Dhru Purohit Show - #237: 3 Steps to Reverse Autoimmune Disease with Dr. Terry Wahls

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

3 Steps to Reverse Autoimmune Disease | This episode is brought to you by BLUblox and Paleovalley. In health and medicine, we must always be willing to look deeper. We can’t give up on looking for healing solutions just because we’ve always been told a disease is progressive and incurable.  That’s one of the many reasons I’m so inspired by today’s guest on The Dhru Purohit Podcast. Dr. Terry Wahls received a diagnosis of secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and, instead of accepting a rapid decline in her function and quality of life, dove headfirst into looking for answers with long-lasting results. Dr. Wahls didn’t buy into the limits defined by her diagnosis and has completely changed the future of MS research and treatment options in the process.   Dr. Terry Wahls is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa where she conducts clinical trials. In 2018, she was awarded the Institute for Functional Medicine’s Linus Pauling Award for her contributions in research, clinical care, and patient advocacy.  Dr. Wahls was confined to a tilt-recline wheelchair for four years. She restored her health using a diet and lifestyle program she designed specifically for her brain and now pedals her bike to work each day. She is the author of The Wahls Protocol: A Radical New Way to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions Using Paleo Principles, and the cookbook The Wahls Protocol Cooking for Life.   In this episode, we dive into:  -Dr. Wahls’ story of being diagnosed with MS and how her transformation happened (7:42)  -How conventional medicine looks at health and disease vs. Functional Medicine (16:13)  -How to uncover the root cause of an autoimmune condition (23:01)  -The role toxin exposure plays when it comes to autoimmune conditions (34:30) -Signs that an autoimmune condition is brewing (39:06) -The first thing to think about when addressing an autoimmune condition (41:13)  -How eating 9+ cups of vegetables a day had a huge role in turning around Dr. Wahls’ health (51:38)  -The healing benefits of organ meats (59:51)  -Practical ways to increase vegetable consumption (1:09:45)  -What role anti-nutrients might play when it comes to autoimmune conditions (1:12:09)  -What Dr. Wahls’ diet looks like on a daily basis (1:16:27)  -The power of movement when it comes to healing an autoimmune condition (1:23:27)  -Figuring out your why as you begin your healing journey (1:33:10)    Also mentioned in this episode: -The Autoimmune Intervention Mastery Course - https://terrywahls.com/aim/   -Radical Health Upgrade Program - https://terrywahls.com/radicalhealthupgrade/   -Conquer Your Autoimmune Condition - Free Five Day Challenge - https://terrywahls.com/5daychallenge/  -Defying All Odds Documentary - https://defyingalloddsmovie.vhx.tv/checkout/defying-all-odds-72-mins/purchase?code=wahlsrecoveryjourneyaug2021   -US Wellness Meats - Organs and Organ Sausages - https://grasslandbeef.com/organs-organ-sausages   -MS Clinical Trials - https://wahls.lab.uiowa.edu/ For more on Dr. Wahls you can follow her on Instagram @drterrywahls, on Facebook @terrywahls, on Twitter @terrywahls, on YouTube @terrywahls, and through her website https://terrywahls.com. Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter - https://dhrupurohit.com/newsletter. This episode is brought to you by BLUblox and Paleovalley. Right now BLUblox is offering my listeners 20% off, just go to blublox.com/dhru and use code DHRU at checkout.   Right now they’re offering my listeners 15% off their entire first order. Just go to paleovalley.com/dhru to check out all their clean Paleo products and take advantage of this deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wherever you are, in whatever your health state is in, there is so much that you can do to turn things around. If I can come back, then so can you. There is so much that is under your control. If you haven't noticed already, I'm pretty obsessed with optimizing my sleep. Over the past few years, I've been incorporating simple, affordable techniques to guarantee a great night's sleep. What took me a while to learn when I first got started was that my daytime habits were affecting my ability to get deep rest, namely screen time. But let's be real, there's no way around screen time for many of us who operate our whole lives with a laptop or phone, myself included. The key is to minimize the effects of blue light or junk light, which actually suppresses

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health trend since, hats off to my parents and grandparents, they always seem to know. how powerful it was. Now, as I've gotten older and researched more into brain health, I was really interested to see that many of my guests have talked about the fact that India had some of the lowest rates traditionally of Alzheimer's anywhere in the world, which many of them thought, and as I've dug into it, I looked into it a little bit more and found the same, that this came from regularly eating anti-inflammatory foods and spices like turmeric. There are actually over 2,700 studies on turmeric showing more than 600 different benefits like fighting inflammation, DNA protection, workout recovery, circulation, brain protection, and so much more. But I know when I was a kid,

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brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Dr. Terry Walsh. How do you go from being banned from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to a few years later, receiving a million dollar grant to pursue your research in the world of treating autoimmune conditions and getting to the root so you can help people feel better? Well, today's guest knows all about that because she's a pioneer in this field. Dr. Terry Walls is an Institute for Functional Medicine certified practitioner and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa where she conducts clinical trials. In 2018, she was awarded the Institute of Functional Medicine's Linus Pauling Award for her contributions in research, clinical care, and patient advocacy. She's also a patient with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, which confined her to a wheelchair for four, years. Dr. Walls restored her health using a diet and lifestyle protocol she designed specifically for her condition and now she pedals her bike to work each and every day. But her Walls protocol,

which is what we're going to be talking about today, we're going to be doing a step-by-step walkthrough of the Walls protocol doesn't just work for individuals with progressive MS, as Dr. Terry Walls had. It also works for all sorts of autoimmune conditions. And get this, if you are in the pre-automune category where you have autoimmune like symptoms but you don't have a diagnosis the protocol works fantastic and there's tons of anecdotal evidence from individuals from all around the globe who have practiced it that's why we're talking about it on today's podcast dr walls is the author of the walls protocol a radical new way to treat all chronic autoimmune conditions using paleo principles and she's the author of the cookbook the walls protocol cooking for

If you've ever wanted a deep step-by-step walk-through of her protocol, that's today's interview. Stay tuned. Dr. Terry Walls, welcome back to the Drew Perot podcast. I'm so honored to have you here. Your first interview that we did together was a huge hit, almost 400,000 views. I'm looking to build on that with today's conversation. I just covered your amazing transformation in our intro story, but I think that's a great place to start off with. Tell us, Dr. Wall.

how this transformation happened and where it all got started. You know, so let's go back 20 years. I'm out walking with my wife, Jackie. A half mile from home, my left leg grows weak. Dragging it, I hobble home. The neurologist says, Terry, this could be bad or really, really bad. At night, I think about my zingers, the jolts of electrical face pain that have been growing relentlessly worse for 20 years.

And Drew, I'm praying secretly for a fatal diagnosis. Three weeks later, I hear multiple scrosis. Three years later, I hear tilt-reclined wheelchair. I take Novanchot infusions, then tisabri infusions, but nothing helps. I am too weak to set up at my desk. I go back to reading the basic science, and I begin experimenting on myself. I add supplements. I discover the paleo diet, but

but I continue the relentless decline. It is somewhat slower. Then I discover the Institute for Functional Medicine. I have a longer list of supplements. And I discover electrical stimulation of muscles and ask my physical therapist, can I try that? It's called e-stem. My test session hurts bad.

But when it's over, I feel great and I begin doing e-stem to as much pain as I can tolerate. My physicians say functions once lost will not come back because I have secondary progressive mucrosis. I had meditation. I redesigned my paleo diet based on all the science that I have learned and I have studied for years. And three months later, I sit at my desk and my zingers are gone.

Six months later, I walk without a cane. And then for the first time at six years with my son, Zach, jogging alongside on the left, my daughter Zeb on the right, I'm on my bike biking. And Drew, this transforms how I think about disease and health, the way I practice medicine, and the focus of my research. And, you know, 10 years later, I received the Lymeus Pauline Award for my groundbreaking clinical research. And just last month, we had the results published of our fourth clinical trial. It's just been so exciting and exhilarating to see what is possible. You know, that word possibility is the best word ever,

because that's what people who are listening and watching this interview are looking for. They're looking for a sense of hope. They're looking for a sense of possibility because having an autoimmune condition or even feeling like you're on your way in that direction can be so debilitating. It can impact your mindset. And when well-meaning, right, well-meaning individuals, researchers, organizations, societies tell you that there's nothing that can be done except for a Hail Mary pass for further research one day, we'll come up with some maybe cure. It's very debilitating. It can be very discouraging.

So that's what this interview is about. It's about possibility. And I appreciate you continuing to tell your story out there because that's what you're giving individuals. And there's actually a documentary that's made about your life, too. We're going to talk about that later on. For anybody that wants the next version after this interview, I highly recommend this documentary. It's so well put together. But Terry, let's start from the basics from there, right?

Let's start from the basics and really build our way up. You know, you mentioned your clinical research on the Wall's Protocol. And, you know, I have your book here with me, the Walls Protocol, the updated version, the revised and expanded. It's a fantastic resource. And in today's interview, we're going to be. going through it step by step to talk about what people can do. But I want to start off the basics. Help people understand, you know, with what you've created in the Walls Protocol, at the time

you started, this came from your own trial and error in your own life. And then years later, through building up your research, it is, is it fair to say, the most researched protocol when it comes to intervening for folks that have autoimmune and specifically MS? Well, certainly if you want to use diet as part of your treatment and wellness plan, the Wall's protocol is the most extensively studied diet of any groups out there. We've had four clinical trials. I have another clinical trial going on right now, the fifth one. And we'll be getting ready to start the sixth one later this fall.

