December 25, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of The Eye-Q Podcast, I talk with Dr. Daniel Chille about how gut health, inflammation, mitochondrial function, and genetics influence eye disease. We explore the gut–eye axis, leaky gut, oxidative stress, and why stool testing and nutrigenomics can reveal hidden triggers behind chronic symptoms. If you’ve struggled with dry eyes, autoimmune issues, or unexplained vision changes, this conversation shows how healing the gut may help protect your sight.
Dr. Daniel Chille is a distinguished healthcare professional specializing in Integrative and Functional Medicine, with a mission to reverse chronic disease and optimize human health through a root-cause approach. He is the founder of TBD Fitness, a holistic wellness clinic based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, serving patients both locally and across the country.
Dr. Chille began his academic career at Northwestern University, where he earned his degree while also playing NCAA Division I soccer. After college, he pursued a professional soccer career in Europe—an experience that shaped his holistic perspective on performance, recovery, and whole-body health.
Through TBD Fitness and his broader clinical practice, Dr. Chille leads a team of wellness professionals who integrate functional medicine, nutrigenomics, cellular and microbial medicine, and advanced lab diagnostics to deliver highly personalized care. Diagnostic services include in-depth testing such as blood, hormone, genetic, gut microbiome, micronutrient, and neurolymphatic assessments.
Dr. Daniel Chille
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Zinc is also required for the activity of the retinal
dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme that converts vitamin A
into retinol, which is essentialfor rhodopsin, the visual
pigment that lets us see in in dim light.
But zinc also stabilizes cell membranes and is a cofactor for
super superoxide dismutase, which protects retinal tissue
from oxidative stress. And what we see here in terms of
(00:22):
leaky gut is there's an extremely high oxidative burden
which really damages the mitochondria.
But closing that circle on zinc,it's necessary for the transport
of vitamin A from the liver to the retina.
And without adequate zinc that can't reach the eye and now you
have macular degeneration. Welcome to the IQ Podcast.
(00:43):
I'm Doctor Ronnie Bannock here to help you boost your IQ with
powerful insights that connect your eyes, your brain, and your
whole body Wellness. Hello everyone, and welcome to
another episode of the IQ Podcast.
I'm your host, Doctor Ronnie Banach, America's integrative
ophthalmologist, and I'm so excited to bring you insights
(01:04):
into eye health, brain health, and overall Wellness in this
podcast. And the goal is to help you
raise your IQ, your awareness ofall these different modalities
we can use to improve our health.
Today, I'm so excited to welcomemy special guest, Doctor Daniel
Keeley. Welcome Doctor Keeley to the IQ
Podcast. Thank you for having me and it's
a pleasure to meet you. Absolutely.
(01:26):
We're we're so pleased to have you here.
So for our guests, let me give you a little introduction to
Doctor Kile. So Doctor Daniel Kile is a
distinguished healthcare professional specializing in
integrative and functional medicine, and he has a mission
to reverse chronic disease and optimize human health through a
root cause approach. Doctor Kile is the founder of
(01:47):
TBD Fitness, a holistic Wellnessclinic based in Elk Grove
Village, IL, and he serves patients both locally and across
the country. So Doctor Kile, you have an
interesting background that I would love for you to share with
our audience. I know you didn't start off in
the healthcare profession, so tell us about what you were
(02:08):
doing before and how you came tobecome an integrative and
functional medicine provider. Yes, my story is unique in the
sense it's very much similar to many of my patients stories.
But let's go back even as a kid,so I played soccer.
That was my sport and I ended upplaying at a very high level
where I was playing soccer at Northwestern.
So D1 athlete and then I went togo play in Europe thereafter
(02:32):
when my career was kind of cut short to repeated hamstring
tears. I, I wish I knew then what I
know now how to have preserved that.
That's when I decided to, to pursue the, the medical realm.
I wanted to pursue medicine froma lens of holistic health and
but now we term root cause medicine.
(02:53):
But in college is when I saw my own health begin to deteriorate.
I suffered from a lot of debilitating gut issues which
persevered for over a decade. And much like many of our
patients, we begin to abnormalize the normal.
And so it was met with a lot of frequent loose bowel movements,
constant bloating in indigestion, frequent
(03:15):
sensitivities to different foods.
Obviously that couples with sleep issues and hormonal
issues, energy issues, I knew that I had to to figure this out
on my own because when I went toMayo Clinic, which at the time I
think and maybe still today certainly is touted as kind of
the zenith of our medical system.
(03:37):
They treated me with the suggestion of Imodium or Pepto
Bismol to be taken three times aday for 12 weeks.
And they sent me on my way. So I saw very quickly that
treating symptoms was never really going to discern how to
correct the the awfulness of howI was feeling.
So when I begin to practice functional medicine, I saw right
(03:58):
away that I had a very high level of dysbiosis and
parasites. And so I saw the power of
functional integrative testing to be able to undo a lot of
these underlying symptoms and thus resolve my own personal
health issues. So in this journey, as you were
researching, trying to figure out what was really going on,
what was the root cause of a lotof your GI issues?
(04:18):
Did you try to do this on your own, or did you work with a
provider that you had found who could help guide you through
this process? Both so early on, as I
mentioned, I went to the Mayo Clinic and so certainly I was
seeking out providers, right, who I thought to be the best in
class and going through medical school, I realized that, okay,
well, there's, there's more to the pieces of this puzzle and
(04:41):
there is likely more that we cando from a testing standpoint to
discern what's driving this. And so how I was built is I
always wanted to be the best in terms of when I was playing.
I, I always wanted to be the best on the field, have kind of
the, the best outcomes to help my, my team win.
And during medical school, I wasalso seeking out providers who I
thought were doing what I considered to be best in class.
(05:02):
And so early on, I developed relationships with mentors who
were able to teach me their sageand wisdom working with their
patient population for decades. And so my strategy was to try to
kind of fly all over the US to learn off of some of these
absolutely brilliant dogs withinall specialties MDSDODCNDS.
(05:25):
And then distill what what I could and take that back in into
my own practice, both personally.
And then to increase the likelihood of success, both in
terms of efficacy, but also how quickly we can see our patients
resolve their specific issues. Now your story is so
inspirational of, you know, so many providers like us who have
(05:47):
discovered integrative and functional medicine and now use
those benefits not only for our own health and then we apply
them to our patients. So it seems like you started to
apply some of these principles or to feel better, I would
assume, and started to use this approach of whole body Wellness
for your patients. Can you give an example of a
patient who's similar to you, maybe had some kind of
(06:08):
undiagnosed entity, and then that you helped to walk through
this process of root cause medicine and then improve their
overall overall health? I mean, it's a laundry list.
Let me think, maybe one does. Just came into the office the
other day. Many of my patients,
unfortunately or fortunately, they've seen many functional
medicine practitioners, usually 3-4, sometimes 5.
(06:31):
And I thought kind of functionalmedicine was kind of the creme
de la Creme. It was medicine evolving into
trying to discern what someone is going through by doing a lot
of testing in some degree. Certainly the body has patterns,
right? And so sometimes we don't have
to test. But I like my philosophy is
test, don't guess to discern what someone's going through and
then treat. And I can be hyper targeted with
(06:53):
treatment and I can help someoneheal faster and safer.
So one lady comes to us and she can barely, barely walk.
And not in terms of motor dysfunction, but in terms of her
energy was non existent. She was super reactive to the
light. She was super reactive to the
noise when she had walked in. I mean, it was like a walking
zombie. And she was with fibromyalgia.
