The Dr. Hyman Show - Inflammation: The Hidden Fire Behind Pain, Aging, and Disease

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

A hidden fire called chronic inflammation drives many problems—from joint pain and arthritis to autoimmune conditions, and even faster aging. Typical fixes (like pain meds and steroid shots) calm symptoms but often miss the “why,” and can leave people still hurting or even create more issues. Big triggers of inflammation that impact our joints, and so much more, include sugar and refined carbs, extra weight, leaky gut, toxins, infections, stress, and poor sleep—plus joints naturally get less blood and oxygen as we age. This is why it’s important to create an anti-inflammatory lifestyle plan starting with real whole foods, and incorporating regular exercise, stress management, gut repair, and targeted anti-inflammatory supplements.  In this episode, I discuss, along with Dr. George Papanicolaou and Dr. Cindy Geyer, how chronic inflammation, arthritis, and joint pain can be reduced using a Functional Medicine approach, including how to do the anti-inflammatory 10-Day Detox diet.  Dr. George Papanicolaou is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Abington Memorial Hospital. Over time as the healthcare system made it harder for patients to receive personal care, Dr. Papanicolaou decided a change was needed. He began training in Functional Medicine through the Institute of Functional Medicine. In 2015, he established Cornerstone Personal Health—a practice dedicated entirely to Functional Medicine. In August 2017, Dr. Papanicolaou joined The UltraWellness Center. Dr. Cindy Geyer received her bachelor of science and her doctor of medicine degrees, with honors, from the Ohio State University. She completed residency in internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. and is triple board certified in internal medicine, integrative medicine and lifestyle medicine. This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers. Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN to save 15%. Full-length episodes can be found here: Prolozone and Nutritional Therapy for Osteoarthritis What Causes Inflammation And How Can You Treat It? Is An Autoimmune Condition Driving Your Raynaud's Syndrome? How To Do The 10-Day Detox

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show. But today, our modern lifestyle is driving so much hidden inflammation, systemic chronic inflammation, silent inflammation. It's a silent killer. And it turns out that it's not the kind of inflammation that we are familiar with, like a sprained ankle or a sore throat or something that's an obvious kind of inflammation. You might be eating clean, working out, even meditating, but still feel anxious, wired, or totally exhausted. The truth is, it's easy.

easy to become magnesium deficient in today's fast-paced world. Stress, screens, sugar, caffeine, and even workouts. They all deplete your magnesium stores, and magnesium is involved in over 300 processes in your body from sleep to stress regulation, muscle recovery, heart health, and hormone balance. That's why I take magnesium breakthrough every night. It's the only supplement I found with all seven essential forms of magnesium your body needs in one formula. Most magnesium supplements only give you one or two forms.

That's not enough to make a difference. If you feel burnout or constantly on edge, your body's likely needing more magnesium. Try magnesium breakthrough and feel the difference in your sleep, your mood, and your energy. Bioptimizers has increased their discount for my audience. Just go to bioptimizers.com slash hymen and use code Hyman for 15% off your order. Before we jump into today's episode, I want to share a few ways you can go deeper on your health journey. While I wish I could work with everyone one-on-one, there just isn't enough time in the day.

so I've built several tools to help you take control of your health. If you're looking for guidance, education, and community, check out my private membership, the Hyman Hive for live Q&A's exclusive content and direct connection. For real-time lab testing and personalized insights into your biology, visit Function Health. You can also explore my curated doctor-trusted supplements and health products at Dr.hyman.com. And if you prefer to listen without any breaks, don't forget, you can enjoy every episode of this podcast, add-free with Hyman Plus. Just open Apple Podcasts and tap try free to stop.

start your seven-day free trial. 27 million Americans over the age of 25 have osteoarthritis, and the joint that is most commonly affected is the knee. It creates a great deal of morbidity, meaning that suffering. Suffering. Suffering. That's a fancy metaphor for suffering. Pay to the ass.

So, yeah. So, and our traditional therapies basically help you control the symptoms, but might not necessarily do anything to reverse it. So using Motrin or Advil or Tylenol are common things people will use. And then your orthopedic surgeon may inject it with the steroid or they may use something like a lubricant. Like hyeronic acid. Yeah, hyluronic acid. And so it's only a lubricant effect. Men you need a knee replacement. Right. And then you're getting, and then you're getting towards a knee replacement. And then we know that 40% of people that have their knee

replaced still continue to have pain and loss of motion. So we don't have a lot of real successful treatments out there that are really changing people's lives. Yeah, right. It's true. And I think, you know, we often used to think about osteoarthritis as a wear and tear problem. You know, you just beat up your joints too much. But it turns out it's really an inflammatory problem as well. So what's interesting, it certainly increases with age and trauma to the knee is certainly part of what creates an inflammation.