So we've had hundreds of people go through. you know, and consistently what we find is people can make very big changes to their diet. And consistently, we find people reporting improved energy, improved mental clarity, improved mood. And over time, if they're also adding in exercise in the other self-care routines, then they will begin to see improvements in. in motor function as well. You know, and Drew, I want to be very clear, this is more than MS. When I was in the VA, we had such, and I was first using these principles in the traumatic

brain injury clinic where there is no treatment for traumatic brain injuries other than just wait, watch, and see what happens. And I came in and said, wait, there's a lot we can do. let's address all the modifiable lifestyle factors. And people who I saw, you could tell that they were less irritable, they had less brain fog, they could get along better with their coworkers, their family, and, you know, they're coming back and they're improving. That led ultimately to the VA, the local VA, asking me to pull me out of primary care

and create the therapeutic lifestyle clinic, where we use those principles in that clinic. And I went to the VA, to the pain clinic, to medicine clinics, and even to mental health and said, give me your most difficult cases. The people you cannot help. The people, but you let them know, I'm not giving them drugs. We're going to be using diets and lifestyle,

things that are under their control. you will continue to manage their drugs, but I'll inspire them and will help them make these changes. So the most common problems or symptoms were pain, fatigue, low mood, irritability, with a wide variety of root causes, you know, diabetes, autoimmune problems, anxiety, depression, degenerative problems, cognitive decline, and of course, a wide variety of autoimmune problems. But very consistently, as we help people implement basically the wall's diet and our self-care routines, within the first month, people would come back and say, for the first time, I'm beginning to feel better.

It's not that they were fully recovered, but they could tell their energy was a little bit better. Their mental clarity was a little bit better. Their quality of life was better. And eventually I was giving reports to the chief of medicine, the chief of the pain clinic. They had me three months because we're having success success. Then I started giving my reports to the chief of staff and the hospital administrators, again, because I was having so much success. No, that's a great point.

And an important point for anybody watching is that you may have come in because autoimmune was in the title or you saw Terry's story about MS, but really this is a protocol that can help on a broad spectrum of things. And that really goes to this larger idea that you open up your book with, which is that we have to understand that there's a little bit of a difference in terms of how conventional medicine sees disease and functional medicine, which you're a big proponent of and practice and have integrated into your walls protocol and now it's become its own thing. There's a difference in the way that they look at health. and disease. Can you talk about that basic core difference and then go a little bit more

deeper into specifically autoimmune since we're talking about that here? So in the conventional world, we spent a huge amount of dollars and resources understanding pathogenesis. What is the specific molecular pathways that are broken leading to disease? And so we might have drugs to treat antibiotics, which are really very effective. And we have drugs to control symptoms for a wide variety of disease states. We've never spent much money understanding what are the molecular processes with healing and repair. what in my own recovery, I would say the big turnaround was when I decided, you know what, I should just focus on what are the things that I can do that the research says are helpful

for improving health. So when I focused less on disease, yeah, I still taking conventional drugs at that time, like, okay. So I quit searching for better treatments for disease. And I started searching for better treatments for health. That's when I got into the meditation. That's when I'm reading all I can about diet, nutrition. First, I'm focused in on supplements.

I've discovered functional medicine that's talking about mitochondria, which I really loved. and they're talking about the root causes of why we develop problems with their microbiome, why we develop problems with their immune cells, why we have problems with toxic overload, hormonal imbalance. That was very appealing. But, you know, the magic for me, Drew, was when I... thought about my diet and my long list of supplements. I'd been on a paleo diet by that point, five years.

Basically the autoimmune protocol, really focused on what to remove, not so focused on what to be sure I was eating. The magic happened, Drew, when I said, you know, all these supplements I've taken to support my mitochondria, support my detox pathways, and your support your support, you'll support the and of Kappa B and better epigenetic changes. Where are those compounds in the food supply? And how could I get those compounds still following the paleo principles? So now, by the way, was several more months of research trying to figure out where they were.

My dietician friends couldn't help me out. And I went to our health science library. I was doing some searching there, the Linus and Pauling, Micronutrient Center was very helpful. So it was in December of 2007 that I had this list of these food stuff that I wanted to be emphasizing. And it was December 26th that I began this very intentional of what I need to eat to get, all these nutrients that identified as key. And then it was the month of

January that I was like, you know, my fatigue is less. My mental clarity is less. And my trigymal neural neuralgia is much less of a problem. And so, you know, four weeks into this, it was very clear like,

wow, something is happening. And then, you know, three months, months later, I'm walking without a cane down the hallway. My colleagues are like, Dr. Walls, what happened? You're walking. Because you were, as we showed in the beginning, with the before and after photo, at your lowest, you were in a wheelchair. Well, and it's even worse to be in a wheelchair. I was so weak. I could not sit up in over a good chair like this. I had a zero gravity chair in my office.

I end here at home so I could recline back with my knees higher than my nose. So in my trigemial neurologer was progressively more severe, much more difficult to turn off. It had gotten to the point so I was at the maximum dose of gabapentin. When it turned on I'd go in to that pain clinic could get injections back over the occipital nerve. and that wasn't enough. Then, so the last round that I had, it had turned on. I was getting my injections. They had given me saliomedrol.

It took three doses of saliomederal, one gram, to get it turned off. Then the next time it came, it took five doses of saliomedrol. And so, you know, at that point, it drew, The trajectory of my illness was very clear. I was on track to become bedridden, probably demented, or possibly, and quite possibly have that trigidymolarylurelure turned permanently on. And that was, you know, while it's on, a breeze on your face triggers the jolt of pain, speaking triggers it, swallowing triggers it.

I no longer want to swallow. And so I'm drooling because swallowing triggers the pain. And it's profoundly difficult to speak because speaking triggers pain. You know, I want to add some contacts and some layers that are here because, you know, you talked about how bad things were for you. And, you know, if we look at the stats, things are getting bad for a lot of people or they're heading in that direction. Autimmune conditions are on the rise.

So help us understand. layer and the difference between functional medicine and, you know, sort of conventional medicine, give us the contrast and understanding of why does autoimmune disease happen? What happens? You know, if you go to most people, because they hear you teasing out diet, if you go to most people, you go to Times Square, you go here in California where I live, you go to Hollywood, you pick up a few people off the street that are there and you're like, hey, do you live a healthy lifestyle? You know, most people, obviously, they have their own definition of what it is. They're going to say, I think I live a healthy lifestyle. So tell us what is going on in modern

society that autoimmune conditions are on the rise in the way that they are. And I want to point out, I had a great healthy lifestyle, regular exercise, and I was a vegetarian, low fat diet, very low fat. So people would have said that this was a phenomenally healthy lifestyle. But for me, you know, clearly was not sufficient. The body, when we are encountering insults, that can be infection, toxins, it can be hormonal imbalance, trauma. When we have these insults, we can either create oxidative stress, we can create inflammation. And when we resolve the infection or the trauma, then we go back and heal, restore the damaged tissues, and we're healthy.

When we have too many insults that we cannot fully recover, that is when chronic disease develops. So for most people with an autoimmune problem, we've had probably decades, at least several years, but for many decades of the autoimmune processes that are slowly building where damage is happening at the cellular level. People have fatigue, they have pain, they may have chronic migraines, chronic headaches, women may have severe mental cramps, pain, endometriosis, infertility. We may discover that we have low levels of anti-nuclear antibodies. That's been going on for years, and all of those things, in fact, had been happening to me. Before, why I finally started, and then, you know, I started having the Detroit juvenile neurology during medical school.

I had infertility and had a severe endometriosis, had positive ANA, but not high enough to make a diagnosis of lupus or R.A. And then I developed weakness in my left leg, had my MRI, my spinal tap, in the MS diagnosis. But the symptoms began probably as an adolescent. And the triggers began much, much earlier. So, you know, very early in my life, my sister died when I was nine. So that's, you know, a big adverse childhood event. That's a big trauma in somebody's life. Huge trauma for my family.

