lab and doing a blood test, a lot of people get stressed out with the blood draw, and that could artificially spike up cortisol. But you bring up a good point, if someone is just stressed out for whatever reason, and the collection procedure sometimes, that does stress people out. Some people have issues like that, or difficulty generating enough saliva, and that could be stressful as well. And then they see abnormally high cortisol levels, and so you’re right, there’s no perfect test. And what we discussed, it would be awesome to have that continuous cortisol monitor, so you don’t have to collect any samples, and it’s constantly monitoring your cortisol throughout the day, and I’m sure it’s got to be coming. I mean, you were figuring . . .

Lindsey: 

I mean, they’re already developing toilets that are analyzing your microbiome, so I can’t imagine it’s too far out for the cortisol.

Eric Osansky:    

If not, me and you, we could team up and create it.

Lindsey: 

Yeah. No, I mean, I speak of going to labs, every time I test my fasting glucose, it comes in around 99, 100, 102, something like that. So I thought, do I ever have low glucose? Well, sure enough, I do. It’s just that the cortisol then shoots up and it pushes it back up. So I realized seeing that fasting glucose – you can look at A1C and you look at insulin, and all these other things, so I knew that there was probably not a blood sugar problem, but now it confirms it, because I have the CGM data. So interesting. So in terms of nutrients, you mentioned some things like selenium and vitamin D and omega 3s;  any other nutrients that are really important for thyroid function, either way, for Graves’, for Hashimoto’s?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, iron, I mentioned is important, far more so for hypo, as far as if you’re deficient in iron, that could be a factor with hypothyroidism, but if you’re deficient in iron, even if you have hyper, but regardless, even if you don’t have any thyroid condition, you want to correct iron deficiency, because it’s important for supporting mitochondria. But magnesium is important overall. Really, all the nutrients are important, but probably the most controversial nutrient when it comes to thyroid health is iodine. And iodine, you need it for thyroid hormone production, but too little could result in hypothyroidism.

But then there’s concerns over too much iodine, and it’s confusing because you have different practitioners giving different recommendations. There’s Dr. David Brownstein, has a great book, Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It, a very interesting book, and he’s been doing this for a long time, but he does recommend high dose iodine, like 50 milligrams of Ioderal, and again he’s had success with it, I’m sure, or he wouldn’t be recommending it. But not everybody does well with massive amounts of iodine, and then you have others who recommend the opposite, like 200 micrograms or less of iodine, and not to exceed that, and there is some evidence in the literature that iodine could maybe play a role in developing autoimmune conditions, and I have at least every few people per year I see who it seems like the problem that they had, usually in hyperthyroidism, develops when they started messing around with iodine, taking iodine.

And I should say I actually, in the past, when I dealt with Graves’, 2008 is when I was diagnosed, back then the higher dose, like Dr. Brownstein, and all that, that was more in favor, so I actually, at that time, I was taking high dose iodine, and I had a good experience with it. I can’t say anything bad personally, but just because I had a good experience for the first few years, I was having everybody do an iodine loading test, which also involves taking high dose iodine, like a 50 milligram tablet of iodine, and doing the urine test. And I would say a lot of people did okay, but then I did see people who didn’t do well, and sometimes it would increase the hyperthyroidism. And so others, like Dr. Fifo, Dr. Datis Kharrazian started talking about the concerns with iodine, and then others followed his lead.

I realized that iodine is important, but you want to be careful, especially when taking separate iodine supplements. I’m not anti-iodine. If someone’s taking a multi with iodine or eating some food sources of iodine, I think usually it’s okay. And even in those situations there’ll be this controversy that, like some, Dr. Alan Christensen will say, even with the food sources, keep it to 200 micrograms or less in those with Hashimoto’s. But the thing is everybody’s different. But because you don’t know who’s going to respond negatively to iodine supplementation, I’m definitely more on the cautious side, and I don’t recommend for people to take Iodoral, or other iodine supplements. And if someone was going to do that, then yeah, they probably should do a urinary test. Even that, there’s no perfect test for iodine too, so that’s the thing, but iodine, I felt the need to bring it up, just because, a lot of people have questions about iodine, and there is so much conflicting information, I wish I had all the answers when it comes to iodine, but all I could tell you is that can be helpful in some cases, and you definitely don’t want to be deficient in it, but at the same time you don’t want to necessarily just randomly take like 25-50 milligrams per day, because that could potentially cause more problems.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, yeah. No, I thought that the whole thing was that Hashimoto’s was named after a Japanese doctor or patient. I don’t know, because in Japan they’re eating tons of iodine because of all those . . .

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah. And there is some evidence in the research showing that that makes them potentially more susceptible. Even with the food sources, with someone’s eating, it depends, like sea vegetables, definitely, kelp could have a whole lot of iodine, so that I usually, and I talk about this in my book, The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet, again, I’m more cautious, not only with iodine supplements, but really high amounts of iodine rich foods. I would say, in those with thyroid conditions, maybe not to do that, just to be on the safe side.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, yeah. What about zinc?

Eric Osansky:    

Yep, zinc is very important. Vitamin A is very important. Both of those, zinc, vitamin A are also helpful for the receptor, the thyroid receptor, as well as omega 3 fatty acids. All the nutrients are important. Some of them more important, specifically like manganese, is important, but I don’t know, really specifically for thyroid health, like manganese and chromium, we know chromium for, blood sugar, but, from a thyroid health perspective, we could say, well, if your blood sugar’s out of balance, that could affect your adrenals and your thyroid, so indirectly we could make connections to all these as well. But yeah, zinc is definitely important for immune system health.

Lindsey: 

Okay, so to summarize, could you just go over the basic steps of trying to reverse autoimmune thyroid disease, whether it’s Graves’ or Hashimoto’s?