(07:14):
So I suggested it immediately. And she'd seen many other
practitioners similar in the functional medicine world.
And that's when I saw quickly, perhaps we're not all alike.
But the principle here is not toinflate any sort of ego.
The principle is just, I want toknow what a patient has done
before because I don't want to repeat the same things if they
already have, you know, a plethora of testing done.
(07:35):
But what's often overlooked, I find, is just a simple
comprehensive stool test. And so that would, to me was the
missing gap. No one was looking at her
microbial disposition. So we did a stool test and there
were two specific strains of bacteria that were, I think it
was like 20 times the healthy range.
I've never seen it this high before and left untreated that
(07:56):
could be potentially fatal. And so she was struggling simply
because of this. And once we did a a very simple
but aggressive GI cleanup. I mean it was the next time I
saw her in my office within 8 weeks full of energy down 13
lbs, which she expressed that women too often, I don't know if
you can relate to this, but theyoften come in and they want to
(08:17):
fit in a certain dress. And while for me, I'm less
concerned about someone's, if they can fit in the dress, I'm
more concerned if I clean up theinternal chemistry, the body is
going to start to burn fat for fuel as intended.
And so as a, as a consequence, you'll begin to look better.
But my goal is let's clean up the GI and let's get these,
(08:37):
these dysbiotic species to healthy ranges.
And you're going to definitely feel better.
And this story is reflective of so many patients that a simple
stool test can discern again, very, very quickly on how you
can heal hormonal imbalances, issues with brain fog, fatigue,
sleep, memory, certainly metabolic profiles, even
(08:58):
obviously metabolic composition where women say that, you know,
they're stuck and they're plateauing, they can't lose any
weight. This is relatively easy to fix.
And it's just from doing some testing and then providing the
right input that has been impaired for too long.
Well, thank you for sharing thatstory.
You know, I can definitely relate as a provider where I've
seen many patients who've seen other eye eye care providers and
(09:19):
they haven't been getting better, whether it's eye
inflammation, whether it's macular degeneration that's
progressing and we need to look deeper.
And often times I do look at thegut because there is this
connection between the gut and eye health.
And just like there's got the gut brain connection, the gut
skin connection, there's the guteye connection.
And definitely it's definitely worth investigating.
(09:40):
I wanted to ask you though, Doctor Akile, you know, doing
something like a stool test, comprehensive diagnostic panel,
sometimes patients don't have access, whether it be financial
limitations or, you know, they, they can't just, you know,
order. Well, I guess you can order
these, some of these tests commercially now, but you need
to have a provider interpret it for you.
What are your thoughts about people kind of assuming that
(10:01):
they have gut dysbiosis and going ahead and addressing that
without doing the testing? I mean, I'm also a believer in
tests don't guess. But for those of patients who
don't have access, what, what are your thoughts about that?
Yes. So as I alluded to before, the
body leaves patterns, right? A stool test allows me to be
hyper targeting my treatment. I've been doing this for almost
a decade now where I'm usually, I can usually shoot bull's eyes
(10:26):
blindly, right? Only because I've seen so many
patterns. So while the story is unique to
the patient is not unique to us and our team.
And so testing isn't always where we start.
We can certainly get people better just by incorporating
digestive enzymes as an example.So say someone comes in with
bloating, digestion, flatulence,obviously there's digestive
(10:47):
issues. A simple digestive enzyme is
going to help, a simple HCL, hydrochloric acid, it's the
stomach acid that we produce naturally getting someone
perhaps on hydrochloric acid, which the parietal cells often
times as we age degrade and we secrete less stomach acid.
And so this is an issue with ouraging population.
(11:08):
But this is also an issue with stress because is does the issue
happen in the gut or does it happen in the hypothalamus and
now the vagus nerve doesn't sendthe right signal to start the
digestive process. That's where a test can help.
But certainly if we balance the HPA access, we modulate the the
stress response, we buffer against perhaps excessive
(11:29):
cortisol, cortisol resistance, We provide some stomach support.
The patients already begin to feel better.
But this is often band aids. So until we do a test, it's
difficult to determine, OK, whatis, you know, crippling the
system, what's driving this? So when when a patient maybe
doesn't have enough resources, Iexplain to them why this is
(11:51):
important. Or I just suggest, OK, here in
in the specific representation that you're coming in with,
let's start with this. My suspicion is we'll probably
get you 85 to 95% better sometimes without even a test.
And then, you know, if there's certain unresolved symptoms,
let's kind of do a test and see where else we have to account
for that. Perhaps was the missing link.
(12:12):
Usually patients come with a blood test.
Now these tests are usually, letme say, I don't want to say
inconclusive, but they're not full, they're not complete.
But within a blood test, there'sa lot that can already be
reflective of what's going on incertain holes that we need to
plug in because the blood doesn't lie in the blood test
itself. Power is not in the test, but
(12:33):
the power is in the analysis. So you're right, it's it's not
necessarily that the test is important, it's the
interpretation. And within a blood test alone, I
think that many providers often overlook the power of a CDC with
differential or what your analysis could provide.
Lipid profile is OK, but again, other markers may be more
relevant to insulin resistance, like homocysteine or A1C, or
(12:57):
perhaps tying it with uric acid levels.
There's a lot that can already be reversed by looking just at a
comprehensive blood test that some patients sometimes already
have. So the goal isn't to just do a
lot more testing. The goal is to see, OK, how can
we start? How can we be super lean but yet
achieve the highest level of outcome?
Absolutely. That all resonates very much.
(13:19):
So with my approach as well, talking about the gut, I wanted
to just get your opinions on leaky gut because I'm sure it's
something that you see very often in your practice.
It's something that I see very often in my ophthalmology
practice because as I was saying, there's the gut eye
axis, but there's also leaky gutsyndrome.
There's leaky eye syndrome. Sometimes when people do have
(13:40):
some form of leaky eye syndrome,I look at the gut.
And So what are your kind of bigpillars when you're thinking
about leaky gut and what are some of the main things you
suggest? I know I'm kind of generalizing,
but what are some of the main things that you suggest best
patients do if you suspect that they have leaky gut?
So I very much look forward to having you on my podcast to talk
about all things I related. But let's unpack leaky Duat gut
(14:03):
or what's colloquially now knownas leaky gutter intestinal
permeability. And so that's dysfunction of
your GI barrier. So the epithelial lining, which
is 1 cell layer ethics, which kind of protects you from the
outside world in our modern era with exposure to fungicide,
pesticide, herbicide, you name it side which paralyzes insects,
so too does it paralyze our gut lining.
(14:25):
And that doesn't even now take into account all the plastics
and phthalates. POBSPCBSVOCSI mean if there's a
myriad or deluge of different toxins that we're now exposed to
that we never evolved with. And so it's very difficult for
our in the gut lining or the tight junctions to maintain
their integrity because of this high exposure.
(14:45):
So what happens is this touch tight junctions open and you
want to think of that it kind ofthe offense, right?
Or the the gate to your home as those open because of these
poisons that kind of cripple theglue that keeps them together.
You now have things get into thethe bloodstream which otherwise
shouldn't be there. And what resides there is your
immune system to protect you. How does the immune system fight
(15:08):
well with inflammation? Now is inflammation bad?
No, not necessarily. It keeps you alive when you you
cut yourself a neutrophils usherto the scene.
That's kind of the the white yellow pus that begins to
develop to kind of help heal andseal the wound.