Earlier than that, when I was three, I had recurrent tonsillitis and a tonsillectomy. So there's a big dysbiosis. problem, the adverse childhood event, and probably I had developed a leaky gut, developed food sensitivity to gluten. And during adolescence, I began having troubles with migraines in mild asthma and really severe menstrual cramps that was probably developing endometriosis at that point. So my autoimmune processes, I bet, began. And with the early antibiotics, that's disrupted the microbiome,

accelerated by the adverse childhood events, and then had this long proton. And for all of you who may be in that proton phase, if you understand the diet and the lifestyle, it's very, very possible that we can stop the autoimmune process. processes entirely, reverse everything entirely, and get all of the labs back to not detectable, and regress many of the disease processes. For your audience members who have an autoimmune disease, who may have significant disability,

there's every reason to have hope for the possibilities. I mean, I had immense disability. I had immense levels of pain. I was too weak to sit out. But I was able to have dramatic, dramatic change in a year's time. But with intense work with my physical therapist, intense, thoughtful nutrition that focused now on what to eat as opposed to just what to remove. know, all of the other, you know, very thoughtful, modifiable lifestyle factors that I zeroed out on. Because, Drew, I did all of that not to recover because I knew, you know, my physicians were very clear. You cannot recover your progressive MS. I was doing all that, all that I could, to slow my decline. I did not think that I would be sitting up or walking or jogging or by. Yeah, at that time, the greatest dream was if I could at least slow the decline, maybe I could

show up better for not only yourself, but your family, but you love so dearly. And you were able to, of course, as we know, because the punchline was shared in the beginning, you were able to surpass that. And now in full hero's journey, you're taking what you've learned back to folks saying that, you know, great, if you have an autoimmune disease, there's hope. and I'm going to give that to you, and I'm going to show you what's there. I'm going to show you the research, and I'm going to give you the protocol. But even for the bigger group that's in that sort of what we call pre-Alzheimer's phase,

the proto phase that you mentioned earlier, it's so important to understand. You know, the contrast, again, to bring it back to the last question, is that how does conventional and functional medicine look at things differently? Well, functional medicine, and especially through the lens of the walls protocol, understands that it's not one thing that caused autoimmune to happen in a particular person. There could be a primary area, but it's not one cause for everybody. Everybody's different. So there's not going to be one solution.

Yet right now, still pervasively in medicine, there's the vision that there's looking for the silver bullet that can fix an autoimmune condition specifically, even though there's a little bit more open-mindedness. You know, people are starting to open their eyes a little bit. but they're still looking for the silver bullet to fix it, and there's no silver bullets. We have to look at the total aspect of it all. So I want to pick up on something that you shared earlier

because I think that distinction is huge. Can you name the most common from what you've seen based on your journey? You gave us a little bit of a summary, but just so that we have it here, what are the most common pillars or rather pathways to introduce, you know, an autoimmune type of response in the body. So one of them you mentioned earlier was when our gut gets, you know, pretty messed up,

could be from antibiotics, diets, not having the right foods. And sometimes it's referred to as like, you know, molecular mimicry. Would you say that that's one of the pathways? You know, that's a very, very common pathway, is that you're growing the wrong bacteria and yeast. in your bowels. And so that's going to make toxic metabolites that get into your bloodstream that can rev up your inflammation. Plus, if you get a leaky gut, then these partially digested food proteins get into your bloodstream. And that can also rev up your inflammation

and cause sensitivity to more food proteins. So you develop more intolerances. In my case, gluten, dairy, and eggs, severe reactions to those. And then you can have these foods and the bacteria in the yeast, interact with your immune cells directly. So now my immune cells are imbalanced and may be more reactive, more aggressive, a more pro-inflammatory. That is a huge, huge driver. But there are other drivers too, too. Vitamin D.

You know, we spend most of our time inside. We work inside. We do our recreation inside. And often when we go outside, you know, we're covered up in clothes. And even if we take our clothes off, because we're going to go a sunbathe or do some sports, we are likely upon sunscreen to protect ourselves against the harmful UV

radiation because we don't want to have damage to our skin without realizing that by covering up our skin or by using sunscreen, that also prevents our skin from being able to make enough vitamin D. So there is an epidemic of low vitamin D levels. If your vitamin D level is a vitamin D level, is low, there is a much higher rate of autoimmune disease processes into actually a wide variety of other chronic health problems as well. Another factor has to do with the synthetic chemicals that I may have in my body, for example, if I have lead or mercury or a lot of plastics in my body, in my body, for example, if I have lead or mercury, in my blood. I am more likely to have problems with a autoimmune process. And just to

intervene, just to connect the story together, anybody who's watched our first interview, which you haven't, you know, definitely watched that after this. You talked about growing up on a farm and being exposed to a lot of different pesticides as a child. And pesticides can be one of those toxic components that now cause all sorts of havoc in the body in addition to mercury that people could get from consuming, you know, too much large fish quantity, you know, in the in the diet. But primarily it looks like most people, if they're not occupationally getting it from being in sort of a hazardous work environment, looks like dental amalgam fillings that might have some mercury could be one pathway. We've done some episodes on that. So,

I just wanted to connect it back to your story because here you are a young woman who had trauma in her life from losing her sister. Growing up in an environment where you're exposed to, you know, pesticides that are there. Missing out, I don't know. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. Let's talk about air quality. Yes, please, please. So in Iowa, atrazine is in the groundwater. So atrazine, again, is a common herbicide.

that's been since banned. We also have what's going in the air. When I was very young, both of my parents were smokers. And think about now what is the air quality in your community? What is the air quality now with all of these wildfires that are going across many parts of the world because of changes in the climate, that we have these large, large fires that increase particular air pollution.

These compounds increase auto-antibodies and will accelerate a autoimmune disease process. Which basically means just so everybody's falling along. And if you have a better analogy, please jump in. You're the expert. I'm just asking questions. But it basically means that, you know, we've talked a lot during the, the COVID-19 pandemic of, you know, people want to increase their immune system, boost their immune system. Well, really, you want immune system that's at the right level, not overreactive and

underreactive. And if we're talking about autoimmune, which we are here, and let's say you have a lot of toxins, then you have some stealth viral infections, which also now they're understanding that COVID virus can live stealth inside the body and show up and rear its head when somebody's vulnerable, but all these things are insults and they ramp up the immune system. So your immune system becomes overreactive and then, yeah, I can trigger over years an autoimmune, you know, diagnosis. Correct. Let's talk about sleep. Please. I was a very ambitious, hardworking young person. And also my entire life, I've been easily activated so that it'd be hard to fall asleep, wake up early, hard to fall back to sleep. And I thought, well, that's fine. There's a lot I want

to do, you know, books to read, papers to write. And so I thought it was fine to get by with four hours of sleep a night. Well, it does not find to have only four hours of sleep a night. inadequate sleep is a common common problem for people with autoimmunity and people in that pre that that pro domes state you know actually for for many people I hear in America and the Western world we're not sleeping enough in that increases our vulnerability absolutely and just to connect those dots pro dome right pro dome is that area that you're talking about you may not have a diagnosis, but it's the buildup. What's going on subclinically where your marker still may be off? You don't feel good. You're noticing things that don't even necessarily look like they could become

autoimmune until you hear interviews like this, but you are just not feeling good and you're not in an optimal state and you feel lethargic. You feel maybe tired. You feel like you can't focus. If you're a woman, your menstrual cycle is maybe not, you know, in the best place. You have really severe PMS symptoms. If you are a man, you could even be suffering from erectile dysfunction. So what are the things that are happening that are an indication that you're on your way to unfortunately something tragic happening if we don't get a chance to interview? If as you reflect on your life, are your symptoms gradually getting worse? Are you having more fatigue? Do you need higher and higher doses of caffeine to get through

the day. Are you exhausted? Are you more irritable, more anxious, more depressed? And if you're honest with yourself, looking back over time, are you feeling like, you know, I'm not as healthy and vigorous as it was two years ago or three years ago? That's certainly very troublesome. And so if you were seeing me as a patient, I would certainly be asking about your health events, your life events, taking you through the functional medicine matrix, trying to identify what are your root causes and what can we do to focus on getting your biological systems in better alignment. And we would try and help you make realistic goals in work step by step at improving your diet, at addressing sleep, if that's an issue, at addressing stress, if that's an issue, at addressing movement. But, you know, we have to make these changes, step by step at a pace where you could actually be successful. I love that word step by step.

I have a feeling that this podcast is probably going to be called somewhere in the title. It's going to be step by step because it's so important to present the possibility. Your story starts the conversation. And that's what you do a great job about because now people are seeing that, whoa, something that I didn't think was possible is now possible. And then gradually, as we start to cover these different pathways or factors, it can seem daunting. And really what you've done with the Wall's protocol is you've made it step by step. So let's start there.

Somebody comes to you and they say, Terry, I'm so inspired by your story. I want to get started down this pathway. You know, what's the first thing to be thinking about and how is that evolved? Your answer over the years as you've worked with more and more patients. Well, you know, interestingly enough, I used to be very, very emphatic that we have to start with your diet, get your diet cleaned up first. And then over time, particularly as I was working with the vets, I came to realize that we have to get the inspiration in the mental game first so that they're willing to do the work. Because whether we start on the diet or perhaps stress or exercise, whenever you change your behavior,

add a new desirable behavior or extinguish an undesirable behavior, it takes effort. It takes work. I'm going to be a little uncomfortable. That's going to take some effort in helping people identify why they want to go on this journey. What is it that I care so much about that I'm wanting to do this work? And then we have a conversation like, when it gets hard, what will be helpful to keep you going? So that's actually step number one. And it was my vets who taught me that.

Then step number two is, okay, so I can tell you what I think is the best diet for you. And we'll talk about stress and movement. And while I would like you to start with diet, I need to know is that where you want to start? Because we have to start where you want to start and where you are willing to do the work. I used to be very emphatic and say, you've got to start on the diet. and I've come to realize for some people, they need to start with a, perhaps a meditative practice instead, or they may need to start with an exercise program because they can be successful there and they aren't ready to be successful with the diet.

