December 1, 2024 • 54 mins
What if the key to optimal health lies not just in treating symptoms but in understanding the root causes of diseases? Join us as we uncover this intriguing perspective with Dr. Maria, a board-certified surgeon turned functional medicine expert. Dr. Maria shares her transformative journey from performing GI surgeries to embracing preventive care, illustrating how the integration of traditional surgery and functional medicine can lead to a more holistic approach to healthcare. Through her dual focus on skin cancer prevention and functional medicine, she brings to light the critical role of preventive measures, from sunscreen use to holistic dentistry, in safeguarding our health.
Our conversation with Dr. Maria takes a deep dive into the intricate relationship between skin health and overall wellness. Learn how conditions like leaky gut and immune imbalances might manifest through visible skin issues and how dietary choices, including the consumption of ultra-processed foods, can have a profound impact on your skin and general health. We explore how comprehensive gut testing and personalized dietary changes can lead to significant improvements in chronic health conditions, highlighting the importance of commitment to lifestyle changes in achieving and maintaining health balance.
Functional medicine testing takes center stage as Dr. Maria and I discuss the personalization of patient care through targeted testing and treatment optimization. We examine the challenges of managing gut bacteria imbalance and candida, emphasizing the role of lifestyle changes over antibiotics. The episode also sheds light on genetics in personalized medicine, with insights into how genetic predispositions can influence health outcomes. From the implications of gallbladder removal to strategies for reversing gum disease, this episode is packed with actionable insights for those seeking to take control of their health through a more personalized and preventive approach.
Ready to connect with Dr. Azizian and her team? Here is her website: https://mindfulmedicalcarefalmouth.com/
To learn more about holistic dentistry, check out Dr. Carver's website:
http://carverfamilydentistry.com
To contact Dr. Carver directly, email her at drcarver@carverfamilydentistry.com.
Want to talk with someone at Dr. Carver's office? Call her practice: 413-663-7372
Reverse Gum Disease In 6 Weeks! With Dr. Rachaele Carver Online Course!
Learn more about here: https://reversegumdiseaseinsixweeks.info/optinpage
Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. Before using any products mentioned or attempting methods discussed, please speak with a licensed healthcare provider. This podcast disclaims responsibility from any possible adverse reactions associated with products or methods discussed. Opinions from guests are their own, and this podcast does not condone or endorse opinions made by guests. We do not provide guarantees about the guests' qualifications or credibility. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode
of the Root of the Matter.
I am your host, dr RachelCarver, a biologic dentist who's
trying to bring light to theconnection between all of the
systems of the body right who isa board certified surgeon and
functional medicine certifiedprovider.
(00:28):
She is focused on foodsensitivity, leaky gut and
dietary toxins.
Those of you who know my storyyou know I'm super interested to
hear and learn from Dr Mariatoday.
She is an author of the ClearSkin Diet book and she has two
clinics and we'll talk a littlebit more about that, especially
at the end, so people canconnect with you if they want
(00:50):
some more help.
So why don't we dive in andtell me how you were a surgeon
and then got into functionalmedicine?
They seem opposite.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
First of all, thank you so much for inviting me.
I really appreciate your focus.
There is so much in commonbetween a biological dentist and
it is basically I see it as abranch of functional medicine
essentially, so it's just morefocused on the mouth.
So yeah, so we do have a lot incommon.
So yeah, briefly, as a surgeonI have always been interested in
(01:24):
what's driving the disease,because very often and the way
you're trained in surgicalresidency is that you are the
last instance and it is becauseusually the patient starts with
their primary care doctor, thenthey go to subspecialist, often,
let's say GI doctor, and thenend up needing to have their
organ removed or repaired orsomething happens.
(01:46):
Or it's an urgent situationwhere a patient comes in, let's
say, with perforateddiverticulitis.
That's a very common littleoutpouching.
So we eat large intestine fromthe bad food we get.
Very common and I'm sure manyof your listeners because it's
such a ubiquitous problem havehad a colonoscopy and were told
(02:06):
oh, you just have a few ticks,but sometimes those ticks become
an abscess, they perforate.
So I've always had an interestin what is called alternative
medicine but didn't activelypractice it because, again, that
was not my area where I trainedand then when functional
medicine came along, when Ifound out about it, I was not my
area where I trained.
And then when functionalmedicine came along when I found
out about it, I was so excitedbecause I could actually relate
(02:31):
to it on a very on my almostlike on a childlike interest
level.
So I got certified in functionalmedicine and now I'm basically
a hybrid of both.
So I have two clinics, like youmentioned.
One is a skin cancer clinichere in Cape Cod and that skin
cancer clinic I do lots ofprocedures.
(02:51):
We do obviously, as the namesounds, lots of skin cancer and
we see lots of skin issues.
And also I have a functionalmedicine clinic, ilabmd, which
is both online and in person,and then over there I'm purely
functional.
But I have to tell you,sometimes I spend time just
trying to figure out just what'shappening in conventional
(03:12):
medicine before I even get tofunctional medicine.
So that's basically.
Then I went and got certifiedat Functional Medicine Institute
.
Dr Hyman everybody knows him,he's one of my mentors, but he
doesn't know me, but one of thementors of all of us who get
certified through it.
So that's basically is myjourney.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Now were you like a general surgeon doing a lot of
the GI surgery?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I am a general surgeon and I basically now do
general surgery as a part-timething.
I do it as what we call it thelocums, occasionally because
with time my interest shifted.
When you're younger, straightout of residency, your goal is
to.
It's very, you're in the savingmode, you're going to save
(03:58):
somebody.
Somebody comes in with whateverabscess, et cetera.
But then when you become wiser,older and wiser, you start
understanding is that the trueintervention that could be done
should be done earlier, beforethis turns into absence, because
in surgery, again, youbasically deal with infection,
(04:20):
perforation those are the commonthings obstruction, especially
when it comes to gut, when I doa lot of gut surgery, and that
basically being a last instance,you understand that there has
to be some kind of a preventionand that's what's driving me.
So in my clinic, like I said,was the skin the biggest
(04:40):
prevention, and again I'm goingto switch gears for a sec that
the biggest prevention isactually the usage of sunscreen
when you talk about skin cancer.
But every medical issue, everymedical problem has their
specific preventions.
You're a dentist, there'sspecific things that you could
do to avoid cavities, but alsothere are universal things that
(05:01):
are good for the whole body,like the holistic health and
honestly, I'm interested healthand I'm honestly I'm interested
in both.
I'm interested in my gut I loveleaky gut and I love surgical
gut issues.
I love skin, so so, yeah, soit's all interconnected.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I love what you said.
I focus so much on preventiontoo, because I've been
practicing 20 years now and,just like you, when we're first
out of dental school, we'recutting and we're drilling and
we're pepping and all thesethings and then we're like man,
this is tough, it's tough work.
It's the patients specifically.
They don't really like comingto the dentist.
And how can I prevent thesethings?
All this time and money?
(05:38):
And as good of a dentist as Imay be, if I drill on one side
of the mouth, how is itaffecting the other?
The bite is off just a littlebit.
Those kinds of things reallydrove me to think what can I do
to not have to drill, becauseevery time I cut into a tooth,
I'm cutting into it forever.
Yes, maybe now we're not usingthe heavy metals and now we're
(05:59):
using plastics instead.
Is that better?
I don't know.
Are we going to learn 20 yearsfrom now that all those
composites we're putting in wereproblematic, right?
So again, I'm always thinking,like you said, it was very spot
on that there are certainprevention methods that affect
all health.
Right, because having a cavity,that's, you know, that's a sign
of inflammation, that's a signof acidity in the body.
(06:21):
Right.
That's a sign of imbalance.
So things that we do to preventskin issues are also going to
help prevent cavities, right.
We've got to avoid the toxicchemicals in all of our beauty
care products.
We've got to avoid thechemicals in the foods, right,
all of those are going to affectthe whole body in a positive
way.
And I found very interestingagain, depending on our genetics
(06:44):
, maybe in our environments,like for me I get eczema.
I had acne as a kid.
Skin was always an issue for me, whereas somebody else may have
a lot of cavities, right,myself, my kids we don't have
cavities, we have skin issues.
So that's where functionalmedicine I think plays a key
role in really personalizing.
I think plays a key role inreally personalizing.
(07:07):
What is it about you and yourgenetics and your environment
and your diet that is leadingyou to have this symptom versus
the next person?
I think too much inconventional medicine there's a
one size fits all and that's whywe have so many side effects
with medications.
I always find it funny whenyou're watching TV and there's
so many.
I feel like most of the drugsnow are all about skin issues
and I don't know if you'venoticed that, because from my
(07:28):
understanding.
Hopefully you can elaborate theliver right.
We don't ever pay attention tothe liver much and there aren't
really even great tests to lookat liver functionality, because
it's such an amazing organ itcan regenerate.
It has to really be functioningpoorly to show up, maybe, on a
blood test.
But when that gets overloadedright, our whole digestive kind
of slows down.
From what I understand, we,instead of going down the chute
(07:51):
to the liver to the bowels andout, we are actually getting the
toxins being pushed up into ourlungs and into our skin.
So a lot of these skin issuesthat are becoming more prevalent
again in my thought process isbecause of this excess process
and the taxing on the liver.
So I know as a surgeon youprobably took out lots of
(08:13):
gallbladders, right?
I think that's one of the mostcommon surgeries and I think I
looked up a stat there was like600,000 surgeries about a year.
So that can be great and reallytakes people out of pain.
But this is and again being socommon, maybe you can talk to us
a little bit about why does thegallbladder get clogged with
(08:33):
these stones and once you takeit out, how do you know that the
liver still isn't making stones?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And if they do what happens, then yeah, you touched
on a variety of fascinatingtopics and all of them are dear
to my heart.
Actually, the first book that Iwrote was about gallbladder,
because it's just by definition,honestly, that I've just taken
out so many gallbladders, andsome of them easy, some of them
could be very difficult if theyare very infected, abscessed,
(09:02):
etc.
It's a fascinating organ and wedo take it out, basically, and
tell the patient that you willbe okay.
Is that true?
Yes, that is true, because forthe most part, people are okay.
There are, of course, sideeffects from having your
gallbladder out and some of itcould be GI symptoms like
diarrhea is not uncommon.
(09:23):
Sometimes people say thatthere's a weight gain, but the
weight gain is because there'sno gallbladder pain stopping
them from overeating.
So the weight gain from thesurgery?
That has not been proven.
So there's no weight gain perse from the surgery.
So that's the surgicalstandpoint.
But just to connect between myinterest, and again, my first
(09:44):
book was about a gallbladder.
In this book, about the skin,just be totally honest, there's
so much more interest in theskin.
And why is that?
Because it's visual.
It is visual People and maybeI'm thinking you're right.
You're exactly right about howthose ads.
There are lots of psoriasis ads.
I don't watch TV much but I dosee sometimes the psoriasis ads
(10:06):
and a lot of times.
And obviously the medicationsthat they advertise they're very
toxic for your whole body.
So that's why there are all theside effects and et cetera.
For some people that may not bethe wrong thing.
So I'm not going to knock itand say it's bad for everybody.
No, preferably not to take it,but for some people that could
(10:26):
be a lifesaver.
So why is that?
And I thought a lot about thiswhy is that people are more
drawn to skin?
Yes, because skin is veryvisible.
It's a social embarrassment ifyou have problems with the skin,
especially if it's a visibleissue.
Another issue which peopledon't talk a lot is like they
don't talk socially but theytalk at the doctor's office is
(10:49):
itching, because itching is oneof the signs that something is
out of balance.
It could be a yeast overgrowth,but not necessarily it could be
internal.
It could be the sequela orconsequence of a leaky gut In a
sense, be the sequela orconsequence of a leaky gut In a
sense.