And that trauma can be repetitive use. It doesn't have to be an ACL tear, you know, from a football injury. It can just be repetitive use on a person who's carrying too much weight on their body. So obesity is a risk factor for arthritis. But obesity also is a generally inflamed state. Right. So when you're obese, your bat cells are not just there holding up your pants. They're producing tons of inflammatory compounds that are making your whole system inflame.

Right. And so if you have an inflamed system and you're creating micro trauma to your joints, you're going to have an overreactive response in the joint. And joints, I think we should understand and know about them, is that the cartilage and the ligamentous structures of the joint have lower oxygen tension than the rest of your body, meaning that they don't have an enormous oxygen supply. It's a little bit different than the rest of the body. And that plays a big role into why, as we age, that oxygen supply actually decreases,

blood flow to those vital areas of the cartilage and ligaments decrease, so that when you injure them, they're less likely to repair, more likely to have an inflammatory response that leads to degeneration. Yeah. Interesting. So what we're also learning about osteo-fritis fasting to me was that when they're doing like biopsies and doing analysis, they're finding microbes in the joints. Yeah.

Not an infection, but just like dislocated microbes from the gut. So we're seeing the microbiome with the gut and the knee, which is crazy. So that's maybe also triggering an inflammatory response, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, we are really only 10% human. We understand because we have, you know, 100 trillion bacteria living in and on us, and they're only 10 trillion human cells. So conventional medicine, basically, your knee hurts, you go to the doctor,

and you get an x-ray and they go, you have arthritis, here, take some Advil, you know, maybe do some strengthening exercises for your legs. Maybe if it gets really bad, you get a couple of shots in your knee of steroids. That doesn't work anymore. You need knee replacement. It's kind of a bad trajectory.

There's no way to really sort of recover from this. And from a functional medicine perspective, we do a different approach. We do. And, you know, we are going to talk about that approach, but exercise does help, nutrition does help, losing weight does help. So there are definitely things that we can do with a person's lifestyle and help them intervene. I worked with the patient that was 45 pounds overweight, was eating a totally processed food diet,

was drinking too much, and was scheduled for knee replacement in September. I saw them in early July and I said, hey, look, if you do these things I'm about to tell you, I bet you you could be playing golf in January in Miami with your friends instead of recovering

from knee replacement and he said okay I'll take you on I said okay if you win any money in Miami I get 10% all right

so guess what did you get the 10% he got what he wanted I didn't get what I wanted so he lost 45 pounds amazing right I put him in physical therapy with a really good

functional physical therapist strengthened his knee he canceled the knee replacement and came into an appointment, like walking, right? And he opened up an envelope with his tickets to Miami. Oh, that's amazing. And so. But just to be clear, it wasn't just like eat less, exercise, more. You put them on an anti-inflammatory diet, which is speaking to the point that

osteoarthritis is not just a mechanical wear and tear breakdown. It's a chronic inflammatory process. simple things. And so from functional medicine perspective, we deal with chronic inflammation holistically. So what are the things that you did diet-wise and supplement-wise that actually helped with his chronic inflammation that helped his niece and the weight loss? The really key thing was, is to get him to decrease his alcohol and also to decrease his intake of processed foods. These processed foods are fast carbs that go into your body. They have toxins in them, and they also create an inflammatory response driven by insulin.

So sugar and starch are inflammatory foods. Right. And so we took that right out. So we just, you know, basically put them on a Mediterranean diet. But not gluten and dairy-free? Gluten and dairy-free. So why is that important? Because as we've talked about before, multiple times, you know, they're both inflammatory, right?

And so gluten can actually trigger leaky gut, which, again, triggers that whole process of inflammation in the body. And then if you have any microtrauma to your knee, that inflammation, it's cytokin response is going to lead to the generation of cartilage and even bony structures in the knee. So here's the deal. Like, not everybody needs to be gluten dairy free. No. But if you were inflamed.

You got to be. If you have a chronic problem, it's number one, two, and three on the list, right? Yep. You got to get rid of gluten dairy sugar. Glutentary sugar and inflammatory foods. Yeah. As the first step. And then you say, well, is it better?

