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Rebuilding Your Immune System After Gluten-Transcript from Pick Dr. Osborne’s Brain

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Hi everybody. It’s Dr. Osborne. Welcome to the Pick Dr. Osborne’s Brain Show. Happy to have you on this Friday. Rebuilding your immune system after gluten. Again, the long-term damage, remember what gluten can do, it can cause and excite inflammation inside pretty much any tissue in the body. A lot of people, what happens is they have been going gluten-free or they’ve prior to finding out they needed to go gluten-free, they were on multiple medications, they had many diagnoses, a lot of people had with gluten sensitivity have kind of other conditions linked to gluten and they didn’t even know it before going gluten-free, like fibromyalgia, or hypothyroidism, or irritable bowel syndrome, or inflammatory bowel syndrome, or chronic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, dermatomyositis, rheumatoid … I said rheumatoid. Psoriatic arthritis, spondyloarthritis. There are different forms of diseases.

 

A lot of people, before they go gluten-free, they’ve got all this damage to different tissue sets. First and foremost, just removing the gluten doesn’t automatically heal the body. Removing the gluten removes the damaging component, but the body still has to repair the inflammation.

 

Remember, one of the components of gluten is that it destroys the immune system over time, it causes the immune system to become over reactive, and so the immune system is so busy battling your food that it doesn’t have the capacity to battle the normal environment, so people become hyper allergenic to other foods, they become hyper allergenic to the environment itself, so their allergies increase. You can have increased risk of lung inflammation because of things like asthma.

 

Very, very important that you understand that just removing gluten from the diet doesn’t instantly repair the long-term damage, and that really is what you want to focus on, that’s the strategy. I want you to walk away with today, is understanding what do we need to do, what is that strategy that we want to have to focus on improving our outcomes long-term.

 

Now I’ve had a number of clients that have come to see me, and that’s actually one of the biggest holdups. They’re doing really good already on their diet, but again, remember that 70-80% of your immune system is in your gut, and if that is damaged over time, then your immune system is going to have a really hard time coming back online. You pick up chronic infections. You can pick up gut bugs. You can pick up viruses. You can pick up things like yeast overgrowth. Again, these things are going to continue to eat away at your immune system and keep it from rebuilding, keep your tissues from rebuilding.

 

So what is it that you can do as kind of general strategies? The first strategy and one of my favorite strategies is first and foremost is giving the body, making sure that the body has what it needs to heal and repair itself, because again, you remove gluten as the thing that was creating the damage, but the body still needs the raw nutrients, the vitamins, the minerals, the raw nutrients necessary to go in and repair the damaged tissue.

 

As it relates to the immune system, let’s talk about a few nutrients that are super critical. The first one and probably one of the most important ones for those with gluten sensitivity is zinc. Now a couple weeks ago I did a big bit, I did a big long story about zinc and talking in some detail about zinc. But remember what zinc does. Zinc upregulates the immune system. Zinc helps regulate blood sugar. Zinc helps regulate your antioxidant capacity. Zinc is necessary for immune cell maturation. It’s the second most common deficiency I see in people with gluten sensitivity. It’s one of the things that’s very inexpensive and it’s very simple to get. You can get zinc from red meats. You can get zinc from other meats. You can get zinc from nuts. You can get zinc if you like oysters or other forms of seafood. You can get zinc from those as food sources.

 

But the other place you can get zinc is supplementally. Now I find that anywhere between 50 and 100 milligrams of supplemental zinc is ideal to correct a deficiency. Again, super, super easy to get in. If you’re taking supplemental zinc, obviously make sure you’re getting a brand that is gluten-free, certified gluten-free, that doesn’t have any of the grain based fillers, including corn and rice, because many of the brands will say they’re gluten-free but then they’ll have rice flour or rice powder or they’ll have some type of corn flavoring agent or corn filler in them. You want make to sure you’re doing your best to avoid all the grains in your supplements.

 

What I recommend is Ultra Zinc, which it’s a grain-free formulation. Two to three of those a day is a good dose for most people. Now if you’re really, really small, 100 pounds or less, two a day should be sufficient. But again, the heavier or the bigger that you are, up to 100, up to 125, sometimes even up to 150 milligrams of zinc a day is ideal.

 

Zinc, very, very critical, very, very important as a nutrient to help rebuild the immune system. It’s also, it’s kind of a two-fold thing. Zinc helps to rebuild and repair the immune system, but zinc also helps to repair damaged tissue. You need zinc to make new collagen, to make new cartilage, to make new tissues, muscles, joint tissue, so again, to repair the damage zinc plays a role not just in the immune system but also in the mechanism of repair. One of my favorite nutrients to implement. You’re just looking for strategies to add in.