When I was emphatic that people had to start where I thought they needed to start, I was not nearly as successful as when I let my patient guide where they wanted to focus first. That's a great reminder for everybody who's listening because we often have an idea in our head of how we want things to go. And in reality, even though we think, okay, I would love to start off with diet because I can maybe even along the process, I can lose a little bit of weight or I can feel a little bit better. But sometimes you have something that can give you more momentum that you can see a quick win on. or sometimes you have a blockage that is so strong, like a traumatic event that happened in your life. And there's not the strength in that moment until something else is addressed or at least given perspective to to then be able to start. So I think it's just a really great reminder because so many people do come in through the pathway of diet because it's naturally something that we interact with three times a day.

What do you think are some of the nuanced thoughts that you really want to introduce to people, especially coming from the place where you were from the way a lot of external people would say, you were doing all the health things. You were vegetarian. You were eating a low fat diet back then. You know, really, that's what a lot of what people were focused on. I switched to the paleo diet. Right.

And I was, so no grain, no dairy. I'd reintroduced meat. That was a big deal. But I still declined for the next five years, although it was more slowly than when I was a vegetarian. So the paleo diet wasn't enough. For me, I think I was so, so ill. I mean, and clearly, I was.

I was profoundly ill. And it was when I focused on what to eat. So, Drew, I will tell people which diet, I think, is the most therapeutic for them. But then I'll follow up with. So that's a big change from what you're eating now. Whatever we're going to have you do, I want to be sure you can be 100% successful, that you can actually do this ideally for the next three months. And then we have a conversation.

Do they think they can do it? And if they can't, then we negotiate what it is they think they could do at 100% and for what time period so that they can be successful with the intervention that they're willing to do. And for some folks, they're like, you know, your walls level one, it just sounds too hard. And so we might do a Mediterranean diet first. or they might say even that's too hard. And so then we talk about, okay, how far could you go with taking sugar out of your diet?

So there's sort of a pre-walls work that people may do. But if they can do at least the walls level one, which is gluten-free, dairy-free, preferably egg-free, at least for a couple of weeks, and ramping up the vegetables so that they can begin. to feel like, okay, something's happening. And that was the approach I take with my vets. You know, if they're going to be in our group classes with me, they'd have to commit to 100% for 100 days, no gluten, and no dairy,

and the goal of nine cups of vegetables a day. And it was very funny, my vets would say, like, so that nine cups, is that a month? So no, no, no, that's a day. We'd have these conversations like, oh, my God. So for the vets, and if they were meat eaters, the basic recipe I would give them to say, okay, take a couple pieces of bacon, fry them in the skillet to the desired level of dundas, take the bacon out, put your vegetables in, stir it around for two minutes, and you chop up your bacon and have your vegetables.

And if the vegetables are bitter, add a tablespoon of lemon juice, and if they're still bitter, double the bacon and try again. And we would make bacon and greens for them. I would have them eat the kale raw, So I understood like, yep, that's really quite better. We'd cook the bacon and greens together, serve that. And they'd go like, oh, my God, that is delicious. So that made it possible for them to realize vegetables could in fact be delicious.

You see, when we went low fat, by taking away the fat, these strong flavored vegetables had become bitter. Yeah, you're talking about just to interject, you're talking about the society. When the society went through the low-fat craze, please continue. I just wanted to make sure people knew that you weren't talking about your protocol. You were talking about society, particularly in America. Society went low-fat in the 1960s. It took a generation of children and families away from vegetables

because the vegetables were so bitter. Then you could sort of compensate with a lot of sugar to try and make it more tolerable. And unfortunately, the consequence was the vegetable consumption went way down. Sugar consumption went way up. Obesity rates went way up. Mental health problems went way up. Autoimmune issues went way up. It is actually a very interesting paper that recently was reading about the differences between vegetables with a strong flavor in terms of a higher polyphenol content.

and a more favorable impact on epigenetic markers with lower inflammation markers. So there's a huge benefit for us for having these strongly flavored vegetables and foods. What I love about the point you just shared is that it's not just about what not to eat, although that's part of the conversation. You just listed three things there that are very important specifically for people that are dealing with autoimmune. but even if people who are dealing with, you know, some symptoms that would be on their way to autoimmune if they don't have a diagnosis. And you talk about gluten, dairy, and eggs. But you also said it's not just about what we remove. It's about what we add in. And from our last interview, and you hinted at it a little bit, I remember really two to three foods that are so underrated and missing in our society. And yet they were a game changer for you. One you already mentioned, which was, bitters. The next one you you talked about, which was the quantity of fiber, which parallels into bitters, right? So that nine cups of vegetables, you know, a day, not a month, a day. And then the

other one that we didn't chat about was organ meat. Now, we'll get to organ meat in a second because you were a big proponent of that. And especially, I felt very motivated myself. I was a lifelong vegetarian all the way up until the age of 20, 26, 27 years old, even being vegan for many years, thinking that I was doing the right thing for me. And at some point in time, what was working great stopped working. Even though I didn't have autoimmune, even though I didn't have anything like that, I had severe gastrointestinal issues and I started looking elsewhere. And that's when I found functional medicine. So we'll get to organ meat in a second. But I want to tease out the nine cups of vegetables, which is a core central point.

part of your protocol. Help us understand. You know, why is our grandmother's advice of eating your veggies, but with fat, so crucial to the part of recovery for your journey and many other people? Well, you know, it was interesting when I started really focused on what I need to be eating. And I ramped up my greens in such a huge way. And I just had this immense craving for greens. And I just add in, there's onions, cabbage, mushroom family, and then things that are deeply colored. And as I taught my vets how to do this, it's mostly a male practice.

I didn't want them hungry. So I said, you know, six to 12 ounces of meat, and then nine cups of vegetables, and then go back to eating your meat. So the goal was to not have people be hungry. If someone's very petite, you know, 4 foot 11, she's not going to be able to eat nine cups. So my advice to her is, you know, get in your two palm-sized servings of meat and then greens, the sulfur category and the colored category proportionally. That way, they're getting some of the polyphenols. they're getting all those carotenoids. And could I interject for a second?

A lot of people have heard this word polyphenols, and they may not be understanding like what's happening as a mechanism in the body. Why are these colors that are part of vegetables and fruits? And the ones that you recommend, especially for people in the Walls Protocol, like the ones that are sort of lower in lectins and other things, maybe less likely to cause gut irritation, why is it like what's actually happening in the body and specifically in the gut that these these polyphenols are actually doing well we are getting closer to understanding this

through metabolomics what's happening is we eat this food the trillions of bacteria in our bowels also eat the food that we've eaten and then they metabolize it and they metabolize each other's metabolites. These compounds get into our bloodstream, and we're now beginning to measure the metabolome, that is, the further metabolites, tens of thousands of metabolites that are in the stool, the tears, the blood, the urine, vaginal secretions. And we're looking at these some of the pathways, are pathways that you and I can run because they're part of human physiology. But there are also a lot of compounds that you and I can't run the chemical reactions. It is the bacteria in our bowels that are running these chemical reactions on the food that we

eat and these compounds get into our bloodstream. And we're now beginning to understand how these bacterial metabolites get into our bloodstream and what the relationship is between those metabolites and the risk of heart disease, the risk of cancer, the risk of infection, the risk of mental health, that's not good mental health, and the risk of autoimmunity. There will be further and further research. These polyphenols, these carotenoids, are substrates for all of these molecular reactions that will happen with, with our bacteria. We are an ecosystem.

And our ancestral mothers and our fathers, but this is really a maternal line, there would be random mutations that occur because that occurs in line. And if the mutation for a step was no longer effective, but our bacterial bacteria that in our gut could still do that. step. That was at that point, that molecular pathway, the genetic information for that step,

got exported from our ancestral mother to her ancestral microbiome. And that's how you and I have about 25,000 genes, but we have about 5 million genes from all of the microbes in our gut. And it's a rich diet full of diverse plants without a lot of sugar, without a lot of processed food that feeds the microbiome to get all those metabolites that we need for optimal health. That's what those polyphenols are doing for us. That's what all those carotenoids are doing for us. And that's why the foods that are so helpful

are herbs, the strong flavored, flavored fruits and vegetables because the things that are sweet and starchy have been cultivated and bred to be sweet and starchy. And those useful compounds that have been feeding our microbiome that are so helpful for how we run the chemistry of life are present in diminishing amounts in these vegetables and fruits have been bred for sweetness and for weight and size. Yeah, which is really actually interesting. I remember hearing a report on NPR about the challenge that modern banana farmers are facing in Hawaii.

Because the banana, it has been so hybridized and bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Mother Nature always likes an equilibrium. And one of the challenges with modern banana plants because of how they've been bred is that they're so susceptible to viruses. because a lot of the minerals that were normally part of them that helped them weight off bacteria and viruses are no longer there. And instead, they have more sugar content. So it's very difficult to keep these trees alive in the first place because they're so sensitive to pathogens and viruses.

And in a similar way, we're seeing this with ourselves as human beings. If we become too sweet on the inside, our metabolic health isn't good. Our blood sugar is too high. We don't have all the key nutrients that are there to protect ourselves and more importantly, you know, even our bacteria. We start to become vulnerable to opportunistic things, even like COVID-19. You know, and the USDA has monitored the vitamin and mineral content of beef, chicken, apples, and a couple more vegetable tomatoes.

I don't spinach maybe there's another vegetables in there and what they have found over the last 75 years is the mineral content has decreased in the plants and the meat the vitamin content has likewise decreased in the plants and the meat the lifespan of a dairy cow is much much shorter and then it was when when you know I was a kid smoking cows because the changes to farming practice? It's all around. The quantity of what we're making is increasing.