Eric Osansky:    

Sure, so number one thing I talk about is being safe, more so with hyper, but even with hypo, if someone has really low thyroid hormone levels, maybe they do need thyroid hormone replacement. If someone has elevated thyroid hormones, again, they could try the bugleweed is an option, l-carnitine in higher doses are an option, but again, some people do need the antithyroid medication. But either way, you want to be safe while addressing the cause of the problem, and then I would say the foundations of just incorporating the diet as well as stress management, sleep, not over exercising, you don’t want to be a couch potato, but you don’t want to over train.

So the foundations are important, and then I do like to do testing, because I find that many times we need to go beyond diet and lifestyle to see if we have adrenal imbalances. If we have, which most people do, and you mentioned the mold and other toxins, intoxicants, and gut issues, and so I try not to go overboard with the testing, and ultimately it’s up to the person. If I recommend more comprehensive testing, if the person’s on a budget, then of course we will try to prioritize the test, and vice versa. If I’m recommending something more conservative and someone’s like, “Hey, I just want to do all these tests, I might tell them, “Well, you know, you don’t have to. We could start out with these tests, but if one’s insistent on doing more testing, that’s fine.

But number one, safe symptom management. Two, the foundations. Three, let’s do some testing to try to find some of the triggers and underlying imbalances. And then, based on those, I usually give general recommendations initially, I have almost everybody on an omega 3 fatty acid, just because most people aren’t eating fish or not enough fish, and so that you could do a test if you want to confirm, but if they’re not eating fish and not taking a fish oil, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody who has a healthy omega 3 index who’s not taking omegas and not eating fish.

So I do recommend some basic supplements, but based on the test results, that’s where I’ll give more specific recommendations. But one thing I’ll say, though, is everyone could start with diet and lifestyle. You want to be safe too, that safe symptom management, so make sure that’s in play. But you could do things on your own to change your diet, you could do things on your own to improve stress handling, and sometimes you need help when it comes to sleep, depending on what the cause of the sleep issue is, but definitely work on diet and lifestyle on your own. If you can’t afford to work with a practitioner, of course, I’ll be biased. You’re probably biased. We think it’s good to have that support system and someone who’s knowledgeable and guiding you through, what to eat, what not to eat, what supplements to take and not to take, and some of that’s in my books, and there’s a lot on our podcast as well, but there’s no replacement for that one on one support, which is why you know Lindsey does what she does, I do what I do, and other practitioners do what we do. But if you’re not in the position to work with someone, definitely I would say start with diet and lifestyle.

Lindsey: 

So, where can people find you?

Eric Osansky:    

Yeah, thank you. So my podcast, which you, of course, appeared on. So, check out Lindsey’s interview, my interview with Lindsey, SaveMythyroid.com And you can just click on podcast. You could also check out my YouTube channel. Let’s see, I have a great  Healing Graves’ Naturally Newsletter. Then my books, I have Hashimoto’s Triggers, Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves’ Disease, which is in its third edition, and the Hyperthyroid Healing Diet. You could find all those on Amazon, and those are probably the best places I would say to start.

Lindsey: 

Okay, great. I’ll link all those in the show notes.

Eric Osansky:    

Well, thank you. Thank you. This has been a wonderful conversation.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, thank you so much. Any final thoughts before we go?

Eric Osansky:    

There’s hope, and I say that just because, unfortunately, most medical doctors won’t, if you ask any, not any medical doctor, but I find most endocrinologists are not the most open-minded doctors. Again, I’ve had some on my podcast who are, but if you ask them about diet, lifestyle, they’ll pretty much shoot it down. You’re not really going to get much hope working with your doctor if you ask if there’s anything else you could do except to take the levothyroxine that they prescribe, or the antithyroid medication that they prescribe.  They’ll say no. Well, in the case of hyperthyroidism, they say, yeah, you could take your thyroid out or get radioactive iodine, but they won’t do anything for the cause of the problem. But besides my own personal success story, I’ve been working with people for over 16 years, and it’s definitely possible. It’s not easy. I’m not going to say it’s easy to do it, but it’s definitely worth it, not just to restore your current health or reverse your current health condition that you deal with, but then also to prevent other health conditions from developing in the future. So, definitely well worth it.

Lindsey: 

Yeah, indeed. Okay. Well, thank you so much. It was great having you.

Eric Osansky:    

Thank you. Thank you so much, Lindsey.

If you’re dealing with gut health issues of any type (diarrhea, constipation, bloating, SIBO, IMO, H2S SIBO/ISO, IBS, IBD, gastritis, GERD, H pylori, diverticulitis, candida, etc.) or have an autoimmune disease and need some help, I see individual clients to help them resolve their digestive issues or reverse autoimmune disease naturally, You’re welcome to set up a free, 30-minute breakthrough session to see if you’d like to work with me. I also have my own two products, Tributyrin-Max, which is particularly helpful for loose stool and diarrhea as it slows your motility and firms up your stool, and SBI powder, which is an all around gut pathogen binder, which is super safe and won’t harm beneficial bacteria, and is usually the first line of treatment I educate my clients about in order to avoid stronger antimicrobial herbs.

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The New Food Pyramid: The Good, the Missing and the Hopeful with Reed Davis, HHP, DNT

Adapted from episode 170 of The Perfect Stool podcast and edited for readability with Reed Davis, Double-Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner (HHP), Doctor of Nutritional Therapy (DNT) and founder of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® (FDN)*, and Lindsey Parsons, EdD.

Lindsey:

So, I had you on episode 115, and we focused on the effects of stress, sleep, and food sensitivities on the gut barrier and gut barrier function, but today we’re going to be talking about the new dietary guidelines. So, as somebody who deals with gut health issues and often suggests people try dramatically different diets given the current state of their gut, I’m curious what your 50-foot view is of the new dietary guidelines.

Reed Davis:

Diet is one of the most important epigenetic factors as far as affecting one’s health goes. We put that right up at the top of an all-natural, drug-free solution that is eating right, and so it’s about time they did something right.

Lindsey:

Definitely. So, what was your overall feeling about the new dietary guidelines?