And so too happens with your secretory IGA, which is right at
that gut lining to start a mounting attack.
(15:29):
That's like you're the police officer that that comes to the
scene with maybe some fire trucks.
But what happens over time is kind of this what I call a
pathogen party can begin to peripherally because the tight
junctions are open. You have things continually
leaking through This now allows pathogens to swim everywhere to
the body and particularly the eyes.
(15:49):
So it's interesting when you sayleaky eye, I've I never heard
that before, but it makes sense because leaky gut, leaky brain,
leaky gut, leaky lungs, leaky gut, leaky heart.
And so the story continues to unfold.
We know that each organ has its own microbiome, the eye
included. Let's look at the link between
the microbiome perhaps and and the mitochondria.
Eyes especially in the retina are among the most energy
(16:11):
demanding tissue I think in the human body and therefore
extremely rich in mitochondria perhaps maybe second to brain
and and liver well and heart naturally.
So there's photoreceptor cells, I think rosin cones, which
contain thousands, if you will, of mitochondria, which why does
this become relevant? Because the mitochondria supply
(16:32):
energy needed for phototransduction or converting
light into neural signals. And so the retina, especially
the macula, contains some of thebody's highest zinc
concentration. So going back to secretory IGA
that we mentioned or the immune defense, it's very zinc
dependent, but zinc is also required for the activity of the
retinal dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme that converts vitamin
(16:54):
A into retinol, which is essential for rhodopsin, the
visual pigment that lets us see in in in light.
But zinc also stabilizes cell membranes and is a cofactor for
super superoxide dismutase, which protects retinal tissue
from oxidative stress. And what we see here in terms of
leaky gut is there's a extremelyhigh oxidative burden, which
(17:16):
really damages the mitochondria.But closing that circle on zinc,
it's necessary with the transport of vitamin A from the
liver to the retina or via retinal binding protein.
And without adequate zinc that can't reach HDI and now you have
macular degeneration over time. How does this connect to the
microbiome is that it's believedthe mitochondria are have
(17:37):
evolved from Proteobacteria. So our gut produces compounds
that that regulate mitochondrialactivity and something like
short chain fatty acids at a sample, which is a process of
fermentation from our bacteria, hopefully our healthy bacteria,
which fuels colonocytes, which then helps rebuild the the wall
of the gut lining. And what happens is when that's
(17:57):
open again, there's disbar biosis that happens one step
before that and gram negative bacteria shed their lining,
which are lipopolysaccharides are this kind of endotoxin,
which then begins to trigger mitochondrial dysfunction
through inflammation through reactive oxygen species.
And now you have problems that should be contained in the gut
and then get and into the periphery.
(18:20):
Yeah. And so that is super damaging to
the eyes. And so 90% of our secretory IGA
as I expressed is found in gut association.
See the lymphoid tissue or gold.The gut microbiome connects to
the ocular Biome where we find Staphylococcus in the eye, we
find cornea bacteria and we findPropionio bacterium and and
(18:40):
other such step to Costa species.
These microbes can help train the local immune system respond
to barrier function. And ideally the goal is to
maintain this barrier function so that we prevent pathogens
that can cause infection like conjunctivitis or keratitis.
So there's the cornea bacteria, which stimulates A mild immune
(19:01):
response, which helps recruit neutrophils to further protect
this against Candida or Pseudomonas.
And so this dysbiosis is what I often see in that starts in the
gut, gets into the eye, and now we have big problems with
vision. Yeah, I love how you've
connected the dots here. I mean, it's such a complex web,
(19:21):
you know, the the gut eye connection and then bringing in
inflammation and also oxidative stress.
And I'm also impressed by your knowledge of photo transduction.
I'm quite impressed by that Doctor QA as a non eye care
provider going to touch upon that few things that you
mentioned. We're going to take a very short
break to hear from one of our sponsors and then we will be
right back with more on the IQ Podcast.
(19:42):
So stay tuned. Did you know that your gut
health can play a crucial role in maintaining your eye health?
Inside your gut, there is a bustling community of
microorganisms known as the gut microbiome.
When this community is balanced,your entire body, including your
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eye conditions like uveitis, dryeye syndrome, age-related
(20:06):
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(20:29):
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Support your gut and support your eyes with balance.
Welcome back, everyone, to the IQ Podcast.
We are speaking today with Doctor Daniel Keelay, who is an
expert in integrative and functional medicine.
And we've been talking a lot about gut health and its
(20:51):
relationship to eye health. And one thing I wanted to ask
you, Doctor Keelay, is, you know, this interplay between
leaky gut and the immune system,the dominoes that fall can in
some cases, lead to autoimmune disease.
And we know that the eye is veryvulnerable to various types of
autoimmune conditions, whether that be multiple sclerosis or
(21:12):
lupus or shogren's disease or ulcerative colitis.
So in your patients with autoimmune diseases, have you
seen a lot of eye issues relatedto that?
And if so, when you treat the autoimmune aspect of things, how
do their eye issues do? Yeah.
So autoimmune to me is a diagnosis of seven years.
(21:34):
It doesn't happen overnight. But the problem is that our
patients only raise their hand when there's physical
manifestation of pain. So let's look at eye
deterioration as an example. Usually hopefully, if if a
patient is taking care of themselves, they're going to
stand up when they all of a sudden see some sort of vision
impairment, let's say degeneration or pain in the eye.
(21:55):
But that manifestation is years sometimes in the making.
It doesn't happen overnight. And so the the chronic nature of
autoimmune that cascade happenedlong time ago and it often
starts with again, immune barrier dysfunction, whether
that's in them oral pharynx, in the sinus cavity, that's
somewhere in the esophagus, that's somewhere in the skin, in
(22:16):
the eye, in the gut. So there's barrier dysfunction,
which then leads to autoimmune when it goes untreated for too
long. So in our patients when you
mentioned so Sjogren is an example of you know, it
represents as dry mouth or dry eyes, if you will, lupus or miss
autoimmune in the brain, Crohn'scolitis, autoimmune in in the
GI, usually the body is operating what I term to be at a
(22:41):
40% deficit if not greater. So what does that mean is I have
my patients focus on five different things.
You have to eat well, sleep well, move well, talk well and
poop well and you're going to feel well.
But often enough, one or two, those pillars are often
breached, whether it's sleep because we're not prioritizing
it or our nutrition isn't as clean as it needs to be.
(23:04):
So now if you knock out those two pillars, you're at 60%.
The body begins to manifest physical symptoms of pain or eye
degeneration. And then we raise our hands and
we say, OK, it's probably time to go to the doc.
Or they go see you as an eye docand they say, hey, you know, my,
my vision is deteriorating. The good part with vision is we
typically act sooner because we,we notice symptoms sooner often
(23:25):
enough. But there are issues with
autoimmune where it's very much silent for so long until the
inflammatory cascade is so high that the body is now fighting
against its own tissue and damaging organs.
And so that's where pain begins to manifest even higher or
symptoms begin to become more aggressive.
(23:46):
The good part about vision loss,people are more receptive I
think to do something earlier on.
So I myself, my partner who, whodid LASIK or my, myself when I
did PRK. So there's, there's corrective
options, but unfortunately we practice reactive care where
(24:06):
we'll do things when we feel it rather than preventative care,
which is again, can you do this on a daily basis?
Eat right, sleep right, move right, talk right, poop right.
And if you're mastering that, it's simple, simple things you
can do foundationally often enough which are free.