The size of what we're making it is often increasing, including the animals, unfortunately, through our factory farming practices, but the quality is missing out. On the topic of quality, I promise we'd come back to it, and that's organ meat. And I want to help folks understand, you know, when I was even a raw foodist, right, I was a raw foodist for a period of time.

And I was a very passionate vegan. I was a very passionate vegan, primarily from animal rights perspective. I grew up vegetarian, so it wasn't a natural extension. When people would bring up, you know, the ancestral origins of organ meat, there was less research around it as there is now. There was less awareness of it. it was like, why would you want to eat an organ of an animal, like especially something like a kidney or liver? That's where all the toxins go through in that animal, you know, the same way that it would go

through in a human being. That would be the thing that you'd want to stay away from. What do we understand now about organ meats and why they can be so essential for people to heal? You know, when I give my talk, Ty FM, I have this great chart that lists the vitamin and mineral content of kale, beef steak, heart, and liver. And what you see is the concentration, so the kale wins vitamin C hands down. Every other nutrient, liver wins hands down.

So they have much, it has more vitamin A. It has more of all of the B vitamins. It has more of all of the minerals, which are more easily absorbed. It is your best source for vitamin B12. It is your best source for co-inzyme Q. Our ancestors prized liver as a superfood. They provide a prized heart as a superfood. And I mean, liver is absolutely a superfood.

However, we'll remind people the goal is six to eight ounces of liver per week. And then I encourage six to eight ounces of other things like oysters, mussels, clams, sardines, particularly if you can get them with the bones. Tongue, incredibly delicious. Liver, pardon me, kidneys also really quite delicious. Don't overdo the liver. If you overdo vitamin A from liver, that takes time. This is a chronic fibrosis of the lungs and of the liver can result.

So 6 to 8 ounces is ideal. Some of the carnivores folks are into a pound plus of liver each week. I'm very concerned that those folks will develop a slow fibrosis. of the lungs and of the liver. We don't have to be treated with transplant. And also in the animal kingdom, you have, for many animals, well documented, is that when a lion finally gets that gazelle or other animals that are out there, even wolves, when the pack and their order of sort of hierarchy goes in, you know, you see that the

digestive organs and those organs, even are. are the most precious for the animal. Something instinctually is in them to go after those things first and then then come back down to the muscle meats. Yeah. Our ancestors, if there was plenty of meat, would leave the muscle meat behind. They would save the organs, but leave muscle meat behind. And so the question is, if I'm worried about toxins, should be worried about the fat.

The toxins are stored in the fat. So be worried about the fatty cuts of meat. Be worried about having a bacon that's far a bigger problem than the liver or the kidneys. The toxins are stored in the fat. That's a great insight and a reminder with toxins being lipophilic. Of course, that makes sense that they're going to be in the fat tissues that are there. And for folks that are in this place where they're like, okay, you know, not just for people who are quote unquote sick or suffering with an autoimmune condition,

but even for people that are looking for optimal health, there's a strong reason for organ meats and including them in your diet. Really, what we're talking about here is that if you can, because a little goes a long way, we're talking about staying away from factory farm meats and really focusing on, you know, grass fed meats or pasture raised meats because if you all, are what you eat, these animals that are grown in factory farm places are eating skittles and corn and crushed candy and, you know, all sorts of stuff that's there. And they're being mistreated, which is, you know, super not a great situation. So really that distinction. What do you

think of, oh, sorry, please jump in. In Iowa, in much of the Midwest, there's a big deer problem. So many communities have controlled hunts and have lockers with venison. And we'll give venison away free to anyone who comes down looking for venison. So one of the strategies that we would talk about with our bets, because I teach them how to do the Wallace Protocol, living on food stamps. And so if people say, like, you know, I can't afford doing the Wall's Protocol. I'm like, well, I was able to teach our bets how to do this living on food stamps. And so using wild gain, using venison was certainly part of that.

And we would teach people how to make some vegetarian meals using a pressure cooker, rice and beans to make things more affordable. And for those people that are still gearing up, you know, I come from a community of, you know, a lot of vegetarians and vegans, you know, friends and family, other things like that. And they're now starting to, not everybody, you know, some people for religious reasons. And again, you can follow the protocol, the Wall's protocol, if you're vegetarian. Right? You got to make a lot of, you know, you got to be very diligent. You got to make up for things where, you know, things are missing out. And you do talk about that and have resources that are there. So we're not here to convince anybody who morally feels that they, you know, want to be vegetarian or vegan. You know, everybody can do this, right? But for the folks that are open minded and are willing to sort of head in that direction, sometimes to say, okay, I'm not yet at the place where I'm transitioning to maybe eat it. What are the, you know, are there, uh, are there, uh, things that are halfway. Like, how do you feel about organ supplements that people are taking? So a couple of things.

It took me a long time to go from, you know, being a vegetarian to eating meat. I started to gradually ease into this. So soups, stews, bone bra to get my digestive system ready to tolerate meat. For those who are ready to begin organ meat, organ meat capsules can be very helpful. learning how to prepare organ meat can be really very helpful. I have some great recipes in my book. Baked chicken liver is incredibly delicious. It's one of my family's favorite, favorite meals.

Lamb liver is very mild. The key is to not overcook it, leave it medium wear. But capsules can be very helpful. And then another helpful strategy is, There are more companies, I believe U.S. Wellness Meats being one of them, that will make an ancestral blend. So they grind up heart, liver, and the ground to make a blend and spice it like a sausage. And that can be really quite lovely. When we were growing up, there was a meat that was Bronschweiger, that was a lovely sandwich spread.

and I had no idea that that basically is a liver spread. People who may have heard of liver worse. Again, sort of a ground liver and ground meat. That was quite delicious. I ultimately, in my own journey, the place that I eventually want to get to, because I really believe in this, I think that if you are, and I'm not saying that other people should believe this, but this is something that I personally believe

and I need to work myself up to it and really have my actions meet my sort of beliefs is that I love the idea and I think the concept of, you know, if you're willing to eat it, you have to also be willing to kill it, a little bit of that Native American philosophy. And I want to get to a place where the only meats that I'm consuming on a regular basis are ones that I've participated in. And I understand what it means to take an animal's life and to have that and the sacrifice that went into it very similar to, you know, a lot of. lot of what you see in the Native American history. I think that's a beautiful way to look at things

and also understand that, you know, you are taking a life because I still think about that thing. I still think about that. And that's part of, you know, nature. That's part of all aspects of it. And it's just to participate in the cycle of nature. And it also makes it more clear the responsibility to have consumed the whole animal. Yes, absolutely. On the other pathway of gearing up, the one question I didn't get a chance to ask you about the fiber side is that Some people that are watching this interview, they are struggling with GI issues, especially if they are on the autoimmune spectrum. And they're thinking, man, I can barely have any fiber without my stomach having abdominal cramping, pain, bloating, or severe discomfort. How do I gear up and build up to a level where I'm having those nine cups of fruits and vegetables every day?

Well, keep in mind, I wrote the book for the public. Well, you know, I can create a protocol that is uniformly fatal for everyone. Those are called poisons. When we're creating something that's to be uniformly healing, now we have to pay attention to the individual. What is their symptom? What are their comorbid problems? And start with the general recommendation and make adjustments depending on that person's circumstances.

So I like to ask people about their bowel movements and their belly complaints. And the questions I ask are, are you pooping rocks, logs, snakes, pudding, or tea? If you've got pudding or tea, you have too much inflammation, and we need to decrease the amount of fiber in your diet. And we're going to be doing soups and stews, more bone broths, Probably very gradually increasing the vegetables. We can't do that until we get your bowel movements back to snakes and logs. And if the snakes are getting into your pants, we still have to back down the fiber until you have control of your bowel movements.

If you're pooping rocks, we need more fiber and more fermented foods. If you're pooping dry logs, we need more fiber and fermented foods. fiber and fermented foods. If you're pooping easily past logs and snakes that you can control, then that's a correct amount of fiber for you. Now we're stressing. Are you getting greens, cabbage family, onion family, mushrooms, and colors? That's a great breakdown.

I think something that people can really use as a practical note to build up. How important is it to pay attention to anti-nutrients when it comes? to personalization of your diet? Oh, sure. So there's a lot of conversation about lectins, about oxalites, about histamines. So this will depend on your issues. In general, people who have problems with histamines are likely having an issue with overgrowth of harmful yeast.

So we need to help address that. And they may need to be on a low histamine diet for a period. while we're addressing that. And likewise, people with oxalate issues, again, that's often tied into a overgrowth of yeast. And so we'll have to address that. It's also much more prevalent in people with autism spectrum disorder. Now, the anti-nutrients and the issue of lectins, and the plant paradox, I wrote a book about that. Lectins are a protein with a sugar side chain.