Is it not? Is it something else? Because it's sometimes something else. Yeah. But it's really powerful when you put people on an anti-inflammatory diet. So if you have osteoarthritis, its diet is one, two, and three. And it's really getting on a whole foods, plant-rich, good fats, like lots of anti-inflammatory foods, getting off gluten, good, sugar, starch, processed food. So, yeah, and you put them on really good, healthy fats because fats are a really important process, part of the anti-inflammatory process.

I put him actually, one of my favorite things to do when I'm doing with inflammation is high-dose omega-3s. lots of omega-3s, right. Yeah, so I use, you know, 4,000 or more. So I put them on omega-3s. I use an anti-inflammatory botanical called curcumin. And so it's sort of like a botanical Advil. So I put them on that. I also use something like it's a supercharged omega-3.

It's refined from mega-3 is called Specialized Pro Resolving Factors, Mediators. And they are very potent. S-PMs. So they're very potent. anti-inflammatories. So between his diet. It's sort of like the, it's like taking all the good juju out of the omega-3s and concentrating them. And there's a lot of research done at Harvard on this. Oh, yeah. And your body has this ability to resolve inflammation. It has, it has an auto built-in system. Right. It's called resolvance. So resolvins are molecules in

your body that resolve inflammation. So these are called specific pro-resolvin mediators. So they're really effective. They are. There are a lot of research on these. And a lot of research with particularly post-surgical recovery, post-trauma recovery, that these will actually enhance recovery and you'll have a shorter recovery time when you're using SPMs.

Yeah. So they can be very effective. So diet, supplements. Targeted supplements. Yeah. Even vitamin D might be high. help because it strengthens bones. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Right. Yeah, vitamin D and omega and omegas are pretty much standard for me when I'm dealing with anybody with any amount of

inflammation because of the impact that vitamin D has on the immune system, inflammatory system, mood. It just does so many things. In addition, physical therapy is very important because we do know that the muscular strength around a joint will protect that joint and keep it from the constant damage that it can get from repetitive use. So the physical therapy. I never had any need problems, knock wood, but I, you know, I have very big thighs because I was a runner most of my life and bikers. I have like really big thighs and my knees, my leg thighs are strong as my knees always were protected. Right. Yeah. So I could tell a personal story. I had my right hip replaced. I had no pain. And then I fell, I injured it. It got inflamed. And within four

months, I had to get a hip replacement. And I asked a surgeon, why did I have end stage arthritis and not know it. Well, I had been running, and I had been racing a bike for 10 years. I mean, I had really strong legs. And he said, there are a couple things, George. One is you have so much strength in the leg, and you may have been a person, because of your diet, you're not very inflamed. And so your cytokine response at the joint limited the pain you were going to feel. So strength and anti-inflammatory living can actually keep you from even knowing you have arthritis. It's amazing. I had a lecture I did recently. There was this woman who's like, I did your 10-day reset.

And it basically is a anti-inflammatory detox from sugar and starch and it gets her gluten-daring sugar. It's a really nice program. And you can go to Get Pharmacy with an F, G-E-T, Pharmacy with an F.com. And you can learn about it. You can download the program free. You can get the extra version if you want. But she did this, not seeing me as a patient, just on her own.

And she said, I was scheduled for a bilateral knee replacement. I did this program. And I did it for more than 10 days, obviously. and I canceled them because my knees are fine now, which is pretty amazing story. I've heard this over and over. So I think if you're, you know, if you're facing that level of surgery,

I mean, a knee replacement is not easy. Hip replacement, you get the hip, you're up and going pretty quick. Knee replacement, you're out for a long time, a lot of hard work, physical therapy. You don't really get back to perfect. I mean, it can be great for people who need it. But there's some other intermediate steps before you get there,

even if, you know, your diet's great and everything's great, you've done all these things and it's still not working. there's another therapy that's merged, that it's really powerful. Yeah, and this is, this is, yeah, this is very powerful stuff. And, you know, I wanted to make sure we talked about that the lifestyle and there's an important thing. Yes. But what we really wanted to talk about was ozone.