You can feel right. Yeah, no, I I really love what
(24:27):
you said about changing the narrative and making it
preventative, like a focus on preventative care rather than
reactive care. And that's really been the major
issue in eye care is that we wait for things to happen.
We wait for macular degenerationto develop and then once it gets
to a certain stage, then we treat it.
But it just doesn't make sense. Like why wait for something to
(24:48):
happen? Like it's happening slowly, as
you said, that takes for maculardegeneration, it probably takes
like more than seven years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years to get
to the point where people actually have vision loss.
So there's a window of opportunity to intervene and
make some changes. And as you said, I love what you
said about those five pillars. So much of it is within our
(25:09):
control. Yes, we have our genetics, we
have our environmental risks, but so much of it is what we
choose to put in our bodies, howwe choose to sleep.
And I'll add to what what you said, I'm not sure how to fit it
into your, your paradigm. Stress modulation is to modulate
our stress levels. We all have stress.
And I've definitely seen, you know, P1 people are stressed.
(25:29):
That's when their eye issues actup.
So preventative care is key. I wanted to, to ask you one more
thing, Doctor Killer. I know our time is almost up and
this has been such a fascinatingdiscussion.
But you also specialize in an area called nutrigenomics.
And you were talking a little bit earlier about zinc.
So can you give us some background about nutrigenomics
(25:49):
and you know how that may impactour diet, our nutrient
absorption? Like just give us an example
maybe of how that could help someone to understand their
health better and use diet and perhaps supplements from a more
scientific base. Yeah, that's such a relevant
question. And we're such at a beautiful
place in time, almost an inflection point where modern
(26:11):
medicine can become precision medicine.
So looking at our genes, we do agenetic test almost with
everybody and prices keep comingdown and things become more
accessible. So I know we talked about
testing and perhaps sometimes costs involved, but this is
allows us to what I term as precision medicine where we can
see someone's holes in their biology or their predispositions
(26:35):
and begin to plug those hole, those holes such that we can now
customize your entire lifestyle program.
So nutrigenetics is nothing morethan the intersection of our
genes and nutrition and what nutrition or perhaps higher
nutrient needs that you may havein order to optimize your
biology. Let's look at as an example of
glaucoma, which has afflicted myfather.
(26:57):
So this hits close to home, is nothing more than mitochondrial
dysfunction. That's a little bit
reductionist. But if you look at retinol
ganglion cells, they're highly energy dependent.
And when we impair mitochondrialfunction, we reduce ATP that
increases oxidative stress. So you said stress.
To me, that is certainly the elephant in the room.
That's our modern lifestyle. I discuss this with our patients
(27:18):
all the time. Is that here, especially in
America, is we, we know how to press the gas pedal very well
until we run out of gas and thenwe say, let's drink some more
coffee and press it more. But looking at this oxidative
stress burden and zinc as an example, we need more
antioxidants. So I see that in a, in a genetic
test, whether someone has a higher need for choline, looking
(27:42):
at when you mentioned zinc and I, I, I tied this back into
glaucoma. There needs to be more vitamin
C, more vitamin E antioxidants. Co Q 10A lipoic acid
glutathione, so we can see B as your master antioxidant.
Where are you at in production of glutathione?
Do you have specific snips that are down regulated so you need a
little bit more? Do you have specific deletions?
(28:03):
So how you can account for againholes in your biology and then
plug these holes to optimize or prevent and hedge against some
of these predispositions becauseour genes are not our destiny.
And so looking at glutathione pathways in particular, this is
critical for detoxification and methylation.
And if you're unable to neutralize the oxidative burn in
the eye, well, this is how you're going to impair vision
(28:27):
over time. And so there's vascular and
microcirculation that needs to be count for neuroinflammation
that needs to be accounted for. And I can see some of these risk
factors within a simple genetic test.
And so doing this one test that you only need to do once in your
entire life, you can begin to plug, like I said, those holes,
(28:47):
but you can also begin to see what's going on in your kids
biology too, just from looking at yours, because our kids are
extension of ourselves and, you know, share genes with our
parents. And again, the the component of
nutrigenomics to me is this beautiful intersection of
understanding what nutrient needs that you have a need for
and begin to fill that gap. Yeah.
(29:10):
And a great example would be this is so common would be an
MTHFR variant, right? So we know that certain people
have this variant of this gene that requires that they, they,
well, they don't absorb certain types of folate and methyl
copalamine properly. So then they need to have a
methylated form. And so that's important to know,
(29:30):
right? I've definitely used that for
patients. I also do a lot of migraines.
So I, I definitely have looked at that that and I found that a
lot of patients with migraine have variants in their MTHFR
gene. I don't know if you've seen
something similar to that, but that's something like a thread
that runs through a lot of my patients.
That's one certainly that hits close to home because I see this
is very endemic to the Italian population and myself, my father
(29:53):
being from Italy. So we have a 66, I believe,
percent reduced capacity to methylate.
And so obviously within phase two, there's glucoronidation,
sulfation, acetylation and methylation is 1 component.
But why this is so relevant? Because it looks at our ability
to produce glutathione again, our master antioxidant.
And if we have an ability to do that, some precursors such as
(30:15):
stated so MT5FA, so of methylated folate or a, a
methylated B12, these help with the conversion so that the body
can take the raw ingredients, convert it to its actiform.
And now you don't have that missing link.
Our body's like an assembly line.
And if there is dysfunction in any one of those compartments,
(30:37):
well, you're going to have an impaired signal with a
dysfunctional outcome. And so, yeah, you nailed it on
the head. Making sure that our patients
are counting for these things iscritical.
And doing a genetic test is justmaking that process one step
easier. Fascinating.
Is there your particular vendor that you you prefer for when you
order the nutrigenomic testing, Nutrigenetic testing I should
say. You know, I want to give a shout
(30:59):
out to the DNA company because Ithink they do things on a high
level, but what I use is 3 by 4 and their team is absolutely
astounding. Do as.
Well, I love their pathways and it's just so clear for patients
to understand as well. Yeah, it's a wonder and it's
such a simple test. Also, it's a you know, it's a
swab, very easy to do. So easy, but provides such a
(31:22):
level of actionable insight. Absolutely.
I've been actually talking to them about potentially putting
together some eye markers, specific genetic variants for
glaucoma and macular degeneration including that.
So hopefully that will be in thepipeline at some point in the
future, please. Please please please.
Yes. Well, Doctor Kili, this has been
such an enlightening discussion.I've learned so much from you
(31:45):
and it brings back, you know, all my studying for functional
medicine, all those pathways. I mean, you just you're so
eloquent and how you describe them and making very complex
processes easy to understand. So thank you for sharing your
expertise. If anyone who is listening to
the podcast wanted to reach out to you, I know that you do both
in person consultations as well as virtual.
(32:07):
How could they find you or find more about your work?
Yes, Doctor Ronnie, thank you aswell for having me as a guest.
This has been very, very fruitful.
I hope your patients and whoeverlistening took something
positive away so you can find me.
Our clinic is Total Body Diagnostics.
We're right outside of Chicago. We also practice telehealth, so
TBD, fit.com, like Total Body Diagnostics, also the TBD FFIT
(32:29):
podcast, which we're launching as well, love to connect with
people even if it's just kind ofa positive review feedback.
But we're here to provide guidance and education moreover
than anything and help our patients much like you do, just
receive optimal health, which I think everyone deserves.
Absolutely, so, so beautifully said.