They are diffuse in the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the fungi kingdom. Even if you stopped eating all plants and fungi, and we're eating only meat, you're still going to have some lectins. So it's not that you can get entirely away from lectins. For some, nightshades are a bigger problem. And the lectins and grains and legumes are a bigger problem. And so, yes, for some, a more restrictive elimination

diet may be very helpful initially. And then we try to expand the diet to the least restricted diet. But you know the comfort that we can go completely lectin-free, the way to do that is, to drink water. Right, which we can't live on for a long time. One more category on the antinutrients, you know, there's ongoing because kale has gotten so much attention. There are some folks that are out there, including some of my friends, and partially it's a joke and partially they're serious about it. They talk about things, not so much anti-nutrients, but, you know, toxicity that comes along with certain plant groups. And in the category of kale, I'm sure you've heard about people talking about like then he's thiamine is uh is going to be one and uh how much are do you pay

attention to that how much do you not pay attention to that and i'm not just talking about kale but when it comes to any classification of um you know plant you know foods and potential uh toxicity that's included along with it so it absolutely true plants are a mixture of compounds that are really great for us and really harmful for us one of the principles key principles I have is diversity of plant species. That I want you to have 200 different plant species in a year. And that greens, for example, if I ate kale, and you know, I'm very fine if I love kale, it's really wonderful. But if I had kale every day, eventually the toxic compounds in kale would probably make me sick. But if I have kale today, lettuce tomorrow, I'm

a bok choy the next day, a big parsley onion cell the next day, and I keep rotating my greens. Now the compounds that are toxic in those plants are not a problem. I can excrete them. Any plant compound that I eat day in and day out, I will have some risk for having a toxic reaction. As long as I am rotating by plants,

It is much, much less of the home. So here we are, you know, summer is towards the latter part of summer. And, you know, that means different things are in season. You get to enjoy different aspects. Talk to us about just for you specifically, everybody wants to know, you know, what is the doctor eating? And you've been very vocal that that changes over a period of time. For example, you've shared online how, you know, you really in the beginning craved greens, Like all the time you crave greens.

And then at one point in time, there was a flip, there was a switch that was flipped, and you weren't craving them as much. And you thought that the message for that was your body was telling you, you maybe filled up those reserves for those nutrients in particular that you were missing before. So what does your diet look like right now in the context of those nine cups of fruits and vegetables that you're trying to get in in a day? Take us through a day right now in the context of summer 2021. People may know that I'm doing more intermittent fasting.

So on yesterday, for example, I would have about 300 calories of a PC pudding, which is some arone berries, fossil to colin, omega-3, omega-6 fatty acids, inulin, cocoa, cocoa, cinnamon, and a host of other spices, and some chia seed. So putting about 300 calories. And that would be all the calories for that day. Then today, I'm having homemade chicken soup. So I've made some broth with the chicken carcass, a bunch of chicken feet. So we have a couple of quarts homemade broth.

We'll use that. We'll use a couple onions, a big, of chopped parsley and carrots, some fresh garden herbs, rosemary and sage that will go in to the soup, bring it all to the summer. And then I'll have my big bowl that'll have my soup in. I'll probably put in two to three cups of chopped parsley in my bowl of soup, and I'll start ladling in my soup.

And if Jackie remembers to bring home some celery, I'll chop some raw celery. We'll dump that in as well. There will also be some zucchini, mushrooms, and red peppers in the soup as well. And I'll have several bowls of soup. I'll probably have a green smoothie. Again, probably with the parsley or lavage as well. And I'll perhaps some green grapes. olive oil in the smoothie.

And I'll have as many bowls of soup and parsley as probably two or three. And so by eating every other day, excuse me, I'm giving myself hormetic stress, which helps with autophagy, helps keep myself young. and if I do a two or three or four day fast or fast or have only like 300 calories a day, so intermittent calorie restriction, then when I do my refeed, then my stem cells come out of my bone marrow into my bloodstream in that refreshions and euthans, my skin, my brain, my heart, my lungs, my blood vessels. And that's my plan, Drew, for living and thriving to 120.

It's a beautiful plan and a good inspiration. You're at this place now where intermittent fasting and fasting is a regular part of your world. How important or not important is that for somebody who's starting from the beginning? How do you, when you're meeting with the v.A and you're sharing with them or you're talking to somebody who just literally picked up your book and is getting started because fasting is so trendy in a good way right now. There's so much research that continues to come out. How important is that to include or potentially not include in the beginning? So in general, my preference is we work on the diet, get them well into walls level one or level two and not worry about fasting. Now,

interestingly, I'll have someone who doesn't want to make it eat. change to their eating pattern for a variety of family reasons. But they could easily skip breakfast. And so they'll have lunch and an early supper. So they do time restricted feeding. And so they start with that. And then they come back to me like, okay, you know, I've been working on my diet where you've gotten rid of the sugar, it's more Mediterranean now. And now I'm ready to do Wells level one. So in general, I prefer you clean up your diet first and then think about time-reserved feeding and fasting. But again, if someone comes to me and says, my family's not going to make any changes, but I'm good with skipping breakfast and doing time-restricted feeding. And sort of gradually

just changing my family's meal plan without their knowing. The key is, You need to listen deeply to your patient and come up with a plan that they're excited about that they could do 100%. Because if you can find something that you can do 100%, you can always then focus on the second domino. It's when people try to do too much, which now goes into behavioral design. They try to do too much. They fall down because it's a lot for anybody.

It's like telling somebody, you know, they haven't been saving for retirement. and all of a sudden saying, you know, in one year you have to save all the money you need for the rest of your retirement. That's going to be a very arduous, if not impossible, task that's there. You're going to get discouraged and then you're going to end up quitting and going back to your lifestyle that you had before. So this is all about making those moves in the right direction, hitting that first domino, which allows us to focus in, get a quick win, and then we can get the next domino after that. We have to have an intervention they can do and that they're excited about. When it comes to getting excited about, you know, one of your, we've talked about diet, we talked about fasting. And as we said in the beginning of the interview, the Walls Protocol is so much more than those things, although those things are a huge, huge baseline foundation and often where people first get started.

When it comes to getting people excited about things, let's talk about the category of movement. How have you found with all the research that's out there on how just for a term that people can normally use exercise, but really we're talking about movement and its benefits that are there, how have you found that you help people get excited about integrating that into their larger protocol? You know, if we can come up with a strategy that fits into their day, whether it is adding more, walking while they're at work or during work, walking with their family. Do they fit it into before work after work? So it's a conversation about what does your day look like? How can we fit it in? And what are the activities that are fun for you? And so it's different for everyone. Driving to a gym takes a lot of time. And that can be hard for people. people to do. Although driving to a gym to meet friends and family, it's a social event, can be immensely

rewarding and fun. Walking with your spouse on a daily basis or with your kids on a daily basis, gives you, or with friends gives you that social contact. So again, it's a conversation with the person, what is fun, and what can fit into your day. I was listening to. It must be. It must be, it must be fun. It must be something they enjoy. Yeah, you have to have some sense of feeling like a draw towards it. Even if it's challenging, it has to be fun. It has to be that fun element that's there. I was listening to a practitioner who was pretty well known. I don't know if you're connected with her or not, but Rhonda Patrick and, you know, writes and shares a lot of things in this space. Actually, yes, I think I saw an interview with you guys from years ago when you were first just starting

off. It might even been before your book was published or was right when your book was published. But Rhonda was recently on the Joe Rogan podcast this week. And I was watching their interview together because I always enjoy, you know, her sharing her knowledge because she's so deeply read. She was sharing the story that, you know, my mom, this is Rhonda talking, Dr. Ronda Patrick. So my mom is in pretty poor health. And it's just so hard, even though I live and breed this, it's so hard to really incorporate any aspect of movement.

So a few years ago, what I decided, again, Rhonda talking about her mom, is that I got her a sauna. And, you know, sometimes, you know, people don't have the means to do that. You can go to a friend sauna. And I thought at least if I could get some good stress, right, the positive stress, same type of stress that comes from, you know, working out in her life on a regular basis, that's at least something. So what are your thoughts about that, that, you know, there's some people that are just

in a place where they just not going to move at all, right? Could there be other options and could sauna be one of those things that they can incorporate? And is there anything else like that? So whenever you're in a sauna or in a hot tub, your blood vessels dilate by the surface of your skin, which increases the blood flow through your heart. That is a very nice, gentle cardiovascular exercise if you tolerate heat. Now, people with MS often do not tolerate heat at all. And so for them, they probably would not tolerate a sauna.

And actually for years, I did very, very poorly with heat and very poorly if I got any kind of federal illness. As I recovered, I tolerated heat. I enjoyed sonnas. I got myself a sauna. And in fact, I take a sauna probably five to six days a week. And I can take it quite comfortably up to 125, 140 degrees. Amazes my neurologist.

but, you know, it's a great hormetic heat stress and it's gentle aerobic exercise. That's great. Is there anything else like that? You know, we're just talking about the tools that are in the toolbox. Are there other things that you have done yourself or recommended to other people that fall in that same category? Cold hermetic stress. So adding a cold shower, taking a cool bath, taking a ice bath.

And this is all, you know, Wimhoff, we'll certainly talk with you about that as well. Again, because we live in controlled environments, air conditioning, central heat, we live in a very, very narrow temperature environment, which has decreased our metabolic resilience. So giving ourselves more exposures to expand the temperature, both of, on the upper and lower end will improve our metabolic resilience. I recommend it very much. I love that. Both great options.