 

Now one of the other nutrients that’s absolutely critical and should play a role in this process, and it’s a combination. One it’s vitamin C. Vitamin C, we talked, again, we talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago so I’m not going to belabor vitamin C too long, but I want to talk about a nutrient that is oftentimes completely ignored. That’s quercetin. This works synergistically with vitamin C. It works in a very, very big way to help reduce pain and inflammation. One of its jobs is to modulate the inflammatory cascade, and it does a very, very good job of that. If you combine vitamin C with quercetin, you get a synergism, a synergistic effect. Then that synergism and that synergistic effect can be very, very potent at helping your body recover from, again, prolonged years of gluten induced damage.

 

Now quercetin, to get the dose you need it’s really hard to get a lot of it from food, so really supplementally is where I recommend. Now I have something called InflammaShield. I don’t even know if we sell it. I don’t even think we sell it online. You can call Gluten Free Society if you want to inquire about it, but it’s a high dose quercetin compound. If you combine that with vitamin C it’s going to go a long way to kind of stamping out the fires of inflammation while supporting your immune system’s process of rebuilding and repairing.

 

Now another nutrient, a lot of people talk about this one, I think it’s worth mentioning for a couple of different reasons, and that’s L-glutamine, particularly L-glutamine. Why? Because L-glutamine, a lot of people just take it. You’ll hear a number of people say, “Oh, well, if you’ve got a leaky gut you absolutely need L-glutamine.” Well, you’ve got to be careful with L-glutamine. I don’t recommend just using L-glutamine just because … Here’s why.

 

Glutamine can actually be an irritant. It can actually can create problems for some people. If you’re not deficient in it, it’s not really going to help your gut heal or seal. It is an important nutrient. It does regulate and help fuel your gut, the enterocytes in your gut, which are the cells of the small intestine, they need glutamine to make and generate energy, and your immune cells need glutamine to make and generate energy.

 

But you can overdo glutamine very easily. Some people that take glutamine, they might experience, one of the symptoms is diarrhea. Just glutamine acts as an osmotic, it pulls water into the bowels. Too much it’s going to cause diarrhea. But for some people it can cause severe gut pain, it can cause migraine headaches. If you find that you’re taking a supplemental with glutamine in it and it’s creating those types of problems, that very well could be the reason that that’s happening. Again, glutamine and glutamate are very close in terms of biochemistry.

 

Remember, a lot of the problem with gluten is that it’s high in an amino acid derivative called glutamate. If we overdo glutamine, we can actually get conversion to glutamate and create a triggering effect that can be a problem for some people. Again, I don’t recommend high doses of glutamine for you, just because I highly recommend testing for it to determine whether or not it’s something that you want to add as a strategic element, because a lot of people with gluten sensitivity are deficient in glutamine but a lot of them aren’t. Again, it’s not one of those things that is absolutely a must. It’s one of those things you want to be careful about and not necessarily overdo it.

 

Now there are some other things that can be very, very effective for the repair of the long-term damage that gluten can cause. Predominantly what I would highly, highly suggest is a very, very potent grain-free multivitamin if you don’t have the testing to back up specific supplement recommendations. In essence if you’re not visiting with your doc and having your nutritional status measured and you’re just saying, “What can I do to make sure that my body has a kind of a good background or backbone of nutrients so that the healing and repair and the support processes again are turning and able to come back online,” then a high quality, high potency, multivitamin, multi-mineral formula is what I really recommend.

 

Again, it has to absolutely be grain-free. A lot of different products that are out there have kind of hidden forms of different grains. Again, you got to be real careful when you’re making that selection. High quality multivitamin is the best guess if you’re not testing. I highly recommend that you get with somebody, somebody who’s qualified, a functional medicine practitioner who’s qualified to get the right testing done because this is where I see a lot of people, like a lot of my clients that come in, I could throw a multivitamin at them, I could throw zinc, I could throw glutamine, I can throw quercetin and vitamin C at them, but in reality often times testing reveals what actually needs to be used and it saves a lot of people a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of pills from just kind of guesswork.

 

Sometimes guesswork doesn’t pan out. In essence if you guess, “Okay, I’m going to do zinc, I’m going to do glutamine,” but you guess wrong, one, you could have the side effects of glutamine, but two, you might just be spending your money and not getting a benefit, and that although it’s not harmful per se, it’s harmful to your wallet, and so it’s not getting you anywhere. The whole point of supplementing to help rebuild your immune system after those years of gluten induced exposure, the whole point is to help you get better and not just to create a false sense of security or security blanket that’s not really effective.