Yeah. And prolozo and what it can do for the joints. Now, make us do this because, you know, most of you hear ozone, they think the ozone layer and it's bad for you and what? Right. Right. So, so ozone is a gas. We know that there's oxygen, and oxygen is actually two oxygen atoms that come together,

and they have to be together because they're very stable together. Oxygen by itself, it needs another electron, so it shares it with a partner. So you have O2, they're married, and they're very happy together. But if they get any solar activity placed upon them or any electrical activity, they'll split, and that's happening constantly all the time. But they'll come back very quickly together, but sometimes they come back and there's a third person there. right there's another extra oxygen molecule that's latched on because you couldn't find a partner so now you have this is what we call triatomic oxygen or o3 and now there's there's not enough there's not enough electrons for all three to share

so those the two oxygen is like i've got to find a way to get rid of this third wheel so that becomes a very unstable molecule and it's that very thing that makes it so effective tell tell us how it works so how would you use that with arthritis so the way way it works is, is that we can actually, we have an ozone machine, we have a machine. Ozone generator, which takes oxygen and runs into the machine that was invented by Nikolai Tesla. I was just, he did it again. I did not say stuff, too. It's my podcast.

He steals my podcast. I know it is. It's my podcast. So Nikola Tesla in 1898, I think it was like 1893 or so. He developed, he patented the first ozone machine, which is a really cool thing. So now we have ozone machines and we have an ozone machine that we hook up. up to medical grade oxygen, and in that machine, it will take that oxygen, it will hit it with electricity, and create ozone, and it can be modulated as to how much ozone you can actually

make. And you can make anywhere from 1 to 5% oxygen ozone mixture in different concentrations, and we can adjust that concentration. So we pick... Because it's mostly oxygen with a little ozone. Yeah, mostly oxygen, a little ozone. And that's really critical because part of the, it's ozone, it's oxygen ozone therapy. Because part of the benefit comes from getting oxygen into the joint. And then the ozone plays another role. So we then take this ozone and we inject it directly into the joint. It can be the shoulder joint. It can be the knee. It can be the hip. It can be the ankle. Any joint you can put ozone in. Modern life makes it surprisingly easy to run low on magnesium.

magnesium. Stress, screens, sugar, they all deplete this essential mineral. Magnesium supports over 300 functions in your body, from stress and sleep to recovery and energy. That's why I take magnesium breakthrough. The only supplement with all seven forms your body needs. Most formulas, just one or two. Bioptimizers has increased their discount for my audience. Go to bioptimizers.com slash hymen and use code Hyman to get 15% off your order today. the way ozone works is pretty interesting because it's unstable it actually has what we call a hermetic effect it actually by the fact that it it stimulates the body to do something better by irritating it

yeah it's a little bit like a lifting weights you tear some muscles and you get bigger stronger muscles right so um what happens inside the joint is that it will actually modulate the cytokine response. So when you have that damage to your knee and you're constantly moving it, you're constantly creating that inflammatory response. And there are cytokines. And those cytokines will then, this inflammation will lead to the breakdown of cartilage and eventually even bone. And it also mediates pain. Ozone has been shown to modulate that response so that it will actually produce more of the anti-inflammatory. cytokines versus the pro-inflammatory cytokines.

It's also activates your antioxidant system. So it's like an antioxidant for your knee and anti-inflammatory directly in there. Exactly. So you get anti-inflammatory. It stimulates an antioxidant effect. But remember what I said earlier that the knee and the cartilage anywhere and ligamentous structures don't have a great oxygen supply. And when you have that much inflammation in an older person and that oxygen supply

and circulation has been diminishing. Now you have, you don't have any of the healing capacity that you would have had without inflammation or if you were younger. What does ozone do? Ozone actually increases blood flow. It increases oxygen delivery and oxygen utilization. Wow. That's good. And it stimulates chondroblast and fibroblastic activity so that you can actually build up cartilage and build up the soft tissues around the knee.

It's pretty amazing. I'm just going to tell a personal anecdote. So I've also been trained in ozone. And we do this here at the ultra wellness center, prolo's and other forms of ozone therapy for chronic illness, which are really effective for so many things. And definitely on the margins of medicine, but very, very powerful. And I had a broken arm a number of years ago and went to get training and how to do this. And my arm wasn't healing.

And then I had a frozen shoulder. I could not move my arm above, like, you know, like 45 degrees. degrees from my body. It was so painful. And he's like, yeah, I can inject your shoulder. The guy who was training us. And he took ozone and injected it into my shoulder joint. And literally within five minutes, I was like doing this. I was completely mobile, move my arm everywhere. There was another doctor in the training as well who had had a frozen shoulder, not just for six months, but for years. Same thing, injected his shoulder. Yeah. Wow. It's a miracle.

