May 13, 2025 • 51 mins
In the inaugural episode of Wellness Unmasked, Dr. Nicole Saphier shares her personal journey from being a doctor to becoming a patient. She discusses her struggles with autoimmune disease, the importance of finding the right healthcare provider, and the integration of both Western and Eastern medicine in her treatment plan. Dr. Saphier is joined by Dr. Alexander Torres, a rheumatologist, they discuss the complexities of autoimmune diseases, their rising incidence, and the impact of diet, environment, and lifestyle on health. Dr. Torres emphasizes the importance of understanding the immune system, the role of COVID-19, and the hygiene hypothesis in relation to autoimmune conditions. Wellness Unmasked with Dr. Nicole Saphier is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Friday.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Wellness Unmask. I'm doctor Nicole Saffire, Board certified doctor.
I'm a mom, I'm a woman, and I'm just one
of those forever truth seekers as we embark on this
podcast journey together. It is our first episode. I thought
it's going to be important to talk about why I
am so into wellness. Sure, I'm a doctor and I'm
supposed to care about health and all of that medical stuff.
(00:25):
But it really wasn't until I found myself on the
other side of the exam table as the patient that
I decided to dig a little bit deeper. And let
me tell you, when they say doctors make the worst patients,
we absolutely do. So now I find myself living my
life a combination of traditional Western medicine, but I have
also done a deep dive into more Eastern techniques wellness,
(00:51):
natural remedies. I'm all about it. And let me tell
you a little bit about why.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I would say for the last ten years of my life,
I had some very obvious symptoms and if it was
written in like an exam format, like if I was
sitting down taking my medical boards and they listed out
the symptoms lam dunk, I would have known exactly what
it was is so classic. Looking back, living it was
(01:18):
an entirely different experience. I would complain a little bit,
oh this hurts a little bit my eye. I would
wake up one morning and would be beat red and
incredibly painful, and ah, you know what, I'd give it
some time, give it some time. Year after year after year.
I would just kind of deal with it, tell my
husband a little bit about it. And then finally, when
(01:41):
symptoms kind of got pretty unbearable, I had to have
that big sigh and say, something's going on. And while
I love that I'm trying to manage myself being the
doctor and the patient, it's not working. I'm failing as
my own doctor and the patient, and also me is
(02:01):
suffering because of it. So I decided to go see
a rhumatologist. And one of the hardest things for me
going to see a doctor is I walk into the
room and I automatically think I know more than them,
which is ridiculous because, by no strets of the imagination,
do I know anything about rheumatology and autoimmune diseases other
(02:24):
than what I learned in medical school. And let me
tell you, at this point, just about everything I learned
in medical school is pretty outdated. It's quite antiquated. So
I'm going to remind myself that I am an expert
in one thing, and that's cancer. So it wasn't cancer
that was causing my symptoms. So I had to take
a back seat real fast and realize I don't even
(02:47):
I don't know anything about me, and I really needed
some help. That's really hard for people is to recognize
when you need help. For me specifically, I find it
very hard to admit that I'm not running at one
hundred percent, that I don't know what's going on, and
even more, I don't know how to fix it. But
thankfully I was able to find a doctor who did.
(03:11):
I had to go to a couple of rhumatologists. You
always you know, if you don't have that bond with
your doctor, if you don't feel like it's clicking, they're
not the right one for you. They may be brilliant,
they may be at the biggest name institutions, but it's
a feeling. It's a relationship. You have to have a
relationship with your doctor. You have to trust them, and
you have to trust that they are going to give
(03:33):
you honest advice and respect your decisions. You know, it
shouldn't be a paternalistic relationship. It has to be a conversation.
So I am very grateful that I have found someone
who calls me out on my bad behavior when I
have bad behavior, but she's also led me on a
path to feeling better. We started out with kind of
(03:54):
the very mildest of the medications. I had terrible side
effects of it, one being when I use the restroom
it looked like there was coffee from my yarn. It
was no longer ye yellow, it was brown, and it
was all because of the medication. So we have to
remember sometimes the treatments can be worse than the disease.
(04:15):
So I certainly had some side effects from the medications.
Over the years, I've gotten onto injections biologicals, which is
something I tried to put off for so long because
the thought of being on a weekly injection was just
something that I didn't want to relinquish myself. Too. It
also makes you somewhat immunal compromised, and I just didn't
(04:40):
want that. I didn't want I didn't want to be
wedded to a weekly injection, and I didn't want to
live my life being immuno compromised. It sounds, it's awful.
I was convinced to finally do it, and I'm glad
I did because my quality of life has gotten significantly
better in terms of of my disease flares and my
(05:02):
symptoms and just my ability to actually live my life.
And so I was really dependent just on the medications
in the beginning. That's what I was doing. That was
my treatment plan. It was all about the METS just fine,
because it's one of those illnesses where you know, you
do need some of the western medicines to help you sometimes.
But then COVID hit. And while I continued to work
(05:23):
full time during COVID as a physician, I had three kids.
I also found myself playing with some natural stuff a
little bit more. One of my favorite things is a
glass of champagne. Yes, yes, yes, I know.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I know.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I'm a doctor. I have an autommune disease. I shouldn't
be saying I enjoy alcohol, But you know what, I've
always said, everything in moderation, and I enjoy champagne. That's
the reality. But I also knew that champagne has a
pretty high sugar content, maybe not as high as like
some of the wines. Certainly not as high as some
of your SODA's or your fruity sweetened other bever, but
(06:00):
it definitely has a higher sugar content. And so I
wanted to do what I can to decrease my sugar
consumption because sugar in the body, obviously it raises your
blood sugar, and having an elevated blood sugar causes inflammation. Well,
an autoimmune disease is exactly that is inflammation in your body,
and your body's going crazy because it's so inflamed. So
(06:23):
you have to decrease that inflammation to help control that disease.
So I decided I wanted to decrease my champagne intake.
And one of the things that I did was I
actually switched to drinking a blanco tequila, which I know
that sounds so funny, like you don't go from champagne
to tequila for health reasons, but the reality is you
(06:44):
don't have the sugar boosts the same way. So that
was the first thing that I did, was I really
tried to decrease my sugar consumption by switching to a
very clean, smooth, blanco tequila. Now I didn't add anything
to it. I don't add anything that raises the blood sugar.
But that was one thing that I did. But in
addition to that, I also started to dabble with some
(07:05):
natural herbs, which I'm not talking about natural herbs that
you go and get in the back alley anywhere. I'm
talking about the herbs that you buy like rosemary, lavender, turmeric, ginger,
garlic in all of those. And I started growing them fresh,
making them into liquid tinctures, and then I started taking them,
(07:28):
and I found that by putting certain herbs together and
using them for various different things. You know, you can
use herbs to decrease your bodily inflammation, you can use
herbs to boost your immune system, grow your hair, your nails,
pain relief, verymenopausal symptoms. Who knew natural herbs could actually
(07:50):
help you with all of this? And some people say,
you know, natural stuff, it's a little bit. You know,
it's snake oil and all that stuff, and it's not real. Well,
let me tell you there's centuries of reports and data
showing yeah, some of that may be real. And you
know what, they don't have nearly the same side effects
as some of our Western medications. Nothing's affected my urine
(08:12):
like that first round of medications that I took for
my autoimmune disease. So, for me, it's been about decreasing
my sugar consumption, whether it be through my foods, the alcohol,
but also really incorporating natural herbs into my life that
has helped keep my disease in check. Yes, I'm still on.
I'm still on injections. I have to be when I
(08:35):
go off the injections, and believe me, I've tried. I
like to do this little test. My rheumatologist hates me
for it, but I'm like, what if I just stop
doing an injection for a couple of weeks, Let's just see,
Let's just see what happens well without fail every time
I flare. So I have relinquished myself to accept that
it is a combination between traditional Western techniques as well
(08:58):
as some of my natural techniques that gives me the
best harmony when it comes to my autoimmune disease. But
one of the things that I have been increasingly concerned
about is the rise in autoimmune disease. Now, for the
last several decades, it's been reported that autoimmune disease is
on the rise. I mean, we hear, we're talking about
it all the time. Cancer is on the rise, being
(09:20):
overweights on the rise, and all of a sudden, all
of this illness is on the rise, and the question
is why. Obviously, our lifestyle has a lot to do
with it. We sit too much, we eat too much,
and we stare at our phones way too much. All
of that affects the inflammation going on in our body,
(09:41):
and the more inflammation we have in our body, the
more likely things are to go awry, whether that is
an autoimmune disease, whether that is cancer or something else.
So certainly the way that we are living is contributing
to this. When COVID happen, having an autoimmune disease, I
was concerned because going into COVID I was relatively immunocompromised.
(10:06):
I'm not the same as being on this injection doesn't
make me as immunocompromised as say someone who's had a
bone marrow transplant, not even close. But there is still
the notion that if I were to get infected with
this virus that I could potentially have a more severe
course because I, quote unquote was one of those in
the immuno compromised camps. So I was nervous. My husband
(10:30):
is a brain surgeon. Is specialty is strokes and brain anerisms.
It's not like he could just say, sorry, guys, I
can't come in because I can't risk getting infected and
then bringing it home. My husband went to the hospital
every single day, didn't skip the beat. During COVID, I
too also was in the hospital and it was a
(10:50):
little bit of a scary time, and I ended up
getting COVID like everyone else did. It wasn't until like
November twenty twenty that I got COVID, and I got
pretty sick. I certainly got more sick than anybody else
in the house, but it was equivalent to like a
flu for me. My doctors were all very nervous about it,
(11:12):
trying to get me to take certain medications, and I
was confident that being hydrated, keeping my body moving, my
lungs moving, that I would I didn't need to take
those medications, and I didn't, so I got through it
just fine. And then the vaccine came out about six
weeks later, it became available for healthcare workers. I obviously
(11:37):
just recovered from COVID. I saw no utility to get
the vaccine on my own account. Because well, I just
had it, and I know how the immune system works. Therefore,
I have antibodies to this virus. It's a coronavirus. And
of course it was mandated from the hospitals. The hospital
says you have to get it, you have to get it.