 

One of the other strategies, one of the other things that I think is worth mentioning here that I see this probably a 95% of the patients that come in is omega-3 fatty acid deficiency. Now why omega-3? Predominantly if you’re coming from a high grain diet, understand that grain is very, very rich, saturated in omega-6 fatty acids and very, very low, a very poor source of omega-3. Most people coming away from grain, their omega-6 omega-3 ratios are very, very high, meaning they have way too much omega-6, nowhere near enough omega-3. What that does is it promotes inflammation, it promotes aggressive or excessive inflammation.

 

Rebalancing the omega-6 omega-3 ratio, preferably you want to have it under four and even better would be under two. Avoiding grain is going to reduce the omega-6 in the diet, but you can’t just reduce the six. You have to increase the three. Unless you’re eating seafood on a regular daily basis, you’re probably not getting enough three out of your diet. Some people will use Chia or flaxseed as sources of omega-3, but those have to be converted. They’re not actually the active omega-3s. They have to be converted. If you’re vitamin B5 deficient for example, you can’t convert the omega-3s in flax or Chia into EPA and DHA. Again, if you’re vitamin B5 or pantothenic deficient that’s going to be a problem going and trying to get your omega-3s from a vegetarian based diet if your vitamin B5 is too low. Even if it isn’t too low, it’s still hard to get adequate conversion to meet the entire need.

 

Fish is where we’re going to get, fatty fish is where we’re going to get the bulk of omega-3 in our diet, grass-fed beef is another good source, lamb, grass-fed lamb is another good source. But again, if you’re not eating a lot of fish the likelihood that you’re getting enough omega-3 is very, very slim. Even me with my diet to give you an example, when I test my omega-3s without supplementing, they ride under five. What we’re really looking for in omega-3 concentration is a cell saturation over 10.

 

This is one of those things I see 99% of the people that I see need a supplement of omega-3. It’s very healthy and very safe to take it. It’s something that I would recommend that you look at, again, because it helps to control the inflammation, it helps stabilize your cell membranes, which helps to reduce an over aggressive or over reactive immune system. Omega-3 very, very important along those lines.

 

Another topic I really want to talk about are the drugs that affect immunity because this is one of the common scenarios is, again, a person’s got a gluten issue, they’re trying to come back from years of gluten induced damage, but they may also have pre-existing problems or conditions, medical problems or conditions or diseases and so they’re on multiple medications. Some of these drugs actually will affect or impede your immune system’s ability to come back online.

 

Some of the more common ones, number one, allergy medicine. If you’re taking things like Benadryl or Singulair, these drugs the way their mechanism of action is they’re antihistamines or Leukotriene based drugs so they suppress part of your immune system secretion to reduce your symptoms of allergy, but in the long run they actually open you up to immune problems, because when you suppress your immune system over long periods of time, you open yourself up to infection, you open yourself up to a greater degree or risk of cancer and other forms of diseases. Allergy medicines, if you’re using them every day or chronically, that can be a very, very big problem.

 

Now again, a nice substitute for allergy medicines that can help support a normal immune response is what I said earlier, the vitamin C mixed with quercetin. When you mix those two and one more thing you can add to it is called bromelain, you mix those three together and then what you get is you get a very synergistic formulation that stabilizes your immune cells, the membrane around your immune cells, particularly a cell type called a mast cell. These are the cells that release histamine. Histamine is the compound that makes you itchy and watery and teary and sneezy during allergy season. We don’t want too much histamine being released. Stabilizing mast cells or helping support the membrane around the mast cells with vitamin C, quercetin and or [inaudible 00:16:00] and bromelain is very, very effective strategy in lieu of taking allergy, over-the-counter allergy medications.

 

Another medication that is going to really, really crash your immune system is steroids, corticosteroids, whether that’s steroids for pain. A lot of people take steroids for pain. A lot of people take steroids for your chronic inflammatory autoimmune conditions. It’s not in the short use of steroids or the short duration of steroids, it’s in the long-term use. These drugs taken over long periods of time for chronic conditions can cause calcium and magnesium and zinc deficiencies, but they can also, they suppress, again, they suppress the immune system, lead to water retention, can cause muscle loss and weight gain, and slow down your metabolism. When you start losing your muscle mass, your metabolism starts to drop and you become, your immune system becomes weaker.

 

Because remember what your muscle tissue is. Your muscle tissue is the reserve tank for your immune system. If you find yourself taking long-term, long dose steroids, even the lower doses, even at lower doses like two and a half or five milligrams, you want to work with your doc to get, to develop a new strategy to help you wean off of those because you’ll never let … Your immune system will never make a good recovery as long as you’re using that type of medicine.