Seeing it over and over again. It's amazing. And I remember a patient, not that was mine, But when I was in training, there was a guy who had been a, on NHL hockey player, and he'd won five Stanley Cuffs, part of the New York Islanders, and his knees were shot. He couldn't walk. And he'd come in for a number of treatments in his doctor. And after the ozone treatments in his knee, which I saw him in administration, he just literally was up and walking. And I've seen people come in with canes and dance their way out. It's pretty amazing.

I know it sounds, you know. It sounds wacky, right? It sounds sensational, but it is. I mean, I was, I mean, that convinced me. I literally could not move. I had to go to physical therapy for a year and had to maybe go under anesthesia to mobilize my shoulder and all these things I was getting recommended. And I'm like, it was like five minutes and it was painless. Yeah, it is.

There's a little knee up poke, but that was it. And when we do it, we not only injected the ozone in, but because we know what's happening and that the joint hasn't been getting the blood supply it needs, the nutrients it needs, we'll add in some nutrients that are part of the healing process. So we'll add in some methylcobalamin, some magnesium, and prokane. We use prokine also because it actually changes the action potential of the cell and membrane, which has been disrupted by the inflammation, and it allows for the cells to become healthier. So the prokane actually is not just for the anesthesia, but it's also to help the cells heal. That's amazing. So tell us about this patient you had who you treated with ozone here at the ultra-wellness center using prolo-ozoan, which is a form of ozone that you inject into joints or soft tissues to help with pain. Yeah. So this is a woman who just two years ago went on a pilgrimage and hiked through these very, very high mountains in Spain.

And on that hike, she had been having pain her knee on and off, but nothing that ever inhibited her from doing anything she wanted. But on this hike, suddenly it blew up. And she couldn't finish her pilgrimage. So she came home to her doctor, x-rays were done, and she had pretty much bone-on-bone in her knee. Wow. And so over the past two years, she has had steroid injections and she's had a lubricant injection with hydrorenic acid.

And she had some benefit, but she still wasn't able to hike. So she asked if I would treat her And I evaluated her and I treated her with ozone And after her second injection, just three days ago She had her second injection almost two and a half weeks ago Three days ago, she went on her first hike in two years She hiked six miles And went over mountains that were very high

And she didn't have a problem And the day after she said, I didn't have any swelling That's amazing That is amazing And, you know, so how many treatments that people often need? It doesn't sound like that means. Usually, so, you know, usually I tell people between three to maybe eight injections, usually somewhere between three and six is a sweet spot.

I think you can come in for a tuna, but if you need it. Absolutely. Is it painful? Not at all. Not at all. I mean, you'll feel the needle going in initially, but once I'm in the joint, it's not painful. You may feel the pressure of the ozone going in, but I monitor that very closely when I'm doing it. And I can actually feel it.

You can feel the knee fill up with gas. Yeah, you can. And it's basically a disinfectant. So there's microbes in there that shouldn't be there. It activates the anti-inflammatory system. It's a powerful antioxidant. And it's like... And it manages a cytokine response, which, you know, causes the inflammation in the pain.

It's pretty remarkable. I mean, if I hadn't experienced it myself like that, I would like, oh, this sounds really quacky. And actually, it's a real procedure that's being used all over the world in many countries, for years. It's used here, you know, to some degree. But in many other countries, like Cuba and South America, Spain, Italy, Russia, I mean, they're doing this extensively. It's extremely inexpensive. It's super effective. It's probably more effective than most traditional treatments for osteoarthritis. Absolutely. And it's got very low downside and very low cost.

You inject steroids in a knee over time. It's going to degrade the cartilage. It's going to degrade the knee. It's going to make things worse. Right. You get a temporary benefit, but then you end up with worse. Ten percent. Ten percent of people. This actually helps restore cartilage. Yeah, that study that came out in 2019, 10% of the people that get steroid injections, actually their arthritis gets worse. Yes. And they end up with unexplained fractures. Yes.

Because it weakens their tissues. Yeah. So we know that. And with prolozo, we've seen cartilage regenerate. Right. And that's the difference. That's what I wanted to make sure we made that point. Because it stimulates congerblasts, chondroblasts are the cells that rebuild cartilage.