(11:58):
And I tried to reason with people, saying, you know,
I'm not sure why we would vaccinate someone so recent
after an infection, especially if they have like an autoimmune disease,
because at that point their immune systems already been activated
by the virus. And like mine, I was sick with COVID.
(12:22):
My immune system was it was quite active during that time.
Let me tell you, I had all the feelings, all
of the symptoms. So why did I want to go
and get the vaccine right then? Has had my body
even quieted down yet from the infection, Like, let's let
it recover a little bit more. And so I delayed it.
I delayed getting the vaccine as long as I possibly could.
(12:45):
I tried appealing to say, you know, I don't really
want it right now. I am very concerned that there's
going to be negative implications when it comes to having
an autoimmune disease. I'm nerve risk.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That it's.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That it is going to activate my autoimmune disease and
it's going to give me a flare. There had already
been reports of inflammatory responses following the vaccine, and in fact,
that was one of the things that they were touting
about the vaccine was, Wow, you have such an amazing
inflammatory response to the vaccine, which is actually what you want.
You do. You want your body to react to a vaccine.
(13:24):
It produces the antibodies, and that's how vaccines work. My
concern was, but what about people who have autoimmune diseases?
What are we going to trigger their inflammation? Are we
going to trigger their autoimmune disease? And obviously it wasn't
a novel thought. Other people had it as well. I,
(13:46):
off the record, reached out to someone on the PESOR
Scientific Advisory Committee early on, only a few months after
the vaccine had been out, and I said a question,
this is a personal question, what about people with autoimmune diseases?
Are you seeing a flare in their symptoms? Do you
(14:06):
think that there's going to be a change in recommendations
for them? And the unofficial response that I was told
was it is a concern considered getting half the dose
if possible, and I was just taken aback, like, whoa
hold on a second, off record, you're telling me, as
(14:27):
a as an acquaintance, I should try to get a
lesser dose, which, by the way, you couldn't do that.
We had random pharmacists at all these pharmacies giving us
the vaccine. You think I'm going to say, I just
saw half the dose please, and they're going to be like, oh, yeah, sure,
I'll do that. No, that's not how it's going to work.
But the fact that there was even a suggestion to
(14:49):
decrease the dose to avoid an autoimmune flare told me
there must be some safety signal somewhere that this could
potentially flare the autoimmune disease. And I actually wrote about
my concerns. I wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal.
I wrote about it at Foxdigital dot Com. I said
that I was concerned that the vaccine was going to
(15:11):
cause too much inflammation in the body. And I specifically
mentioned it for the children because there was talk about
kids getting misc which is essentially an inflammatory response, almost
like an autoimmune response. They were getting that from COVID. Well,
now we're going to recommend giving them a vaccine that's
(15:32):
causing an even higher inflammatory response. What's that going to
do to kids? Are kids going to now get inflammation
from the vaccine? Are they going to get an autoimmune
disease from the vaccine? I had a lot of concerns
about this, and I was very vocal about it, especially
when it came to kids. And I was really turned
off on a lot of things from COVID. Obviously, I
(15:54):
think we all were, but when it came to the
autoimmune diseases, I just I was very concerned. We were
already seeing a rise in autoimmune disease pre COVID. COVID
infections was causing a flare of autoimmune disease, and now
several years later, it's well documented that the COVID vaccine
also flared autoimmune diseases and actually caused some new autoimmune
(16:19):
symptoms and disease in patients. So part of me thinks
that a lot of it caused a lot more harm
than good. And it's a little disconcerting moving into the
future with this rising autoimmune disease. And while I like
to fancy myself as someone who knows a lot about
autoimmune diseases, and I do, because I've had to read
(16:40):
a lot about them. I've lived with them now for
over a decade. I am not an expert, and that
is why I have my own rheumatologists. That's why I
listened to my rheumatologists most of the time. But I
wanted to bring on someone who I've known now for
almost two decades. His name is doctor Alexander Torres. He
is a board certified rheumatologist studied at Cleveland Clinic. He
(17:04):
opened up a private practice in Central Florida, and not
only does he focus on autoimmune diseases, all things rheumatology
and nephritis, but he also is interested in the health
and the lifestyle component. And I'm excited to have him
here with us today. And I'm sure you're going to
learn something too. You're listening to Wellness and mass. We'll
(17:24):
be right back with more, all right. While I know
a little bit about room meatology and all things autoimmune disease,
just essentially because well, I've kind of had to learn
about it in my own journey, but I am far
from an expert, which is why I am so excited
to have not only my friend, but a very important
roomatologist in the autommune world. Doctor Alexander Torres. He is
(17:48):
the owner of Highlands Advanced Roomatology and Arthritis Center in
Central Florida. I know doctor Torres because we did a
part of our residency in the same hospital way back when,
very long time. I don't want to say how long
ago because that's going to age me, but it was
a long time ago. But then he went off, he
went off to the Cleveland Clinic, to one of the
world renowned arthritis and autoimmune centers, and he has just
(18:12):
continued to just flourish ever since then. So, Alex, thank
you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Thanks for having.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So Alex, I'm going to call you doctor Tours or Alex,
I don't know. You're my friend, all right. So, Alex,
when it comes to autoimmune disease, first of all, from
a very basic level, can you just explain a little
bit what it is.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
So the COMFLX in an human being, right and all
of us, basically means its own own cell or our
time as body of functioning.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
In this case, this is the main system in your
body that it's active and main responsible to make sure
that he fights different type of infections, different type of
you know, malignant cells. You kind of ring nize what
is going on in your body that is not you
know that it is a foreign for example, and it's
(19:05):
basically what drives us on a dating basis. Now, you know,
we have talked to this in some detail. Now we
are seeing a lot of chronic illnesses that we are
noticing that is actually from an outoimmune standpoint. So the
imune system is as important as the cardivasketless system, as
(19:26):
your pulmentary system, as your brain system as well too,
or neurological systems. So it is extremely important now that
we have you know, better research in the last twenty
five years, we're understanding how it works in a better way,
and we understanding that it's made one of the main
culprits reasons as to why we're having this new.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Incidence of new conditions right now.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
So so our immune system essentially it's kind of there
to protect us. I like to think of it as
like our home alarm system and if there's any foreign
invaders or anything of the sorts, like the allergens or
anything else, you know, it's there to protect us. But
an autoimmune diseases, it's like the wiring got wrong and
all of a sudden, your home alarm system is starting
(20:14):
to attack you itself.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Is that about right, Well, yes, that's what we understood before.
But now we you know, imagine your system completely different.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
A new type of wire and EU system.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
This is your immunological system, this is your your your
immune even or print.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
But now we have external you know, causes.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
That actually they're rewiring our immune system that is causing
this new alarm in in in you know us, you know,
around the world.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You know, things are changing immune wires, you know, we.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
You know, for example, we used to have certain type
of diseases back in the sixties and the seventies, in
the eighties, that now it's completely different now.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So things are getting rewiring right now.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Even though we have immuoprint or initial immune printing, things
are getting rewired right now as we go.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So that's interesting. So that's kind of something similar to
what we're seeing in cancer. Like there is you know,
there's an intrinsic risk to developing cancer in our lifetime,
whether it's because of the genetics or the DNA that
we're born with, kind of the environment that we're raised in.
But we're also seeing a lot of external factors that
are all of a sudden changing our cancer risks. So
(21:28):
you think that is very similar for autoimmune diseases, that
some of our environment and toxins are what's causing the
rise in autoimmune disease.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Is that what you're saying, Well, you're extremely right.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I think that in the last for example, having a
rheumatologists for almost sixteen years, seventeen years already, I said.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
We're not supposed to age us.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
So I'm seeing things that I never used to see
growing now. For example, our American diet I think has
been one of the main culprits of how things are
changing in America. We are seeing immune mediated conditions that
we were not able to see before. For example, right
now the incidence and the prevalence of diabetes is much more,
(22:11):
the insulin resistance much more. We've seen that this as
a factor and how to work on the immune system.
We're seeing patients that having more rheumatory arthritis right now.
Before it used to be a two to one ration female.
Now we're seeing a much more prevalent, you know, amount
of patients with rheumatory arthritis connective tshe diseases.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So I think our diet.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Has changed dramatically since the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties,
and now we're seeing a much more you know, complex diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And it's not what we used to see in medical books.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
We used to read this nicoll like, oh and you
have bilevels, you know, symmetric joint disease, that this must
be rheumatory arthritis.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Not as complex. It's just not just black or white.
You know, it has.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Different up of of of of character, different outer immune
conditions in one UH for example, you know, not only
with with diet, but we have seen a lot lately with.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
In your feel as well. We're seeing we've seen a
lot of patients with.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Certain type of checkpoint inhibitors that we use for a
certain type of cancer. So we're seeing a lot of
immune regulation that we've seen some rheumatic adverts events. Not
only that, we're seeing also post COVID, a lot of
patients with post COVID and not more than that, post
(23:37):
co vaccinations.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
We've seen a dramatic increase of very random UH most
of outer immune.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Rutological characteristics that we've seen these patients in younger populations
such as early raynots, early phoridic or very general eye
you know ration in this you know, kids, teenagers, more
inflammatory arthritis and this you know population as well too.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
So I think.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
There's multiple variables that have changed throughout you know, decades,
and now not only now we're working with that immune system,
especially in cancer, we're seeing some actpates events from those
you know, immuno therapies because they're not chemotherapies as you know,
they're more you know, they're like immuno therapy. So we're
seeing more of that. And also we're becoming smarter. We're
(24:32):
able to understand how the immune system works. Were understand
how really what triggers things, and we're able to see
what kind of flags, were able to identify they are
main the main culprits in certain kinds of conditions. We're
understanding more interlukens as you know, certain type of inflammatory
signals or chemo coins we call it. We're able to identify.