So that's why it was my secondbook.
I wrote it about between theconnection between the food and
(11:14):
clear skin.
But honestly, I probably couldhave titled this book Gold
Bladder and Food.
It would have been, or whatever.
Migraines and Food, because theconnections are very similar.
It's just how they manifest,like you said, like in some
people it's skin, in otherpeople it's cavities perhaps and
just not to overwhelm yourlisteners with the specifics,
but I'll go a little bit intothat.
(11:36):
The premise is and now there'smore and more research,
thankfully accepted byconventional medicine, research
thankfully accepted byconventional medicine, it's
actually Western medicine datathat our gut houses 60 to 70
percent of our immune system.
So if every day you eat badfood like this over-fried,
(11:58):
over-processed or they call itnow ultra-processed constantly
eat this food.
So what happens?
Your gut can't protect you wellanymore.
And these toxins from foodbecause these foods are toxins,
a lot of these I'm talking aboutbad foods obviously.
So instead of us excreting themthey can't be excreted Now they
(12:19):
get absorbed into ourbloodstream and our poor liver.
To comment on the liver, therole of the liver is to detoxify
, to clean your body off that.
But the liver gets overwhelmedso it just can't do the complete
detoxification and then you endup basically absorbing these
(12:40):
toxins, absorbing thesechemicals, and that's why
everybody's different, everybodyhas different genetics.
So, like for some people itcould be certain problems, for
somebody else could be.
Oh, every time I go to a fastfood restaurant I have a
migraine the next day, forexample, right.
Or every time I eat whateverFrench fries, I have a GI upset,
(13:05):
I have indigestion, because allof these things are different
manifestations of the same allin the same, and a lot of times
in our clinic I see people bothin skin and non-skin, because I
do treat obviously non-skinthings too.
I noticed how people come in andlet's say we always do gut
tests, almost always, I wouldsay, do gut testing for skin
(13:27):
problem, to check them for reikigut, and then after, of course,
they also have to change theirdiet.
It's not only about gettingsupplements and because that's
not enough, you really have tochange and it's hard for all of
us.
Personally I have to say, andon behalf of my patients
definitely, it's hard to changeyour eating habits.
(13:47):
And then when people come in,let's say after three months, so
we'll recheck.
We'll usually recheck everyfour to six weeks, but a lot of
times three months is a goodsort of time to look back and
see, and not only the skinproblem gets better if people
are honestly dedicated and doingeverything they're supposed to
(14:08):
do, but also there are manyother things, like some joint
pains go away, energy level ishigher.
There's just a variety of things.
Sometimes even I've heardpatients reporting to me I was
going to have a surgery, likeorthopedic surgery, for this and
this, but I canceled it becauseit doesn't hurt me anymore and
(14:29):
that's amazing.
I'm like you didn't even tellme.
I didn't know, because that'sjust human to forget to tell
something, but it's so amazingto see that.
But it does require time.
It does require dedicationbecause the chronic issues they
can't you can't just snap yourfingers and they go away.
Unfortunately, changing the diet, taking supplements and some
(14:52):
people need minimal supplements,some people need more
supplements.
It's all personalized, based ontheir testing.
That's why testing is a bigcomponent of functional medicine
.
But I'll be honest with you,without commitment and changing
of your lifestyle, like, testingis a big component of
functional medicine.
But I'll be honest with you,without commitment and changing
of your lifestyle, like, testingis useless.
You can test, you'll find outthen what.
If you're not doing anything,then you just wasted money, got
(15:15):
the testing and so yeah.
But everything isinterconnected the gut, the
liver, the gallbladder, the skin, it's just all one, like one
big sort of organism.
Or sometimes I think of ourbody, like our planet, like
earth, like there are all thesethings there are mountains,
there are oceans, there arelakes, etc.
And every geophysical,geographic place has its own
(15:41):
kind of world right, so it's ownenvironment, and they should
stay that way and they canbecome out of balance.
Well, that's not good for ourplanet.
So I like often make that forme, just make those correlations
.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And so you mentioned testing, which I think is really
important.
As I say, test, not guess.
What is one of your favoritegut tests that you like to look
at?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So in the functional medicine industry, and I was
very happy to, honestly, I haveto say, having a privilege of
being trained at the Instituteof Functional Medicine.
To be honest, when I enrolledthere I didn't realize that it
would change my own life so muchin every sense, in the sense of
my intellectual curiosity, ifmy understanding of myself, and
(16:26):
then of course, it extrapolatesto my patients, to my life and
everything else.
Testing is very important, butit has to be coordinated with
the patient, obviously, and ithas to be something patient
really wants.
And you have to know whatyou're going to do with that
testing.
And actually that comes fromwhy, even when I was a surgical
(16:49):
resident, it was always likedon't order a test if you don't
know what you're going to dowith that.
Because even if it's, no matterif it's covered with insurance,
but why?
Why are you putting this poorpatient through unnecessary CAT
scanning or et cetera?
So now let's move to functionalmedicine world.
The testing in functionalmedicine is very.
(17:10):
They really help you.
So there are several tests thatare fundamental and of course
there are a bunch of companiesthat are always trying to outdo
each other, but I have to saythe main companies are very good
.
They're essentially the same, Ihave to say, and there could be
like the style, how theypresent the data, but the main
(17:32):
company and the Institute ofFunctional Medicine is very
helpful so you can actuallyyourself, using your critical
thinking, decide.
So this is better for my typeof patients.
For example, I have severalcohorts of patients in my clinic
because my clinic is in CapeCod, so we do have a lot of
older patients and there arecertain components that are more
(17:54):
important to older patients.
However, in functional medicinethat I do online in our clinic
iLabMD that's an online clinic Ido there's obviously all ages,
so we can have somebody who's anage 12, not necessarily
somebody who is like 65 plus,which is more common for me in
person.
The bottom line and I'm not veryoriginal here most of our
(18:20):
functional medicine do the samething.
We start their fundamental test.
The first one is the gut test,because the gut test shows me
how your immune system works.
It also shows the burden ofgood and bad bacteria.
That's very important and I'msure you know that I know, but
for your listeners, there are avariety of newer conditions, but
(18:43):
they're not so new.
For example, sibo, which is anovergrowth of bacteria in the
small intestine and somethinglike that is hard to diagnose
conventionally.
But you look at thedysfunctional medicine sort of
workup and there are patternsthat are now classic for SIBO
and variety of things.
Other things that people alwaysget surprised and I'm no longer
(19:06):
surprised, I used to besurprised at that too is that
many of us do harbor parasites,and even people who haven't been
away, they haven't had exotictravels, and some of the
parasites are protozoa.
Those are one-cell parasiteswhich are actually not
considered so pathogenic,they're not considered so bad,
(19:30):
and there is actually somewhatof a divide in medicine, both
actually in conventional and infunctional medicine, that should
we treat every patient who hasthat and when we see that and I
see it a lot and I see in somepatients we do treat it and
usually when I say treated, wedo use mostly herbal things,
(19:50):
herbal and supplements.
In some other patients who arevery symptomatic, if patient
comes in and they have diarrhea,a bunch of things and they
already had colonoscopy,everything bad has been ruled
out.
Now we do a gut test and theyhave diarrhea, a bunch of things
and they already havecolonoscopy, everything bad has
been ruled out.
Now we do a gut test and we seethis.
Then sometimes I do treat itwith antibiotics, as much as I
hate it, but I do prescribeantibiotics.
(20:12):
In my clinic I see infections.
People come in with abscesses.
You have to use antibiotics.
But what I'm saying parasitesare not as uncommon and, no, not
everybody is running aroundwith vomiting and diarrhea.
You could have it chronicallyand that could be mild if I may
say, that's not completelycorrect but a smaller burden of
(20:32):
parasites, but you still harborthem.
So we try to treat them withherbals, with supplements, and
not to blast people withanything.
Additionally, with gut testing,which is again one of my
favorites with gut testing wetest inflammation in the gut and
then test some digestivemarkers that relate to our
(20:53):
pancreatic function, because ourpancreas does lots of things.
People know pancreas because ofdiabetes and it's true, but
also pancreas is extremelyimportant for digestion.
So we look at that and then Iprescribe or recommend rather,
because I don't prescribesupplements, I recommend
supplements.
Anybody can buy supplements,but I choose supplements.
(21:15):
I'm very careful, trying tointegrate every medication that
patient is on, to avoid anyinteractions and everything else
.
Actually, I will say a coupleof things using your platform.
Please be careful, because notall supplements are the same and
some supplements could interactwith your medication and cause
problems.
So always check with yourdoctor and a pharmacist is a
(21:37):
good source as well.
So always check with yourdoctor and a pharmacist is a
good source as well, because forme, I always spend a lot of
time on this, like trying tocoordinate, make sure that it's
all okay.
So another test that we do isfood sensitivities.
That is a good test and bothtests together is a very good
idea, but we often start withthe gut.
That do food sensitivities.
(21:59):
Food sensitivities are not likefood allergies, because food
allergies everybody knows thereare food allergies pretty much.
You don't need a fancy test tofind out your allergy.
Most people know that.
But food sensitivities aresubtle.
They may take up to 72 hours tomanifest and the most amazing
thing about food sensitivitiesis that you're often sensitive
(22:23):
to foods that you eat the most,and those could be healthy foods
, by the way, it could behealthy or foods as ubiquitous
like potatoes.
You could have four plusreaction, which is a severe
reaction to potatoes.
How would you know?
You wouldn't know because,let's say, your symptom is joint
pain.
You always have joint painbecause you always eat potatoes,
(22:46):
so you don't know.
And then, maybe by miracle,let's say if you go someplace
there are no potatoes I can'timagine a place like that but
you don't eat.
You may notice that, oh, I'mactually feeling better, but how
would you put two and twotogether?
There is a lot to be said aboutfood sensitivities and there
(23:07):
are so many other tests.
We use a lot of tests in ourclinic, but we try to be very
mindful because most of thetests are not covered by the
insurance.
The only ones that are,partially at least, is our gut
tests.
So gut tests are for Medicare,only for Medicare patients.
So we always try to.
If you could do with lesstesting, we'll do with less
testing.
On my website, the clinic iLabMD, we do have test packages and
(23:30):
people often ask me about that,and that's all nice and great
and they're always helpful, butit's important to know do you
need it now and what tests doyou need Otherwise?
Another portion, aside fromfinancial, is that you don't
want to overwhelm the patientwith too many tests and too many
changes, and so this is wrong.
(23:50):
And this is wrong Becauseanother component of all of this
as you know very well, rachelis stress.
So you don't want to let a lotof people most of us have some
level of stress you don't wantto a lot of people most of us
have some level of stress.
You don't want to increase itnow by pushing the patient if
they're not ready.
So yeah, but that's a very bigtopic, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So I love what you said and we talk about parasites
a lot on this podcast becauseit was one of the things that I
found was a major contributor tomy inflammation.
But it's really important whatyou said and I love that.
You said that most people havethis protozoa.
Again, it's not that you travelto a third world country.
I think the other interestingthing that I've learned over the
years is that parasites kind ofact like and I call it like a
(24:31):
mothership, and if you haveheavy metals or other toxins,
they're actually sometimes thereas a protective medicine to
clean up the terrain.
Right, we talk about the wholecellular metabolism, the
extracellular matrix that oftengets very clogged with toxins
and infections and, again, sosometimes if we're seeing these
(24:53):
parasites.
So I love what you're saying.
It's not about always killingthem.
Why might they be overgrowing?
Right, we have a lot of goodand so-called bad.
Right, it's always about thebalance.
So I say about in the mouth too.
There are a lot of saliva teststhat we do and they're just
checking for the so-called bad.
We all have those.
It's when they get out ofbalance that's a problem.