 

Then the last one I’ll talk about today is the antacids. There’s actually a great new study published and discussing how using antacids changes the microbiome in the stomach and allows for an overgrowth of bacteria in the intestines that can actually damage your liver and that … Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease as a result of antacid medications is a very real problem. Remember what your liver does. Your liver stores vitamins and nutrients for your body. When your body is running low on certain things, your liver has enough of a storage to tap in and kind of feed your body when store is low.

 

Additionally, your liver, what does it do? It detoxifies, so it helps to take out the garbage in a sense, it cleans your blood, it helps to convert chemicals into water-soluble versions so that your kidneys can expel them or so that you can sweat them out or breathe them out. Liver very, very important organ of detoxification, of blood sugar regulation, and if we’re taking into antacids long-term creating a bacterial change that leads to liver damage. A lot of doctors will never make that correlation. They’ll say, “Yeah, you have acid reflux. Yes, you also have a liver problem,” but they’ll never make the correlation that your liver problem was caused by the treatment they were giving you for the acid reflux.

 

The other bigger question to ask there really truly is, if you have acid reflux and you need an antacid, why? What is it that you’re doing? What is it that you’re eating? Because the biggest causes of acid reflux for most people is either a food allergy or low stomach acid. That’s actually technically not true because acid reflux would refer to too much acid, but acid reflux is oftentimes misdiagnosed, meaning that it’s not too much acid but it’s not enough acid. Not having enough acid when you eat your food, that food irritates your stomach and mimics or creates the same types of symptoms as acid reflux, the inflamed esophagus, the inflamed stomach.

 

So either low stomach acid or food allergy, and then the last oftentimes what we see with as a cause for stomach acid or for stomach irritation or reflux is infection, most notably a type of bacteria that won a Nobel Prize called Helicobacter pylori, so H. pylori overgrowth are notorious for creating ulcerations in the stomach lining and creating the symptoms of acid reflux.

 

Most doctors will say, “Don’t eat spicy foods.” I’ve very, very rarely seen a person who their true underlying origin of their reflux problem was actually eating spicy foods. Typically, is that spicy foods irritated a pre-existing condition, not that they cause it. It’s not the spicy foods that are the contributing cause. It’s just that they irritate an already existing eroded lining of the stomach. We’ve got to figure out what created the erosion. Again, food allergy, low stomach acid, and lastly infection are the biggest reasons why we’ll see those types of things happening.

 

Again, drugs can affect the immune system as well if you’re on a high doses of multiple medications chronically. You have to maybe have that conversation with your doctor about how these medicines, what are the side effects, the long-term side effects on your immune system, and what you can do to help work and wean yourself away from them because ultimately none of the drugs are actually solving the problem of the disease. They’re all really truly just masking the symptoms, giving you a false sense of security, and making you, basically making you, I won’t say addicted because it’s not a true addiction, but making you dependent, making you dependent on the medicine to have quality of life.

 

That’s enabling behavior, that’s a doctor enabling you to continue to make the same bad decisions that you’ve been making that created that disease by giving you something that masks it. Again, you deserve better and you deserve more. Demand more of your doctor, demand better of your doctor, and if they won’t give it to you, it’s probably time to find somebody who’s willing to listen and strategically do things in a better and more intelligent way.

 

Let’s dive into some of the questions. We’ve got … Sophie’s asking if I do consultations. Yeah, Sophie, if you want to do a consultation with my office, you just visit my website. There’s a link there that says Origins Healthcare. That’s the name of my clinic. You can get our phone number from that and call my office.

 

Let’s see here. Carla. My body is fighting something. My CD4 is 1856 and my CD8 is 1396, both high. My TGF is 12675. TGF for those of you who don’t know, that’s transforming growth factor, and I’m going to assume that that’s TGF beta one, human TGF beta one if it’s properly measured, that’s extremely high and the likelihood that there a type of infection called MARCoNS. MARCoNS is a type of staph infection, it’s an antibiotic resistant type of staph, and typically it colonizes the sinus cavities or it can. That’s a very common cause of elevations in TGF.

 

Now you can also have a gluten exposure. A gluten exposure, chronically that can create elevations in TGF beta one. That might be something also if you’re not already on a gluten-free diet. Those of you watching and listening, maybe you’re listening in for the first time and you’re like, “What is a gluten-free diet? Why is he saying avoid corn and rice when he’s talking about a gluten-free diet? I thought those things were gluten-free.” You really truly need to get a copy and read No Grain No Pain.

 

If you’re new to the Pick Dr. Osborne’s Brain Show and you just haven’t heard this information before, kind of the best platform to start is chapter seven and eight in No Grain No Pain. Those two chapters line out a 30-day food plan for you to get started on feeling better right away. Again, if you’re new to this and this is something that you’re hearing for the first time, you definitely, you definitely want to take advantage of reading that book. It’s got the power to save your life, and I don’t mean that lightly. We’ve had thousands of people from all over the world say that very thing just by applying the information in the book.