(24:57):
We're now able to go to insight this cell and
know exactly what triggers, what what turns on that intra
cells signal that basically explode that inflammatory response and an
individual And now we understand too that what causes you know,
you understand that certain type of you know, immunotherapists can
(25:17):
do that, a certain type of instantly resistance. We know
that we can do that. Certain age gender can do
that as well too. You know, we're getting you know,
we're being much more you know, like you know, smarter,
I guess, and we're able to identify this kind of
new pathologies and obviously treatment based on that.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Well, it's interesting because you're right, we're smarter. We're able
to identify illness a little bit earlier, and so that's
you know, one of the criticisms of medicine is that, oh,
diseases aren't on the right rise, We're just diagnosing more,
and so it's really important to acknowledge the fact that, yes,
it's true we are able to diagnose more. We have
(26:00):
expanded diagnostic criterias which also allow for this increased prevalence.
But there's no denying that we have more disease. I mean,
you said something very interesting about COVID. I know I
want to talk more about it, and I know everyone
listening wants to. But pre COVID, we were already seeing
a rise in auto antibodies and the markers and autoimmune
(26:21):
disease in younger people. There was like a twenty twenty
NH study that kind of said that that was before
COVID type one diabetes, like you mentioned, ciliac, rheumatoid hashimodis, thyroiditis,
all have been increasing for the past few decades. So
you know, we have a lot of theories as to
why that is.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
As well too.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
We believe like this kind of microplastics they play a
big role as well too. But I thoroughly not only
on the diet on part of you know, the chemo exposures,
you know, fertilizer set et cetera. You know, American society
have traded to a much more sedentary lifestyle, much more.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Much more overweight. Our b and must have been going up.
You know, we have become.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Extremely instantly resistant, and that has been the key which
I believe it's the main problems that instantly resistance that
driven us to this kind of pendogenum and auto immune
issues right now.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
As in a constant state of inflammation because the blood
sugars up and sugar causes inflammation, and that state of
inflammation is not good.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And this is just on my own you know, my
own practice that I see many patients that are for example,
in this new medications on the GLP ones et cetera,
they're actually they're becoming much more you know, they're losing weight,
and I seen.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
A lot of them just.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Being GLP ones, being like the Wagovis and the Manjarro
and ozempic quote unquote everyone's taken.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, correct.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And not only that, we also be that the medications
response as well, to work on this, you know, different
in this population as well too. We saw that the
recent medications that we had he had a certain type
of effectiveness. But now that we've see you know, a
certain type of patients using this kind of treatment, they
(28:18):
are actually they're becoming less insolent resistance. We're actually seeing
a much more better response in this as well.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
That's interesting, you know, heading into COVID, one of my
big concerns was what are we doing by shielding the
kids so much from all the pathogens? Like we couldn't
they didn't we didn't have anything. Flu wasn't circulating, colds
weren't circulating. Everyone was so afraid of COVID that putting
(28:46):
us in the state of isolation. I mean, don't get
me started. Obviously, the mental health component was that's a
whole another episode. But this, this whole hygiene phenomenon is
one of those things that that hygiene hype of. This
has to do with autoimmune diseases too. And do you
think that maybe that can you explain what that is
and like maybe how that also played a role.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
You know, if you like think one of the reasons
to that point is not known nowadays.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You know, back in the days, we used to have
the chicken pox, you know, get to get in times.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
You know, if you happen that, you know, Jimmy, you
know your neighbor used to get chicken pox. I want
to make sure that Alex go with GM so he
can get some chicken So, yeah, we did.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Not recommend chicken pox parties.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Why I that's how I used to do.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
That's how he used to be the smart way back
then in how the image just to recognize this, right,
we stopped doing that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And you know, we are into a state of uh.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
You know, a septic you know, areas that we have
to we clean, you know, enhance everyone, you know, kids
and table and please don't do that, Please don't go on.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Make sure that you wear a mask, make sure you
don't What.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
About the hand sanitizer that you see everyone putting on constantly.
I'm like that rubbing rubbing alcohol. That can't be good
for you. Like, get some drums around you.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
You know, I will tell you this.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
And again, you know, there's many smart people out there.
There are you know, working in r eune system and
INFECTIOUSY sees people and you know, look.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Like my heart goes through them. But when you are
in the trenches.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
In my office or my practice is basically in the trenches,
we serve underserved population here in Central Florida. I was
able to see something that I was not able to see.
And I think that once this virus came through the
way that we handle ourselves, it was not consonant.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But what that we're telling us, I was.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Not seeing, you know, most of our patient population that
were wearing masks, and I noticed I was noticing right
away that they were not. You know, there was still
contracting you know, COVID as well. Then vaccine came through
in and we had some our issues. You know, we
thought it wouldn't work, but then I noticed in my
patients that it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
And I noticed that a way like.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Well do you think do you think so?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Well?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
First, of all, it's well documented people with autoimmune diseases
who got infected had the covid infection that could cause
a flare. That makes sense. Obviously, being infected with the
coronavirus causes inflammation and you could get a flare. But
do you think you know then come the vaccine. I
mean it's kind of twofold one. The vaccine itself was
(31:37):
kind of causing more of an inflammatory response than the
actual infection. So people with autommune diseases, did you see
that they were having more flares from the vaccine than
the actual infection? And then did you also see that
maybe the vaccine didn't work as well because maybe the
medications they were on or what do you think it was?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
It was both ways.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
First and foremost, most of this missions they are immune
suppress in a way, right, They're also even incompetent in
a way. So I didn't think they had a good
evening response, but also activated a very you know, erratic
immune system to start having symptoms I didn't have before,
and it was from the vaccine.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
They had new symptoms as well too.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It was non consonant of what they usually have.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So for a patient, for example, if a psient only
always had inflammation or arthritis. Now they're starting having raynos,
starting having some rash there, sat hand, some dry dry mouth,
dry eye, which is secondary symptoms of these raumatic conditions
as well too.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's like they're picking little they're picking symptoms from various
other diseases.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
For example, this is my own experience.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I was completely healthy before, and I remember I received
my second shot shot of the COVID vaccine.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Do you have m RNA.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
In two weeks after.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I'm a I'm a running so I like to you know,
train for you know, half marathons and marathons, and I
was running out. Remember it was around December that the
vaccine came around that and I started developing rainox myself.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Rainot's being where your blood vessels and your fingers when
it's cold, you have blood flow.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah. Extremely, it was just nothing. It was just simple.
It was very very extreme, very quite evident.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
It was a trifasic discoloration of my hands turning completely white,
then blueish and then then red.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And I didn't even have that before.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Another observation that I noticed that those symptoms that I
was having, they're weging off as well. So it seems
like a way hot my immune system is somehow resettling
to what it used to be before. So that's another
observation that I have seen the same way with my patients,
those patients that I have here well documented post vaccination
(33:59):
that developed some sort of an erratic immune system then
noble or nuancet or subsequent you know symptoms, those symptoms
are somehow you know, start getting somehow more quiet right now,
which is you know, pretty quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, So were you recommending then for these patients, because
I mean a lot of the you know, the colleges,
I think even rheumatology recommended obviously full vaccination but then boosters.
But we have so many documented published papers now showing
that the vaccine itself was not could potentially worsen existing
(34:39):
autommun disease, but also as you're mentioning, they could start fresh. Like,
how do you have that conversation with your patients about
there the formal recommendation of getting all these boosters, but
when it could potentially be causing a problem.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
You wants a trimming challenging because the trenches that were
it was not consonant of what that may source that
were telling us, right, they were telling us that.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
This is what you need to do.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
You need to do these vaccinations and then you have
to boost yourself every so quite often. And I was
I was not seeing that you needed that first and foremost,
and too it was causing a lot of problems. I
was seeing that on my patients and my visions that
I had to make a medical decision. Say look, doc,
but they're telling me to do this. In TV, I
(35:23):
had to actually sit down with our patients completely frustrated
about it. That this is something that is between the
patient and the doctor is extreme. It's like going to confession.
You know, it's something that is between you and the priests.
Then you have to create that bond with a patient
and you have to you know, you have to create
that bond and confidence with the patient. And I used
(35:47):
to tell them what I used to see with my
patient and what they were going through. And I had
to deal with that because they were all lost, you know,
they were confused on what they were telling that on
one end and now what I was seeing on one end.
And for me, I continued my practic to say way
I thought it was the best way because that's the
way that I was seen on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So in my case, I stopped recommending the vaccine.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
On my rheumatic patients way before it was announced because
I was seeing something that it was not.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
It was not nice.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
A lot of patients that were very upset because, for example,
we had a lot of patients with you know, rheumatic issues.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
That they developed it.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
They then they have the the immunotherapy after or immuno
globlins after, and that's somehow neutralized.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
They want to clonal adding bodies that were.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Given to them so they can not only with you know,
post COVID vaccination symptoms, but also they came with major
flairs because they were treated in the hospital for COVID
and even know therapy or.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Imuno globbles in order to kind of counter like that.
And that was that was the problem, you know. And
also to look at this Nicoll.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
The beauty of this how things we were able to
identify that these vaccinations that were causing some post traumatic
conditions or some post traumatic accpurs events is that we
eventually decided to use tasignu zoom map, which is an
interlooken six blocker for you know COVID, you know, cytokind release,
(37:22):
you know, which is a medication that we give for
our patients and rumor to our threads. And that's when
we kind of figured out. So I said, look, something
is wrong here and this vaccination must be completely carefully
decided between a doctor and the patient. Could it's something
that you just couldn't be just thrown out there. Hey,
everyone needs to do this. Kids, especially kids, kids that
(37:44):
had the best immune system ever.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Let them be what they have to be.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
You know, like we talked about the hypothesis, you know,
the hygiene hypothesis. You know, we saw the kids, kids
that we're not you know, the mortality rating kids, it
was extremely, extremely low.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
And vaccinating these kids starts seeing patients.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I don't see pediatric patients that I had to do
it because again, you know, patients that are underserved.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
So they were coming to me pasions that were nine, thirteen.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Years old, fifteen years old with rahmatic conditions that they
never had before post vaccination.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, I mean it's really upsetting, kind of post COVID
to kind of learn all about that. But I certainly
think that while again there's been a rise in autoimmune
diseases pre COVID, certainly the covid infections as well as
the vaccines have contributed to that rise. So we've touched
on the hygiene hypothesis, the fact that we don't let
our kids eat dirt anymore that could potentially have increased
(38:41):
their risk of autommune diseases and infections. You've touched upon
the fact that we live in a world of microplastics,
and microplastics are inserting themselves into all parts of our bodies.