(25:14):
So we have to try to get awayof always thinking about that we
always have to kill and wereally want to think about how
do we create the environment,how do we create the healthy
terrain, so these things don'tget out of whack, right?
Something like candida?
Right, all of us have candida.
It's when it overgrows that'sthe problem.
So functional medicine andbiologic dentistry we're always
(25:34):
trying to think why did thatovergrow?
Why did the environment change,right?
And so, like you said, talkingabout food sensitivities, we've
got this food sensitive.
We're creating an environmentthat's creating inflammation and
it's causing that, becausesensitivity is very different
from an allergy.
And so do a lot of thatsensitivity testing.
And then I was noticing oh,it's just testing for what we're
eating the most.
(25:55):
That's what you said.
So I moved a little bit awayfrom that.
But again, it's reallyimportant to say, because you
eat something and the reactionis days later, so you don't know
.
So when you find that foodsensitivity and you minimize
that and you're seeing how isyour body reacting to it.
Because I also think foodsensitivities come about because
of the leaky gut, right,because of this change in the
(26:16):
environment, because of someshift.
So if you can heal the leakygut, ideally those food
sensitivities should go away.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I will add.
Yes, I will add, if I may.
This is actually one of themost common questions and I have
in my book.
I go into detail on thatbecause between food
sensitivities and leaky gut thedirection it's a bi-directional
sort of relationship the leakieryou got, the more food
sensitivities you will have,because you're starting to
(26:46):
immunologically react to a bunchof new foods, and those
immunoglobulins are mostly IgG.
It could be IgA immunoglobulinsthat are different from
allergies, by the way, which areIgE.
But the bottom line, this is areal immunological testing, so
that's not just like somebody'soh, I think, or we think, or
(27:07):
you're likely, or all of this.
But one thing that people alwaysask me and I try to
preemptively answer thatquestion to my patients, people
who are interested in foodsensitivity testing is that you
can grow out of your foodsensitivities.
You can If you heal your gut.
Yes, what's your diagnosis withthis?
(27:28):
Because it is a diagnosis Withthe food sensitivities.
You should stay away from them.
You should stay, you shouldgive yourself rest, give your
gut rest time to heal and repair.
But with time, after you healand repair and that could be
anywhere from three to six andsometimes longer you can
actually start eating thesefoods that you were sensitive to
(27:51):
, but still I would recommendeating them in small amounts
because one of the biggestdifferences between allergies
and sensitivities that withallergies usually there are some
exceptions but usually youcan't eat something that you're
allergic to in small amounts.
If you're allergic to peanutbutter, you have even like a
whiff of it, you will have areaction.
(28:12):
But with food sensitivities youcan actually afford to do that.
You can start eating smallamounts of food that you were
sensitive to and then you'll befine because now your gut is
stronger.
And even if you recheck the foodsensitivities which we don't
routinely recheck them unlesspatient wants to, because how
(28:32):
patient feels and how their gutand other symptoms are doing,
that basically is a very goodsign.
But if we were to recheck whichwe rarely do, but we do
sometimes we do see that thosesensitivities either downgraded
or they are gone, or if they'restill the same, I do say to the
patient you can try if youreally miss that food or
(28:55):
whatever.
They can have just smallamounts.
So the body is, our body ismore permissive with food
sensitivities.
But yeah, so you can grow outof food sensitivities.
Leaky gut causes foodsensitivities and food
sensitivities cause leaky gut.
So it's like a cycle.
But there are so many otherthings.
There are infections, there areeveryday toxins that you
(29:15):
started talking about and heavymetals and all that the plastic
toxins, those things that weinhale, our sort of beauty and
grooming products, that filledwith toxins.
So there are many things thatare causing leaky gut.
But I like to maybe start orfocus with the diet because it's
the fundamental one.
(29:35):
But, yeah, sometimes it couldbe other things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
So, yes, so that's what I was going to ask, I
believe because of this toxicworld we live in now.
The stuff's in the air, it's inthe water.
I think most people may have adegree of leaky gut right
Depending on your genetics orwhatever.
Some people's hair better thanothers, so I he's thinking to.
My one question was what do youthink maybe are the top three
(30:01):
substances infections, whateverthat you see most often causing
reiki guts?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
That's a good question.
I think that one that everybodytalks about and that's probably
I would put it in top threemaybe not the first one, perhaps
is candida, because candidayeast is very common and it does
cause problem in many people,and some people more than others
.
There is some component ofcandida that's considered okay
(30:32):
to have, but there's actually alittle bit of a debate about
that.
There is a debate in theliterature that should we allow
like a small portion of candidaor should we treat all of it?
But definitely I would saycandida.
The other top two, I would sayit's more like a trend, it's the
trend.
There are two other trends.
(30:53):
Number one when I look at thegut test.
Number one trend is, let's say,the person has decreased.
They have lower than normalcomponent of good bacteria.
You look at several bacterias,you scan their gut test and you
see there is a trend they havenot enough of good bacteria.
(31:13):
In fact, to be honest, I likeit.
I like that because it's alittle bit easier to compensate,
because we always like to takein rather than to give out, in a
sense of like foods andsupplements.
At least, I've noticed thatmost people are much easier.
You can tell them thesupplement will help and they're
happy to do that.
But if you tell them youshouldn't eat this food, they
(31:35):
will not be so happy.
So that's why I like it more,because it's easier to
communicate to the patient andyou show them.
You see, like one of the now invogue bacteria, which I
actually support too, isAckermansia.
So Ackermansia is an amazingbacteria that basically feeds
your gut mucosa.
It's really very good forcleaning and supporting your gut
(31:58):
.
So, for example again I'm beingvery simplistic let's see if
you see this Ackermansia in notenough and there's usually a
bunch of other bacteria together.
Good bacteria.
They're not enough.
So it's easier because you canreplenish them with probiotics
and to help with prebiotics,which is prebiotics are foods
for probiotics, so probioticsare good bacteria, so you can
(32:21):
supplement that along withlifestyle changes, so you can
supplement.
So that's a very big trend.
So that's that.
And the second trend, which verycommon too, is too much bad
bacteria.
So you're looking and you seethere is this bacteria too much.
So usually those bacteriathey're called opportunistic
(32:43):
bacteria.
They're just dormant.
They're there.
Everybody has them, some peoplemore, some people less, but
they're within the same range.
Again, relatively speaking, thesame, because we're all
different.
But when you see the trend thatsay, several of these bacteria
are now high, that's concerning.
So you have to bring it down.
And that's harder to do becausethat's more complex.
(33:06):
You can't.
Just it's harder when it's toomuch bad bacteria Because, again
, we are trying to avoidantibiotics and those are not
the type of bacteria that you goto the hospital and they would
check in a stool test.
Because as a surgeon, and evenin our skin clinic rarely, but I
do order like a hospital stooltest when they check for
(33:28):
salmonella, shigella, e coli, abunch of these stool bacteria,
but they only check the virulent, the bad types of this bacteria
to make sure you don't havemajor issue, which is great, I'm
grateful that's there.
But to check your gut floralike the functional medicine gut
test does now it shows all ofthese percentages of good and
(33:50):
bad bacteria and everything andit's a little bit more difficult
to correct.
Again, it is correct.
It was lifestyle, food, sleep,decrease in stress, all of these
things it's not one thing.
Supplements too, but it's alittle bit harder to correct.
I've noticed that the trendswould be yeah, not enough good
bacteria, too much bad bacteria,candida, maybe in the fourth
(34:14):
trend, I would say parasites,yeah, parasites, because that's
another big component that wesee, yeah, four trends Candida,
big component that we see, yeah,four trends In Canada.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I see that all the time in the mouth.
We see those white?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yes, you do, I'm sure .
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And what do you think maybe causes the overgrowth of
Canada?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
So, of course, first of all I have to say it's us, we
, the medical system, causes alot of Canada and it's years and
years of antibiotics.
It's us, we, the medical system, causes a lot of candida and
it's years and years ofantibiotics.
It's not only recently, becauseit's all cumulative.
And in a functional medicinequestionnaire, when I talk to
the patient, I ask them have youbeen on a lot of antibiotics as
(34:55):
a child?
And most people the answer isyes, and me, as a surgeon, I
understand it very well becausewhen you do, for example, like
in an adult, we do a big surgeryand then they have a little
redness, a little concern, yes,most doctors, surgeons or
non-surgeons would end upprescribing antibiotics, just
make sure so everything is okay,like all of this, and of course
(35:19):
it's very hard to change yourthinking and stop doing that.
So I'm talking from thesurgical standpoint.
In our clinic, what I always doand I try to communicate to
each patient.
When we do, let's say, bigmelanoma removal or something
like that, I always say ifthere's any problem, please call
me, please anytime, but callour clinic because it's easier
(35:41):
for me to look at it.
Some redness is normal, alittle redness.
It's from the sutures.
If we have especially bigexcision, big work done, that's
what you understand is that someredness.
Of course body has to protestagainst this procedure that we
did.
We removed the big chunk ofskin.
But if the same patient goes tothe emergency room, they don't
(36:02):
know what I did, they have noidea.
They see an incision with scar,with redness.
Honestly, 99% of 100, they willgive the antibiotic, and not
because they're bad doctors, butit's outside of their scope of
seeing the same scar over time,starting at day one, day two, et
cetera, day 10, day 14.
(36:23):
So a lot of this rednesssurrounding the incision, like
especially after big procedures,not so small, big, it's just
our body.
So we've over-prescribed theantibiotics.
We still do.
People constantly getantibiotics for years and all
that stuff, and that's stillcommon, despite the fact that
medical environment tries.
(36:43):
But it's still common.
So that's number one.
So prescriptions, antibioticprescription, and number two,
it's just disbalance, like youmentioned that too, and we both
talked about leaky gut as adisbalance.
Gut is more open to harbor thisyeast.
And not only that, not onlycandida, there's also malassezia
(37:05):
, another one that's relatedwith, for example, skin with
seborrheic dermatitis.
I don't know if you've noticedthat there are lots of people
actually who have this flakinessand redness in their folds and
like in their eyebrows.
So that's a very commonpresentation that is related to
malassezia and we treat it withantifungal cream In conventional
(37:26):
medicine.
We treat it with antifungalcream.
So basically it's just thisbalance and just says welcome to
the yeast and that's all kindof piles on and, of course,
prolonged stay in the hospitalpiles on and, of course,
prolonged stay in the hospital,many procedures, and I do think
(37:47):
when you look at the mouse, it'sthe same thing as the gut, it's
the same thing as vagina.
Those are different places butyou can get yeast in all of them
because something is out ofwhack.
You get that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I think that's one of the harder ones to treat.
I know one of my functionalmedicine colleagues.
She said I'd much rather seesomebody with parasites than
fungus because it's challenging.
So in your case, with somebodywith maybe chronic, I know when
I do stool tests I had years andyears of antibiotics as a
teenager per acne and then I wason Accutane and then birth
(38:20):
control, so my gut just waspretty much obliterated by the
time I was 20.
So it's no wonder that Ideveloped the eczema in my 30s.
Then now it kind of ebbs andflows and I can control it most
of the time but it feels likeit's from all that damage done
early on.
It's I have to be on top of mydiet, my stress, all these
things.
So in your clinic, how do youtypically treat a candida
(38:44):
overgrowth patient?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
So we do have again.
It's not.
It's very interesting becauseyou as part of all of us, we are
human.
It's just.
I think it's a human brain.
We always want like a lineartreatment.
This is a disease, this is thetreatment.
Great Done Next.
But life is not like that.
When you see a candidate, firstof all it's an invitation for
(39:09):
me as a doctor to go deeper andto understand what else is in
play, because I can't just treatyou with skin.
A lot of times I can tell youwhen people come in my skin
clinic and they have toenailfungus, I don't even talk about
it, especially if they're notready to talk about that, unless
they ask me, because toenailfungus is so prevalent.