 

Now Lisa’s asking, if your liver enzyme’s elevated what can cause. What are some causes of elevated liver enzymes? Well, I just mentioned antacids, antacid medications. A lot of people don’t, again, don’t realize that antacid medications can cause your liver enzymes to go up. Alcohol can cause your liver enzymes to go up. Chronic exposure to mold can cause your liver enzymes to go up. Deficiencies in certain nutrients, choline particularly which is …

 

Choline is a B vitamin like substance that can, when deficient in it you can have elevations in liver enzymes. Inositol helps the liver deal with fat and metabolize fat, so too might or not having enough inositol, and inositol is also a B vitamin like substance, it can also elevate liver enzymes. Too much corn syrup, too much sugar in the diet can elevate liver enzymes. A yeast overgrowth can elevate liver enzymes. There are a number of different things. Again, if you struggle with a chronic non-alcoholic type of fatty liver or enzyme, liver enzyme elevation, all of those things should be investigated as preliminary possible causes.

 

Let’s see here. Janine, thanks for helping educate us. You’re welcome Janine, or Janie. I’m sorry. Not Janine, Janie. Thanks for helping educate us. You’re welcome Janie. Thanks for tuning in. Melissa is asking, does juicing vegetables often boost immunity? Yes and no. I’m not a big fan of heavy juicing. I know a lot of people, I’m probably saying the opposite of what you might hear from a lot of other bloggers, but the reality is that heavy juicing, depending on the type of juicing that you’re doing, if it’s predominantly fruit juicing can actually trigger aggressive insulin response and blood sugar response, and that in and of itself can be a problem for many people, raising insulin, raising blood sugar, and that can be an immune suppress … that can have an immune suppression effect.

 

If you’re juicing vegetables now, which is the question here, can that boost immunity, there are several certainly good nutrients in vegetables, but my point would be eat them whole unless of course you’ve got some type of pre-existing digestive issue where you don’t digest the vegetables very well and so juicing them is going to allow you a good source of nutrients without the heavy burden on the GI tract. Again, as long as it’s vegetables and the sugar content it’s not high that is a strategy that can be used.

 

Although I would hesitate and tell everyone to be very careful because if you’re doing a lot of green juicing, a lot of people use oat grass, a lot of people use wheat grass. Understand that it’s an estimated 40% of the population has a grass allergy, so when you’re using these grasses to make juices, not only do you run the risk of potentially being allergic to them, but a lot of them are cross-contaminated with grains seeds, with gluten seeds, and so you can get into trouble with gluten cross-contamination exposure.

 

That’s why we actually made … One of the biggest things that people buy, they buy these green drinks, and some of the main ingredients are the grasses. We actually, I created a formulation called Ultra Food VF, which is a grass-free green drink so that people could have that convenience and that ease without getting, without having the risk for that cross-contamination. Good question.

 

Let’s see here. Nick is asking what can you tell me about B vitamins and myelofibrosis. B vitamin, look the bottom line about B vitamins, if we look at their function, B vitamins are necessary to generate something called ATP, adenosine triphosphate. Now ATP, I’m going to give you an analogy. ATP is like money. In the real world everyone needs money to buy clothes, to buy food, to pay for rent, to put gas in their car, whatever it is that you need in life money generally tends to buy the primary needs of food, shelter, clothing, et cetera. Just like in your body ATP is money. It’s the same analogy. In order to have normal biochemistry that functions appropriately, in other words, to have normalized inflammation, normalized immune system function, normalized healing and repairing, you’ve got to have the B vitamins.

 

The B vitamins play a crucial role in the conversion of energy from the food that you eat. When you eat carbs, fats, or proteins, whether you’re breaking carbs down through the glycolysis and Krebs cycle, you’re using B vitamins, or whether you’re breaking fat down through beta oxidation you’re using B vitamins predominantly to help your body do that. Can’t make B vitamins, can’t heal, can’t repair. Fibrosis is a type of inflammatory condition. Again, how are you going to heal and repair that, how are you going to support your body’s ability to recover from that if you don’t have B vitamin?

 

Let’s see here. My husband’s been doing AIP diet for a little over a month. He ate some corn and rice for the first time about two weeks ago. His joints have been hurting, aching, and feeling tight on one side of his body ever since. Could this be from the rice and corn? He has celiac. Of course, it is from the rice and corn. That’s a pattern that we see repetitively.