But what about what about gut health and the microbio
What is your take on that in it's linked autommune.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Disease, sobinume it.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It's a very hot topic the same way ass you know,
microplastics as well too and post covid vaccinations, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Microbiome.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
It's very very interesting and complex to the fact that
we're we're altering our own normal flora based on the
recent or basically the last twenty five years diet. We're
becoming much more instantly resistance. We're seeing a lot of
patients with certain type of what we call glutent you know,
sensitivities or some real full blown sedate disease. We're seeing
(39:32):
a lot of patients with inflammatory arthritis that they're coming through,
you know, problems that they have that they start of overgrowth.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
We believe in some sort of a growth overgrowth.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Of bacteria and that kind of like genetical code is start,
you know, kind of changing and creating this kind of
cascade of inflammatory response. So the microbiome or the or
the gut health is extremely important also in rahmatic conditions.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
So we're learning that more often now.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
So for people who are listening who maybe they have
an autom disease or they think that they might have one,
you know, what are some early indicators or what should
they do if they're kind of having some symptoms and
they're not really sure what they are.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I think that we always look, you know, if I
would to be their physicians, right of this big population
that comes to you as a dog in eyes to
feel pretty good. I have any gout issues, but lately
I am feeling this way. I'm feeling a little bloated.
I cannot tolerate it any specific type of food. But
every time I eat this kind of food or whatever,
(40:36):
I'm getting this X y Z symptoms. I'm getting more fatigue.
We're seeing a lot of more chronic fatigue. You know,
population insomnia, more inflamma or whatever. Why it's based on
process period as well too. So my recommendations is that
we still don't have the technology to I really identify
this kind of triggers in terms of what triggers any fly,
(41:01):
my chort or thritis orright not or in conditions are
based on what they eat.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
We tell. What I tell to my patients is that look,
you know, your body warned than anyone else. So if
you happen that you eat, you know.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
For example, I had a patient that doctor, every time
I eat white rice, I get my knuckles that get
completely inflamed. And for me, I'm trying to figure it
out exactly what is the main you know, path of
physiology on this.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
It was like a white rice, why would you happen
over here? I basically tendure that to them. I constant nutritionist.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Obviously, I do the whole you know panel in terms
of fire issues and other gun autoimmune blood work as
well too, and then I refer to the gastrienteologiest as well.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
So if someone's starting out kind of having some symptoms,
they're vague, they don't really know what's going on, do
you recommend putting together like a food diary for like
a few weeks or a month, just to see if
it's triggered by anything I do.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I do.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
I am actually a fan of fasting, so I do
a little bit of a fasting usually. You know, you
know sixty eighteen six on occasion and televisions who identified
exactly what what are they're eating, what are they're eating
differently this time, what are they're doing that they were
not doing before? And when did they notice those symptoms?
So history is extremely important in this population to identify
(42:24):
those kind.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Of you know, trigger factors.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, rarely when autoimmune patients present, I imagine is it
very text white, textbook black and white. It's kind of
like an enigma and you get to be the little
puzzle puzzle put together a person trying to figure it
all out.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
There's not that anymore.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
It's it's impressive, like I have my residence, I'm my
medical students with me, and my medical students are always
you know, expecting, oh doctor, right, you know you have
that positive with positive A and a ssas straggin. But
the reality is not The reality they may have is
subtle A and A test, you know, and they may
have some stick of manifestations from dry and dry mouth.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
And they still could have some short ones.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
So we're seeing a lot.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Of inflammatory arthritis and not necessarily will give you a
positive blood work. Uh.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Yeah, we're getting smarter, like like like like I just mentioned.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Uh, and we're able to identify certain type of you know,
auto any bodies that we're able to recognize, and you know,
through different you know labs, they're you know, providing us
you know, to health these patients.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
But I will say six out of ten patients you
may have a negative blood work. We've seen a.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Lot of sponding arthritis patients, a lot of what people
we call SERA negative.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Hi, I'm one of those those sero negative, sero negative
spondal orthrop but the waste waste basket term patients. We
don't fit in a box.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
But it's real, it's real, and we're we we're you know,
I'm doing I'm doing some political trials over here.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Responding authritis. We're working on a lot of signals central
Lugan's you know twenty three.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
We're actually we're having possibly we're going through the process
right now, getting a phase one. We're working with a
cart therapy so or natural killer in Karta Carti.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Just for anybody listening is an amazing therapy that we've
used in pediatric cancers. But I mean it certainly is
a good starting point for a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yes, so we're seeing some evidence already they can work
incredibly on type of arthritis such as you know, lupus,
nefritas or certain type of fascularity.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
So that's going to be we're going to be conducting
to us Studdi's pretty soon over here in phase one.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Well, I mean we've come a long way in terms
of treatment for these patients, and thankfully there's still people
like you doing a lot of research. Alex. Some takeaway
for those who either have an autommune disease or who
don't but they want to do everything they can to
try and prevent it. If you have just you know,
like three, what you should do, how you should live
your life? What you or what's your advice for people?
Speaker 2 (45:02):
I think the number one, you know advice for me's
lifestyle changes.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
If you think that you know you're Sedentarya, I think
it's important for anyone that may feel that they need
to kind.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Of reset everything.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Lifestyle changes such as a certain type and much more
healthy diet. It is extremely important low ser basically and
aerobic exercises. We're experience, you know, I basically advising every
one of my patients to do a lot of aerobic
or low aerobic exercises and want to try to implement.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Give it an example, what's an aerobic exercise?
Speaker 3 (45:42):
So what I try to explain to my patients is
that in order for us to decrease the insulin resistance,
you not only just the diet, but we have to
improve what we call the lower aerobic you know, or
Zone two exercises.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
And basically what that means is that loans low or.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Low aerobic exercise or zone to exercises induces your mitochondro
replication and mitochondra replications. Most of it the energy is
fatty acids or fatty oxidation. And what happens when you
do that, when you do that cardiovascular you decrease your
metabolically to improve dramatically, and you're decreasing insulin resistance. And
(46:21):
I strongly believe by decreasing insulin resistance, those general symptoms
of inflammatory response or auto immune response, if we want
to call it out way. Anything that is inflammatory, it's
not immune so I encourage that from our patients. So
I set them certain type of workouts that we lead
to that kind of like low or zone two or
(46:43):
low aerobic exercise about twenty to thirty five minutes at
least four times or five times a day.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
I mean, I think we wait four or five times
a day or right, right?
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Wow? Get doesn't mean I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
God, I mean I think you're right. I mean, you
don't have to be a gym rat. You don't have
to be like the most fitness person, but you do
have to get your body moving a little bit more.
And as you're saying, we have to keep our sugars
down because sugar causes inflammation, and inflammation causes autoimmune disease.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Incredible, and that's I think people they don't they haven't
realized yet.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
But autommute and systemic inflammatory process is the main you know,
you know, culporative almost every condition nowadays.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Everything well, isn't it truth? So by what we eat,
by if we take in less sugar or you know,
less ultra processed foods and like the processed breads and
sugar sugary sweet drinks, that decreases the sugar intake. But
the exercise actually upregulates some of the receptors on ourselves
(47:53):
so that we are able to use our insulin more efficiently.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Right, well, obviously instantly insular resistances and.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
You should and how did we actually help that insulin
resistant to become you know, or resensitizers. There's a lot
of studies out there like if we do a little
bit of an insulin pulse.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Therapy, became resensitizos receptors again. And we've seen a lot
of study on that.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
H It seems to be good when you have to
reset that body by a doing you know, lifestyle changes
like fasting, it could be a great form of resensitation
as well too, as well as zone to aerobic or
lower aerobic you know exercises.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Well, you heard it here, folks. If you want to
resensitize your body the insulin, you have to start your
fasting and you got to get exercising, all right. Thank
you so much, doctor Alexander Torres, rheumatologists, colleague and friend
of mine. We really appreciate you coming on wellness unmasked
and giving us all of your expert advice. It's great
(48:57):
seeing you more coming up on wellness and masked with
doctor Nicole Sapphire. Well, that was a lot to unpack
from doctor Alexander Torres, my friend and colleague. I certainly
learned a lot from him, and it is validating to
hear an expert say, yes, it is not just, you know,
(49:17):
intrinsic to us. It's not that we're just diagnosing more
autoimmune disease. We are seeing more autoimmune disease. And we
can point fingers all we want, and there are a
lot of finger pointing to do, but it boils down
to our lifestyle, the sedentary way we're living. We're not
moving our body enough. We're eating loads of crap.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I wrote all about it in my book Make America
Healthy Again from twenty twenty. I talked about the foods
we're eating and the fact we're not moving our body.
And as doctor Torres just told us, insulin is not
working in our body because of this, and therefore we
have baseline higher blood sugars than we should. And when
you have too much sugar in the blood, it's going
(49:58):
to cause inflammation. Inflammation leads to bad things, one of
which are autoimmune diseases. And autoimmune diseases. While they may
be manageable and you may be able to live with them.
They can also be deadly, and so we have to
do everything we possibly can to decrease the inflammation in
our body. You know, for me, it is getting my
body moving, trying to reduce the all of the crap
(50:21):
that we're eating, the process foods. As we know, I
love to incorporate natural herbs into my diet. I use
ginger and tumoric on a daily basis to get that
inflammation down in my body. And I also use lavender
to relax me. And I do everything I can to
get a good night's sleep because your sleep is so important.
And that's a wrap on this episode of Wellness on Mass.
(50:44):
I wanted you to learn a little bit about myself,
so you know why I'm on this wellness journey with you.