Reed Davis:

I’m ecstatic. I mean, it’s not gone as far as it could, and it could always be improved. But the old dietary guidelines for Americans have, for the last number of years, decades, been completely upside down, and I think it’s largely because those who would put the guidelines out there, in this case, the Health and Human Services Secretary and the USDA, got together to reveal these things, and it’s better for Americans, it’s better for kids, it’s going to focus on more high-quality, nutrient-dense foods and things like that, like they say, “eat real food,” what a concept!

And so, I mean, you’ve been in this game a long time, right? How long have you known that that was right?

Lindsey:

Yeah. I don’t think that’s a big secret. It’s not that people don’t know they’re supposed to eat real food; they just really like processed food.

Reed Davis:

It’s true, and it’s going to take some new habit forming for some people. So many stories over the years of people, just about their entire health changes when they eat right for their bodies, for their genetics, and what we call metabolic types. So, I’m happy to break it down for you.

Lindsey:

Yeah. Well, we’ll definitely get into those details. So, one of the biggest changes in the new dietary guidelines was demoting whole grains to the bottom of the pyramid, where they used to be at the top of the largest section. So, I’m curious if people were actually eating whole grains, as opposed to white flour and white potatoes and white rice, do you think that would have been a necessary step anyway?

Reed Davis:

Yeah. Even the so-called healthy breads and things like that, and pastas, if there was such a thing, would be too much, and not enough protein and fat. So, absolutely, it was upside down. And the results are what you get in America.

I have a friend, Tom O’Brien, he’s really famous for some books on health and things like that, and he says that out of the top 30 civilized countries, America, in terms of health, was ranked number two from the bottom. We’re one of the most unhealthy countries out of civilized countries, and it’s because of diet, because of who’s been in charge of recommending diets, and I don’t mind saying that it’s those who would have monopolies and sell what’s good for their company’s bottom line, not what’s good for our kids to eat.

And I’ve got story after story, if you’re interested in me telling a couple, but yeah, I want to make sure we answer that thing, that there’s people who do perfectly well in America, don’t eat any bread or grains, you know they’re not really required.

Lindsey:

I’m aware, of course, of things like the Paleo diet, where you’re not eating grains or even legumes. Is that accurate for paleo? Right, you’re pretty much just eating vegetables, fibrous vegetables. So but I do find that when I look at people’s diets, that it’s very hard for people to get enough fiber if they’re not eating some grains. Unless you’re a very, very purposeful paleo person, and you’re getting those winter squashes and those sweet potatoes every day, or those kinds of things, that the typical person who’s not super diet focused, that it’s hard to get the quantity of fiber that we really need.

Reed Davis:

Yeah, definitely. Fiber is still a big thing, and you can’t eat just meat. No one says, “just eat meat,” in my world. There’s the Paleo diet, and there’s even diets that do focus on that, but I think they still get their fiber, though, because they always would sort of, if you’re on an all-meat diet, the carnivore diet, they call it, they still cheat and eat fiber, or they’re going to get digestive problems if they don’t. So, it’s really important to get the fiber, of course, and I prefer the green stuff, vegetables, and roughage as my mother used to call it, “got to have your roughage.”

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

Because the Italians would call it antipasti, and these kinds of things. So, you’re definitely going to throw a bunch of that in there, and that’s way up in the pyramid. Well, the biggest, the big picture that changed is that the top, which is also the biggest section, is protein, dairy, healthy fats, alongside your vegetables, and some fruits, which there’s some nuances in that. The bottom section, which is now the smallest, your whole grain.

Lindsey:

Right.

Reed Davis:

So, yes, some would be okay. I have a little bit of the wheat-free, gluten-free toast sometimes around breakfast. It gets me some of the fiber that I’m looking for. I put a lot of protein with it, but definitely you’ve got to have, you made a good point.

Lindsey:

Yeah, I mean, it’s one of these things that in theory it would be great if everybody just ate vegetables, beans, lentils, that kind of thing to get all their fiber, but that’s just not how people eat. So, the inclusion of whole grains is important for the average person. Anyway, that’s my opinion.

But thinking about that, the grain question for somebody with a family tendency towards increasing blood sugar as they age, not necessarily somebody who’s pre-diabetic, what amount of actual grains, meaning things like whole grains, like brown rice or quinoa, or brown rice pasta, or whole grain flours, or whole wheat bread, if you tolerate wheat, do you think is a safe amount for an adult man or woman to consume without running into blood sugar issues?

Reed Davis:

Well, everyone’s different. So, what I recommend overall, before we even get to the food pyramid, is that people look at the amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrates on their plate in each meal, and make sure it’s balanced for their, let’s call it oxidative rates, for the way they burn fuel.

So, people burn fuel, some burn it faster than others. It’s just the way you’re born. You have your fast fuel burners, we call them fast oxidizers, and traditionally you think of native tribes, they can be one way or the other.

I have a cousin that lived up north with the Cree Indians. They’re almost Eskimos, very, very fast oxidizers. If they didn’t eat all fish and game that they were eating for tens of thousands of years, or at least 1000s and 1000s, they would get sick. Since they switched to Westernized food, they got sick, they all got obese, diabetes, pre-diabetes, and they also got depressed, became alcoholics, and have the highest suicide rate in all of Canada.

The Cree Indians, and it’s because, genetically speaking, they’re supposed to be eating fish and game, which is plentiful up there still, by the way, plenty of caribou and all kinds of fish and things, but when the Westerners came in, they brought with them, by the way, for mining gold mines, copper mines, they brought in their food with them, fast food. So, if you’re a Cree Indian and you’re eating Tim Horton doughnuts, that would be the same for any fast oxidizer, you get sick if you eat too much of the breads and things like that, especially when it gets really highly processed, the more processed the worse, and it’s really, really unhealthy.

Not to say there aren’t tribes in the world, like the Quechua Indians come to mind from South America. They live their entire lives above 8,000 feet in the mountains, and they eat corn and potatoes. Those things are very abundant there, and if you’ve eaten them for thousands and thousands of years, then they’re perfectly fine. Your body has adapted to that kind of diet.