It can rebuild the cartilage. And again, what we love in functional medicine is to find those modalities that just don't maintain disease, but will actually reverse it. And prolozone fits the bill. And you weren't saying this patient, she's hike six miles, and she was told she needed knee replacement. Yep. Okay. Yeah, I'm telling you, it's pretty amazing. And she's pretty near bone on bone.

That's incredible. Well, it would be interesting to see her follow up x-rays and to continue to do this and track it. But I think people out there are suffering from osteoarthritis, you know, the focus really should be on. lifestyle. And I think people need to understand they have a lot of power to transform the inflammatory state of their body. And what often is considered diseases of aging are often inflammatory disease. We call it inflammation. And I think the arthritis is part of that. It's not just a bone-on-bone mechanical issue. It's an inflammatory issue. What are the causes in drivers of inflammation? Well, basically number one, two, and three is diet. And guess what? The number one, two, and three

in diet thing is sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar. Or, the equivalent of sugar, starch, starch, starch. So anything that sugar in starch drives inflammation, particularly high fructose corn syrup. So that should not be a staple in your diet. Unfortunately, it is. About 60% of our calories in America. Soda is the number one source of calories in America, which is terrifying to me. And the average America needs 152 pounds of sugar and 133 pounds of flour every year. That's enough to kill, you know, most of us pretty quickly. And it does, which is why we see where the sickest population in the world and some people die from diet-related diseases. So it's in sugar, it's in high-fructose corn syrup,

it's in processed flowers and foods. Also, inflammatory fats may be a factor. So lots of refined oils, non-of-homega-3s, trans fat, which have been ruled not safe to eat by the government, but they're still everywhere in food. I don't know how that works to be honest with you. I guess there's little loopholes that the food industry gets to give them maybe years or decades, but this was 2005, seven years ago, they say, hey, guys, trans fat kills you, not safe to eat, don't use it. But if you go to the grocery store, you can find it everywhere, which is terrifying. I mean, more and more companies are removing it, but it's still there. Also, what else can cause low-grade inflammation? Sit on your butt. Not exercising. Exercise is a powerful anti-inflammatory.

Not over-exercising, not running a marathon, but doing a modern amount of exercise every day really helps lower inflammation. Stress, another big cause of inflammation. So, nothing we knew about stress. It's out there. That things happen. Reading the news. I try to stay away from the news, by the way.

It's so stressful. Like, I figure if something really bad is happening, I'll hear about it. But the key is to find habits and behaviors that reduce your stress response. Meditation, yoga, you know, hot and cold therapies, massage, breathwork, whatever works for you, try it.

But it's got to be a daily practice. every day. Today, I worked out. I did a sauna and an ice bath, and that really helped me calm my nervous system. I also deal with toxins. Toxins are also inflammatory. They're called immunotoxins, low levels, pesticides, chemicals, petrochemicals, heavy metals. I encourage you to go to the Environmental Working Group's website, EWG, and find how to reduce your exposure through food, including fruits and vegetables, animal products, fish, household cleaning products. and even skincare products. I mean, did you know the lead is in a lot of lipsticks

that a lot of skincare products have petrochemicals get absorbed through your skin and get in your body and cause harm? Yeah, don't be doing that. So also another source sometimes is latent infections. We might not know we have it, like a virus or tick infection or mold we're exposed to you. So those all can drive inflammation. And of course, our microbiome is probably one of the,

biggest sources of inflammation in us. We all have an imbalance microbiome, mostly from our poor diet, lack of fiber, processed food. So we want to cultivate our inner garden. I've written a lot about this. We create a new product called gut food that helps people actually heal their gut and it's like a multibitamin for the gut. So I encourage you to check it out, gutfood.com. So really tending your inner garden is so important because there's actually a phenomena called metabolic endotoxemia. This is a phenomenon that is resulting from bad bugs that produce these toxic compounds called endotoxins that get absorbed through your gut lining into your bloodstream and then activate your immune system. Like, for example, these lipopolysaccharides, which are these

little endotoxins. And then your immune system gets activated, triggers inflammation. And there's all the downstream causes consequences of that. For example, high levels of TNF alpha, one of the inflammatory molecules, and it triggers insulin resistance. So literally not even by changing your diet, you can become pre-diabetic just by the toxic bacteria in your gut. That's why they call it metabolic endotoxemia. So what is inflammation? What's the big deal? Why does it become so dangerous? Well, inflammation is a natural part of your body's function. It's essential. Yes, you cut yourself. What happens? The white blood cells gather. They come to the site to rescue. They create swelling. They bring all kinds of healing factors. And what you see is redness. And,

swelling and pain and heat, that is the classic sign of inflammation in the body. We used to call that medical school rubour d'olar-chlor-chlorin tumor. Tu-mour just means swelling, not tumor, you know, that's anyway, Latin, whatever. But the key is that it's this normal process that happens as a result of dealing with problems that go wrong. But here's the rough. In the past, most of what we had to deal with was acute things that cause inflammation, like a cut or an infection.