(39:33):
It's extremely hard to treat,almost impossible unfortunately,
especially in older patients.
In younger you can in manycases, but in somebody, let's
say, 80 years old and verydistorted toenails, it's just
not going to work.
It's wasteful even to makethese poor patients just even
(39:53):
doing like topicals andeverything else.
So I don't even talk about thatbecause the patient is not
interested and I will be justcreating stress for them.
So it's not necessary and it'snot a life-threatening condition
.
It doesn't affect really.
But if we are dealing with gutinside or gut on the face, let's
(40:13):
say seborrheic dermatitis.
We have to go deeper.
Now we're looking at everything.
So we are going through everycomponent of their life because
now it's a functional medicinesort of interaction, where we
talk about physical activity, wetalk about stress, we talk
about sleep, and then we utilizeall the gut tests and we fix
(40:35):
the bacteria whether it's notenough good bacteria bacteria to
much bad bacteria.
We treat yeast and there areseveral protocols, but they
change from patient to patient.
I do have several protocolsthat I've created for common
patterns of candida, but theychange from patient to patient
because of what they're on,because of their preferences,
(40:56):
because of their other aspects,and if a person says to me, oh,
I just want like supplements andI'm not going to make lifestyle
changes, and unfortunately thattells me that they are unlikely
to succeed.
Unfortunately they're not goingto succeed because you can't
just do one thing and they'regoing to keep going.
(41:18):
Let's say, to Burger King everyday for lunch, right, okay, you
just wasted money on thesupplements because it's just
not going to work.
Because, if you think about itand you know it very well that
garlic is one of the strongestantimicrobial if you look at it
and it's just been like forcenturies people knew that.
(41:39):
But if you add good things intoyour diet, great, but you do
have to take out bad.
So if you say, now I eat garlicevery day, oh okay, great, I'm
sure it helps you.
But if you remove the badness,then it helps you more.
So that's why my everytreatment, just like the
functional medicine, ispersonalized and for some people
(42:01):
it could be easy, but for mostpeople it's not easy, it takes
time.
I would say I agree with theother, like you mentioned, that
it's hard to eradicate andsometimes you can't eradicate.
But patients feel sometimesbetter.
So you're going to say, okay,we'll continue this nice healthy
lifestyle because we're keepingit at bay.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest takeaways
from our conversation today.
The value of functionalmedicine is the personalization
right, because one person mayhave candida and the next and
the next same thing withcavities.
Right, this person may havedecay and that and worse than
that, but the reason that it'sthere is different.
(42:40):
And so, again, when we'rereally personalizing it, this is
how we get better success rate,fewer side effects.
When we're tapping into thebody's the whole picture right,
like you said, what is theirdiet, what is their stress?
Are they exercising, all ofthose things?
So, as practitioners andpatients, we all want that easy.
(43:00):
Just tell me what pill to take.
The easy way, and unfortunately, that's not the way the human
body works.
Right, the human body is one ofthe most complex machines ever
imagined, and so the people whoget real success are the ones
who are willing to do the deepdive, and so it's important to
understand that the body ismultifactorial.
The body is always trying tohelp you in some ways, and so
(43:22):
you need to look at everydifferent aspect of health in
order to correct that problemand rebalance the body.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
All right, we've talked aboutsome great things.
Is there anything else reallyimportant that you'd like to
leave our audience with?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
I would say basically reiterate what we talked about.
That a couple of thingspersonalized approach to
medicine, this is the medicine.
I don't want to say future,this is the medicine of now.
So want to say future, this isthe medicine of now.
So everything will bepersonalized.
And we didn't even talk aboutgenetics, but genetics are so
important so that reallydetermines how we react to
(44:03):
certain medications andtreatments.
So genetics are very important.
And, yeah, personalizedmedicine of the future.
And, like I said, I havefocused on skin in my book, but
everything in my book could beapplied to other body systems
because it's basically the samething what's good for our skin
(44:24):
is good for our body.
It's just skin happens to bethe largest organ of our body.
That's why it's so visible.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah, I agree and we've talked about on the
podcast before about thegenetics organ of our body.
That's why it's so visible.
Yeah, I agree, and we've talkedabout on the podcast before
about the genetics and what Ifind.
I've had people tell me oh, Ihave gum disease, but my mother
did, and my father did and meit's not that your genetics are
to determine your future, but itgives you the risk factor and I
always a lot of people goaround saying I have MTHFR right
, which is a very common snip.
(44:51):
Yeah, and what it means is thatyour detox ability is
compromised.
So when people have a familyhistory of something, I'm always
thinking that is a history thatyou can't detox well.
Or, in the case of MTHFR, mychildren both of them are
homozygous for MTHFR, whichmeans they have a 30% effective
ability to detox.
They have a 30% effectiveability to detox, which is
(45:14):
problematic because they'reteenagers and they're into all
of the terrible personalproducts and the diet and
everything.
And I'm always like clean mydaughter's room today, I found
more bags of Cheetos and turkeys.
I'm like, oh my gosh, so muchYou're going to have to do a
foot beep.
Sorry, you're going to have toget in the sauna.
So that's the important thingto understand with genetics is
how well, because we're alldifferent, some of us detox
differently, right, so some ofus may need more support with
(45:38):
methylation support andglutathione, glutathione
production and so on.
So that is an important aspectand why it's important to have
somebody who understands that soyou can have that personalized
care.
One last thing I know we talkedabout liver gallbladder, but
again, being such a commonsurgery, maybe in just the last
few minutes, do you think dietis one of the most common causes
(46:00):
that we get the gallbladderissues and how, when you take
the gallbladder out, what'shappening at the liver, what's
to say that this problem thatcaused it is fixed?
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Well, the problem actually?
It's the problem with thegallbladder.
So the goal first?
It starts with the stones, ofcourse, and there are two types
of stones cholesterol stones andpigment stones.
And most of the stones in theWestern world are, of course,
cholesterol stones.
So the name itself probablytells your listeners that, yes,
indeed, it is clearlydiet-related and the gallbladder
(46:35):
doesn't really produce anythingper se.
It's a storage organ and Ithink that's why we're lucky
enough to get away with itsremoval.
And for people who had theirgallbladder out, I wouldn't cry
about it.
It's because sometimes I feellike people look at it as some
huge loss.
Yes, of course, ideally nobodywants to have their gallbladder
(46:55):
out, but it's a storage organ.
It does have some effect on therest of our digestion, but it's
not a huge effect because a lotof, if not 99% of people go on
living a healthy life.
They could have again some GIproblems.
The most common is one isdiarrhea, although sometimes
people could have constipation.
(47:17):
That's extremely rare.
Usually you could have in thefirst few months after surgery.
You may be having diarrheabecause gallbladder is not there
to concentrate and store thebile.
So that does happen.
So, but usually it's in thegallbladder.
I think that it's very hard tosay to people eat a gallbladder,
healthy diet, eat completelyhealthy diet, so your whole body
(47:40):
, healthy diet.
Because, again, gallbladder isonly one organ, Thank God.
It's an organ that we can getaway with removal as much as we
don't want to, and nobody wantsto, lose their gallbladder.
But it is different from otherorgans such as pancreas, for
example, and liver, where thedamage is very hard to repair
and sometimes, unfortunately Idon't know, the complete repair
(48:03):
would not, especially withpancreas.
It's a very sensitive organwith, yeah, unlike liver, liver.
Actually, as we know, liver ismuch better at its ability to
heal itself.
So that's one of the thingsabout the liver.
But, of course, if somebody isdrinking alcohol, for example,
we didn't even talk about itbecause we're talking about food
mostly, but we shouldn't forgetthat liver is one of the main
(48:24):
organs that is suffering fromthe daily alcohol use and abuse.
So, yeah, then you end up withvery common we see it in like
with ultrasounds we see fattyliver and then in the operating
room you see this like large,enlarged, fatty liver.
Yeah, and so that's why Iwouldn't.
In some ways, I think thatpeople have gallbladder out just
(48:46):
follow holistic whole, like inmy book I have it's a whole
clear skin diet, but againholistic.
Like in my book I have, it's anall clear skin diet, but again
it could have been clear liverdiet or whatever.
I do have the whole chapter.
It's a very long chapter and itgoes step-by-step components of
healthy foods and, for example,there's a big chapter on fiber
and how to make sure you haveenough intake of fiber.
(49:09):
A big chapter on fats, becausetrans fats is those bad for us,
fats that the carcinogenic tool.
In addition, they're so bad forour liver.
So I wouldn't go and saysometimes I see these diets for
gallbladder they say to justtake like olive oils, olive oil,
just do this and that so andthey may help.
I don't know because I don'thave a proof that they don't
(49:31):
help, I don't know.
But I would say just beinggentle for your whole body, but
like everything skin, liver,pancreas, organs and that will
have much better at the end,much better kind of outcome for
you, for your whole body.
And if you, because peoplesometimes get carried away with
these fat diets for organs too,like they would say, oh, I'm on
(49:54):
this and that's not a goodtraining as well.
So I try not to let myself ormy patients get on that path of
a fat diet for whatever theissue.
Just being going slow butsteady is better than doing some
quick things just to healsomething or lose weight or
whatever the reason.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Thank you so much for taking your time today to share
all of your wisdom with ouraudience.
Again, your book is called theClear Skin Diet, and can you get
that on Amazon or anywhere?
Fantastic, and tell us about ifsomebody was maybe in our area
in Massachusetts and reallywanted to contact you.
Or even beyond, because you dohave a virtual clinic.
Tell us about how we could getin touch with you if we want to
(50:33):
learn more.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Thank you so much, first of all for having me.
Thank you, thank you, I reallyenjoyed our conversation.
It's always nice to speak to alike-minded person.
In terms of my clinic, thefunctional medicine clinic,
again I enjoyed very much.
I am licensed in three states,in the states of Massachusetts,
vermont and New Hampshire.
I can only treat patients inthat state, which I do, and they
(50:55):
can just contact our clinic atiLab, so it's I like the word
lab, laboratory, because we dotesting as well.
So iLabMD, like medical doctor,it's ilabmdcom and we have our
phone number, it's 508-444-6989,that some people like to call
(51:18):
inquire, which is totally finewith us, and then we do, of
course, because they areobviously away.
So we have a HIPAA protectedsoftware that does everything.
That does even like our Zoommeetings and all communications.
My review I always like toreview the old like old before
they met you newest, up-to-date,all the labs and studies so
that I know the patient and thenalso so that I know what we
(51:41):
should focus, based on theirprevious studies as well.
And then we have a very longintake that we go into things,
but what we also have done inour clinic which has been very
helpful, and that's relativelyrecent, because a lot of people
they get overwhelmed by all ofthis.
They're like where do I start?
What do I do?
We have this like a small Icall it a personalized health
(52:01):
report and it's very affordableit's $50, which we actually have
.
Patients just fill out theirhealth questionnaire.
It has a bunch of questionsbasically pertaining to each
body system and then I review itand I look at like the whole
and then I give themrecommendations.
Again, they're not specificbecause we have not started
(52:23):
working, but at least I can tellthem what you should start,
maybe with hormonal testing,because not everything.
We talk a lot about gut, butthere's this whole world of
hormones, for example, you canstart with hormonal testing,
because not everything.
We talk a lot about gut, butthere's this whole world of
hormones.
For example, you can start withhormonal testing or no.
We should start with you.
Or food sensitivities, and thenit's up to the patient if they
want to continue, not tocontinue.
But most people are gratefulfor that because at least they
(52:45):
have a direction, they knowwhich system.
So I like doing that toobecause it gives me I can
connect with the patient.
And then we also, with thisreport, that I do.
We also have a 15 minute ofvery short get to know you thing
.
I like that.
It's again another smallbonding session.