And we will include those links in the show notes so so you will
(32:51):
have easy access to Doctor Keeley.
Well, thank you again for spending this time with us.
I know your schedule is very busy, so we really appreciate it
and I I look forward to seeing the rest of you during your next
episode on the IQ podcast. So stay tuned.
Thank you for tuning in to the IQ Podcast.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learn something new
(33:12):
to help you boost your IQ. Leave us a review and share the
podcast with your family and friends.
Stay connected with me for more eye opening insights on ihealth,
nutrition and lifestyle. Until next time, keep your
vision clear and your IQ.
Zinc is also required for the activity of the retinal
dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme that converts vitamin A
into retinol, which is essentialfor rhodopsin, the visual
pigment that lets us see in in dim light.
But zinc also stabilizes cell membranes and is a cofactor for
super superoxide dismutase, which protects retinal tissue
from oxidative stress. And what we see here in terms of
(00:22):
leaky gut is there's an extremely high oxidative burden
which really damages the mitochondria.
But closing that circle on zinc,it's necessary for the transport
of vitamin A from the liver to the retina.
And without adequate zinc that can't reach the eye and now you
have macular degeneration. Welcome to the IQ Podcast.
(00:43):
I'm Doctor Ronnie Bannock here to help you boost your IQ with
powerful insights that connect your eyes, your brain, and your
whole body Wellness. Hello everyone, and welcome to
another episode of the IQ Podcast.
I'm your host, Doctor Ronnie Banach, America's integrative
ophthalmologist, and I'm so excited to bring you insights
(01:04):
into eye health, brain health, and overall Wellness in this
podcast. And the goal is to help you
raise your IQ, your awareness ofall these different modalities
we can use to improve our health.
Today, I'm so excited to welcomemy special guest, Doctor Daniel
Keeley. Welcome Doctor Keeley to the IQ
Podcast. Thank you for having me and it's
a pleasure to meet you. Absolutely.
(01:26):
We're we're so pleased to have you here.
So for our guests, let me give you a little introduction to
Doctor Kile. So Doctor Daniel Kile is a
distinguished healthcare professional specializing in
integrative and functional medicine, and he has a mission
to reverse chronic disease and optimize human health through a
root cause approach. Doctor Kile is the founder of
(01:47):
TBD Fitness, a holistic Wellnessclinic based in Elk Grove
Village, IL, and he serves patients both locally and across
the country. So Doctor Kile, you have an
interesting background that I would love for you to share with
our audience. I know you didn't start off in
the healthcare profession, so tell us about what you were
(02:08):
doing before and how you came tobecome an integrative and
functional medicine provider. Yes, my story is unique in the
sense it's very much similar to many of my patients stories.
But let's go back even as a kid,so I played soccer.
That was my sport and I ended upplaying at a very high level
where I was playing soccer at Northwestern.
So D1 athlete and then I went togo play in Europe thereafter
(02:32):
when my career was kind of cut short to repeated hamstring
tears. I, I wish I knew then what I
know now how to have preserved that.
That's when I decided to, to pursue the, the medical realm.
I wanted to pursue medicine froma lens of holistic health and
but now we term root cause medicine.
(02:53):
But in college is when I saw my own health begin to deteriorate.
I suffered from a lot of debilitating gut issues which
persevered for over a decade. And much like many of our
patients, we begin to abnormalize the normal.
And so it was met with a lot of frequent loose bowel movements,
constant bloating in indigestion, frequent
(03:15):
sensitivities to different foods.
Obviously that couples with sleep issues and hormonal
issues, energy issues, I knew that I had to to figure this out
on my own because when I went toMayo Clinic, which at the time I
think and maybe still today certainly is touted as kind of
the zenith of our medical system.
(03:37):
They treated me with the suggestion of Imodium or Pepto
Bismol to be taken three times aday for 12 weeks.
And they sent me on my way. So I saw very quickly that
treating symptoms was never really going to discern how to
correct the the awfulness of howI was feeling.
So when I begin to practice functional medicine, I saw right
(03:58):
away that I had a very high level of dysbiosis and
parasites. And so I saw the power of
functional integrative testing to be able to undo a lot of
these underlying symptoms and thus resolve my own personal
health issues. So in this journey, as you were
researching, trying to figure out what was really going on,
what was the root cause of a lotof your GI issues?
(04:18):
Did you try to do this on your own, or did you work with a
provider that you had found who could help guide you through
this process? Both so early on, as I
mentioned, I went to the Mayo Clinic and so certainly I was
seeking out providers, right, who I thought to be the best in
class and going through medical school, I realized that, okay,
well, there's, there's more to the pieces of this puzzle and
(04:41):
there is likely more that we cando from a testing standpoint to
discern what's driving this. And so how I was built is I
always wanted to be the best in terms of when I was playing.
I, I always wanted to be the best on the field, have kind of
the, the best outcomes to help my, my team win.
And during medical school, I wasalso seeking out providers who I
thought were doing what I considered to be best in class.
(05:02):
And so early on, I developed relationships with mentors who
were able to teach me their sageand wisdom working with their
patient population for decades. And so my strategy was to try to
kind of fly all over the US to learn off of some of these
absolutely brilliant dogs withinall specialties MDSDODCNDS.
(05:25):
And then distill what what I could and take that back in into
my own practice, both personally.
And then to increase the likelihood of success, both in
terms of efficacy, but also how quickly we can see our patients
resolve their specific issues. Now your story is so
inspirational of, you know, so many providers like us who have
(05:47):
discovered integrative and functional medicine and now use
those benefits not only for our own health and then we apply
them to our patients. So it seems like you started to
apply some of these principles or to feel better, I would
assume, and started to use this approach of whole body Wellness
for your patients. Can you give an example of a
patient who's similar to you, maybe had some kind of
(06:08):
undiagnosed entity, and then that you helped to walk through
this process of root cause medicine and then improve their
overall overall health? I mean, it's a laundry list.
Let me think, maybe one does. Just came into the office the
other day. Many of my patients,
unfortunately or fortunately, they've seen many functional
medicine practitioners, usually 3-4, sometimes 5.
(06:31):
And I thought kind of functionalmedicine was kind of the creme
de la Creme. It was medicine evolving into
trying to discern what someone is going through by doing a lot
of testing in some degree. Certainly the body has patterns,
right? And so sometimes we don't have
to test. But I like my philosophy is
test, don't guess to discern what someone's going through and
then treat. And I can be hyper targeted with
(06:53):
treatment and I can help someoneheal faster and safer.
So one lady comes to us and she can barely, barely walk.
And not in terms of motor dysfunction, but in terms of her
energy was non existent. She was super reactive to the
light. She was super reactive to the
noise when she had walked in. I mean, it was like a walking
zombie. And she was with fibromyalgia.
(07:14):
So I suggested it immediately. And she'd seen many other
practitioners similar in the functional medicine world.
And that's when I saw quickly, perhaps we're not all alike.
But the principle here is not toinflate any sort of ego.
The principle is just, I want toknow what a patient has done
before because I don't want to repeat the same things if they
already have, you know, a plethora of testing done.
(07:35):
But what's often overlooked, I find, is just a simple
comprehensive stool test. And so that would, to me was the
missing gap. No one was looking at her
microbial disposition. So we did a stool test and there
were two specific strains of bacteria that were, I think it
was like 20 times the healthy range.