You know, piggybacking off of this topic of metabolic resilience, let's dive deeper into some of your own understandings and emphasis when it comes to, you know, you've always talked about metabolic health with autoimmune, you know, patients or even people that are on their way. But even more so recently, we were chit-chatting before and you were talking about, you know, the importance of blood sugar and balanced blood sugar as one of those things to pay attention to in addition to, you know, what not to eat, what are the superfoods to eat, you know, how does blood sugar, which then connects to metabolic health and insulin sensitivity,

how does that make autoimmune better or worse? People with a serious autoimmune condition are much more likely to have insulin resistance, central obesity, pre-diabetes, and diabetes, and also heart disease. If we have insulin resistance, again, that increases and accelerates the damage from your autoimmune disease. And we see this very much in all of our clinical trials that people with MS often don't realize that they've developed insulin resistance. They may not realize that they're pre-diabetic.

We've had several folks not realize that they had already become diabetic. This is an epidemic across our country. So certainly one of the things I recommend is that you ask your personal position to get a fasting insulin and a fasting glucose and sort out. do you have insulin resistance? If you have insulin resistance, then actually it would be, the next thing to do is to get a continuous glucose monitor or a glucose finger stick monitor and monitor your blood sugar and get better glycemic control, lower your insulin level. And this is where a lower carb diet, a lower time-reserved feeding, intermittent fasting can be really very very

very healthy. And, you know, just to connect it back to your story and you sharing very openly, you know, in this interview and past interviews, you know, you were talking about your battle well before you were diagnosed with progressive MS and, you know, in the wheelchair and dealing with all this pain, you had endometriosis, you know, that was one of the things early on. And we know now more and more data is coming out there is that endometriosis is so connected to, uh, you know, you know, metabolic health and insulin sensitivity. Plysisibarian disease, insulin resistance. Yes, yes.

And so no doubt, had I not discovered all of this, I would have, you know, the law's protocol and changed my diet. Because previously as a vegetarian, I had a very high carb diet. That certainly would have accelerated the insulin resistance and put me at great risk for prediabetes and diabetes, even though I was quite trim. That is epidemic. Even if you are trim, you have a high-carb diet,

you may be unaware that you are developing insulin resistance and at significant risk for prediabetes, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease. And all of that will accelerate and worsen your autoimmune disease if you have that. Yeah, I come from an Indian background. and, you know, South Asians, especially here in America, but now it's globally as the American diet is being exported all over the world. They suffer for some of the worst metabolic rates, even the ones who are vegetarian. You know, much of my family still is vegetarian, and many folks are being diagnosed increasingly as the generations can continue with autoimmune conditions. and it's a funny thing, but I think that your message of even, you know, the nine cups of fruits and vegetables,

it's just as important for vegetarians because, as you know, you were a vegetarian, it's so often that even vegetarians himself don't get a lot of raw vegetables. They're more of a carbotarian. That is true. Absolutely. I want to return back to something that we brought up in the beginning, which you were sharing about. And I've seen some videos on Instagram and Facebook about you talking about this. And that is the mindset piece. How is it?

How is it and why is it so important that figuring out your why is often the first step when you go down this pathway of healing? You know, again, this is something my bets taught me. One of the things that we did, you know, we would have the intake class. people would come back every month. And then we had skills classes. And you could come back forever to the skills class. And we had classes about cooking, lots of fun. We had all sorts of movement classes, yoga, Tai Chi, strength building.

And we had our health behavior folks come. And they talked to us about, excuse me, purpose. They talked about the hero's journey. They talked about what you want your health for. And what I saw from the vets was these mental, emotional, spiritual classes were their favorite classes. And they were the most impactful. So I began incorporating those lessons into my intake and our monthly classes as well. well. And that's because it takes work to create a new habit. No matter how much I want to do that,

it's going to take work. It's going to take work to extinguish the harmful habits. And to be willing to do the work, to grind it in over the month that'll take to get this habit established, it is so much easier if I've had clarity as to why I want to go on this journey. You know, a question I love asking is the house's smoke is rolling out the windows. You can see a few flames. Is there something or someone you care so deeply about that you would run into that house without thinking to save that person or that something? And tell me what that is. In nearly always, you know, people know immediately who that is.

or occasionally who that, what that something is. If they don't have an answer that question, actually then I would send them off to our mental health department because they're probably suffering from depression and loneliness in a big way. We have to get them connected. If they have someone that they care so deeply about, then the next questions we have is,

Now, if your health could moderately improve, how would your relationship with that person change? What would you do? And so that's a conversation. Then the next conversation is okay. If your health could moderately improve, what physical celebration would you do with that person? Now we have an attraction, we have a purpose, we have meaning, and we put that at the center of what we check in. every month, that they want to be there for your sons or daughters' graduation or wedding, or they want to do this big hike with their son or their daughter or their spouse.

And what do we do to help them achieve that goal? And then we have the conversation. Okay, so what's the next small step? It's so simple and yet it's so profound because not wanting something or trying to avoid something, sure, that can get you started. But it's often not the thing that can keep you going. There has to be something that you're being pulled towards in addition to not wanting something like not wanting disease.

I don't want to be sick. You hear that so often. Great. That can be a central part of it. But there has to be a greater why that pulls you along. For comparison, can you share those for you when you were at a place where you were looking for hope in your life and your journey? What were those things that were pulling you forward?

What were the things and the celebrations that you would do with those that you loved if your health moderately improved? Yeah, before entering medical school, as an athlete, I did wilderness travel, full contact, free sparring, ran marathons, bike marathons, ski marathons. When I had my kids, I assumed that I'd teach my kids resilience and all the skills they would need to be successful. in wilderness and sports. You know, by the time, you know, my son was 10, my daughter was 7, it was very clear that I wouldn't be teaching them sports. I wouldn't be doing wilderness travel. And I was having to continually reimagine what parenting would be like.

And what I was thinking about, Drew, was, okay, my kids, are watching. And I can either model that when life gets difficult, you complain and give up. Or I could model that I keep doing everything that I possibly can. And so I was doing my little physical therapy every day. I'd swim in the pool every day. And then I couldn't swim anymore. I'm doing little water aerobics. And my mantra was, your kids are watching. watching. And then the other thing that I was thinking deeply about was, you know, my kids are still very young. I want to see them graduate from high school. And so my goal at that point was I'm just going to still be alive. I had completely, and you know, accepted

that, you know, with progressive MS, secondary progressive MS, functions, ones lost do not come back. It was very clear. Nothing was coming back. I had my illness seven years or 27 years, if I counted the trigymolaryl, nothing ever got better, despite incredibly aggressive treatment that I had, including Tysabri. And interestingly enough, you know, when in 2008, you know, I had redesigned my paleo diet, I added meditation, I added e-stem. I was still doing my physical therapy and my physical therapist

was like, well, you know, you are getting stronger and he had me lifting weights. You know, and I'm walking with a cane. I didn't know what any of it meant, Drew, because I had accepted that, you know, recovery was not possible. And, you know, I remember in April, walking around the block with my wife Jackie, saying, you know, I think I can try riding my bike again. I said, well, you know, you are doing really good. You know, maybe in the fall. If things keep going, well, we could get the bike out for you. Well, a couple weeks later, it was Mother's Day.

and I decided I wanted to ride my bike. So I'm out in the garage, fussing with the seat because my son had been riding and he's six foot five. So I was, you know, pulling the seat down. Now my family hears me. They run out. We have this emergency family meeting. And fortunately, Jack lets me, you know, take the bike out. We all get into position because she decides that we can try.

And, you know, I get on the bike. She gives it all clear and I bike around the block. You know, my kids are crying. Jackie's crying and I'm crying. Of course, whenever I tell the story, I get pretty emotional because that was when I understood like, oh my God, who knows how much recovery might be possible, that the current understanding of secondary progressive MS is incomplete.

And that by doing what I was doing, things were happening in my brain and my spinal cord that no one expected. I hadn't planned on any celebrations because I didn't know that it was possible I could get better. But now I tell my patients, plan on celebrations, plan on the possibility that things could improve. that by addressing your environment as thoroughly as you can by addressing diet, by addressing sleep, stress, movement, and we'll do this step by step by achievable, small step, that your body will begin doing the chemistry of life correctly and the whole network of biochemical reactions as they begin to be in better and better alignment.

And molecules are made correctly in your cells and in your tissues, perhaps for the first time in years, you'll look at the mirror and you realize you're getting younger. And your family and friends will say, oh, my God, you look 10 years younger. And your doctors and your physicians and your physical therapist will say, like, you're getting stronger. We could advance your exercises. and you'll be able to have celebrations that a year ago you would have thought were not at all possible. And we see that.

We see that time and time again. A powerful reminder about just how crucial mindset is to the whole aspect. And even when you're doing everything right, as I'm sure you've seen with some of your patients that have followed the protocol, but you are missing out on the mindset piece. You are just a few life events away from being derailed and setting back. So that mindset piece is insurance on everything else that we're paying attention to. And I'm so glad that it's getting the attention that it deserves by people like you talking about it. I want to return back to as we start to wind down and talk about the ecosystem that you've created in your world.

to provide people with solutions and all sorts of different ways to help them and coach them down this process. I think it's worthwhile touching on it because you are known as the individual who not only made this incredible before and after recovery, but also went from being banned from the MS Society to then getting a million dollar grant to pursue the research that you're doing. And it's really the research that has been a huge part of what's got the Walls Protocol and your work, the attention that it deserves. So it's nice to use this as an opportunity to just contrast some of that recent research that just came out, especially comparing and contrasting it to, again, some of the well-intentioned,

older approaches that were more low-fat. and very based on sort of like the old nutritional ideology. So talk about the latest study and what you saw there and how the Wallace Protocol was compared to another common protocol that's used for autoimmune patients. Yeah. So we compared the Swank Diet, which is a low-fat, looks a very low-fat, heart-healthy diet in the Wall's diet.