So we have, we try to makefunctional medicine more
(53:08):
functional medicine, easier, notoverwhelming.
So because people sometimesthink, oh, I have to spend like
thousands of dollars, have likesessions for it.
But sometimes, yes, for somepeople, but for some people,
maybe one or two sessions.
They know what to work on andI've had patients like that.
I've just had a few sessions.
We did the testing, identifiedthe problem and then they called
(53:30):
me back several months latersaying thank you because they
changed their diet.
I was basically helping themalong.
But yeah, we are always happyto hear from again from
residents of those three states.
And again, thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Thank you so much.
I hope you all enjoyed thisepisode.
Let us know your comments andfeedback, what else you'd like
to hear about, and I hope youall have a wonderful day.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Hello, I'm Dr Rachel Carver, aboard-certified naturopathic
biologic dentist and a certifiedhealth coach.
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(54:07):
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cause of disease.
You'll learn how to be your ownbest doctor.
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Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode
of the Root of the Matter.
I am your host, dr RachelCarver, a biologic dentist who's
trying to bring light to theconnection between all of the
systems of the body right who isa board certified surgeon and
functional medicine certifiedprovider.
(00:28):
She is focused on foodsensitivity, leaky gut and
dietary toxins.
Those of you who know my storyyou know I'm super interested to
hear and learn from Dr Mariatoday.
She is an author of the ClearSkin Diet book and she has two
clinics and we'll talk a littlebit more about that, especially
at the end, so people canconnect with you if they want
(00:50):
some more help.
So why don't we dive in andtell me how you were a surgeon
and then got into functionalmedicine?
They seem opposite.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
First of all, thank you so much for inviting me.
I really appreciate your focus.
There is so much in commonbetween a biological dentist and
it is basically I see it as abranch of functional medicine
essentially, so it's just morefocused on the mouth.
So yeah, so we do have a lot incommon.
So yeah, briefly, as a surgeonI have always been interested in
(01:24):
what's driving the disease,because very often and the way
you're trained in surgicalresidency is that you are the
last instance and it is becauseusually the patient starts with
their primary care doctor, thenthey go to subspecialist, often,
let's say GI doctor, and thenend up needing to have their
organ removed or repaired orsomething happens.
(01:46):
Or it's an urgent situationwhere a patient comes in, let's
say, with perforateddiverticulitis.
That's a very common littleoutpouching.
So we eat large intestine fromthe bad food we get.
Very common and I'm sure manyof your listeners because it's
such a ubiquitous problem havehad a colonoscopy and were told
(02:06):
oh, you just have a few ticks,but sometimes those ticks become
an abscess, they perforate.
So I've always had an interestin what is called alternative
medicine but didn't activelypractice it because, again, that
was not my area where I trainedand then when functional
medicine came along, when Ifound out about it, I was not my
area where I trained.
And then when functionalmedicine came along when I found
out about it, I was so excitedbecause I could actually relate
(02:31):
to it on a very on my almostlike on a childlike interest
level.
So I got certified in functionalmedicine and now I'm basically
a hybrid of both.
So I have two clinics, like youmentioned.
One is a skin cancer clinichere in Cape Cod and that skin
cancer clinic I do lots ofprocedures.
(02:51):
We do obviously, as the namesounds, lots of skin cancer and
we see lots of skin issues.
And also I have a functionalmedicine clinic, ilabmd, which
is both online and in person,and then over there I'm purely
functional.
But I have to tell you,sometimes I spend time just
trying to figure out just what'shappening in conventional
(03:12):
medicine before I even get tofunctional medicine.
So that's basically.
Then I went and got certifiedat Functional Medicine Institute
.
Dr Hyman everybody knows him,he's one of my mentors, but he
doesn't know me, but one of thementors of all of us who get
certified through it.
So that's basically is myjourney.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Now were you like a general surgeon doing a lot of
the GI surgery?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
I am a general surgeon and I basically now do
general surgery as a part-timething.
I do it as what we call it thelocums, occasionally because
with time my interest shifted.
When you're younger, straightout of residency, your goal is
to.
It's very, you're in the savingmode, you're going to save
(03:58):
somebody.
Somebody comes in with whateverabscess, et cetera.
But then when you become wiser,older and wiser, you start
understanding is that the trueintervention that could be done
should be done earlier, beforethis turns into absence, because
in surgery, again, youbasically deal with infection,
(04:20):
perforation those are the commonthings obstruction, especially
when it comes to gut, when I doa lot of gut surgery, and that
basically being a last instance,you understand that there has
to be some kind of a preventionand that's what's driving me.
So in my clinic, like I said,was the skin the biggest
(04:40):
prevention, and again I'm goingto switch gears for a sec that
the biggest prevention isactually the usage of sunscreen
when you talk about skin cancer.
But every medical issue, everymedical problem has their
specific preventions.
You're a dentist, there'sspecific things that you could
do to avoid cavities, but alsothere are universal things that
(05:01):
are good for the whole body,like the holistic health and
honestly, I'm interested healthand I'm honestly I'm interested
in both.
I'm interested in my gut I loveleaky gut and I love surgical
gut issues.
I love skin, so so, yeah, soit's all interconnected.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I love what you said.
I focus so much on preventiontoo, because I've been
practicing 20 years now and,just like you, when we're first
out of dental school, we'recutting and we're drilling and
we're pepping and all thesethings and then we're like man,
this is tough, it's tough work.
It's the patients specifically.
They don't really like comingto the dentist.
And how can I prevent thesethings?
All this time and money?
(05:38):
And as good of a dentist as Imay be, if I drill on one side
of the mouth, how is itaffecting the other?
The bite is off just a littlebit.
Those kinds of things reallydrove me to think what can I do
to not have to drill, becauseevery time I cut into a tooth,
I'm cutting into it forever.
Yes, maybe now we're not usingthe heavy metals and now we're
(05:59):
using plastics instead.
Is that better?
I don't know.
Are we going to learn 20 yearsfrom now that all those
composites we're putting in wereproblematic, right?
So again, I'm always thinking,like you said, it was very spot
on that there are certainprevention methods that affect
all health.
Right, because having a cavity,that's, you know, that's a sign
of inflammation, that's a signof acidity in the body.
(06:21):
Right.
That's a sign of imbalance.
So things that we do to preventskin issues are also going to
help prevent cavities, right.
We've got to avoid the toxicchemicals in all of our beauty
care products.
We've got to avoid thechemicals in the foods, right,
all of those are going to affectthe whole body in a positive
way.
And I found very interestingagain, depending on our genetics
(06:44):
, maybe in our environments,like for me I get eczema.
I had acne as a kid.
Skin was always an issue for me, whereas somebody else may have
a lot of cavities, right,myself, my kids we don't have
cavities, we have skin issues.
So that's where functionalmedicine I think plays a key
role in really personalizing.
I think plays a key role inreally personalizing.
(07:07):
What is it about you and yourgenetics and your environment
and your diet that is leadingyou to have this symptom versus
the next person?
I think too much inconventional medicine there's a
one size fits all and that's whywe have so many side effects
with medications.
I always find it funny whenyou're watching TV and there's
so many.
I feel like most of the drugsnow are all about skin issues
and I don't know if you'venoticed that, because from my
(07:28):
understanding.
Hopefully you can elaborate theliver right.
We don't ever pay attention tothe liver much and there aren't
really even great tests to lookat liver functionality, because
it's such an amazing organ itcan regenerate.
It has to really be functioningpoorly to show up, maybe, on a
blood test.
But when that gets overloadedright, our whole digestive kind
of slows down.
From what I understand, we,instead of going down the chute
(07:51):
to the liver to the bowels andout, we are actually getting the
toxins being pushed up into ourlungs and into our skin.
So a lot of these skin issuesthat are becoming more prevalent
again in my thought process isbecause of this excess process
and the taxing on the liver.
So I know as a surgeon youprobably took out lots of
(08:13):
gallbladders, right?
I think that's one of the mostcommon surgeries and I think I
looked up a stat there was like600,000 surgeries about a year.
So that can be great and reallytakes people out of pain.
But this is and again being socommon, maybe you can talk to us
a little bit about why does thegallbladder get clogged with
(08:33):
these stones and once you takeit out, how do you know that the
liver still isn't making stones?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And if they do what happens, then yeah, you touched
on a variety of fascinatingtopics and all of them are dear
to my heart.
Actually, the first book that Iwrote was about gallbladder,
because it's just by definition,honestly, that I've just taken
out so many gallbladders, andsome of them easy, some of them
could be very difficult if theyare very infected, abscessed,
(09:02):
etc.
It's a fascinating organ and wedo take it out, basically, and
tell the patient that you willbe okay.
Is that true?
Yes, that is true, because forthe most part, people are okay.
There are, of course, sideeffects from having your
gallbladder out and some of itcould be GI symptoms like
diarrhea is not uncommon.
(09:23):
Sometimes people say thatthere's a weight gain, but the
weight gain is because there'sno gallbladder pain stopping
them from overeating.
So the weight gain from thesurgery?
That has not been proven.
So there's no weight gain perse from the surgery.
So that's the surgicalstandpoint.
But just to connect between myinterest, and again, my first
(09:44):
book was about a gallbladder.
In this book, about the skin,just be totally honest, there's
so much more interest in theskin.
And why is that?
Because it's visual.
It is visual People and maybeI'm thinking you're right.
You're exactly right about howthose ads.
There are lots of psoriasis ads.
I don't watch TV much but I dosee sometimes the psoriasis ads
(10:06):
and a lot of times.
And obviously the medicationsthat they advertise they're very
toxic for your whole body.
So that's why there are all theside effects and et cetera.
For some people that may not bethe wrong thing.
So I'm not going to knock itand say it's bad for everybody.
No, preferably not to take it,but for some people that could
(10:26):
be a lifesaver.
So why is that?
And I thought a lot about thiswhy is that people are more
drawn to skin?
Yes, because skin is veryvisible.
It's a social embarrassment ifyou have problems with the skin,
especially if it's a visibleissue.
Another issue which peopledon't talk a lot is like they
don't talk socially but theytalk at the doctor's office is
(10:49):
itching, because itching is oneof the signs that something is
out of balance.
It could be a yeast overgrowth,but not necessarily it could be
internal.
It could be the sequela orconsequence of a leaky gut In a
sense, be the sequela orconsequence of a leaky gut In a
sense.
So that's why it was my secondbook.
I wrote it about between theconnection between the food and
(11:14):
clear skin.
But honestly, I probably couldhave titled this book Gold
Bladder and Food.
It would have been, or whatever.
Migraines and Food, because theconnections are very similar.
It's just how they manifest,like you said, like in some
people it's skin, in otherpeople it's cavities perhaps and
just not to overwhelm yourlisteners with the specifics,
but I'll go a little bit intothat.
(11:36):
The premise is and now there'smore and more research,
thankfully accepted byconventional medicine, research
thankfully accepted byconventional medicine, it's
actually Western medicine datathat our gut houses 60 to 70
percent of our immune system.
So if every day you eat badfood like this over-fried,
(11:58):
over-processed or they call itnow ultra-processed constantly
eat this food.
So what happens?
Your gut can't protect you wellanymore.
And these toxins from foodbecause these foods are toxins,
a lot of these I'm talking aboutbad foods obviously.
So instead of us excreting themthey can't be excreted Now they
(12:19):
get absorbed into ourbloodstream and our poor liver.
To comment on the liver, therole of the liver is to detoxify
, to clean your body off that.
But the liver gets overwhelmedso it just can't do the complete
detoxification and then you endup basically absorbing these
(12:40):
toxins, absorbing thesechemicals, and that's why
everybody's different, everybodyhas different genetics.
So, like for some people itcould be certain problems, for
somebody else could be.
Oh, every time I go to a fastfood restaurant I have a
migraine the next day, forexample, right.