Just remember your health isn't a trend, it's our foundation.
If today's conversation is something that resonated with you, I
ask you please share it with someone you care about.
Thanks for listening to Wellness on Mass on America's number
one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Wellness on Mass with doctor
Nicole Saffire and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app.
(51:07):
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll
catch you next time.
Welcome to Wellness Unmask. I'm doctor Nicole Saffire, Board certified doctor.
I'm a mom, I'm a woman, and I'm just one
of those forever truth seekers as we embark on this
podcast journey together. It is our first episode. I thought
it's going to be important to talk about why I
am so into wellness. Sure, I'm a doctor and I'm
supposed to care about health and all of that medical stuff.
(00:25):
But it really wasn't until I found myself on the
other side of the exam table as the patient that
I decided to dig a little bit deeper. And let
me tell you, when they say doctors make the worst patients,
we absolutely do. So now I find myself living my
life a combination of traditional Western medicine, but I have
also done a deep dive into more Eastern techniques wellness,
(00:51):
natural remedies. I'm all about it. And let me tell
you a little bit about why.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
So.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I would say for the last ten years of my life,
I had some very obvious symptoms and if it was
written in like an exam format, like if I was
sitting down taking my medical boards and they listed out
the symptoms lam dunk, I would have known exactly what
it was is so classic. Looking back, living it was
(01:18):
an entirely different experience. I would complain a little bit,
oh this hurts a little bit my eye. I would
wake up one morning and would be beat red and
incredibly painful, and ah, you know what, I'd give it
some time, give it some time. Year after year after year.
I would just kind of deal with it, tell my
husband a little bit about it. And then finally, when
(01:41):
symptoms kind of got pretty unbearable, I had to have
that big sigh and say, something's going on. And while
I love that I'm trying to manage myself being the
doctor and the patient, it's not working. I'm failing as
my own doctor and the patient, and also me is
(02:01):
suffering because of it. So I decided to go see
a rhumatologist. And one of the hardest things for me
going to see a doctor is I walk into the
room and I automatically think I know more than them,
which is ridiculous because, by no strets of the imagination,
do I know anything about rheumatology and autoimmune diseases other
(02:24):
than what I learned in medical school. And let me
tell you, at this point, just about everything I learned
in medical school is pretty outdated. It's quite antiquated. So
I'm going to remind myself that I am an expert
in one thing, and that's cancer. So it wasn't cancer
that was causing my symptoms. So I had to take
a back seat real fast and realize I don't even
(02:47):
I don't know anything about me, and I really needed
some help. That's really hard for people is to recognize
when you need help. For me specifically, I find it
very hard to admit that I'm not running at one
hundred percent, that I don't know what's going on, and
even more, I don't know how to fix it. But
thankfully I was able to find a doctor who did.
(03:11):
I had to go to a couple of rhumatologists. You
always you know, if you don't have that bond with
your doctor, if you don't feel like it's clicking, they're
not the right one for you. They may be brilliant,
they may be at the biggest name institutions, but it's
a feeling. It's a relationship. You have to have a
relationship with your doctor. You have to trust them, and
you have to trust that they are going to give
(03:33):
you honest advice and respect your decisions. You know, it
shouldn't be a paternalistic relationship. It has to be a conversation.
So I am very grateful that I have found someone
who calls me out on my bad behavior when I
have bad behavior, but she's also led me on a
path to feeling better. We started out with kind of
(03:54):
the very mildest of the medications. I had terrible side
effects of it, one being when I use the restroom
it looked like there was coffee from my yarn. It
was no longer ye yellow, it was brown, and it
was all because of the medication. So we have to
remember sometimes the treatments can be worse than the disease.
(04:15):
So I certainly had some side effects from the medications.
Over the years, I've gotten onto injections biologicals, which is
something I tried to put off for so long because
the thought of being on a weekly injection was just
something that I didn't want to relinquish myself. Too. It
also makes you somewhat immunal compromised, and I just didn't
(04:40):
want that. I didn't want I didn't want to be
wedded to a weekly injection, and I didn't want to
live my life being immuno compromised. It sounds, it's awful.
I was convinced to finally do it, and I'm glad
I did because my quality of life has gotten significantly
better in terms of of my disease flares and my
(05:02):
symptoms and just my ability to actually live my life.
And so I was really dependent just on the medications
in the beginning. That's what I was doing. That was
my treatment plan. It was all about the METS just fine,
because it's one of those illnesses where you know, you
do need some of the western medicines to help you sometimes.
But then COVID hit. And while I continued to work
(05:23):
full time during COVID as a physician, I had three kids.
I also found myself playing with some natural stuff a
little bit more. One of my favorite things is a
glass of champagne. Yes, yes, yes, I know.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I know.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I'm a doctor. I have an autommune disease. I shouldn't
be saying I enjoy alcohol, But you know what, I've
always said, everything in moderation, and I enjoy champagne. That's
the reality. But I also knew that champagne has a
pretty high sugar content, maybe not as high as like
some of the wines. Certainly not as high as some
of your SODA's or your fruity sweetened other bever, but
(06:00):
it definitely has a higher sugar content. And so I
wanted to do what I can to decrease my sugar
consumption because sugar in the body, obviously it raises your
blood sugar, and having an elevated blood sugar causes inflammation. Well,
an autoimmune disease is exactly that is inflammation in your body,
and your body's going crazy because it's so inflamed. So
(06:23):
you have to decrease that inflammation to help control that disease.
So I decided I wanted to decrease my champagne intake.
And one of the things that I did was I
actually switched to drinking a blanco tequila, which I know
that sounds so funny, like you don't go from champagne
to tequila for health reasons, but the reality is you
(06:44):
don't have the sugar boosts the same way. So that
was the first thing that I did, was I really
tried to decrease my sugar consumption by switching to a
very clean, smooth, blanco tequila. Now I didn't add anything
to it. I don't add anything that raises the blood sugar.
But that was one thing that I did. But in
addition to that, I also started to dabble with some
(07:05):
natural herbs, which I'm not talking about natural herbs that
you go and get in the back alley anywhere. I'm
talking about the herbs that you buy like rosemary, lavender, turmeric, ginger,
garlic in all of those. And I started growing them fresh,
making them into liquid tinctures, and then I started taking them,
(07:28):
and I found that by putting certain herbs together and
using them for various different things. You know, you can
use herbs to decrease your bodily inflammation, you can use
herbs to boost your immune system, grow your hair, your nails,
pain relief, verymenopausal symptoms. Who knew natural herbs could actually
(07:50):
help you with all of this? And some people say,
you know, natural stuff, it's a little bit. You know,
it's snake oil and all that stuff, and it's not real. Well,
let me tell you there's centuries of reports and data
showing yeah, some of that may be real. And you
know what, they don't have nearly the same side effects
as some of our Western medications. Nothing's affected my urine
(08:12):
like that first round of medications that I took for
my autoimmune disease. So, for me, it's been about decreasing
my sugar consumption, whether it be through my foods, the alcohol,
but also really incorporating natural herbs into my life that
has helped keep my disease in check. Yes, I'm still on.
I'm still on injections. I have to be when I
(08:35):
go off the injections, and believe me, I've tried. I
like to do this little test. My rheumatologist hates me
for it, but I'm like, what if I just stop
doing an injection for a couple of weeks, Let's just see,
Let's just see what happens well without fail every time
I flare. So I have relinquished myself to accept that
it is a combination between traditional Western techniques as well
(08:58):
as some of my natural techniques that gives me the
best harmony when it comes to my autoimmune disease. But
one of the things that I have been increasingly concerned
about is the rise in autoimmune disease. Now, for the
last several decades, it's been reported that autoimmune disease is
on the rise. I mean, we hear, we're talking about
it all the time. Cancer is on the rise, being
(09:20):
overweights on the rise, and all of a sudden, all
of this illness is on the rise, and the question
is why. Obviously, our lifestyle has a lot to do
with it. We sit too much, we eat too much,
and we stare at our phones way too much. All
of that affects the inflammation going on in our body,
(09:41):
and the more inflammation we have in our body, the
more likely things are to go awry, whether that is
an autoimmune disease, whether that is cancer or something else.
So certainly the way that we are living is contributing
to this. When COVID happen, having an autoimmune disease, I
was concerned because going into COVID I was relatively immunocompromised.
(10:06):
I'm not the same as being on this injection doesn't
make me as immunocompromised as say someone who's had a
bone marrow transplant, not even close. But there is still
the notion that if I were to get infected with
this virus that I could potentially have a more severe
course because I, quote unquote was one of those in
the immuno compromised camps. So I was nervous. My husband
(10:30):
is a brain surgeon. Is specialty is strokes and brain anerisms.
It's not like he could just say, sorry, guys, I
can't come in because I can't risk getting infected and
then bringing it home. My husband went to the hospital
every single day, didn't skip the beat. During COVID, I
too also was in the hospital and it was a
(10:50):
little bit of a scary time, and I ended up
getting COVID like everyone else did. It wasn't until like
November twenty twenty that I got COVID, and I got
pretty sick. I certainly got more sick than anybody else
in the house, but it was equivalent to like a
flu for me. My doctors were all very nervous about it,
(11:12):
trying to get me to take certain medications, and I
was confident that being hydrated, keeping my body moving, my
lungs moving, that I would I didn't need to take
those medications, and I didn't, so I got through it
just fine. And then the vaccine came out about six
weeks later, it became available for healthcare workers. I obviously
(11:37):
just recovered from COVID. I saw no utility to get
the vaccine on my own account. Because well, I just
had it, and I know how the immune system works. Therefore,
I have antibodies to this virus. It's a coronavirus. And
of course it was mandated from the hospitals. The hospital
says you have to get it, you have to get it.
(11:58):
And I tried to reason with people, saying, you know,
I'm not sure why we would vaccinate someone so recent
after an infection, especially if they have like an autoimmune disease,
because at that point their immune systems already been activated
by the virus. And like mine, I was sick with COVID.
(12:22):
My immune system was it was quite active during that time.