 

Emily, I write extensively about something called gluten-free whiplash. Gluten-free whiplash is when a person goes gluten-free initially, especially in the celiac, with the celiac diagnosis, but when they start learning about the corn products and the rice products and really start introducing a lot of those in the diet, they have a whiplash effect where they start hurting again, they start having the stiffness, the pain, the inflammation, the gut problems start creeping back in. In essence that’s why we call it gluten-free whiplash.

 

Because food labeling laws, especially in the United States, only require to label something gluten-free, only require that item to be 20 parts per million free of wheat, barley, and rye, a lot of foods that are labeled gluten-free are technically not gluten free. So a lot of people continue to take on damage and continue to get hurt as a result of that. That’s, yeah, I would say that that probably is one of the reasons why your husband is having that struggle.

 

Sophie from France. Thank You Sophie. God bless you as well. I appreciate. I appreciate your comments. Let’s see here. Veronie’s asking, I have high zinc and don’t supplement with it. What could cause this? Several different things could cause an elevation in zinc. First thing I might do is I might have my doctor test for heavy metal toxicity. If you have heavy metal burden you actually can start aggressively storing some of the other metals, including zinc. You might have your water tested for high levels of zinc if you’re on a well or if you’re, whether you’re in a city municipality, those could be other potential things.

 

But you also might be taking on liver damage, and that would be something I would have your liver investigated to make sure that that’s not part of this problem as well. But I would also wonder how you were tested. If you say you have high zinc, was that tested in the serum? Or what other specific markers were also being tested along with it? It’s kind of hard to know without additional information.

 

If I’m still breaking out in a rash from nightshades, does that mean I still have a leaky gut? I’m dealing with Polycythemia. All red counts are high and now WB, white blood cells I’m going to assume that’s what you mean white blood cells at 10. Yeah, I mean if you’re reacting to nightshades, so there’s two reasons people react to nightshades. One is a leaky gut type of reaction where you eat them and you’re reacting to them because you’re allergic to them. The other is that the family of solenoids found in nightshades just cause an irritation.

 

Janein, one of the things I’d highly recommend that you have your doctor look at is a gene pattern called HLA-B27, HLA, B as in boy, 27. People that tend to have HLA-B27 positive gene patterns don’t do well with nightshades. That may be an indicator for you to get nightshades out of your diet on a more permanent basis. That’s really all I can say based on that. I mean Polycythemia is largely considered to be an autoimmune process, so there may be some other underlying factors there that aren’t being investigated. Again, I’d recommend that you get with a good functional medicine doc.

 

Andrea from Switzerland chiming in and saying hello. Hi Andrea. Lori Saunders from Minnesota. Hi Lori. Thanks for tuning in with us today. We had another Alan, or Alain or Alan from, all the way from Canada, Blainville, Quebec, Canada. Love it. People from all over the world. Matthew Gibbs from Cyprus right in my backyard. Hi Matthew. Wow, more UK folks. Marie Sim from Oxfordshire, UK. Hi Marie. Thanks for tuning in to the show today. Let’s see here. We got a bunch of folks saying hello.

 

On that note, those of you who are tuning and listening, do your best to share this with somebody you know, somebody you love, who might take advantage of this information. Again, together, we get this information into their hands we can help a lot more people than just those of you tuning in live today.

 

Samantha, I have AS and celiac. AS stands for ankylosing spondylitis for those of you who are tuning in. I’m going to assume that’s what you mean Samantha. In the world of acronyms that’s typically what AS stands for. And also low vitamin D. I have had kidney stones in January. What should I do to increase vitamin levels without causing stones? Well, one of the causes of kidney stones is not actually, is not calcium, depending on the type of stone that you’ve had. Now there are different types of kidney stones. They’re not all calcium. Some kidney stones are magnesium. Depending on what kind of stone you had Samantha, most kidney stones but not all, most of them are calcium oxalate crystallization. One of the most common causes of a kidney stone formation is actually a vitamin D deficiency and here’s why.

 

Vitamin D is necessary for your small intestine cells, your enterocytes to absorb calcium from the food that you eat. If your vitamin D levels are low, you’re not absorbing calcium from your food. Now most people say, “Well, why then am I having hyper calcium in my kidneys creating a kidney stone?” The reason why is because when your vitamin D is low, your parathyroid gland in your neck it will turn on and it will start activating and pulling calcium out of your bones into your bloodstream.

 

Sometimes this is, it’s done too aggressively, so your body’s so low in calcium that your parathyroid glands are always working, always pulling calcium out of your bone, and that keeps your blood level of calcium a little bit high so your kidneys constantly having to filter that and so there’s a greater chance of forming kidney stones as a result of that vitamin D deficiency, causing your parathyroid gland and your parathyroid hormone to turn on too high. That would be what I would have your docs check, have them check your parathyroid hormone, have them also check your vitamin D levels. It looks like you said they’re already low.