Or every time I eat whateverFrench fries, I have a GI upset,
(13:05):
I have indigestion, because allof these things are different
manifestations of the same allin the same, and a lot of times
in our clinic I see people bothin skin and non-skin, because I
do treat obviously non-skinthings too.
I noticed how people come in andlet's say we always do gut
tests, almost always, I wouldsay, do gut testing for skin
(13:27):
problem, to check them for reikigut, and then after, of course,
they also have to change theirdiet.
It's not only about gettingsupplements and because that's
not enough, you really have tochange and it's hard for all of
us.
Personally I have to say, andon behalf of my patients
definitely, it's hard to changeyour eating habits.
(13:47):
And then when people come in,let's say after three months, so
we'll recheck.
We'll usually recheck everyfour to six weeks, but a lot of
times three months is a goodsort of time to look back and
see, and not only the skinproblem gets better if people
are honestly dedicated and doingeverything they're supposed to
(14:08):
do, but also there are manyother things, like some joint
pains go away, energy level ishigher.
There's just a variety of things.
Sometimes even I've heardpatients reporting to me I was
going to have a surgery, likeorthopedic surgery, for this and
this, but I canceled it becauseit doesn't hurt me anymore and
(14:29):
that's amazing.
I'm like you didn't even tellme.
I didn't know, because that'sjust human to forget to tell
something, but it's so amazingto see that.
But it does require time.
It does require dedicationbecause the chronic issues they
can't you can't just snap yourfingers and they go away.
Unfortunately, changing the diet, taking supplements and some
(14:52):
people need minimal supplements,some people need more
supplements.
It's all personalized, based ontheir testing.
That's why testing is a bigcomponent of functional medicine
.
But I'll be honest with you,without commitment and changing
of your lifestyle, like, testingis a big component of
functional medicine.
But I'll be honest with you,without commitment and changing
of your lifestyle, like, testingis useless.
You can test, you'll find outthen what.
If you're not doing anything,then you just wasted money, got
(15:15):
the testing and so yeah.
But everything isinterconnected the gut, the
liver, the gallbladder, the skin, it's just all one, like one
big sort of organism.
Or sometimes I think of ourbody, like our planet, like
earth, like there are all thesethings there are mountains,
there are oceans, there arelakes, etc.
And every geophysical,geographic place has its own
(15:41):
kind of world right, so it's ownenvironment, and they should
stay that way and they canbecome out of balance.
Well, that's not good for ourplanet.
So I like often make that forme, just make those correlations
.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And so you mentioned testing, which I think is really
important.
As I say, test, not guess.
What is one of your favoritegut tests that you like to look
at?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So in the functional medicine industry, and I was
very happy to, honestly, I haveto say, having a privilege of
being trained at the Instituteof Functional Medicine.
To be honest, when I enrolledthere I didn't realize that it
would change my own life so muchin every sense, in the sense of
my intellectual curiosity, ifmy understanding of myself, and
(16:26):
then of course, it extrapolatesto my patients, to my life and
everything else.
Testing is very important, butit has to be coordinated with
the patient, obviously, and ithas to be something patient
really wants.
And you have to know whatyou're going to do with that
testing.
And actually that comes fromwhy, even when I was a surgical
(16:49):
resident, it was always likedon't order a test if you don't
know what you're going to dowith that.
Because even if it's, no matterif it's covered with insurance,
but why?
Why are you putting this poorpatient through unnecessary CAT
scanning or et cetera?
So now let's move to functionalmedicine world.
The testing in functionalmedicine is very.
(17:10):
They really help you.
So there are several tests thatare fundamental and of course
there are a bunch of companiesthat are always trying to outdo
each other, but I have to saythe main companies are very good
.
They're essentially the same, Ihave to say, and there could be
like the style, how theypresent the data, but the main
(17:32):
company and the Institute ofFunctional Medicine is very
helpful so you can actuallyyourself, using your critical
thinking, decide.
So this is better for my typeof patients.
For example, I have severalcohorts of patients in my clinic
because my clinic is in CapeCod, so we do have a lot of
older patients and there arecertain components that are more
(17:54):
important to older patients.
However, in functional medicinethat I do online in our clinic
iLabMD that's an online clinic Ido there's obviously all ages,
so we can have somebody who's anage 12, not necessarily
somebody who is like 65 plus,which is more common for me in
person.
The bottom line and I'm not veryoriginal here most of our
(18:20):
functional medicine do the samething.
We start their fundamental test.
The first one is the gut test,because the gut test shows me
how your immune system works.
It also shows the burden ofgood and bad bacteria.
That's very important and I'msure you know that I know, but
for your listeners, there are avariety of newer conditions, but
(18:43):
they're not so new.
For example, sibo, which is anovergrowth of bacteria in the
small intestine and somethinglike that is hard to diagnose
conventionally.
But you look at thedysfunctional medicine sort of
workup and there are patternsthat are now classic for SIBO
and variety of things.
Other things that people alwaysget surprised and I'm no longer
(19:06):
surprised, I used to besurprised at that too is that
many of us do harbor parasites,and even people who haven't been
away, they haven't had exotictravels, and some of the
parasites are protozoa.
Those are one-cell parasiteswhich are actually not
considered so pathogenic,they're not considered so bad,
(19:30):
and there is actually somewhatof a divide in medicine, both
actually in conventional and infunctional medicine, that should
we treat every patient who hasthat and when we see that and I
see it a lot and I see in somepatients we do treat it and
usually when I say treated, wedo use mostly herbal things,
(19:50):
herbal and supplements.
In some other patients who arevery symptomatic, if patient
comes in and they have diarrhea,a bunch of things and they
already had colonoscopy,everything bad has been ruled
out.
Now we do a gut test and theyhave diarrhea, a bunch of things
and they already havecolonoscopy, everything bad has
been ruled out.
Now we do a gut test and we seethis.
Then sometimes I do treat itwith antibiotics, as much as I
hate it, but I do prescribeantibiotics.
(20:12):
In my clinic I see infections.
People come in with abscesses.
You have to use antibiotics.
But what I'm saying parasitesare not as uncommon and, no, not
everybody is running aroundwith vomiting and diarrhea.
You could have it chronicallyand that could be mild if I may
say, that's not completelycorrect but a smaller burden of
(20:32):
parasites, but you still harborthem.
So we try to treat them withherbals, with supplements, and
not to blast people withanything.
Additionally, with gut testing,which is again one of my
favorites with gut testing wetest inflammation in the gut and
then test some digestivemarkers that relate to our
(20:53):
pancreatic function, because ourpancreas does lots of things.
People know pancreas because ofdiabetes and it's true, but
also pancreas is extremelyimportant for digestion.
So we look at that and then Iprescribe or recommend rather,
because I don't prescribesupplements, I recommend
supplements.
Anybody can buy supplements,but I choose supplements.
(21:15):
I'm very careful, trying tointegrate every medication that
patient is on, to avoid anyinteractions and everything else
.
Actually, I will say a coupleof things using your platform.
Please be careful, because notall supplements are the same and
some supplements could interactwith your medication and cause
problems.
So always check with yourdoctor and a pharmacist is a
(21:37):
good source as well.
So always check with yourdoctor and a pharmacist is a
good source as well, because forme, I always spend a lot of
time on this, like trying tocoordinate, make sure that it's
all okay.
So another test that we do isfood sensitivities.
That is a good test and bothtests together is a very good
idea, but we often start withthe gut.
That do food sensitivities.
(21:59):
Food sensitivities are not likefood allergies, because food
allergies everybody knows thereare food allergies pretty much.
You don't need a fancy test tofind out your allergy.
Most people know that.
But food sensitivities aresubtle.
They may take up to 72 hours tomanifest and the most amazing
thing about food sensitivitiesis that you're often sensitive
(22:23):
to foods that you eat the most,and those could be healthy foods
, by the way, it could behealthy or foods as ubiquitous
like potatoes.
You could have four plusreaction, which is a severe
reaction to potatoes.
How would you know?
You wouldn't know because,let's say, your symptom is joint
pain.
You always have joint painbecause you always eat potatoes,
(22:46):
so you don't know.
And then, maybe by miracle,let's say if you go someplace
there are no potatoes I can'timagine a place like that but
you don't eat.
You may notice that, oh, I'mactually feeling better, but how
would you put two and twotogether?
There is a lot to be said aboutfood sensitivities and there
(23:07):
are so many other tests.
We use a lot of tests in ourclinic, but we try to be very
mindful because most of thetests are not covered by the
insurance.
The only ones that are,partially at least, is our gut
tests.
So gut tests are for Medicare,only for Medicare patients.
So we always try to.
If you could do with lesstesting, we'll do with less
testing.
On my website, the clinic iLabMD, we do have test packages and
(23:30):
people often ask me about that,and that's all nice and great
and they're always helpful, butit's important to know do you
need it now and what tests doyou need Otherwise?
Another portion, aside fromfinancial, is that you don't
want to overwhelm the patientwith too many tests and too many
changes, and so this is wrong.
(23:50):
And this is wrong Becauseanother component of all of this
as you know very well, rachelis stress.
So you don't want to let a lotof people most of us have some
level of stress you don't wantto a lot of people most of us
have some level of stress.
You don't want to increase itnow by pushing the patient if
they're not ready.
So yeah, but that's a very bigtopic, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
So I love what you said and we talk about parasites
a lot on this podcast becauseit was one of the things that I
found was a major contributor tomy inflammation.
But it's really important whatyou said and I love that.
You said that most people havethis protozoa.
Again, it's not that you travelto a third world country.
I think the other interestingthing that I've learned over the
years is that parasites kind ofact like and I call it like a
(24:31):
mothership, and if you haveheavy metals or other toxins,
they're actually sometimes thereas a protective medicine to
clean up the terrain.
Right, we talk about the wholecellular metabolism, the
extracellular matrix that oftengets very clogged with toxins
and infections and, again, sosometimes if we're seeing these
(24:53):
parasites.
So I love what you're saying.
It's not about always killingthem.
Why might they be overgrowing?
Right, we have a lot of goodand so-called bad.
Right, it's always about thebalance.
So I say about in the mouth too.
There are a lot of saliva teststhat we do and they're just
checking for the so-called bad.
We all have those.
It's when they get out ofbalance that's a problem.
(25:14):
So we have to try to get awayof always thinking about that we
always have to kill and wereally want to think about how
do we create the environment,how do we create the healthy
terrain, so these things don'tget out of whack, right?
Something like candida?
Right, all of us have candida.
It's when it overgrows that'sthe problem.
So functional medicine andbiologic dentistry we're always
(25:34):
trying to think why did thatovergrow?
Why did the environment change,right?
And so, like you said, talkingabout food sensitivities, we've
got this food sensitive.
We're creating an environmentthat's creating inflammation and
it's causing that, becausesensitivity is very different
from an allergy.
And so do a lot of thatsensitivity testing.
And then I was noticing oh,it's just testing for what we're
eating the most.
(25:55):
That's what you said.
So I moved a little bit awayfrom that.
But again, it's reallyimportant to say, because you
eat something and the reactionis days later, so you don't know
.
So when you find that foodsensitivity and you minimize
that and you're seeing how isyour body reacting to it.
Because I also think foodsensitivities come about because
of the leaky gut, right,because of this change in the
(26:16):
environment, because of someshift.
So if you can heal the leakygut, ideally those food
sensitivities should go away.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I will add.
Yes, I will add, if I may.
This is actually one of themost common questions and I have
in my book.
I go into detail on thatbecause between food
sensitivities and leaky gut thedirection it's a bi-directional
sort of relationship the leakieryou got, the more food
sensitivities you will have,because you're starting to
(26:46):
immunologically react to a bunchof new foods, and those
immunoglobulins are mostly IgG.