It goes much deeper than what I’m telling you, even in terms of the minerals and things that are in the soils and stuff. So, you need what you’re born to eat. The problem is, we’re all mixed, and no one knows what they’re born to eat. That’s something that we help people figure out, but it’s really important, and the current administration figured out we’re really unhealthy. Well, let’s look at what we’re eating, and oh, it’s a bunch of junk, it’s literally an upside-down pyramid. So, they flipped it on its head, and we’ll see what shakes out. I’m very hopeful.

Lindsey:

Yeah, so clearly there are people, indigenous people in Australia, also in the same scenario. They came in and fed them a bunch of flour and cooking oil, and the fried bread, and those kinds of things, and they all got super sick and diabetic.

But yeah, most of us are some sort of mix of some amount of European or some amount of Asian, or Latin American, or in the US, or African American, so we’re all a mix of this country. So, what you were talking about, the fast oxidizer, these are based on HTMA, hair tissue mineral analysis, or?

Reed Davis:

One way to do it is an online test, people go to MTDiet, they take a test there. It’s a lot of questions about dietary habits, physical characteristics, and even psychological traits, because there’s other elements of getting the right diet, and so they don’t have to do any testing.

There’s some other discussion about HTMAs and how close does it get to true oxidation. You can always do it and eat that way and see what shakes out. You should have more energy. You should have a higher sense of satiation. You should feel well fed. Oh boy, what a great meal, I’ve got lots of energy, I can make it till my next meal without snacking. Your cravings go away, and you even have a sense of well-being in some respect.

So you feel fully satisfied, nothing was missing, you have lots of energy to work or play, whatever it is, to get to the next fuel stop. And then, of course, some sense of well-being would be icing on the cake, and an actually very appropriate, well-fed person, fully satisfied, not craving anything, should be happy. If you’re not happy, go soak your head. I’m kidding. I’m just saying, you need to work on that. There might be some other reason.

Lindsey:

Yeah. You said that website was MT Diet, like mtdiet.com?

Reed Davis:

Mtdiet.com, it’s really, it’s very scientific. It’s been around for 40 to 50 years now, and we’ve just been using that as a guideline. It won’t tell you exactly what your percentages are, but it would tell you if you’re fast, slow, or somewhere in between, what we would call a mixed oxidizer, in which case you just adjust the proportions of your macronutrients on the plate.

If it’s me, I’m a very fast oxidizer, so I can eat a lot of protein in every meal, and as long as you don’t – you have to eat clean, and there’s all kinds of other factors, but a lot of protein, and the protein I like already has fat built into it, so that because I eat meat, and so whether it’s salmon or whatever it is, I don’t eat chicken, but a lot of really good, high-quality meats, and so I get my protein and my fat from that, and then I will also add the right amount of carbohydrates, usually very nutrient dense.

I love dark green vegetables, and I can eat a lot of them. And if you do that, you’ll find, let’s say, you did that for breakfast tomorrow, some people just don’t eat enough protein and fat in the morning, and so they’re craving, and they’re drinking a lot of coffee, and by lunch, then they overdo it at lunch, different things can happen.

But if you do it right, you will have, again, the three criteria are lots of energy, satiation, for sure, you’re not missing anything, you’re not craving, and then, of course, the sense of well-being, I try to be happy every day, no matter what, but eating sure makes a difference. You’ve heard the word “hangry,” right?

Lindsey:

I have.

Reed Davis:

You’re hangry, because you’re not nourished, right? You’re just something’s missing, and it isn’t just low blood sugar all the time. It also has to do with what your body really needs, and so the macronutrient ratios are really important. That’s what’s missing from the food pyramid. They don’t say anything about how much protein, how much carbohydrates, how much fats.

Lindsey:

Right.

Reed Davis:

That’s a place it could go eventually, maybe, but at least it got protein and fat up at the top of the list.

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

For these kids, kids are just at the mercy of advertising and eating garbage. It’s what’s convenient. No one wants to take the time to prepare meals.

When I’m cooking on the grill, I grill enough for two, or even three days sometimes, so my leftovers are good as the meal, and I can eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because it’s the same ratio. Try it, everybody should try it. Get out a ratio that feels good and eat that every meal. Don’t say, “well, for lunch I’m just going to have a salad.” If you’re a fast oxidizer, you’ll end up craving and hungry again.

You think of those Indians, my cousin was a priest, and he went up north, like really far. And I asked him one day about what do the people do there when they get sick? Do they go to see a medicine man? And he goes, well, I’m their “medicine man,” because he’s their priest.

I said, no, if they get sick, like the flu or something, he goes, oh man, they’re all sick, they’re all sick because they quit eating their native diet. Period. Obesity and diabetes and alcoholism, he said, were the most common things, and then that can lead to really bad social behavior, and so on.

Lindsey:

Yeah. So, you mentioned the fast oxidizers should be eating more protein or healthy fats. What about a slow oxidizer?

Reed Davis:

What’s the opposite? That’s again the Quechua Indians down in South America, and there’s many more with that kind of bloodline.

Now we have to go back to get to the original. You probably have to go back 500 generations. Well, no one can track that far back. You have two parents, you didn’t have a choice. You have four grandparents, you have eight great grandparents, and 16 great-great-parents. Now go back 500 times that and look at the top of that pyramid, but it’s a couple of 1,000 people all contributing to your DNA, the nose on your face, the hair on your head, if you have any.

Yeah, and the diet, what’s the right diet for you? It’s bred in the bones. Now you can eat that way, or pay the piper, and look at how sick we are.

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

We’re not eating that way. And so, can’t, it’s too hard nowadays, unless you’re tribal. If you’re a Quechua Indian, you could probably know a great, great, great, great, great, great granddaddy ate the same thing you’re eating.

If you’re healthy, you could go to the Bantu tribe in Africa,, very dark-skinned, very healthy people with straight white teeth, because they still eat what their great, great, great to the 40th power great grandparents ate. They eat the same thing, and it applies, not only, we’re not talking about the pyramid now, but kind of the concept, not only would that give you the right percentage of protein, fat, and carbs, but the right sources, some indigenous foods, what was available all those years ago, and then whatever was in the soils.