 

One of the easiest things that you can do is just supplement with vitamin D. Again, you don’t want to do this indefinitely but somewhere around 8,000 to 10,000 units a day of vitamin D for a couple of months and then recheck your 25(oh)d levels and you want to make sure that they’re up in between 70 and 100 is an ideal kind of range for that vitamin D. But that’s what I would do. The other thing I would do Samantha, again, if you haven’t, is make sure you get your copy of No Brain No Pain because AS and celiac respond well, very, very well to the protocol in No Grain No Pain.

 

Let’s see. Vivian. Hello from California. Theresa from Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Theresa. Thanks for joining us. Jane is chiming. Dr. O, you did my gluten-intolerant test and it was positive. Problem is now I have mast cell disease and SIBO. I cannot find a functional medicine doctor who specializes in gastrointestinal issues. Can you steer me to one near The Woodlands. Good luck. I don’t know any in The Woodlands, and I don’t say that facetiously. I really mean good luck. I just don’t know of a good functional medicine GI doc in the Woodlands. If you’re suffering with SIBO, I mean first of all, is that confirmed diagnosed, have you done a breath test to confirm it, because a lot of people have the symptoms of SIBO but don’t actually have SIBO. That would be something that maybe you want to have that tested or looked at a little bit more closely, because a lot of times it’s not SIBO, it’s yeast overgrowth or parasite and it acts very, very similar to SIBO.

 

Mast cell disease, look, if you’ve got a mast cell problem, I’ve seen lots … I’ll just share a story. I saw, just a couple years ago, a little girl with a mast cell problem came in. She was breaking out and had the big [inaudible 00:37:59] flares all over her body because of the mast cell release. Remember mast cell release releases histamine. Basically it’s like you break out in hives all the time. You get kind of big plaques on the skin.

 

Well, one of the easiest ways to control mast cell disorder is to be grain-free. One of the other things that has to happen is you’ve got to get the gut microbiome really, really stabilized. In the case of this client that I had, she, we did those two things, predominantly did those things and really literally within, it was probably about six months she was completely free of lesions and no longer had the symptoms at all of mast cell disorder. It’s not out of the ordinary to see that type of a response. You just have to have the right strategy working with the right doctor, the right person. I wish you the best, best finding somebody to help you Jane. You might want to consider calling my office. Woodlands is not very far.

 

Elaine from Brazil. Hi Elaine. Thanks for joining us today. Tara in Sarasota Springs, New York. I am borderline for lupus. Any tips to reverse it? Doing bone broth and paleo. Well Tara, you’re on the right track there. I mean I would say the only thing is you definitely with the Paleo diet and if you’re avoiding 100% of all grain, that’s one of the best things that you can do if you have lupus to get it moving back in a different direction. But some other strategies, some other things you definitely want to check into, what I talked about earlier was the omega-3 status. With lupus almost all lupus patients that I’ve ever seen have had very, very high omega-6 omega-3 ratios. Get that omega-6/3 ratio to about one. You can have that tested. Have your doc test your omega-3 omega-6 fatty acids in your blood and make sure that you know where you’re at along those lines.

 

Now there are some additional detailed strategies in No Grain No Pain, again, chapter seven and chapter eight, and some of those are additional dietary things that you might want to remove and some additional testing that you might want to take to your doctor. In chapter 10 we have a laundry list of different types of specialized tests for autoimmune patients to get done through their docs so that they know strategically what better to do. Because we can take 1,000 people with lupus and they’re not all going to have it for the same reason. That’s where generalized advice is great but specific advice can make a world of difference.

 

Megan. I went from Paleo diet to slowly including grains into my diet. However, now I have been sick for the last two months. My thyroid is extremely elevated. So do I go back to paleo? Megan, why did you ever start eating grains again? What you should do Megan is get solid confirmatory information on whether or not being grain-free is the right move. Go to glutenfreesociety.org and you’re going to see in the menu you’re going to see a tab that says genetic testing. You’re going to click that link. You need to get genetic tested for gluten sensitivity. If you have the genetics for gluten sensitivity, you need to be grain-free for the rest of your life. No more yo-yoing back and forth. No more question marks as to whether being grain free is the right move or grain free is the wrong move.

 

Look, some people, the reality is some people are not gluten sensitive. Some people react to the pesticides in grains so when they eat grain they get sick, not because of their gluten sensitivity. I always recommend testing so that you can determine whether it’s the right move for you because it is a big diet change, it is a big lifestyle commitment, and it is a big learning curve. I mean frankly for most people going gluten-free or grain-free for the first time it’s a 10 to 12, 14 week learning curve and that, again, you want to have great confidence that it’s the right move for you to do. Hopefully that’s helpful for you.