I've never seen it this high before and left untreated that
(07:56):
could be potentially fatal. And so she was struggling simply
because of this. And once we did a a very simple
but aggressive GI cleanup. I mean it was the next time I
saw her in my office within 8 weeks full of energy down 13
lbs, which she expressed that women too often, I don't know if
you can relate to this, but theyoften come in and they want to
(08:17):
fit in a certain dress. And while for me, I'm less
concerned about someone's, if they can fit in the dress, I'm
more concerned if I clean up theinternal chemistry, the body is
going to start to burn fat for fuel as intended.
And so as a, as a consequence, you'll begin to look better.
But my goal is let's clean up the GI and let's get these,
(08:37):
these dysbiotic species to healthy ranges.
And you're going to definitely feel better.
And this story is reflective of so many patients that a simple
stool test can discern again, very, very quickly on how you
can heal hormonal imbalances, issues with brain fog, fatigue,
sleep, memory, certainly metabolic profiles, even
(08:58):
obviously metabolic composition where women say that, you know,
they're stuck and they're plateauing, they can't lose any
weight. This is relatively easy to fix.
And it's just from doing some testing and then providing the
right input that has been impaired for too long.
Well, thank you for sharing thatstory.
You know, I can definitely relate as a provider where I've
seen many patients who've seen other eye eye care providers and
(09:19):
they haven't been getting better, whether it's eye
inflammation, whether it's macular degeneration that's
progressing and we need to look deeper.
And often times I do look at thegut because there is this
connection between the gut and eye health.
And just like there's got the gut brain connection, the gut
skin connection, there's the guteye connection.
And definitely it's definitely worth investigating.
(09:40):
I wanted to ask you though, Doctor Akile, you know, doing
something like a stool test, comprehensive diagnostic panel,
sometimes patients don't have access, whether it be financial
limitations or, you know, they, they can't just, you know,
order. Well, I guess you can order
these, some of these tests commercially now, but you need
to have a provider interpret it for you.
What are your thoughts about people kind of assuming that
(10:01):
they have gut dysbiosis and going ahead and addressing that
without doing the testing? I mean, I'm also a believer in
tests don't guess. But for those of patients who
don't have access, what, what are your thoughts about that?
Yes. So as I alluded to before, the
body leaves patterns, right? A stool test allows me to be
hyper targeting my treatment. I've been doing this for almost
a decade now where I'm usually, I can usually shoot bull's eyes
(10:26):
blindly, right? Only because I've seen so many
patterns. So while the story is unique to
the patient is not unique to us and our team.
And so testing isn't always where we start.
We can certainly get people better just by incorporating
digestive enzymes as an example.So say someone comes in with
bloating, digestion, flatulence,obviously there's digestive
(10:47):
issues. A simple digestive enzyme is
going to help, a simple HCL, hydrochloric acid, it's the
stomach acid that we produce naturally getting someone
perhaps on hydrochloric acid, which the parietal cells often
times as we age degrade and we secrete less stomach acid.
And so this is an issue with ouraging population.
(11:08):
But this is also an issue with stress because is does the issue
happen in the gut or does it happen in the hypothalamus and
now the vagus nerve doesn't sendthe right signal to start the
digestive process. That's where a test can help.
But certainly if we balance the HPA access, we modulate the the
stress response, we buffer against perhaps excessive
(11:29):
cortisol, cortisol resistance, We provide some stomach support.
The patients already begin to feel better.
But this is often band aids. So until we do a test, it's
difficult to determine, OK, whatis, you know, crippling the
system, what's driving this? So when when a patient maybe
doesn't have enough resources, Iexplain to them why this is
(11:51):
important. Or I just suggest, OK, here in
in the specific representation that you're coming in with,
let's start with this. My suspicion is we'll probably
get you 85 to 95% better sometimes without even a test.
And then, you know, if there's certain unresolved symptoms,
let's kind of do a test and see where else we have to account
for that. Perhaps was the missing link.
(12:12):
Usually patients come with a blood test.
Now these tests are usually, letme say, I don't want to say
inconclusive, but they're not full, they're not complete.
But within a blood test, there'sa lot that can already be
reflective of what's going on incertain holes that we need to
plug in because the blood doesn't lie in the blood test
itself. Power is not in the test, but
(12:33):
the power is in the analysis. So you're right, it's it's not
necessarily that the test is important, it's the
interpretation. And within a blood test alone, I
think that many providers often overlook the power of a CDC with
differential or what your analysis could provide.
Lipid profile is OK, but again, other markers may be more
relevant to insulin resistance, like homocysteine or A1C, or
(12:57):
perhaps tying it with uric acid levels.
There's a lot that can already be reversed by looking just at a
comprehensive blood test that some patients sometimes already
have. So the goal isn't to just do a
lot more testing. The goal is to see, OK, how can
we start? How can we be super lean but yet
achieve the highest level of outcome?
Absolutely. That all resonates very much.
(13:19):
So with my approach as well, talking about the gut, I wanted
to just get your opinions on leaky gut because I'm sure it's
something that you see very often in your practice.
It's something that I see very often in my ophthalmology
practice because as I was saying, there's the gut eye
axis, but there's also leaky gutsyndrome.
There's leaky eye syndrome. Sometimes when people do have
(13:40):
some form of leaky eye syndrome,I look at the gut.
And So what are your kind of bigpillars when you're thinking
about leaky gut and what are some of the main things you
suggest? I know I'm kind of generalizing,
but what are some of the main things that you suggest best
patients do if you suspect that they have leaky gut?
So I very much look forward to having you on my podcast to talk
about all things I related. But let's unpack leaky Duat gut
(14:03):
or what's colloquially now knownas leaky gutter intestinal
permeability. And so that's dysfunction of
your GI barrier. So the epithelial lining, which
is 1 cell layer ethics, which kind of protects you from the
outside world in our modern era with exposure to fungicide,
pesticide, herbicide, you name it side which paralyzes insects,
so too does it paralyze our gut lining.
(14:25):
And that doesn't even now take into account all the plastics
and phthalates. POBSPCBSVOCSI mean if there's a
myriad or deluge of different toxins that we're now exposed to
that we never evolved with. And so it's very difficult for
our in the gut lining or the tight junctions to maintain
their integrity because of this high exposure.
(14:45):
So what happens is this touch tight junctions open and you
want to think of that it kind ofthe offense, right?
Or the the gate to your home as those open because of these
poisons that kind of cripple theglue that keeps them together.
You now have things get into thethe bloodstream which otherwise
shouldn't be there. And what resides there is your
immune system to protect you. How does the immune system fight
(15:08):
well with inflammation? Now is inflammation bad?
No, not necessarily. It keeps you alive when you you
cut yourself a neutrophils usherto the scene.
That's kind of the the white yellow pus that begins to
develop to kind of help heal andseal the wound.
And so too happens with your secretory IGA, which is right at
that gut lining to start a mounting attack.
(15:29):
That's like you're the police officer that that comes to the
scene with maybe some fire trucks.
But what happens over time is kind of this what I call a
pathogen party can begin to peripherally because the tight
junctions are open. You have things continually
leaking through This now allows pathogens to swim everywhere to
the body and particularly the eyes.
(15:49):
So it's interesting when you sayleaky eye, I've I never heard
that before, but it makes sense because leaky gut, leaky brain,
leaky gut, leaky lungs, leaky gut, leaky heart.
And so the story continues to unfold.
We know that each organ has its own microbiome, the eye
included. Let's look at the link between
the microbiome perhaps and and the mitochondria.