It could be IgA immunoglobulinsthat are different from
allergies, by the way, which areIgE.
But the bottom line, this is areal immunological testing, so
that's not just like somebody'soh, I think, or we think, or
(27:07):
you're likely, or all of this.
But one thing that people alwaysask me and I try to
preemptively answer thatquestion to my patients, people
who are interested in foodsensitivity testing is that you
can grow out of your foodsensitivities.
You can If you heal your gut.
Yes, what's your diagnosis withthis?
(27:28):
Because it is a diagnosis Withthe food sensitivities.
You should stay away from them.
You should stay, you shouldgive yourself rest, give your
gut rest time to heal and repair.
But with time, after you healand repair and that could be
anywhere from three to six andsometimes longer you can
actually start eating thesefoods that you were sensitive to
(27:51):
, but still I would recommendeating them in small amounts
because one of the biggestdifferences between allergies
and sensitivities that withallergies usually there are some
exceptions but usually youcan't eat something that you're
allergic to in small amounts.
If you're allergic to peanutbutter, you have even like a
whiff of it, you will have areaction.
(28:12):
But with food sensitivities youcan actually afford to do that.
You can start eating smallamounts of food that you were
sensitive to and then you'll befine because now your gut is
stronger.
And even if you recheck the foodsensitivities which we don't
routinely recheck them unlesspatient wants to, because how
(28:32):
patient feels and how their gutand other symptoms are doing,
that basically is a very goodsign.
But if we were to recheck whichwe rarely do, but we do
sometimes we do see that thosesensitivities either downgraded
or they are gone, or if they'restill the same, I do say to the
patient you can try if youreally miss that food or
(28:55):
whatever.
They can have just smallamounts.
So the body is, our body ismore permissive with food
sensitivities.
But yeah, so you can grow outof food sensitivities.
Leaky gut causes foodsensitivities and food
sensitivities cause leaky gut.
So it's like a cycle.
But there are so many otherthings.
There are infections, there areeveryday toxins that you
(29:15):
started talking about and heavymetals and all that the plastic
toxins, those things that weinhale, our sort of beauty and
grooming products, that filledwith toxins.
So there are many things thatare causing leaky gut.
But I like to maybe start orfocus with the diet because it's
the fundamental one.
(29:35):
But, yeah, sometimes it couldbe other things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
So, yes, so that's what I was going to ask, I
believe because of this toxicworld we live in now.
The stuff's in the air, it's inthe water.
I think most people may have adegree of leaky gut right
Depending on your genetics orwhatever.
Some people's hair better thanothers, so I he's thinking to.
My one question was what do youthink maybe are the top three
(30:01):
substances infections, whateverthat you see most often causing
reiki guts?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
That's a good question.
I think that one that everybodytalks about and that's probably
I would put it in top threemaybe not the first one, perhaps
is candida, because candidayeast is very common and it does
cause problem in many people,and some people more than others
.
There is some component ofcandida that's considered okay
(30:32):
to have, but there's actually alittle bit of a debate about
that.
There is a debate in theliterature that should we allow
like a small portion of candidaor should we treat all of it?
But definitely I would saycandida.
The other top two, I would sayit's more like a trend, it's the
trend.
There are two other trends.
(30:53):
Number one when I look at thegut test.
Number one trend is, let's say,the person has decreased.
They have lower than normalcomponent of good bacteria.
You look at several bacterias,you scan their gut test and you
see there is a trend they havenot enough of good bacteria.
(31:13):
In fact, to be honest, I likeit.
I like that because it's alittle bit easier to compensate,
because we always like to takein rather than to give out, in a
sense of like foods andsupplements.
At least, I've noticed thatmost people are much easier.
You can tell them thesupplement will help and they're
happy to do that.
But if you tell them youshouldn't eat this food, they
(31:35):
will not be so happy.
So that's why I like it more,because it's easier to
communicate to the patient andyou show them.
You see, like one of the now invogue bacteria, which I
actually support too, isAckermansia.
So Ackermansia is an amazingbacteria that basically feeds
your gut mucosa.
It's really very good forcleaning and supporting your gut
(31:58):
.
So, for example again I'm beingvery simplistic let's see if
you see this Ackermansia in notenough and there's usually a
bunch of other bacteria together.
Good bacteria.
They're not enough.
So it's easier because you canreplenish them with probiotics
and to help with prebiotics,which is prebiotics are foods
for probiotics, so probioticsare good bacteria, so you can
(32:21):
supplement that along withlifestyle changes, so you can
supplement.
So that's a very big trend.
So that's that.
And the second trend, which verycommon too, is too much bad
bacteria.
So you're looking and you seethere is this bacteria too much.
So usually those bacteriathey're called opportunistic
(32:43):
bacteria.
They're just dormant.
They're there.
Everybody has them, some peoplemore, some people less, but
they're within the same range.
Again, relatively speaking, thesame, because we're all
different.
But when you see the trend thatsay, several of these bacteria
are now high, that's concerning.
So you have to bring it down.
And that's harder to do becausethat's more complex.
(33:06):
You can't.
Just it's harder when it's toomuch bad bacteria Because, again
, we are trying to avoidantibiotics and those are not
the type of bacteria that you goto the hospital and they would
check in a stool test.
Because as a surgeon, and evenin our skin clinic rarely, but I
do order like a hospital stooltest when they check for
(33:28):
salmonella, shigella, e coli, abunch of these stool bacteria,
but they only check the virulent, the bad types of this bacteria
to make sure you don't havemajor issue, which is great, I'm
grateful that's there.
But to check your gut floralike the functional medicine gut
test does now it shows all ofthese percentages of good and
(33:50):
bad bacteria and everything andit's a little bit more difficult
to correct.
Again, it is correct.
It was lifestyle, food, sleep,decrease in stress, all of these
things it's not one thing.
Supplements too, but it's alittle bit harder to correct.
I've noticed that the trendswould be yeah, not enough good
bacteria, too much bad bacteria,candida, maybe in the fourth
(34:14):
trend, I would say parasites,yeah, parasites, because that's
another big component that wesee, yeah, four trends Candida,
big component that we see, yeah,four trends In Canada.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I see that all the time in the mouth.
We see those white?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yes, you do, I'm sure .
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And what do you think maybe causes the overgrowth of
Canada?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
So, of course, first of all I have to say it's us, we
, the medical system, causes alot of Canada and it's years and
years of antibiotics.
It's us, we, the medical system, causes a lot of candida and
it's years and years ofantibiotics.
It's not only recently, becauseit's all cumulative.
And in a functional medicinequestionnaire, when I talk to
the patient, I ask them have youbeen on a lot of antibiotics as
(34:55):
a child?
And most people the answer isyes, and me, as a surgeon, I
understand it very well becausewhen you do, for example, like
in an adult, we do a big surgeryand then they have a little
redness, a little concern, yes,most doctors, surgeons or
non-surgeons would end upprescribing antibiotics, just
make sure so everything is okay,like all of this, and of course
(35:19):
it's very hard to change yourthinking and stop doing that.
So I'm talking from thesurgical standpoint.
In our clinic, what I always doand I try to communicate to
each patient.
When we do, let's say, bigmelanoma removal or something
like that, I always say ifthere's any problem, please call
me, please anytime, but callour clinic because it's easier
(35:41):
for me to look at it.
Some redness is normal, alittle redness.
It's from the sutures.
If we have especially bigexcision, big work done, that's
what you understand is that someredness.
Of course body has to protestagainst this procedure that we
did.
We removed the big chunk ofskin.
But if the same patient goes tothe emergency room, they don't
(36:02):
know what I did, they have noidea.
They see an incision with scar,with redness.
Honestly, 99% of 100, they willgive the antibiotic, and not
because they're bad doctors, butit's outside of their scope of
seeing the same scar over time,starting at day one, day two, et
cetera, day 10, day 14.
(36:23):
So a lot of this rednesssurrounding the incision, like
especially after big procedures,not so small, big, it's just
our body.
So we've over-prescribed theantibiotics.
We still do.
People constantly getantibiotics for years and all
that stuff, and that's stillcommon, despite the fact that
medical environment tries.
(36:43):
But it's still common.
So that's number one.
So prescriptions, antibioticprescription, and number two,
it's just disbalance, like youmentioned that too, and we both
talked about leaky gut as adisbalance.
Gut is more open to harbor thisyeast.
And not only that, not onlycandida, there's also malassezia
(37:05):
, another one that's relatedwith, for example, skin with
seborrheic dermatitis.
I don't know if you've noticedthat there are lots of people
actually who have this flakinessand redness in their folds and
like in their eyebrows.
So that's a very commonpresentation that is related to
malassezia and we treat it withantifungal cream In conventional
(37:26):
medicine.
We treat it with antifungalcream.
So basically it's just thisbalance and just says welcome to
the yeast and that's all kindof piles on and, of course,
prolonged stay in the hospitalpiles on and, of course,
prolonged stay in the hospital,many procedures, and I do think
(37:47):
when you look at the mouse, it'sthe same thing as the gut, it's
the same thing as vagina.
Those are different places butyou can get yeast in all of them
because something is out ofwhack.
You get that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I think that's one of the harder ones to treat.
I know one of my functionalmedicine colleagues.
She said I'd much rather seesomebody with parasites than
fungus because it's challenging.
So in your case, with somebodywith maybe chronic, I know when
I do stool tests I had years andyears of antibiotics as a
teenager per acne and then I wason Accutane and then birth
(38:20):
control, so my gut just waspretty much obliterated by the
time I was 20.
So it's no wonder that Ideveloped the eczema in my 30s.
Then now it kind of ebbs andflows and I can control it most
of the time but it feels likeit's from all that damage done
early on.
It's I have to be on top of mydiet, my stress, all these
things.
So in your clinic, how do youtypically treat a candida
(38:44):
overgrowth patient?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
So we do have again.
It's not.
It's very interesting becauseyou as part of all of us, we are
human.
It's just.
I think it's a human brain.
We always want like a lineartreatment.
This is a disease, this is thetreatment.
Great Done Next.
But life is not like that.
When you see a candidate, firstof all it's an invitation for
(39:09):
me as a doctor to go deeper andto understand what else is in
play, because I can't just treatyou with skin.
A lot of times I can tell youwhen people come in my skin
clinic and they have toenailfungus, I don't even talk about
it, especially if they're notready to talk about that, unless
they ask me, because toenailfungus is so prevalent.
(39:33):
It's extremely hard to treat,almost impossible unfortunately,
especially in older patients.
In younger you can in manycases, but in somebody, let's
say, 80 years old and verydistorted toenails, it's just
not going to work.
It's wasteful even to makethese poor patients just even
(39:53):
doing like topicals andeverything else.
So I don't even talk about thatbecause the patient is not
interested and I will be justcreating stress for them.
So it's not necessary and it'snot a life-threatening condition
.
It doesn't affect really.
But if we are dealing with gutinside or gut on the face, let's
(40:13):
say seborrheic dermatitis.
We have to go deeper.
Now we're looking at everything.
So we are going through everycomponent of their life because
now it's a functional medicinesort of interaction, where we
talk about physical activity, wetalk about stress, we talk
about sleep, and then we utilizeall the gut tests and we fix
(40:35):
the bacteria whether it's notenough good bacteria bacteria to
much bad bacteria.
We treat yeast and there areseveral protocols, but they
change from patient to patient.
I do have several protocolsthat I've created for common
patterns of candida, but theychange from patient to patient
because of what they're on,because of their preferences,
(40:56):
because of their other aspects,and if a person says to me, oh,
I just want like supplements andI'm not going to make lifestyle
changes, and unfortunately thattells me that they are unlikely
to succeed.
Unfortunately they're not goingto succeed because you can't
just do one thing and they'regoing to keep going.