We have vitamins and minerals, we have a sense of fatty acids, we have antioxidants, we have trace elements, phytonutrients, and really important constituents and we’re designed to use them all. Our bodies don’t have to be taught anything, and so then you’d have the kind of the micronutrients that would also match your genetics. So, if you want to live through your genetic potential, be the best that you could be, then you have to eat like that, and you have to figure it out.

Lindsey:

I do these Pure Insight reports with people’s genes, and they do spit out some results, certain genes saying you’re going to do much better with a high protein diet, your glucose is going to be much better managed if you exercise regularly, or you have the genetics of an endurance athlete, or things like that seem to pop up a bit. I mean, it’s obviously not complete, but it’s a little bit of information that people get.

So, anyway, but yeah, people can go to that website and look at what their ideal diet might be based on what they answer, and let me move on to talking about fats a little bit. So, one of the stark changes of the new dietary guidelines is a change in the recommendations on fats. Can you describe what those changes are and what you think of them?

Reed Davis:

Yeah, sure. More fat would be more energy and better balance, but it’s not so much just fat as the type of fat. So, they’re recommending now, of course, very high-quality fats, and not the crappy oils that we’re being fed.

If you go to a hospital today and look at what’s on the menu, it’s atrocious, the amount of seed oils. My wife and I use, it’s called Seed Oil Scout, SOS, and Seed Oil Scout, it’s an app you can get on your phone, and it doesn’t have every restaurant, but you can go to it and it’ll let know where you are, with a GPS in there, and it’ll tell you the good restaurants that have, are pretty much seed-oil free.

Some restaurants are seed-oil-free. They’ll use only avocado and coconut, and maybe some tallow, and things like that. That’s a good kind of fat that really, your body knows what to do with that. When it comes to seed oils, not so much, you’re not, that’s not bred in your bones, and so when it comes to trans fats, we don’t even want to go there, they’re just toxic.

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

And there’s other ways to break down oils, omega 3, 6, 9, omega three generally anti-inflammatory, omega six more inflammatory, so seed oils, mostly omega six, are inflammatory. So if you have joint pain, you’re bloated in your face, and you have aches and pains from inflammation, seed oils make it worse, guaranteed, that’s how it works.

So, I’m glad you mentioned fats. We’re up against what’s convenient, what’s cheap, what has a longer shelf life, things like that. It’s going to be a long time before, for instance, any fast-food restaurant starts using good oils, they use what’s cheap, what has the longest shelf life, which is trans fats, and even if they’re using seed oils, they’re using the wrong ones.

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

Avocado is really good, coconut, those are both seeds, avocado seeds, and coconut is actually a seed, and what I’m saying.

Lindsey:

Right.

Reed Davis:

So, I think it’s really important, as I said originally, the right percentage of protein, fat, and carb, and the right sources. Very important.

Lindsey:

I deal with a lot of clients with hydrogen sulfide SIBO who react badly to saturated fat, and I also have seen a lot of gut tests from people on high fat and high saturated fat diets, like ketogenic diets, and honestly, their gut microbiomes are pretty terrible, like mostly dominated by pathogens and opportunistic pathogens. So, I’m just curious if you’ve seen the same thing.

Reed Davis:

Yeah. Again, you need the right kind of fats, and some are not only inflammatory in terms of the joints and muscles and other tissues, it would include the lining of the gut, and so there’s another thing that made the cut.

When it comes to, the gut made the cut, they mentioned in the new pyramid that considering the gut microbiome is really, really important, and the previous dietary guidelines never mentioned it. And we run tests, it’s what I do, I teach a course in functional lab testing, so we look at these mucosal barrier assessments, so that’s not news to us. In two and a half decades I’ve seen all kinds of gut dysfunction, and everything that can turn into, which is worse, and helps correct it using the right diet.

Just not even a question, you can live yourself out of whatever you’ve lived yourself into, if you have time and dedication, if it hasn’t gone too far. There’s some people, I mean, they’ve gone so far as to really ruin receptor relationships, all these different things that are involved, the ability to digest, the ability to actually break down and absorb food properly, of course, once it gets in the body, how do you detoxify the body? All kinds of things come into it, but again, I’ve got concerns about the pyramid, but it’s definitely going in the right direction.

Not once do they mention testing, I think it’s a big mistake, or at least it’s an improvement that we’re still waiting for. They don’t mention food quality, they just say, they don’t mention organic versus conventional, big mistake, or at least again room for improvement. They don’t mention grass-fed versus grain-fed when it comes to meats, beef especially, that’s an area for improvement. They don’t mention wild-caught fish versus farm-raised fish, which is really, I think, incredibly important. So, these distinctions matter, the fatty acid profiles, for instance.

Horrible with farm-raised fish, and with grain-fed beef, and with conventional non-organic vegetables, the presence of pesticides and antibiotics, and that’s all yet to be widely distributed. I don’t see the government getting too involved.

Lindsey:

Yeah, definitely an improvement there. So, let’s talk about protein for a bit, so I listen to a whole variety of podcasts and hear a range of protein. What are the new guidelines saying? What would you recommend for minimum and maximum protein consumption?

Reed Davis:

With respect to metabolic typing and genetic requirements, I would say at least half of your plate should have some kind of protein and some fat, and then what would be really cool is if everyone would just start there.

If you’re not sure, we test, we go to mtdiet.com, we get, they give you the starting percentage wherever you start, because it’s 50/50 protein, fat, 50% carbs, all high quality, you’d want to use organic and all the things that we just mentioned, but well, you’d know from, you start to feel better, start to lose a few pounds, your brain fog would clear up, your cravings would go away, your sense of well-being may return tangentially.

If you then from that 50/50 start adjusting it up or even down, not too many Quechua Indians around here that could live just on potatoes and corn, but maybe you’ve got some slow, low oxidizer genes in you, but you would then go, odds are, you start at 50/50, then go up, go to 60/40 if it works even better, ah, you’re on to something. This is your own test.