Eyes especially in the retina are among the most energy
(16:11):
demanding tissue I think in the human body and therefore
extremely rich in mitochondria perhaps maybe second to brain
and and liver well and heart naturally.
So there's photoreceptor cells, I think rosin cones, which
contain thousands, if you will, of mitochondria, which why does
this become relevant? Because the mitochondria supply
(16:32):
energy needed for phototransduction or converting
light into neural signals. And so the retina, especially
the macula, contains some of thebody's highest zinc
concentration. So going back to secretory IGA
that we mentioned or the immune defense, it's very zinc
dependent, but zinc is also required for the activity of the
retinal dehydrogenase, which is an enzyme that converts vitamin
(16:54):
A into retinol, which is essential for rhodopsin, the
visual pigment that lets us see in in in light.
But zinc also stabilizes cell membranes and is a cofactor for
super superoxide dismutase, which protects retinal tissue
from oxidative stress. And what we see here in terms of
leaky gut is there's a extremelyhigh oxidative burden, which
(17:16):
really damages the mitochondria.But closing that circle on zinc,
it's necessary with the transport of vitamin A from the
liver to the retina or via retinal binding protein.
And without adequate zinc that can't reach HDI and now you have
macular degeneration over time. How does this connect to the
microbiome is that it's believedthe mitochondria are have
(17:37):
evolved from Proteobacteria. So our gut produces compounds
that that regulate mitochondrialactivity and something like
short chain fatty acids at a sample, which is a process of
fermentation from our bacteria, hopefully our healthy bacteria,
which fuels colonocytes, which then helps rebuild the the wall
of the gut lining. And what happens is when that's
(17:57):
open again, there's disbar biosis that happens one step
before that and gram negative bacteria shed their lining,
which are lipopolysaccharides are this kind of endotoxin,
which then begins to trigger mitochondrial dysfunction
through inflammation through reactive oxygen species.
And now you have problems that should be contained in the gut
and then get and into the periphery.
(18:20):
Yeah. And so that is super damaging to
the eyes. And so 90% of our secretory IGA
as I expressed is found in gut association.
See the lymphoid tissue or gold.The gut microbiome connects to
the ocular Biome where we find Staphylococcus in the eye, we
find cornea bacteria and we findPropionio bacterium and and
(18:40):
other such step to Costa species.
These microbes can help train the local immune system respond
to barrier function. And ideally the goal is to
maintain this barrier function so that we prevent pathogens
that can cause infection like conjunctivitis or keratitis.
So there's the cornea bacteria, which stimulates A mild immune
(19:01):
response, which helps recruit neutrophils to further protect
this against Candida or Pseudomonas.
And so this dysbiosis is what I often see in that starts in the
gut, gets into the eye, and now we have big problems with
vision. Yeah, I love how you've
connected the dots here. I mean, it's such a complex web,
(19:21):
you know, the the gut eye connection and then bringing in
inflammation and also oxidative stress.
And I'm also impressed by your knowledge of photo transduction.
I'm quite impressed by that Doctor QA as a non eye care
provider going to touch upon that few things that you
mentioned. We're going to take a very short
break to hear from one of our sponsors and then we will be
right back with more on the IQ Podcast.
(19:42):
So stay tuned. Did you know that your gut
health can play a crucial role in maintaining your eye health?
Inside your gut, there is a bustling community of
microorganisms known as the gut microbiome.
When this community is balanced,your entire body, including your
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in your gut microbiome, called gut dysbiosis can contribute to
eye conditions like uveitis, dryeye syndrome, age-related
(20:06):
macular degeneration and glaucoma.
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(20:29):
healthy gut microbiome. This may help reduce the risk of
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Support your gut and support your eyes with balance.
Welcome back, everyone, to the IQ Podcast.
We are speaking today with Doctor Daniel Keelay, who is an
expert in integrative and functional medicine.
And we've been talking a lot about gut health and its
(20:51):
relationship to eye health. And one thing I wanted to ask
you, Doctor Keelay, is, you know, this interplay between
leaky gut and the immune system,the dominoes that fall can in
some cases, lead to autoimmune disease.
And we know that the eye is veryvulnerable to various types of
autoimmune conditions, whether that be multiple sclerosis or
(21:12):
lupus or shogren's disease or ulcerative colitis.
So in your patients with autoimmune diseases, have you
seen a lot of eye issues relatedto that?
And if so, when you treat the autoimmune aspect of things, how
do their eye issues do? Yeah.
So autoimmune to me is a diagnosis of seven years.
(21:34):
It doesn't happen overnight. But the problem is that our
patients only raise their hand when there's physical
manifestation of pain. So let's look at eye
deterioration as an example. Usually hopefully, if if a
patient is taking care of themselves, they're going to
stand up when they all of a sudden see some sort of vision
impairment, let's say degeneration or pain in the eye.
(21:55):
But that manifestation is years sometimes in the making.
It doesn't happen overnight. And so the the chronic nature of
autoimmune that cascade happenedlong time ago and it often
starts with again, immune barrier dysfunction, whether
that's in them oral pharynx, in the sinus cavity, that's
somewhere in the esophagus, that's somewhere in the skin, in
(22:16):
the eye, in the gut. So there's barrier dysfunction,
which then leads to autoimmune when it goes untreated for too
long. So in our patients when you
mentioned so Sjogren is an example of you know, it
represents as dry mouth or dry eyes, if you will, lupus or miss
autoimmune in the brain, Crohn'scolitis, autoimmune in in the
GI, usually the body is operating what I term to be at a
(22:41):
40% deficit if not greater. So what does that mean is I have
my patients focus on five different things.
You have to eat well, sleep well, move well, talk well and
poop well and you're going to feel well.
But often enough, one or two, those pillars are often
breached, whether it's sleep because we're not prioritizing
it or our nutrition isn't as clean as it needs to be.
(23:04):
So now if you knock out those two pillars, you're at 60%.
The body begins to manifest physical symptoms of pain or eye
degeneration. And then we raise our hands and
we say, OK, it's probably time to go to the doc.
Or they go see you as an eye docand they say, hey, you know, my,
my vision is deteriorating. The good part with vision is we
typically act sooner because we,we notice symptoms sooner often
(23:25):
enough. But there are issues with
autoimmune where it's very much silent for so long until the
inflammatory cascade is so high that the body is now fighting
against its own tissue and damaging organs.
And so that's where pain begins to manifest even higher or
symptoms begin to become more aggressive.
(23:46):
The good part about vision loss,people are more receptive I
think to do something earlier on.
So I myself, my partner who, whodid LASIK or my, myself when I
did PRK. So there's, there's corrective
options, but unfortunately we practice reactive care where
(24:06):
we'll do things when we feel it rather than preventative care,
which is again, can you do this on a daily basis?
Eat right, sleep right, move right, talk right, poop right.
And if you're mastering that, it's simple, simple things you
can do foundationally often enough which are free.
You can feel right. Yeah, no, I I really love what
(24:27):
you said about changing the narrative and making it
preventative, like a focus on preventative care rather than
reactive care. And that's really been the major
issue in eye care is that we wait for things to happen.
We wait for macular degenerationto develop and then once it gets
to a certain stage, then we treat it.
But it just doesn't make sense. Like why wait for something to
(24:48):
happen? Like it's happening slowly, as
you said, that takes for maculardegeneration, it probably takes
like more than seven years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years to get
to the point where people actually have vision loss.