(41:18):
Let's say, to Burger King everyday for lunch, right, okay, you
just wasted money on thesupplements because it's just
not going to work.
Because, if you think about itand you know it very well that
garlic is one of the strongestantimicrobial if you look at it
and it's just been like forcenturies people knew that.
(41:39):
But if you add good things intoyour diet, great, but you do
have to take out bad.
So if you say, now I eat garlicevery day, oh okay, great, I'm
sure it helps you.
But if you remove the badness,then it helps you more.
So that's why my everytreatment, just like the
functional medicine, ispersonalized and for some people
(42:01):
it could be easy, but for mostpeople it's not easy, it takes
time.
I would say I agree with theother, like you mentioned, that
it's hard to eradicate andsometimes you can't eradicate.
But patients feel sometimesbetter.
So you're going to say, okay,we'll continue this nice healthy
lifestyle because we're keepingit at bay.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest takeaways
from our conversation today.
The value of functionalmedicine is the personalization
right, because one person mayhave candida and the next and
the next same thing withcavities.
Right, this person may havedecay and that and worse than
that, but the reason that it'sthere is different.
(42:40):
And so, again, when we'rereally personalizing it, this is
how we get better success rate,fewer side effects.
When we're tapping into thebody's the whole picture right,
like you said, what is theirdiet, what is their stress?
Are they exercising, all ofthose things?
So, as practitioners andpatients, we all want that easy.
(43:00):
Just tell me what pill to take.
The easy way, and unfortunately, that's not the way the human
body works.
Right, the human body is one ofthe most complex machines ever
imagined, and so the people whoget real success are the ones
who are willing to do the deepdive, and so it's important to
understand that the body ismultifactorial.
The body is always trying tohelp you in some ways, and so
(43:22):
you need to look at everydifferent aspect of health in
order to correct that problemand rebalance the body.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
All right, we've talked aboutsome great things.
Is there anything else reallyimportant that you'd like to
leave our audience with?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
I would say basically reiterate what we talked about.
That a couple of thingspersonalized approach to
medicine, this is the medicine.
I don't want to say future,this is the medicine of now.
So want to say future, this isthe medicine of now.
So everything will bepersonalized.
And we didn't even talk aboutgenetics, but genetics are so
important so that reallydetermines how we react to
(44:03):
certain medications andtreatments.
So genetics are very important.
And, yeah, personalizedmedicine of the future.
And, like I said, I havefocused on skin in my book, but
everything in my book could beapplied to other body systems
because it's basically the samething what's good for our skin
(44:24):
is good for our body.
It's just skin happens to bethe largest organ of our body.
That's why it's so visible.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah, I agree and we've talked about on the
podcast before about thegenetics organ of our body.
That's why it's so visible.
Yeah, I agree, and we've talkedabout on the podcast before
about the genetics and what Ifind.
I've had people tell me oh, Ihave gum disease, but my mother
did, and my father did and meit's not that your genetics are
to determine your future, but itgives you the risk factor and I
always a lot of people goaround saying I have MTHFR right
, which is a very common snip.
(44:51):
Yeah, and what it means is thatyour detox ability is
compromised.
So when people have a familyhistory of something, I'm always
thinking that is a history thatyou can't detox well.
Or, in the case of MTHFR, mychildren both of them are
homozygous for MTHFR, whichmeans they have a 30% effective
ability to detox.
They have a 30% effectiveability to detox, which is
(45:14):
problematic because they'reteenagers and they're into all
of the terrible personalproducts and the diet and
everything.
And I'm always like clean mydaughter's room today, I found
more bags of Cheetos and turkeys.
I'm like, oh my gosh, so muchYou're going to have to do a
foot beep.
Sorry, you're going to have toget in the sauna.
So that's the important thingto understand with genetics is
how well, because we're alldifferent, some of us detox
differently, right, so some ofus may need more support with
(45:38):
methylation support andglutathione, glutathione
production and so on.
So that is an important aspectand why it's important to have
somebody who understands that soyou can have that personalized
care.
One last thing I know we talkedabout liver gallbladder, but
again, being such a commonsurgery, maybe in just the last
few minutes, do you think dietis one of the most common causes
(46:00):
that we get the gallbladderissues and how, when you take
the gallbladder out, what'shappening at the liver, what's
to say that this problem thatcaused it is fixed?
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Well, the problem actually?
It's the problem with thegallbladder.
So the goal first?
It starts with the stones, ofcourse, and there are two types
of stones cholesterol stones andpigment stones.
And most of the stones in theWestern world are, of course,
cholesterol stones.
So the name itself probablytells your listeners that, yes,
indeed, it is clearlydiet-related and the gallbladder
(46:35):
doesn't really produce anythingper se.
It's a storage organ and Ithink that's why we're lucky
enough to get away with itsremoval.
And for people who had theirgallbladder out, I wouldn't cry
about it.
It's because sometimes I feellike people look at it as some
huge loss.
Yes, of course, ideally nobodywants to have their gallbladder
(46:55):
out, but it's a storage organ.
It does have some effect on therest of our digestion, but it's
not a huge effect because a lotof, if not 99% of people go on
living a healthy life.
They could have again some GIproblems.
The most common is one isdiarrhea, although sometimes
people could have constipation.
(47:17):
That's extremely rare.
Usually you could have in thefirst few months after surgery.
You may be having diarrheabecause gallbladder is not there
to concentrate and store thebile.
So that does happen.
So, but usually it's in thegallbladder.
I think that it's very hard tosay to people eat a gallbladder,
healthy diet, eat completelyhealthy diet, so your whole body
(47:40):
, healthy diet.
Because, again, gallbladder isonly one organ, Thank God.
It's an organ that we can getaway with removal as much as we
don't want to, and nobody wantsto, lose their gallbladder.
But it is different from otherorgans such as pancreas, for
example, and liver, where thedamage is very hard to repair
and sometimes, unfortunately Idon't know, the complete repair
(48:03):
would not, especially withpancreas.
It's a very sensitive organwith, yeah, unlike liver, liver.
Actually, as we know, liver ismuch better at its ability to
heal itself.
So that's one of the thingsabout the liver.
But, of course, if somebody isdrinking alcohol, for example,
we didn't even talk about itbecause we're talking about food
mostly, but we shouldn't forgetthat liver is one of the main
(48:24):
organs that is suffering fromthe daily alcohol use and abuse.
So, yeah, then you end up withvery common we see it in like
with ultrasounds we see fattyliver and then in the operating
room you see this like large,enlarged, fatty liver.
Yeah, and so that's why Iwouldn't.
In some ways, I think thatpeople have gallbladder out just
(48:46):
follow holistic whole, like inmy book I have it's a whole
clear skin diet, but againholistic.
Like in my book I have, it's anall clear skin diet, but again
it could have been clear liverdiet or whatever.
I do have the whole chapter.
It's a very long chapter and itgoes step-by-step components of
healthy foods and, for example,there's a big chapter on fiber
and how to make sure you haveenough intake of fiber.
(49:09):
A big chapter on fats, becausetrans fats is those bad for us,
fats that the carcinogenic tool.
In addition, they're so bad forour liver.
So I wouldn't go and saysometimes I see these diets for
gallbladder they say to justtake like olive oils, olive oil,
just do this and that so andthey may help.
I don't know because I don'thave a proof that they don't
(49:31):
help, I don't know.
But I would say just beinggentle for your whole body, but
like everything skin, liver,pancreas, organs and that will
have much better at the end,much better kind of outcome for
you, for your whole body.
And if you, because peoplesometimes get carried away with
these fat diets for organs too,like they would say, oh, I'm on
(49:54):
this and that's not a goodtraining as well.
So I try not to let myself ormy patients get on that path of
a fat diet for whatever theissue.
Just being going slow butsteady is better than doing some
quick things just to healsomething or lose weight or
whatever the reason.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
Thank you so much for taking your time today to share
all of your wisdom with ouraudience.
Again, your book is called theClear Skin Diet, and can you get
that on Amazon or anywhere?
Fantastic, and tell us about ifsomebody was maybe in our area
in Massachusetts and reallywanted to contact you.
Or even beyond, because you dohave a virtual clinic.
Tell us about how we could getin touch with you if we want to
(50:33):
learn more.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Thank you so much, first of all for having me.
Thank you, thank you, I reallyenjoyed our conversation.
It's always nice to speak to alike-minded person.
In terms of my clinic, thefunctional medicine clinic,
again I enjoyed very much.
I am licensed in three states,in the states of Massachusetts,
vermont and New Hampshire.
I can only treat patients inthat state, which I do, and they
(50:55):
can just contact our clinic atiLab, so it's I like the word
lab, laboratory, because we dotesting as well.
So iLabMD, like medical doctor,it's ilabmdcom and we have our
phone number, it's 508-444-6989,that some people like to call
(51:18):
inquire, which is totally finewith us, and then we do, of
course, because they areobviously away.
So we have a HIPAA protectedsoftware that does everything.
That does even like our Zoommeetings and all communications.
My review I always like toreview the old like old before
they met you newest, up-to-date,all the labs and studies so
that I know the patient and thenalso so that I know what we
(51:41):
should focus, based on theirprevious studies as well.
And then we have a very longintake that we go into things,
but what we also have done inour clinic which has been very
helpful, and that's relativelyrecent, because a lot of people
they get overwhelmed by all ofthis.
They're like where do I start?
What do I do?
We have this like a small Icall it a personalized health
(52:01):
report and it's very affordableit's $50, which we actually have
.
Patients just fill out theirhealth questionnaire.
It has a bunch of questionsbasically pertaining to each
body system and then I review itand I look at like the whole
and then I give themrecommendations.
Again, they're not specificbecause we have not started
(52:23):
working, but at least I can tellthem what you should start,
maybe with hormonal testing,because not everything.
We talk a lot about gut, butthere's this whole world of
hormones, for example, you canstart with hormonal testing,
because not everything.
We talk a lot about gut, butthere's this whole world of
hormones.
For example, you can start withhormonal testing or no.
We should start with you.
Or food sensitivities, and thenit's up to the patient if they
want to continue, not tocontinue.
But most people are gratefulfor that because at least they
(52:45):
have a direction, they knowwhich system.
So I like doing that toobecause it gives me I can
connect with the patient.
And then we also, with thisreport, that I do.
We also have a 15 minute ofvery short get to know you thing
.
I like that.
It's again another smallbonding session.
So we have, we try to makefunctional medicine more
(53:08):
functional medicine, easier, notoverwhelming.
So because people sometimesthink, oh, I have to spend like
thousands of dollars, have likesessions for it.
But sometimes, yes, for somepeople, but for some people,
maybe one or two sessions.
They know what to work on andI've had patients like that.
I've just had a few sessions.
We did the testing, identifiedthe problem and then they called
(53:30):
me back several months latersaying thank you because they
changed their diet.
I was basically helping themalong.
But yeah, we are always happyto hear from again from
residents of those three states.
And again, thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Thank you so much.
I hope you all enjoyed thisepisode.
Let us know your comments andfeedback, what else you'd like
to hear about, and I hope youall have a wonderful day.
We'll see you on the nextepisode.
Hello, I'm Dr Rachel Carver, aboard-certified naturopathic
biologic dentist and a certifiedhealth coach.
Did you know that over 80% ofthe US population has some form
(54:07):
of gum disease?
Many of us don't even know thatwe have this source of chronic
infection and inflammation inour mouth that's been linked to
serious consequences like heartdisease, diabetes, stroke,
dementia, colon cancer, kidneydisease, even pregnancy
complications.
Would you like to learn how toreverse and prevent these
chronic, debilitating conditionswithout spending a lot of time
(54:28):
and money at the dentist?
Join me for my six-week course,where I will teach you the root
cause of disease.
You'll learn how to be your ownbest doctor.
Are you ready to get started?
Let's go.
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