Let me tell you, I had all the feelings, all
of the symptoms. So why did I want to go
and get the vaccine right then? Has had my body
even quieted down yet from the infection, Like, let's let
it recover a little bit more. And so I delayed it.
I delayed getting the vaccine as long as I possibly could.
(12:45):
I tried appealing to say, you know, I don't really
want it right now. I am very concerned that there's
going to be negative implications when it comes to having
an autoimmune disease. I'm nerve risk.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
That it's.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That it is going to activate my autoimmune disease and
it's going to give me a flare. There had already
been reports of inflammatory responses following the vaccine, and in fact,
that was one of the things that they were touting
about the vaccine was, Wow, you have such an amazing
inflammatory response to the vaccine, which is actually what you want.
You do. You want your body to react to a vaccine.
(13:24):
It produces the antibodies, and that's how vaccines work. My
concern was, but what about people who have autoimmune diseases?
What are we going to trigger their inflammation? Are we
going to trigger their autoimmune disease? And obviously it wasn't
a novel thought. Other people had it as well. I,
(13:46):
off the record, reached out to someone on the PESOR
Scientific Advisory Committee early on, only a few months after
the vaccine had been out, and I said a question,
this is a personal question, what about people with autoimmune diseases?
Are you seeing a flare in their symptoms? Do you
(14:06):
think that there's going to be a change in recommendations
for them? And the unofficial response that I was told
was it is a concern considered getting half the dose
if possible, and I was just taken aback, like, whoa
hold on a second, off record, you're telling me, as
(14:27):
a as an acquaintance, I should try to get a
lesser dose, which, by the way, you couldn't do that.
We had random pharmacists at all these pharmacies giving us
the vaccine. You think I'm going to say, I just
saw half the dose please, and they're going to be like, oh, yeah, sure,
I'll do that. No, that's not how it's going to work.
But the fact that there was even a suggestion to
(14:49):
decrease the dose to avoid an autoimmune flare told me
there must be some safety signal somewhere that this could
potentially flare the autoimmune disease. And I actually wrote about
my concerns. I wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal.
I wrote about it at Foxdigital dot Com. I said
that I was concerned that the vaccine was going to
(15:11):
cause too much inflammation in the body. And I specifically
mentioned it for the children because there was talk about
kids getting misc which is essentially an inflammatory response, almost
like an autoimmune response. They were getting that from COVID. Well,
now we're going to recommend giving them a vaccine that's
(15:32):
causing an even higher inflammatory response. What's that going to
do to kids? Are kids going to now get inflammation
from the vaccine? Are they going to get an autoimmune
disease from the vaccine? I had a lot of concerns
about this, and I was very vocal about it, especially
when it came to kids. And I was really turned
off on a lot of things from COVID. Obviously, I
(15:54):
think we all were, but when it came to the
autoimmune diseases, I just I was very concerned. We were
already seeing a rise in autoimmune disease pre COVID. COVID
infections was causing a flare of autoimmune disease, and now
several years later, it's well documented that the COVID vaccine
also flared autoimmune diseases and actually caused some new autoimmune
(16:19):
symptoms and disease in patients. So part of me thinks
that a lot of it caused a lot more harm
than good. And it's a little disconcerting moving into the
future with this rising autoimmune disease. And while I like
to fancy myself as someone who knows a lot about
autoimmune diseases, and I do, because I've had to read
(16:40):
a lot about them. I've lived with them now for
over a decade. I am not an expert, and that
is why I have my own rheumatologists. That's why I
listened to my rheumatologists most of the time. But I
wanted to bring on someone who I've known now for
almost two decades. His name is doctor Alexander Torres. He
is a board certified rheumatologist studied at Cleveland Clinic. He
(17:04):
opened up a private practice in Central Florida, and not
only does he focus on autoimmune diseases, all things rheumatology
and nephritis, but he also is interested in the health
and the lifestyle component. And I'm excited to have him
here with us today. And I'm sure you're going to
learn something too. You're listening to Wellness and mass. We'll
(17:24):
be right back with more, all right. While I know
a little bit about room meatology and all things autoimmune disease,
just essentially because well, I've kind of had to learn
about it in my own journey, but I am far
from an expert, which is why I am so excited
to have not only my friend, but a very important
roomatologist in the autommune world. Doctor Alexander Torres. He is
(17:48):
the owner of Highlands Advanced Roomatology and Arthritis Center in
Central Florida. I know doctor Torres because we did a
part of our residency in the same hospital way back when,
very long time. I don't want to say how long
ago because that's going to age me, but it was
a long time ago. But then he went off, he
went off to the Cleveland Clinic, to one of the
world renowned arthritis and autoimmune centers, and he has just
(18:12):
continued to just flourish ever since then. So, Alex, thank
you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Thanks for having.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So Alex, I'm going to call you doctor Tours or Alex,
I don't know. You're my friend, all right. So, Alex,
when it comes to autoimmune disease, first of all, from
a very basic level, can you just explain a little
bit what it is.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
So the COMFLX in an human being, right and all
of us, basically means its own own cell or our
time as body of functioning.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
In this case, this is the main system in your
body that it's active and main responsible to make sure
that he fights different type of infections, different type of
you know, malignant cells. You kind of ring nize what
is going on in your body that is not you
know that it is a foreign for example, and it's
(19:05):
basically what drives us on a dating basis. Now, you know,
we have talked to this in some detail. Now we
are seeing a lot of chronic illnesses that we are
noticing that is actually from an outoimmune standpoint. So the
imune system is as important as the cardivasketless system, as
(19:26):
your pulmentary system, as your brain system as well too,
or neurological systems. So it is extremely important now that
we have you know, better research in the last twenty
five years, we're understanding how it works in a better way,
and we understanding that it's made one of the main
culprits reasons as to why we're having this new.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Incidence of new conditions right now.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
So so our immune system essentially it's kind of there
to protect us. I like to think of it as
like our home alarm system and if there's any foreign
invaders or anything of the sorts, like the allergens or
anything else, you know, it's there to protect us. But
an autoimmune diseases, it's like the wiring got wrong and
all of a sudden, your home alarm system is starting
(20:14):
to attack you itself.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Is that about right, Well, yes, that's what we understood before.
But now we you know, imagine your system completely different.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
A new type of wire and EU system.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
This is your immunological system, this is your your your
immune even or print.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
But now we have external you know, causes.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
That actually they're rewiring our immune system that is causing
this new alarm in in in you know us, you know,
around the world.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
You know, things are changing immune wires, you know, we.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
You know, for example, we used to have certain type
of diseases back in the sixties and the seventies, in
the eighties, that now it's completely different now.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So things are getting rewiring right now.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Even though we have immuoprint or initial immune printing, things
are getting rewired right now as we go.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So that's interesting. So that's kind of something similar to
what we're seeing in cancer. Like there is you know,
there's an intrinsic risk to developing cancer in our lifetime,
whether it's because of the genetics or the DNA that
we're born with, kind of the environment that we're raised in.
But we're also seeing a lot of external factors that
are all of a sudden changing our cancer risks. So
(21:28):
you think that is very similar for autoimmune diseases, that
some of our environment and toxins are what's causing the
rise in autoimmune disease.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Is that what you're saying, Well, you're extremely right.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
I think that in the last for example, having a
rheumatologists for almost sixteen years, seventeen years already, I said.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
We're not supposed to age us.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
So I'm seeing things that I never used to see
growing now. For example, our American diet I think has
been one of the main culprits of how things are
changing in America. We are seeing immune mediated conditions that
we were not able to see before. For example, right
now the incidence and the prevalence of diabetes is much more,
(22:11):
the insulin resistance much more. We've seen that this as
a factor and how to work on the immune system.
We're seeing patients that having more rheumatory arthritis right now.
Before it used to be a two to one ration female.
Now we're seeing a much more prevalent, you know, amount
of patients with rheumatory arthritis connective tshe diseases.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
So I think our diet.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Has changed dramatically since the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties,
and now we're seeing a much more you know, complex diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And it's not what we used to see in medical books.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
We used to read this nicoll like, oh and you
have bilevels, you know, symmetric joint disease, that this must
be rheumatory arthritis.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Not as complex. It's just not just black or white.
You know, it has.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Different up of of of of character, different outer immune
conditions in one UH for example, you know, not only
with with diet, but we have seen a lot lately with.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
In your feel as well. We're seeing we've seen a
lot of patients with.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Certain type of checkpoint inhibitors that we use for a
certain type of cancer. So we're seeing a lot of
immune regulation that we've seen some rheumatic adverts events. Not
only that, we're seeing also post COVID, a lot of
patients with post COVID and not more than that, post
(23:37):
co vaccinations.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
We've seen a dramatic increase of very random UH most
of outer immune.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Rutological characteristics that we've seen these patients in younger populations
such as early raynots, early phoridic or very general eye
you know ration in this you know, kids, teenagers, more
inflammatory arthritis and this you know population as well too.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
So I think.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
There's multiple variables that have changed throughout you know, decades,
and now not only now we're working with that immune system,
especially in cancer, we're seeing some actpates events from those
you know, immuno therapies because they're not chemotherapies as you know,
they're more you know, they're like immuno therapy. So we're
seeing more of that. And also we're becoming smarter. We're
(24:32):
able to understand how the immune system works. Were understand
how really what triggers things, and we're able to see
what kind of flags, were able to identify they are
main the main culprits in certain kinds of conditions. We're
understanding more interlukens as you know, certain type of inflammatory
signals or chemo coins we call it. We're able to identify.
(24:57):
We're now able to go to insight this cell and
know exactly what triggers, what what turns on that intra
cells signal that basically explode that inflammatory response and an
individual And now we understand too that what causes you know,
you understand that certain type of you know, immunotherapists can
(25:17):
do that, a certain type of instantly resistance. We know
that we can do that. Certain age gender can do
that as well too. You know, we're getting you know,
we're being much more you know, like you know, smarter,
I guess, and we're able to identify this kind of
new pathologies and obviously treatment based on that.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Well, it's interesting because you're right, we're smarter. We're able
to identify illness a little bit earlier, and so that's
you know, one of the criticisms of medicine is that, oh,
diseases aren't on the right rise, We're just diagnosing more,
and so it's really important to acknowledge the fact that, yes,
it's true we are able to diagnose more. We have
(26:00):
expanded diagnostic criterias which also allow for this increased prevalence.