 

Sophie’s asking what do I think of VSL3 probiotics for celiac disease. I don’t like them and there’s one reason why. I think it’s a great product minus one thing, it’s got corn in it. If you want a great probiotic for celiacs you need Ultra Biotic Defense. Ultra Biotic Defense is my answer to the VSL. It’s a grain-free grown on a non-dairy, non-grain based culture, hearty probiotics, designed to help support the restabilization of the gut flora. Ultra Biotic Defense if you want a high dose, powerful probiotic for a celiac patient.

 

All right, Jane is chiming in from Lakeside Natural Medicine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hello Jane. Thanks for chiming in and saying hello. Let’s see here. Jacque, Graves treated by four rounds of radioactive iodine. Fight hypothyroid now. I also have thyroid eye disease, celiac and DH, Dermatitis Herpetiformis. I think I may have Sjogren’s because I have extremely dry eyes and the worst dry mouth always. I always feel unwell. Where do I start to go on the road to recovery?

 

The first thing you need to do Jacques is get a copy No Grain No Pain and read it from cover to cover and implementing chapter, again, chapter seven and eight. I know I sound like a broken record here but if you … Here’s the reality. You all have, if you’ve listened to me for any extent of time you’ve heard me say this. The average person with one autoimmune disease ends up developing seven if they don’t figure out what causes it. The most common cause of autoimmune disease in my experience is grain consumption, period. Now there are other causes.

 

There are four contributing causes to autoimmune disease. Those four causes very simply put and these are umbrellical, categorical causes. One is food, one is chemicals, one is infection, and another is vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Those are the four categorical causes of autoimmune disease that we know of. Now some would add a fifth category, which is emotional trauma or emotional stress, and that can be true as well, but I’ve yet to see the patient who didn’t have one of those first four in a very, very big way ever make a recovery, unless they dealt with those things.

 

So Jacques, the book No Grain No Pain discusses all of that in detail. Again, it even details out the type of testing that you need to go and ask your doctor to get so that you can move in the right direction, because otherwise you’re going to play the game of new autoimmune disease of the month club and that’s not a game that you want to play.

 

All right, Christy from Bettendorf, Iowa. Husband can no longer donate blood after Red Cross found antibodies. Doctor checked for anemia, leukemia, and lupus. Also, checked his thyroid. They said everything was normal. He’s tired all the time and brain fog. He eats fairly healthy. He does eat grains and dairy. Should he stop? Boy, I’m going to sound like a broken record again. Christy, take the advice that I just gave Jacque, honestly. I don’t know what kind of antibodies that they found in his blood. That would be helpful to know as well, like what were the type of antibodies that Red Cross found when he was donating blood to discern where to begin and what to look out a little bit more aggressively.

 

What could make TPO and TgAb, that’s thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin antibodies, that’s what those stand for, skyrocket. Grain, dairy, and soy free. Infection probably in my experience anyway infection, particularly yeast is one of the more common causes of elevations in thyroid antibodies. But also there are a few species of bacteria infections in the gut that can do it, because they can trigger what’s called a molecular mimicry to your thyroid. That would be Klebsiella and Pseudomonas. Those two types of bacteria oftentimes in the gut, again, very, very commonly present and associated and linked to elevation in thyroid antibodies. Other things can do it as well, selenium deficiency is a common cause of elevation in thyroid antibodies. So you might consider some selenium.

 

All right, that looks like we’re at a wrap. Again, I want to encourage you all to visit, if you haven’t, nograinnopainbook.com. Again, if you go grab your copy from that website instead of Amazon or Barnes & Noble or a major book carrier, we’re going to send you a free leaky gut guide with that. If you don’t have a copy and you want to get that free leaky gut guide, buy it from that website. That way we can take better care of you.

 

The other thing I want to make sure that you all do is tune in again next week. We’ll be back next Friday for live and it’ll be … Actually no, I won’t be back next week. We’ll probably do an earlier day, so pay attention for the announcement because I’m probably going to do an earlier live next week and not on Friday because I’m going out of town. Got some traveling that I’m going to be doing. Again, stay tuned for that update.

 

In the meantime make sure you share this with somebody you love and shoot me some love. Let me know that you like what I’m talking about. Hit the like button and let me know that you’re enjoying these conversations and these talks. Also, make sure you send me topics. If there’s something that you really want me to see cover in a future show, we’re open to your ideas. I’m here to serve you. I’m here to help you. Send me your topics and send me what you’d like to hear me talk about next. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. We will see you next week. Take care.

 

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