Wellness Radio Recap: October 31st, 2020
On this special Halloween episode of Wellness Radio, Drs. Warren encourages everyone to go out and have fun. Have some Halloween candy, go trick or treating, and play scary games with your kids. We offer some tips further below on how we enjoy Halloween without sugar while still having all the candy.
In this episode, we also discussed gut health amongst the spooky fun. Here are a few timestamps to hear more about each topic as the videos go much deeper than this summary:
19:00 Our Sugar-Free Halloween
28:41 Is Food Medicine?
31:36 A question from drswarren.com on the rare autoimmune disease Pemphigus Vulgaris
We are going to share the story of a caller who had questions about his daughter’s gut health. She had done a colonoscopy and visited a GI specialist, but was still unwell.
A point to note is that a GI specialist will probably look for the results of things gone wrong in the gut. That can be ulcers, bleeding, or cancer, then they will look to treating those symptoms. What many specialists are not looking for is the root cause of any issues found and that is why many patients are still searching for relief after seeing these specialists.
We strive to always dig deeper and get at the root cause of any issues found. Colon cancer is fast-rising in people 30-35 and below so it is a good practice to identify and isolate whatever’s causing your body to react in this way.
Another patient story to be shared was that of a 17-year-old patient that has been treated everywhere from the Mayo Clinic to Vanderbilt Hospital. He had received diagnoses of lupus, fibromyalgia, and Lyme disease. He still, however, was not getting treatment for the root cause but for the symptoms. He was still feeling unwell. A relative of his put him on to us. But how do we start treating a patient with so many symptoms?
The first thing we did was look at the gut which would reveal all major issues. A PCR stool test was done that is very specific to isolate what’s going on inside the gut. The test revealed a high amount of C diff in his gut, which is detrimental to immune health, and in acute cases can be fatal. He also had an overgrowth of giardia, which is a microscopical parasite, and his gut was lacking in good necessary bacteria.
At the end of the day, we tackled the root causes of his issues and he reclaimed his health, going off to college a vibrant, young man.
The Myth of Eating Your Way to Health
If you have a gut issue, we want to stress that drinking kombucha and taking probiotics is not enough. If you’re only passing stool once every three days, you are not well and should seek professional advice on how to get to the root cause of your imbalance. Gone are the days where we can simply eat our way to health. There’s just too much toxicity in our modern-day environment. Serious health issues in the gut need more than eliminating dairy and gluten and increasing your fiber intake to get you back on the favorable side of health.
The test that we administer to our patients is one of the best on the market. It looks at everything that’s happening in your stomach via the stool. However, even this test is not 100% accurate. It’s at that point that we start to look at rebuilding the stomach, which happens in several layers.
We first look at boosting the immune system and utilizing the millions of various types of bacteria in the gut. We then look at eliminating toxins and supporting the gut lining. Rebuilding the gut has a lot of factors to consider but can be done over time and with guidance, following the right steps. Chasing symptoms will not fix the problem, so it’s important to look at what’s causing ill-health.
Overusing antibiotics is leading to a lot of health issues in the gut in modern society. So is residue from herbicides found on non-organic foods. These circumstances have lasting effects on our gut microbiome which can take years to rebuild.
Setting a Healthy Foundation for Children
Something fun that we like to do for our kids is allowing them to enjoy Halloween. So how can you enjoy having candy on Halloween without consuming all that sugar?
We manage this by switching out all the candy our kids get while trick or treating for toys and healthier, yet great-tasting, options.
We like to reinforce in our children that there’s no such thing as good or bad food. Food is amoral. We also don’t like the term “cheat” in reference to food. Cheating is bad. Cheating can get you kicked out of school or personal relationships. The choice isn’t between good or bad food, the choice is between nourishing your body or damaging it.
Our children are growing to know that choice. They are learning to choose nourishment over anything that will make them feel sluggish. As parents, we also make sure to fill our kitchen with foods that we know will nourish our children. They don’t have the choice of anything we wouldn’t personally consume.
Our advice to parents who say their kids are picky and won’t eat anything but cereal is to stop buying cereal. Look for healthier alternatives if you must. Magic Spoon is a brand of great-tasting cereal that is made from real, wholesome ingredients.
For Halloween, we buy organic chocolate from Lily’s that’s sweetened with Stevia. We have organic peanut butter cups, Zollipops that taste amazing, pumpkin cupcakes made with almond flour and coconut sugar, and all the fun snacks just the same.
When we coach our patients to better health, they never feel deprived because it’s not a cold-turkey situation. In our family, we enjoy pizza, chicken wings, soda, and all the same comfort foods but they are all made with real, organic, wholesome ingredients, with no sugar or seed oils involved.
This is the foundation we set for our children. Right now, they aren’t the ones making the decisions at the grocery store. We can only teach them what’s right and how to get back to great health if they ever choose to veer from the path of nourishment in the future.
I have this conversation in my office with 60+-year-olds who have trouble giving up certain foods. The food we eat is tied to the relationships we have from childhood onwards. We eat with emotional ties so it can be harder to walk away from what you’ve known all your life, even while reeling from the damage it’s causing.
This emotional connection to food doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Food supports a feeling of community. Some of our most important memories often surround food. We can choose to create this atmosphere around healthy food so that our children crave these instead of harmful substances.
Food is Not Medicine
Food is basic. Food is fuel. We often get overwhelmed with lists of foods that we must eat daily for gut health and brain health and better sleep and all the things when really, we need a diverse diet. If your diet is not diverse, it creates an imbalance where disease exists.
Food is foundational and helps the body to heal itself. Food is not what heals, your body does that pretty well on its own. Food is simply the fuel that your body breaks down to utilize the nutrients in support of its own processes.
So Enjoy Yourself
Spend time with your family, let your children enjoy their seasonal treats, then get back on track after the holiday. Food cannot be cheating. Don't personify your nutrition. You're allowed to choose your health journey.
Question from drswarren.com: Have we ever treated the rare autoimmune disease Pemphigus Vulgaris?
We are not medical doctors and so we do not treat any diseases in our office. Our specialty as health coaches and chiropractors is getting to the root causes of what is causing an imbalance in the body so that the body can heal itself. We have in the past worked with people who have suffered from this autoimmune disease.
It’s something that affects the skin and mucus membranes which can be very painful. Because it is an autoimmune disease, it all goes back to addressing what’s going on in the gut, which is where your immune system is rooted. We start with, as always, the stool test to see what’s going on then guide the patient through our gut protocols to help their body heal itself.