If you go from there to 65/35, you might find you do even better. Boy, I really got a lot of energy. I can get all the way to my next meal with no snacking in between. My brain feels good, feeling good. You might try 70%. All these things would be adjusted, by the way, depending on the amount of activity. Work on a farm, you’re probably going to eat some more potatoes at nighttime. You need, you need that store of the carbs, but you get my point that it’s really an individual thing.

Their recommendation, the new HHS guidelines, which were backed up by the Food and Drug Administration, says something like one and a half grams of protein per kilo, so I don’t know why they use kilo, so for a 150-pound person you’d be looking at 85 grams of protein a day, or something like that.

Yeah, so we don’t use formulas like that, we use what it looks like on the plate, because it’s much easier. And then you can judge. We do give people, matter of fact, with that website I just gave, you would get your diet, some menu advice, you’d find out if you’re fast, slow, somewhere in between, and you would get the percentages.

They give you the percentages of each plate. They give you some diet check record sheets, which you can track, they’re just pieces of paper that have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and what you have, you write it in real quick. And then over on the right-hand side is how you feel, negative things like tired, unfulfilled, craving, cranky. Well, that wasn’t a very good meal for you, was it? But if you feel solid energy and the lack of cravings and sense of well-being, then, well, that was better, and you can actually fine-tune it. This is why health coaches are so important these days, in my opinion, they can help you, walk you through that stuff.

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

What do you think about that?

Lindsey:

Yeah, no, I mean, I was always worried about getting enough protein, because I keep hearing these recommendations, like minimum, it’s like one gram per pound of body weight but then I heard something.

Reed Davis:

It’s a little more like it’s up to about 1.2 to 1.6, something like that.

Lindsey:

Yeah, I mean, I weigh 130 and I couldn’t even begin to eat 130 grams of protein in a day, like if I ate that much protein, I would be.

Reed Davis:

No, no, I’m sorry, it’s 1.2 to 1.6 per kilo, which is 2.2 pounds, yes.

Lindsey:

Right, okay, yeah, so it’s more like 0.7 to 1.0, or something like that, grams per pound of body weight. Yeah, I don’t know. I took somebody’s recommendation, and I think it came out to something like 90 grams, and I thought, no way, I’m even getting 90 grams of protein, because I might only have one meal with a really solid portion of protein, and maybe lunch is a little bit smaller, and breakfast is just like one egg, so that’s six grams, but I couldn’t even eat two eggs, and I just get stuffed and gross with what else I’m eating.

But anyway, I added it all up. I went into Cronometer, and I added it all up, and I was like, oh, I actually am getting 85 to 90 grams of protein a day. I was worried, because I wasn’t counting, there’s a little bit of protein in vegetables, there’s a little bit of protein in grains, it’s not like there’s none, it’s just a gram or two here, a gram or two there, it added up. So, I was okay, I was glad to see that.

Reed Davis:

How did you feel doing that? And how was your weight, and how was your mental clarity in things?

Lindsey:

Yeah, I mean, I don’t have issues with weight, I don’t have issues with mental clarity, but I have post-infectious IBS, so I don’t always feel great after eating, because there are periods where I’m having recurrent SIBO, and I bloat, so it’s not the kind of thing where I’m the best test case for anything diet-wise, but, but energy and all that, fine, yeah, no issues.

Reed Davis:

You might, you might be the perfect test case, because your body doesn’t have to be taught anything, every cell and tissue and organ knows what its job is. It just needs to be fed right, again, the macros, protein, fat, carbs, and the micros, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids, antioxidants, trace elements, and so on, and it’ll know what to do.

So, but when we have, say, negative influences, whether it’s the environment or the way you think, or trauma, accidents, and things, bad things happen, you get out of balance, and demands are different, and then what you said about the grams, if you lean towards fast oxidizer, a few more grams of protein. If you lean towards slow oxidizer, it would make you sick, you wouldn’t feel well at all.

It’s like this, if you have a bonfire, a big fire, you’re a fast oxidizer, you’re burning up the fuel, you’re burning up the fuel, well, carbohydrates are like paper, you can’t throw paper on a bonfire, it’s gone. You throw big logs on a bonfire, and they burn for a long time, very solid, that would be protein and fat.

So, you look at those Eskimos, they’re super-fast oxidizers, you got to throw big logs on the fire, they can eat just blubber and some meat, and the only carbs they get would be seasonally, and they’d eat some of those, put on a little weight for the winter. If you just gave them, doesn’t matter how good the bowls of fruit and vegetables you gave them, they’d always be hungry.

And the same thing, those South American Andes natives, they couldn’t eat like that, they wouldn’t be able to move, they couldn’t burn it. They do well on paper diet, tubers, and corn, and low-hanging fruit, I guess, whatever. And milk, they do pretty, actually pretty good on goat and llama milk, and stuff like that.

Lindsey:

Yeah, let’s talk about milk and dairy, because as a gut health person, that’s one of the first things that I, gluten, dairy, those are the two most inflammatory, shall we say, or irritating to the gut, difficult to digest things, so a lot of the people I work with are dairy free.

I’m dairy free for the most part, because I’m lactose intolerant, and with recurrent SIBO, dairy is literally the worst thing I can eat, I feel bloated, and I feel terrible. But obviously, they’re high in the dietary guidelines, you can’t even get a school lunch without putting a thing of milk there. What do you think about dairy in terms of people with gut issues versus regular people who don’t have gut issues, and everything in between?

Reed Davis:

Well dairy, cow dairy for a lot of people is going to create a lot of mucus and problems, and so that’s besides the ones who are also lactose intolerant, which means they don’t have the lactase enzymes to break down the milk sugars, but milk can be irritating.

It has a protein called casein, it has fat, milk fat, and it has carbs as well, it has sugars, the lactose. So, there’s three different ways you can be eating wrong, despite how you handle that stuff.