But there's no denying that we have more disease. I mean,
you said something very interesting about COVID. I know I
want to talk more about it, and I know everyone
listening wants to. But pre COVID, we were already seeing
a rise in auto antibodies and the markers and autoimmune
(26:21):
disease in younger people. There was like a twenty twenty
NH study that kind of said that that was before
COVID type one diabetes, like you mentioned, ciliac, rheumatoid hashimodis, thyroiditis,
all have been increasing for the past few decades. So
you know, we have a lot of theories as to
why that is.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
As well too.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
We believe like this kind of microplastics they play a
big role as well too. But I thoroughly not only
on the diet on part of you know, the chemo exposures,
you know, fertilizer set et cetera. You know, American society
have traded to a much more sedentary lifestyle, much more.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Much more overweight. Our b and must have been going up.
You know, we have become.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Extremely instantly resistant, and that has been the key which
I believe it's the main problems that instantly resistance that
driven us to this kind of pendogenum and auto immune
issues right now.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
As in a constant state of inflammation because the blood
sugars up and sugar causes inflammation, and that state of
inflammation is not good.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And this is just on my own you know, my
own practice that I see many patients that are for example,
in this new medications on the GLP ones et cetera,
they're actually they're becoming much more you know, they're losing weight,
and I seen.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
A lot of them just.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Being GLP ones, being like the Wagovis and the Manjarro
and ozempic quote unquote everyone's taken.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, correct.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And not only that, we also be that the medications
response as well, to work on this, you know, different
in this population as well too. We saw that the
recent medications that we had he had a certain type
of effectiveness. But now that we've see you know, a
certain type of patients using this kind of treatment, they
(28:18):
are actually they're becoming less insolent resistance. We're actually seeing
a much more better response in this as well.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
That's interesting, you know, heading into COVID, one of my
big concerns was what are we doing by shielding the
kids so much from all the pathogens? Like we couldn't
they didn't we didn't have anything. Flu wasn't circulating, colds
weren't circulating. Everyone was so afraid of COVID that putting
(28:46):
us in the state of isolation. I mean, don't get
me started. Obviously, the mental health component was that's a
whole another episode. But this, this whole hygiene phenomenon is
one of those things that that hygiene hype of. This
has to do with autoimmune diseases too. And do you
think that maybe that can you explain what that is
and like maybe how that also played a role.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
You know, if you like think one of the reasons
to that point is not known nowadays.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You know, back in the days, we used to have
the chicken pox, you know, get to get in times.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
You know, if you happen that, you know, Jimmy, you
know your neighbor used to get chicken pox. I want
to make sure that Alex go with GM so he
can get some chicken So, yeah, we did.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Not recommend chicken pox parties.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Why I that's how I used to do.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
That's how he used to be the smart way back
then in how the image just to recognize this, right,
we stopped doing that.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And you know, we are into a state of uh.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
You know, a septic you know, areas that we have
to we clean, you know, enhance everyone, you know, kids
and table and please don't do that, Please don't go on.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Make sure that you wear a mask, make sure you
don't What.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
About the hand sanitizer that you see everyone putting on constantly.
I'm like that rubbing rubbing alcohol. That can't be good
for you. Like, get some drums around you.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
You know, I will tell you this.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
And again, you know, there's many smart people out there.
There are you know, working in r eune system and
INFECTIOUSY sees people and you know, look.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Like my heart goes through them. But when you are
in the trenches.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
In my office or my practice is basically in the trenches,
we serve underserved population here in Central Florida. I was
able to see something that I was not able to see.
And I think that once this virus came through the
way that we handle ourselves, it was not consonant.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But what that we're telling us, I was.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Not seeing, you know, most of our patient population that
were wearing masks, and I noticed I was noticing right
away that they were not. You know, there was still
contracting you know, COVID as well. Then vaccine came through
in and we had some our issues. You know, we
thought it wouldn't work, but then I noticed in my
patients that it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
And I noticed that a way like.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Well do you think do you think so?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Well?
Speaker 1 (31:16):
First, of all, it's well documented people with autoimmune diseases
who got infected had the covid infection that could cause
a flare. That makes sense. Obviously, being infected with the
coronavirus causes inflammation and you could get a flare. But
do you think you know then come the vaccine. I
mean it's kind of twofold one. The vaccine itself was
(31:37):
kind of causing more of an inflammatory response than the
actual infection. So people with autommune diseases, did you see
that they were having more flares from the vaccine than
the actual infection? And then did you also see that
maybe the vaccine didn't work as well because maybe the
medications they were on or what do you think it was?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
It was both ways.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
First and foremost, most of this missions they are immune
suppress in a way, right, They're also even incompetent in
a way. So I didn't think they had a good
evening response, but also activated a very you know, erratic
immune system to start having symptoms I didn't have before,
and it was from the vaccine.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
They had new symptoms as well too.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It was non consonant of what they usually have.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
So for a patient, for example, if a psient only
always had inflammation or arthritis. Now they're starting having raynos,
starting having some rash there, sat hand, some dry dry mouth,
dry eye, which is secondary symptoms of these raumatic conditions
as well too.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
It's like they're picking little they're picking symptoms from various
other diseases.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
For example, this is my own experience.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
I was completely healthy before, and I remember I received
my second shot shot of the COVID vaccine.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Do you have m RNA.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
In two weeks after.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
I'm a I'm a running so I like to you know,
train for you know, half marathons and marathons, and I
was running out. Remember it was around December that the
vaccine came around that and I started developing rainox myself.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Rainot's being where your blood vessels and your fingers when
it's cold, you have blood flow.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah. Extremely, it was just nothing. It was just simple.
It was very very extreme, very quite evident.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
It was a trifasic discoloration of my hands turning completely white,
then blueish and then then red.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And I didn't even have that before.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Another observation that I noticed that those symptoms that I
was having, they're weging off as well. So it seems
like a way hot my immune system is somehow resettling
to what it used to be before. So that's another
observation that I have seen the same way with my patients,
those patients that I have here well documented post vaccination
(33:59):
that developed some sort of an erratic immune system then
noble or nuancet or subsequent you know symptoms, those symptoms
are somehow you know, start getting somehow more quiet right now,
which is you know, pretty quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, So were you recommending then for these patients, because
I mean a lot of the you know, the colleges,
I think even rheumatology recommended obviously full vaccination but then boosters.
But we have so many documented published papers now showing
that the vaccine itself was not could potentially worsen existing
(34:39):
autommun disease, but also as you're mentioning, they could start fresh. Like,
how do you have that conversation with your patients about
there the formal recommendation of getting all these boosters, but
when it could potentially be causing a problem.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
You wants a trimming challenging because the trenches that were
it was not consonant of what that may source that
were telling us, right, they were telling us that.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
This is what you need to do.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
You need to do these vaccinations and then you have
to boost yourself every so quite often. And I was
I was not seeing that you needed that first and foremost,
and too it was causing a lot of problems. I
was seeing that on my patients and my visions that
I had to make a medical decision. Say look, doc,
but they're telling me to do this. In TV, I
(35:23):
had to actually sit down with our patients completely frustrated
about it. That this is something that is between the
patient and the doctor is extreme. It's like going to confession.
You know, it's something that is between you and the priests.
Then you have to create that bond with a patient
and you have to you know, you have to create
that bond and confidence with the patient. And I used
(35:47):
to tell them what I used to see with my
patient and what they were going through. And I had
to deal with that because they were all lost, you know,
they were confused on what they were telling that on
one end and now what I was seeing on one end.
And for me, I continued my practic to say way
I thought it was the best way because that's the
way that I was seen on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So in my case, I stopped recommending the vaccine.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
On my rheumatic patients way before it was announced because
I was seeing something that it was not.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
It was not nice.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
A lot of patients that were very upset because, for example,
we had a lot of patients with you know, rheumatic issues.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
That they developed it.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
They then they have the the immunotherapy after or immuno
globlins after, and that's somehow neutralized.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
They want to clonal adding bodies that were.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Given to them so they can not only with you know,
post COVID vaccination symptoms, but also they came with major
flairs because they were treated in the hospital for COVID
and even know therapy or.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Imuno globbles in order to kind of counter like that.
And that was that was the problem, you know. And
also to look at this Nicoll.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
The beauty of this how things we were able to
identify that these vaccinations that were causing some post traumatic
conditions or some post traumatic accpurs events is that we
eventually decided to use tasignu zoom map, which is an
interlooken six blocker for you know COVID, you know, cytokind release,
(37:22):
you know, which is a medication that we give for
our patients and rumor to our threads. And that's when
we kind of figured out. So I said, look, something
is wrong here and this vaccination must be completely carefully
decided between a doctor and the patient. Could it's something
that you just couldn't be just thrown out there. Hey,
everyone needs to do this. Kids, especially kids, kids that
(37:44):
had the best immune system ever.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Let them be what they have to be.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
You know, like we talked about the hypothesis, you know,
the hygiene hypothesis. You know, we saw the kids, kids
that we're not you know, the mortality rating kids, it
was extremely, extremely low.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
And vaccinating these kids starts seeing patients.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
I don't see pediatric patients that I had to do
it because again, you know, patients that are underserved.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
So they were coming to me pasions that were nine, thirteen.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Years old, fifteen years old with rahmatic conditions that they
never had before post vaccination.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, I mean it's really upsetting, kind of post COVID
to kind of learn all about that. But I certainly
think that while again there's been a rise in autoimmune
diseases pre COVID, certainly the covid infections as well as
the vaccines have contributed to that rise. So we've touched
on the hygiene hypothesis, the fact that we don't let
our kids eat dirt anymore that could potentially have increased
(38:41):
their risk of autommune diseases and infections. You've touched upon
the fact that we live in a world of microplastics,
and microplastics are inserting themselves into all parts of our bodies.