Now, what we did first to manage the conflict of interest. I want to be sure that people know I did not consent the patients. I had no contact with patients. It had no contact with the data. The statistician who analyzed the data was blinded or masked to diet assignment. And we had people came in. We got baseline measures of fatigue, fatigue severity scale, modified fatigue impact scale, the the MS quality of life, fiscal health, and mental health scales.

And we checked walking endurance by having them walk for six minutes. We asked them, and we did weighed food records. And then we said, eat your usual diet, come back in 12 weeks, we'll repeat all the measures, which we did. So we saw that things were stable. The fatigue was stable, the quality of life was stable, walking endurance was stable. We randomized them, and they were either on the swank diet or the Walls diet. And they came back in 12 weeks, repeated all of the measures, and then they came back in another 12 weeks, so 24 weeks of intervention, and we repeated all of the measures.

Now, the main outcome, primary outcome was would fatigue severity scale score, drop, so get better, that is, less fatigue, more for the Swank group or for the Walls group. And of course, we hypothesized to be more for the Walls group. Our secondary analyses looked at modified fatigue impact scale, quality of life, and six-minute walk test at 12 weeks and everything at 24 weeks. To our surprise, both Swank and Walls dropped at 12 weeks, and statistically not different between the two of. At 12 weeks, the Walls group had clinically significant,

in statistically significant, greater improvements in the physical health quality of life, mental health quality of life. Neither group had much change for walking endurance. At 24 weeks, fatigue, as measured by fatigue severity, was improved both for walls and swing. Again, statistically not different. The modified fatigue impact scale, which is a more sensitive measure of MS-related fatigue, was markedly better, that is, less fatigue for the Walls group,

and that was clinically and statistically different than Swank. And again, the quality of life was markedly improved, again, for Walls, for both fiscal health, mental health, and was statistically different than, and clinically different than Swank. And then interestingly enough, the Swank group, their walking endurance improved

statistically significant, but not clinically significant at 24 weeks. The Walls group improved statistically and was now clinically significant in terms of their walking endurance. The P value there was 0.08, so not quite statistically significant. but clinically significant.

You know, I think the take-home message is both the walls and the swank diet did reduce fatigue. Walls had greater fatigue reductions and greater improvements in a quality of life and in walking endurance. If people prefer to do a low-saturated fat diet, they can certainly, you know, embrace the swank and feel like, okay,

that is helpful. I have looked at the dietary data for both the Swank in the Walls group. And I mean, I have to put out there that the Walls diet is not a high fat diet. You know, it's not, you don't have to feel like you're having this enormously high saturated fat diet when you implement the Wall's diet. Yeah. And it does seem to be that there's some evidence. that if you're on a low-fat diet for too long, especially, you know, obviously, as you mentioned, both groups saw some benefits when it came to fatigue, and that just goes to anytime you take out

processed foods in general, you're going to get a little bit better. So that's great. But it tends to be that it's just tougher when you're on a lower fat diet in the case of a swank diet for enjoyment and actually making something sustainable. And if the key is longevity, because it's not that, you know, we talked about this in the first interview, it's not that you do this protocol, this lifestyle, and then you're good, and then you return back to who you were before. It's you continue to maintain it. You maintain it because you're creating the environment. It's the soil that you're trying to change so that the body's natural seed grows from that beneficial soil. As soon as you change the soil again, you are going to run into the same problems,

including an autoimmune flare-up or whatever else it might be that you had before. And metabolic problems, you know, insulin resistance. The high-carb diets put you at greater risk for insulin resistance. It's so true. And that can lead to a whole host of other challenges that are there, including, you know, being more vulnerable for things like, you know, opportunistic viruses like COVID-19. We know autoimmune patients have a vulnerability that's there, especially many of them having not the best metabolic health.

And that being one of the pathways that you can be exposed, that your immune system can be more exposed to viruses that you're surrounded to. So just all in all, another reason to continue to pay attention to the work that you're doing and for somebody to say, you know, what's the downside? If I go down this pathway, you know, you're going to end up healthier. You're going to end up most likely losing a little bit of weight. You're going to end up nutritionally more sound. Your metabolic markers are going to improve.

So, you know, yes, I hope. as you've documented through many case studies and your clinical work, that people do see improvements in their, you know, core disease state, some as dramatically as yours, the real question is at the end of the day, what do you have to lose? And more importantly, what do you have to gain when it comes to that mindset of that thing is pulling you forward? If you know your why and you know why that thing is so important to you, whatever that is, being there for your family, showing up in your business, being a part of your church community, giving back to people, leaving a legacy that's there, or whatever it is, now you have the motivation to keep you going and actually say,

you know what, this is worth giving a shot. It is key. And it's worth, the other thing that I work with people, Drew, pick, when do you want to start and view this as an experiment? That I'm going to be the principal investigator of the most important experiment, known as my life, I have to decide when it is that I'm going to start and how long the intervention will be. And what precisely am I going to do and be sure that you do that? Absolutely. That's a great insight.

Terry, this has been fantastic. I want to cover the world and the ecosystem you've created because, you know, the book is out there and it's been out there for some time now. The Walls Protocol, the Expanded Edition. You can find the link in the show notes. there was also an incredibly beautiful documentary that was created about your life and your message. Tell us about that. And then let's talk a little bit about some of the coaching platforms and challenges that you've created that make it a lot more easy because when you do things with other people, it's a lot more easy to implement.

But I'd love to start off with the documentary. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So Carolyn Moyes, who's an Australian, contacted me and did this beautiful, beautiful document. where she interviewed me and then hired a lovely actress, a couple of them, to act out these various key scenes from my life that you hear about. And so I've seen this. It's a beautiful, beautiful film.

It is emotionally intense because I take you through some incredibly painful, powerful points of my life. And so you get a very intimate look into my heart, into my experience. It's a beautiful, beautiful film. You'll be inspired. Absolutely. Amazing. And we have a link to that. And you can check out the trailer and, you know, check out the film and the documentary online. Let's talk about the ecosystem. You know, I've looked at the stats, Terry, and I've been involved co-written too, but been involved in the launch of a bunch of New York Times bestsellers. And, you know, the stats are grim. You know, people who buy books, which is already a small part of the population,

only about 10% of people make it past the first chapter, right? It's the human nature. It's going to be part of it. And so there has to be other solutions that are out there for people who believe in a message, and maybe they're not, you know, big readers, or they find that they get distracted or they have a lot of duties in their life. So you have an ecosystem of things to make it easier for people to go and follow that step-by-step process and have their handheld.

Can you chat a little bit about some of those things you've created? So one thing we have at premium menus, very easy. So you get menus, recipes, and shopping lists. People like that a lot. We have another course on electrical stimulation of muscles to learn more about that. That's very helpful. But the most helpful is the autoimmune intervention mastery course, which is online, five modules, many lessons within each module. We cover mindset, we cover the food pillar, movement pillar,

the supplements, and all the other supplemental things you can do, and then how to go forth and live with your family. Plus, you get seven weeks of a group, call with me and the other cohort of people that are going through the autoimmune intervention master course at that time. And you get access to the Facebook group. It has been phenomenal. We've put thousands of people through that. It's really a marvelous, marvelous program. And then several times a year we do the five-day challenge, and that is a free. So be sure you sign up for my newsletter. So you'll get the next announcement when we do that again. And again, we put tens of thousands of people through the

five-day challenge to help them get started with understanding why they're doing this and what their next step is. And then the last thing I want to mention is the the Radical Health Upgrade program for those people who are deeply motivated and who want to have a very small, intimate group. So a couple times a year again, we have a small cohort of folks who go through the Radical Health Upgrade. They get a weekly one-on-one contact with my health coach and a weekly small group contact with me and everyone in the team as a group support over 12 weeks. That has been phenomenal and that will be starting again. And again, we accept people into the radical health upgrade just a couple times a year.

Incredible. We'll have the links to all those in the show notes. Dr. Terry Wells, it's been a pleasure. Can you leave us with the final thought or idea that can put a bow tie on this interview and be a lasting message for folks? Wherever you are, in whatever your health state is in, there is so much that you can do to turn things around. if I can come back from having difficulty sitting up, beginning to have difficulty with brain fog and profound levels of pain due to trigemble neurology

to a rich and full life, then so can you. There is so much that is under your control. A beautiful, beautiful reminder. Dr. Terry Wallace, I just want to thank you. You are a bright and shining light in this world and you're an inspiration to so many. You know, I'm not in the world of medicine. I'm not doing direct work on research, but I like to tell the stories of people like

yourself because that's actually how things change. It's the combination of creating a protocol, the practitioner or the scientist or the doctor who suffered themselves and is now the patient and wanting to help people. And then the research component that is being brought into it to show. show the greater world that there's efficacy around an idea. You've combined them all and you've done it so well and you've dedicated your life to it. So thank you for who you are. And it's an honor and a pleasure to be your friend. Much love to you and your family.