So there's a window of opportunity to intervene and
make some changes. And as you said, I love what you
said about those five pillars. So much of it is within our
(25:09):
control. Yes, we have our genetics, we
have our environmental risks, but so much of it is what we
choose to put in our bodies, howwe choose to sleep.
And I'll add to what what you said, I'm not sure how to fit it
into your, your paradigm. Stress modulation is to modulate
our stress levels. We all have stress.
And I've definitely seen, you know, P1 people are stressed.
(25:29):
That's when their eye issues actup.
So preventative care is key. I wanted to, to ask you one more
thing, Doctor Killer. I know our time is almost up and
this has been such a fascinatingdiscussion.
But you also specialize in an area called nutrigenomics.
And you were talking a little bit earlier about zinc.
So can you give us some background about nutrigenomics
(25:49):
and you know how that may impactour diet, our nutrient
absorption? Like just give us an example
maybe of how that could help someone to understand their
health better and use diet and perhaps supplements from a more
scientific base. Yeah, that's such a relevant
question. And we're such at a beautiful
place in time, almost an inflection point where modern
(26:11):
medicine can become precision medicine.
So looking at our genes, we do agenetic test almost with
everybody and prices keep comingdown and things become more
accessible. So I know we talked about
testing and perhaps sometimes costs involved, but this is
allows us to what I term as precision medicine where we can
see someone's holes in their biology or their predispositions
(26:35):
and begin to plug those hole, those holes such that we can now
customize your entire lifestyle program.
So nutrigenetics is nothing morethan the intersection of our
genes and nutrition and what nutrition or perhaps higher
nutrient needs that you may havein order to optimize your
biology. Let's look at as an example of
glaucoma, which has afflicted myfather.
(26:57):
So this hits close to home, is nothing more than mitochondrial
dysfunction. That's a little bit
reductionist. But if you look at retinol
ganglion cells, they're highly energy dependent.
And when we impair mitochondrialfunction, we reduce ATP that
increases oxidative stress. So you said stress.
To me, that is certainly the elephant in the room.
That's our modern lifestyle. I discuss this with our patients
(27:18):
all the time. Is that here, especially in
America, is we, we know how to press the gas pedal very well
until we run out of gas and thenwe say, let's drink some more
coffee and press it more. But looking at this oxidative
stress burden and zinc as an example, we need more
antioxidants. So I see that in a, in a genetic
test, whether someone has a higher need for choline, looking
(27:42):
at when you mentioned zinc and I, I, I tied this back into
glaucoma. There needs to be more vitamin
C, more vitamin E antioxidants. Co Q 10A lipoic acid
glutathione, so we can see B as your master antioxidant.
Where are you at in production of glutathione?
Do you have specific snips that are down regulated so you need a
little bit more? Do you have specific deletions?
(28:03):
So how you can account for againholes in your biology and then
plug these holes to optimize or prevent and hedge against some
of these predispositions becauseour genes are not our destiny.
And so looking at glutathione pathways in particular, this is
critical for detoxification and methylation.
And if you're unable to neutralize the oxidative burn in
the eye, well, this is how you're going to impair vision
(28:27):
over time. And so there's vascular and
microcirculation that needs to be count for neuroinflammation
that needs to be accounted for. And I can see some of these risk
factors within a simple genetic test.
And so doing this one test that you only need to do once in your
entire life, you can begin to plug, like I said, those holes,
(28:47):
but you can also begin to see what's going on in your kids
biology too, just from looking at yours, because our kids are
extension of ourselves and, you know, share genes with our
parents. And again, the the component of
nutrigenomics to me is this beautiful intersection of
understanding what nutrient needs that you have a need for
and begin to fill that gap. Yeah.
(29:10):
And a great example would be this is so common would be an
MTHFR variant, right? So we know that certain people
have this variant of this gene that requires that they, they,
well, they don't absorb certain types of folate and methyl
copalamine properly. So then they need to have a
methylated form. And so that's important to know,
(29:30):
right? I've definitely used that for
patients. I also do a lot of migraines.
So I, I definitely have looked at that that and I found that a
lot of patients with migraine have variants in their MTHFR
gene. I don't know if you've seen
something similar to that, but that's something like a thread
that runs through a lot of my patients.
That's one certainly that hits close to home because I see this
is very endemic to the Italian population and myself, my father
(29:53):
being from Italy. So we have a 66, I believe,
percent reduced capacity to methylate.
And so obviously within phase two, there's glucoronidation,
sulfation, acetylation and methylation is 1 component.
But why this is so relevant? Because it looks at our ability
to produce glutathione again, our master antioxidant.
And if we have an ability to do that, some precursors such as
(30:15):
stated so MT5FA, so of methylated folate or a, a
methylated B12, these help with the conversion so that the body
can take the raw ingredients, convert it to its actiform.
And now you don't have that missing link.
Our body's like an assembly line.
And if there is dysfunction in any one of those compartments,
(30:37):
well, you're going to have an impaired signal with a
dysfunctional outcome. And so, yeah, you nailed it on
the head. Making sure that our patients
are counting for these things iscritical.
And doing a genetic test is justmaking that process one step
easier. Fascinating.
Is there your particular vendor that you you prefer for when you
order the nutrigenomic testing, Nutrigenetic testing I should
say. You know, I want to give a shout
(30:59):
out to the DNA company because Ithink they do things on a high
level, but what I use is 3 by 4 and their team is absolutely
astounding. Do as.
Well, I love their pathways and it's just so clear for patients
to understand as well. Yeah, it's a wonder and it's
such a simple test. Also, it's a you know, it's a
swab, very easy to do. So easy, but provides such a
(31:22):
level of actionable insight. Absolutely.
I've been actually talking to them about potentially putting
together some eye markers, specific genetic variants for
glaucoma and macular degeneration including that.
So hopefully that will be in thepipeline at some point in the
future, please. Please please please.
Yes. Well, Doctor Kili, this has been
such an enlightening discussion.I've learned so much from you
(31:45):
and it brings back, you know, all my studying for functional
medicine, all those pathways. I mean, you just you're so
eloquent and how you describe them and making very complex
processes easy to understand. So thank you for sharing your
expertise. If anyone who is listening to
the podcast wanted to reach out to you, I know that you do both
in person consultations as well as virtual.
(32:07):
How could they find you or find more about your work?
Yes, Doctor Ronnie, thank you aswell for having me as a guest.
This has been very, very fruitful.
I hope your patients and whoeverlistening took something
positive away so you can find me.
Our clinic is Total Body Diagnostics.
We're right outside of Chicago. We also practice telehealth, so
TBD, fit.com, like Total Body Diagnostics, also the TBD FFIT
(32:29):
podcast, which we're launching as well, love to connect with
people even if it's just kind ofa positive review feedback.
But we're here to provide guidance and education moreover
than anything and help our patients much like you do, just
receive optimal health, which I think everyone deserves.
Absolutely, so, so beautifully said.
And we will include those links in the show notes so so you will
(32:51):
have easy access to Doctor Keeley.
Well, thank you again for spending this time with us.
I know your schedule is very busy, so we really appreciate it
and I I look forward to seeing the rest of you during your next
episode on the IQ podcast. So stay tuned.
Thank you for tuning in to the IQ Podcast.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learn something new
(33:12):
to help you boost your IQ. Leave us a review and share the
podcast with your family and friends.
Stay connected with me for more eye opening insights on ihealth,
nutrition and lifestyle. Until next time, keep your
vision clear and your IQ.
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