I do agree with the new pyramid’s idea of higher fat content milk, because if you’re going to drink it, you might as well get something decent out of it for energy, so full fat dairy, not the low-fat junk we’ve been fed for decades. There’s nothing to say that’s any good for you whatsoever. That I accept. That doesn’t mean you can do unlimited saturated fats either. You don’t want to get more than a certain percentage of your calories, and again, the fast oxidizers could probably do 20% and slow oxidizers, less, maybe only 10%, but you got to have, so saturated fat, milk has plenty of it, it’s actually very nutritious for baby cows, so it can’t be all bad, right?

Lindsey:

Yeah no. I also get all mucousy with the dairy, and that is, yeah, the reason I had acid reflux until I stopped eating dairy. I mean, it was the single best thing I pulled out of my diet, but boy, it is really hard to go eat anywhere. Restaurants, so many dishes are, they’re like, oh, they’re so happy to market gluten-free, but every single dish has dairy, so, and that’s the worst thing for me, so it’s frustrating if you’re dairy free and react badly to it, because even, even with lactose enzymes. . .

Reed Davis:

Hard to go out.

Lindsey:

Yeah, it’s hard to go out, it’s hard to eat at anybody’s house. It’s just, yeah, it’s hard.

Reed Davis:

Well, more and more, the more we demand it from our food vendors, the more you’ll find it. There’s also some people who seem to do okay on the unprocessed, the unpasteurized.

Lindsey:

Raw milk.

Reed Davis:

That’s being sort of bandied about that it’s better for you, probably is, but I still don’t drink milk.

Lindsey:

Yeah, it didn’t make a lick of difference for my lactose intolerance, I’ll tell you that much, because I tried for a while. There’s all sorts of people out there claiming things like, oh, you drink raw milk, and you won’t have any problem digesting it. I’m like, yeah, no, not true.

Reed Davis:

Oh, that’s silly. Yeah, of course.

Lindsey:

Or “you eat yogurt, and that’s going to cure your lactose intolerance.” Also, no, that’s not a thing.

Reed Davis

Yeah, it’s hard for people because we do food sensitivity testing (can be ordered through Lindsey) as well. Pretty much every single client gets a food sensitivity test, because everyone has some. Everyone has some food sensitivity.

The question is, how much of those sensitivities are affecting your health? Are they contributing a lot to your dysfunction, or whatever it may be, or are they contributing a little? Well, we test everybody, and we find when they eliminate that food, that boy, that was the major contributor. We call it a contributor to metabolic chaos, and it’s really a valid term being used more and more often. What causes metabolic chaos, and all the downward spirals, and the cascade and resulting in dysfunction and disease and symptoms occurring, so food’s huge, and dairy is one of those that I don’t know too many people that it’s really good for, that just thrive on it, more dairy for that one, not in America.

Lindsey:

Yeah. So, I’ve been thrown, though, by the whole C15* coming out, because that’s a fat that’s mostly in dairy and some fish, and they’ve done all this research. It sounds like everybody’s supposed to have certain levels of it, healthy aging, the whole thing. So now I’m kind of like, are we supposed to be eating dairy fat? I’m okay with ghee, so I could get it that way without getting all the lactose and the casein and everything else. So, any thoughts on that?

Reed Davis:

Yeah, ghee, there’s people who use ghee, it’s clarified butter, so it doesn’t have the other, it’s just the fat, and I’d rather use tallow myself, which is what I cook often enough. Tallow and olive oil, some coconut oil, and avocado oil seem to agree with me pretty well.

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

Although none of my ancestors knew what an avocado was, I don’t know how. I don’t know how that works.

Lindsey:

Yeah, have you heard of the Zero-Acre oil*?

Reed Davis:

What is it?

Lindsey:

It’s high in omega three. It’s produced by bacteria fermenting sugar into an oil that’s high in omega threes and doesn’t get badly affected by heat if you cook with it. I think it’s good to like 450 degrees.

Reed Davis:

Good temperature.

Lindsey:

They’re not using any land to create it, because they’re using bacteria to produce it.

Reed Davis:

Oh, I see. Yeah.

Lindsey:

Yeah, that’s something I use for high heat cooking if I need to.

Reed Davis:

Yeah, Zero Acre farms. I’ll look at it. Yep, I’m all for it.

I actually just invested in some transformation farms. You can buy conventional farms and turn them into organic farms. It takes three years, but the produce is so much higher quality, it sells more organic food, and is more expensive. It’s funny, because you’re getting less for your money, you’re not getting all those pesticides and herbicides and rodenticides and all the other things, but yeah, more expensive, much more creative ways to keep the bugs off, and these kinds of things. Yeah, so that’s really important, and so your health is pretty good, you would say, Lindsey, since you changed your diet?

Lindsey:

Oh, I mean, definitely better. Yeah, definitely better. I mean, it’s always a work in progress, but, yeah, no, I come up well on tests, for the most part.

Reed Davis:

Do you feel good?

Lindsey:

Yeah, I feel good. I mean, a familial tendency towards high cholesterol, familial hypercholesterolemia. So, yeah, I think I’m one of those people that doesn’t do so well with too much saturated fat. Also, I don’t know, gallbladder maybe doesn’t, doesn’t handle it so well. I tried the ketogenic diet once for like a month, and I started having pains, shooting pains in my body, so I was like, this isn’t good for me.

Reed Davis:

Yeah, well, I probably would recommend some lab work around liver function, and the gallbladder needs to flow very freely. You can’t have any congestion in your gallbladder.

Lindsey:

Yeah, no, I did a little kind of gallbladder cleanse thing.

Reed Davis:

Yeah, good. You don’t want to lose that.

Lindsey:

Yeah, no, I have no intention of losing my gallbladder.

Reed Davis:

You don’t get extra parts, do you?

Lindsey:

Don’t get extra parts, and some people think that that’s a disposable part, but definitely never seems to solve the problem when people get rid of it.