But what about what about gut health and the microbio
What is your take on that in it's linked autommune.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Disease, sobinume it.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It's a very hot topic the same way ass you know,
microplastics as well too and post covid vaccinations, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Microbiome.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
It's very very interesting and complex to the fact that
we're we're altering our own normal flora based on the
recent or basically the last twenty five years diet. We're
becoming much more instantly resistance. We're seeing a lot of
patients with certain type of what we call glutent you know,
sensitivities or some real full blown sedate disease. We're seeing
(39:32):
a lot of patients with inflammatory arthritis that they're coming through,
you know, problems that they have that they start of overgrowth.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
We believe in some sort of a growth overgrowth.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Of bacteria and that kind of like genetical code is start,
you know, kind of changing and creating this kind of
cascade of inflammatory response. So the microbiome or the or
the gut health is extremely important also in rahmatic conditions.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
So we're learning that more often now.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
So for people who are listening who maybe they have
an autom disease or they think that they might have one,
you know, what are some early indicators or what should
they do if they're kind of having some symptoms and
they're not really sure what they are.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
I think that we always look, you know, if I
would to be their physicians, right of this big population
that comes to you as a dog in eyes to
feel pretty good. I have any gout issues, but lately
I am feeling this way. I'm feeling a little bloated.
I cannot tolerate it any specific type of food. But
every time I eat this kind of food or whatever,
(40:36):
I'm getting this X y Z symptoms. I'm getting more fatigue.
We're seeing a lot of more chronic fatigue. You know,
population insomnia, more inflamma or whatever. Why it's based on
process period as well too. So my recommendations is that
we still don't have the technology to I really identify
this kind of triggers in terms of what triggers any fly,
(41:01):
my chort or thritis orright not or in conditions are
based on what they eat.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
We tell. What I tell to my patients is that look,
you know, your body warned than anyone else. So if
you happen that you eat, you know.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
For example, I had a patient that doctor, every time
I eat white rice, I get my knuckles that get
completely inflamed. And for me, I'm trying to figure it
out exactly what is the main you know, path of
physiology on this.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
It was like a white rice, why would you happen
over here? I basically tendure that to them. I constant nutritionist.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Obviously, I do the whole you know panel in terms
of fire issues and other gun autoimmune blood work as
well too, and then I refer to the gastrienteologiest as well.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
So if someone's starting out kind of having some symptoms,
they're vague, they don't really know what's going on, do
you recommend putting together like a food diary for like
a few weeks or a month, just to see if
it's triggered by anything I do.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I do.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
I am actually a fan of fasting, so I do
a little bit of a fasting usually. You know, you
know sixty eighteen six on occasion and televisions who identified
exactly what what are they're eating, what are they're eating
differently this time, what are they're doing that they were
not doing before? And when did they notice those symptoms?
So history is extremely important in this population to identify
(42:24):
those kind.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Of you know, trigger factors.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, rarely when autoimmune patients present, I imagine is it
very text white, textbook black and white. It's kind of
like an enigma and you get to be the little
puzzle puzzle put together a person trying to figure it
all out.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
There's not that anymore.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
It's it's impressive, like I have my residence, I'm my
medical students with me, and my medical students are always
you know, expecting, oh doctor, right, you know you have
that positive with positive A and a ssas straggin. But
the reality is not The reality they may have is
subtle A and A test, you know, and they may
have some stick of manifestations from dry and dry mouth.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
And they still could have some short ones.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
So we're seeing a lot.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Of inflammatory arthritis and not necessarily will give you a
positive blood work. Uh.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Yeah, we're getting smarter, like like like like I just mentioned.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Uh, and we're able to identify certain type of you know,
auto any bodies that we're able to recognize, and you know,
through different you know labs, they're you know, providing us
you know, to health these patients.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
But I will say six out of ten patients you
may have a negative blood work. We've seen a.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Lot of sponding arthritis patients, a lot of what people
we call SERA negative.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Hi, I'm one of those those sero negative, sero negative
spondal orthrop but the waste waste basket term patients. We
don't fit in a box.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
But it's real, it's real, and we're we we're you know,
I'm doing I'm doing some political trials over here.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Responding authritis. We're working on a lot of signals central
Lugan's you know twenty three.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
We're actually we're having possibly we're going through the process
right now, getting a phase one. We're working with a
cart therapy so or natural killer in Karta Carti.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Just for anybody listening is an amazing therapy that we've
used in pediatric cancers. But I mean it certainly is
a good starting point for a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yes, so we're seeing some evidence already they can work
incredibly on type of arthritis such as you know, lupus,
nefritas or certain type of fascularity.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
So that's going to be we're going to be conducting
to us Studdi's pretty soon over here in phase one.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Well, I mean we've come a long way in terms
of treatment for these patients, and thankfully there's still people
like you doing a lot of research. Alex. Some takeaway
for those who either have an autommune disease or who
don't but they want to do everything they can to
try and prevent it. If you have just you know,
like three, what you should do, how you should live
your life? What you or what's your advice for people?
Speaker 2 (45:02):
I think the number one, you know advice for me's
lifestyle changes.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
If you think that you know you're Sedentarya, I think
it's important for anyone that may feel that they need
to kind.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Of reset everything.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Lifestyle changes such as a certain type and much more
healthy diet. It is extremely important low ser basically and
aerobic exercises. We're experience, you know, I basically advising every
one of my patients to do a lot of aerobic
or low aerobic exercises and want to try to implement.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Give it an example, what's an aerobic exercise?
Speaker 3 (45:42):
So what I try to explain to my patients is
that in order for us to decrease the insulin resistance,
you not only just the diet, but we have to
improve what we call the lower aerobic you know, or
Zone two exercises.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
And basically what that means is that loans low or.
Speaker 3 (45:59):
Low aerobic exercise or zone to exercises induces your mitochondro
replication and mitochondra replications. Most of it the energy is
fatty acids or fatty oxidation. And what happens when you
do that, when you do that cardiovascular you decrease your
metabolically to improve dramatically, and you're decreasing insulin resistance. And
(46:21):
I strongly believe by decreasing insulin resistance, those general symptoms
of inflammatory response or auto immune response, if we want
to call it out way. Anything that is inflammatory, it's
not immune so I encourage that from our patients. So
I set them certain type of workouts that we lead
to that kind of like low or zone two or
(46:43):
low aerobic exercise about twenty to thirty five minutes at
least four times or five times a day.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
I mean, I think we wait four or five times
a day or right, right?
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Wow? Get doesn't mean I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
God, I mean I think you're right. I mean, you
don't have to be a gym rat. You don't have
to be like the most fitness person, but you do
have to get your body moving a little bit more.
And as you're saying, we have to keep our sugars
down because sugar causes inflammation, and inflammation causes autoimmune disease.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Incredible, and that's I think people they don't they haven't
realized yet.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
But autommute and systemic inflammatory process is the main you know,
you know, culporative almost every condition nowadays.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Everything well, isn't it truth? So by what we eat,
by if we take in less sugar or you know,
less ultra processed foods and like the processed breads and
sugar sugary sweet drinks, that decreases the sugar intake. But
the exercise actually upregulates some of the receptors on ourselves
(47:53):
so that we are able to use our insulin more efficiently.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Right, well, obviously instantly insular resistances and.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
You should and how did we actually help that insulin
resistant to become you know, or resensitizers. There's a lot
of studies out there like if we do a little
bit of an insulin pulse.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Therapy, became resensitizos receptors again. And we've seen a lot
of study on that.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
H It seems to be good when you have to
reset that body by a doing you know, lifestyle changes
like fasting, it could be a great form of resensitation
as well too, as well as zone to aerobic or
lower aerobic you know exercises.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Right.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Well, you heard it here, folks. If you want to
resensitize your body the insulin, you have to start your
fasting and you got to get exercising, all right. Thank
you so much, doctor Alexander Torres, rheumatologists, colleague and friend
of mine. We really appreciate you coming on wellness unmasked
and giving us all of your expert advice. It's great
(48:57):
seeing you more coming up on wellness and masked with
doctor Nicole Sapphire. Well, that was a lot to unpack
from doctor Alexander Torres, my friend and colleague. I certainly
learned a lot from him, and it is validating to
hear an expert say, yes, it is not just, you know,
(49:17):
intrinsic to us. It's not that we're just diagnosing more
autoimmune disease. We are seeing more autoimmune disease. And we
can point fingers all we want, and there are a
lot of finger pointing to do, but it boils down
to our lifestyle, the sedentary way we're living. We're not
moving our body enough. We're eating loads of crap.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I wrote all about it in my book Make America
Healthy Again from twenty twenty. I talked about the foods
we're eating and the fact we're not moving our body.
And as doctor Torres just told us, insulin is not
working in our body because of this, and therefore we
have baseline higher blood sugars than we should. And when
you have too much sugar in the blood, it's going
(49:58):
to cause inflammation. Inflammation leads to bad things, one of
which are autoimmune diseases. And autoimmune diseases. While they may
be manageable and you may be able to live with them.
They can also be deadly, and so we have to
do everything we possibly can to decrease the inflammation in
our body. You know, for me, it is getting my
body moving, trying to reduce the all of the crap
(50:21):
that we're eating, the process foods. As we know, I
love to incorporate natural herbs into my diet. I use
ginger and tumoric on a daily basis to get that
inflammation down in my body. And I also use lavender
to relax me. And I do everything I can to
get a good night's sleep because your sleep is so important.
And that's a wrap on this episode of Wellness on Mass.
(50:44):
I wanted you to learn a little bit about myself,
so you know why I'm on this wellness journey with you.
Just remember your health isn't a trend, it's our foundation.
If today's conversation is something that resonated with you, I
ask you please share it with someone you care about.
Thanks for listening to Wellness on Mass on America's number
one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Wellness on Mass with doctor
Nicole Saffire and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app.
(51:07):
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll
catch you next time.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com