Reed Davis:

We had a patient many years ago, who said he came in, and he had some gallbladder digestion, and he said that he went to his GI guy, and they said, “oh, we’ll just take your gallbladder out, you don’t really need that anyway,” and ended up saying something like, “that’s our bread and butter diagnosis and treatment, gallbladder removal,” and it’s kind of insane. I mean, bread and butter, that’s how they make their money, is by taking them out. But we tried very hard to save his gallbladder, but he couldn’t maintain the discipline, he still wanted to eat wrong.

Lindsey:

Yeah.

Reed Davis:

So, he ended up paying the price.

Lindsey:

Yeah, I’ve just learned that I can’t eat things anymore like pork belly, like things that are super high saturated fat. That’s just going to make me feel absolutely miserable. So, I avoid those foods, but occasionally you do happen to find yourself eating a meal that was just way too high in saturated fat, and feel miserable.

Reed Davis:

Yeah, pork belly. Obviously, almost all fat, it would require a lot of digestive juices from the gallbladder, but the bile. Number one, if you really love the taste, you could probably take some ox bile with it and lipase.

Lindsey:

I could, but I don’t eat it that often. I’m not carrying around ox bile.

Reed Davis:

It’s not on everybody’s menu, for sure.

Lindsey:

No, but occasionally the restaurant looks good, and you’re like, oh, I’d order that, but I know I’m going to regret it.

Reed Davis:

Take your ox bile with you, and lipase, lipase is from the pancreas, they come together in the common duct before they go into the duodenum there to break down fat, and their signals when you eat fat, your body signals fat’s coming, and you’ll start to release the bile and the lipase, and you’ll be able to break it down. So, if you’re not doing that, you could end up with, it’s kind of easy to detect, they call it steatorrhea, which is light-colored stools that float, and you got to watch your fat.

Lindsey:

Yeah, what about light-colored stools that don’t float?

Reed Davis:

Yeah, I think the floatiness is maybe a better indicator, and that light colored could be something else, but that maybe there’s just enough going on there where they’re not floating, but the common symptom of poor fat digestion and breakdown would be the light-colored floating stools, it might not even be light, and other things would affect it.

These are the guidelines, those aren’t real tests. We have tests, we can do a stool test, we can do a urine test and figure out a lot of stuff that’s going on with people. We do saliva testing, of course, and blood work, all the things.

Lindsey:

What stool test do you like?

Reed Davis:

I like the old-fashioned ones where they actually had human beings looking at the stool, looking at it under a microscope, good microscopy, trichrome staining, antigen testing, and culturing. We had to have a person look at the kind of fuzz growing in the petri dish. They would do like seven or eight petri dishes per stool sample, and so it’s really hard and expensive to find that anymore.

So, everyone now is using DNA testing, the testing by PCR, which is all done by machines, and it’s accurate. It looks for parasites, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. It also does functional analysis, like elastase, and these kinds of things that would tell you functionally what might be off here and there, and that’s what people are using now, the GI map from Diagnostic Solutions Laboratory. It’s a good test, again, it’s not the old-fashioned way, but it’s fast, and it’s cheap, so people are using that, could tell you a lot, especially on the pathogen side. You could find people with some serious bugs, that’s not normal.

Lindsey:

Yeah, I’ve stopped using the GI map because I just find it doesn’t have as much information as some other tests, like I use Tiny Health Pro now, because they’ve got the full metagenomic sequencing, plus they have all the GI markers, and then the Gut Zoomer too. The Vibrant test has, like . . .

Reed Davis:

We do a lot of Zoomers.

Lindsey:

. . . so many more areas, yeah, and it has all the markers for gluten intolerance, and so many more inflammatory markers. It’s just so much more information now, so I think they just added neurotransmitters.

Reed Davis:

Yeah, that was called Tiny what?

Lindsey:

Tiny Health PRO. Yeah, I’ve been using them. They started with microbiome sequencing for babies and moms, and they have the full adult test. So, yeah, I like that, because you literally know the percentage of every bacteria in the gut, and how it’s breaking down, so it really gives you a good picture, like, yeah, maybe somebody’s overabundant in this particular species, but that is actually only 0.1% of their microbiome, as opposed to this thing that’s 13% of their microbiome, which is a whole different way of looking at it than the PCR, because you really know every single thing.

Reed Davis:

Yeah, well, thanks for that. Yeah, they do the vaginal microbiomes, yeah. So that’s, yeah, that’s great.

Lindsey:

Yeah, I like that one. Anyway, we’re running out of time, so tell people where they can find you and about the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition course.

Reed Davis:

Yeah. Let me, well, I teach this course called Functional Diagnostic Nutrition*. You’ve made it when you have your company’s initials on your shirt; that makes you important. So, let me look at my calendar to see if we made a special link just for your listeners.

Yes, so it’s fdntraining.com/perfectstool26*, and that’s in your honor. So, if your listeners and viewers would go there, we have a gift. It’s a free behind the scenes access to the lab methodology we do. It’s kind of cool. I don’t know what it’s worth, but it’s free and we won’t try to sell you anything. We just inform you, you make your own decisions about whatever you want to do. Thank you for recommending me to Zero Acre and to that Tiny Health, I have never heard of them, you just never know. I do see they do beta-glucuronidase too, that’s a good marker for, yeah. I’m happy to be here, Lindsey. Time sure went by fast.

Lindsey:

Nice to talk to you again.

Reed Davis:

That’s what happens when you’re having fun, right? Take care.

If you’re dealing with gut health issues of any type (diarrhea, constipation, bloating, SIBO, IMO, H2S SIBO/ISO, IBS, IBD, gastritis, GERD, H pylori, diverticulitis, candida, etc.) or have an autoimmune disease and need some help, I see individual clients to help them resolve their digestive issues or reverse autoimmune disease naturally, You’re welcome to set up a free, 30-minute breakthrough session to see if you’d like to work with me. I also have my own two products, Tributyrin-Max, which is particularly helpful for loose stool and diarrhea as it slows your motility and firms up your stool, and SBI powder, which is an all around gut pathogen binder, which is super safe and won’t harm beneficial bacteria, and is usually the first line of treatment I educate my clients about in order to avoid stronger antimicrobial herbs.

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