But today, our modern lifestyle is driving so much hidden inflammation, systemic chronic inflammation, silent inflammation. It's a silent killer. And it turns out that it's not the kind of inflammation that we are familiar with, like a sprained ankle or a sore throat or something that's an obvious kind of inflammation, the kind that's good. The kind that we're talking about is the kind that's bad. and that leads to almost every known disease of aging, heart disease, cancer, diabetes,

Alzheimer's, not to mention things like ADD, depression, obviously autoimmune disease, obviously allergies, asthma, all sorts of gut issues. All these problems are caused by inflammation. Of course, then the question is, what causes inflammation? We're going to get to that. From a functional medicine perspective, I don't care that you're inflamed. I care about why you're inflamed. I don't want to give you an immune suppressant,

an anti-inflammatory drug, a pile of aspirin. I want to find out what the causes and get rid of it. In functional medicine, there's a simple rule. And it's this. It's called the tack rule. If you're standing on a tack, it takes a lot of aspirin to make it feel better. Take out the tack.

And if you're standing on two tacks, taking one out doesn't make you 50% better. So get rid of both of them. Okay? And all of them. Maybe there's five or 10 tax. And that's the secret of functional medicine. It's a method of investigating the body as a system looking for root causes and getting the body back in balance.

All right. So what is the deal with this inflammation? I mean, I think, you know, when I was in medical school, heart disease was a plumbing problem. You know, it was clogged arteries. We now know that it's an inflammation problem, that the reason your cholesterol becomes an issue is because it gets inflamed. And white blood cells scop up, soupsop up the cholesterol and stick it in the arteries causing plaque. The same thing happens in the brain. Alzheimer's is inflammation, the brain, all those plaques, the brain come from inflammation.

So cancer also is a disease of inflammation. And when you, for example, look at various studies, even with cholesterol, if your inflammation level is high, but your cholesterol is also high, you're at high risk. But if your cholesterol is normal and your inflammation's normal, you're no risk. But if your cholesterol's high and your inflammation is not high, you're really not great risk. And the worst is if you have obviously both. inflammation is a real big issue.

They did a study of an elderly population. They found that if their CRP was high, which was a blood test for inflammation, and interleukin 6, another cytokine test for inflammation, they had a 260% more likely chance of dying in the next four years. So this is no joke.

So you might feel fine. The patient will be, like, I don't know what's wrong. I feel fine. I saw my blood test says, I don't really care. I feel fine. Why should I change what I'm doing?

I'm like, well, if you don't change what you're doing, it might not go well for him. Now, there's no guarantees that's true, but it's likely true. So the real concern isn't our response to an injury or an acute infection or something like that, but this chronic smoldering inflammation that slowly destroys our organs and our ability to function and leads to rapid aging. In fact, I just finished my book on aging called Young Forever, and they talk about the hallmarks of aging. One of the key hallmarks is inflammation, or they call it aging itself inflamaging. And what happens with aging is this runaway inflammation that just degrade your whole

body. So understanding what inflammation is, how to diagnose it, and how to deal with it and get rid of it is so essential if you want to be healthy. Now, what's the problem with the treatments we use? Why not just take Advil or aspirin or take a steroid like prednisone? Well, they're fine for acute problems, but when things are in this slow smoldering state, they really don't work. In fact, the new date on aspirin was pretty scary about heart disease. Oh, it's going to help you and stabilize your blood, blah, blah, blah, and prevent clotting. But it turns out that the recommendations for aspirin were over enthusiastic and that there are certain patients who should be on aspirin, but very few compared to the, you know, universal

statement that everybody should take an aspirin or prevent heart disease. No, because it causes strokes and it causes bleeding. which is not good, like GI bleeding. So, you know, if you look at those drugs like aspirin or Advil or a leave, they're not benign. I mean, they're really helpful when you need them, but they can cause terrible gut issues. I had gastritis, for example, after taking them for broken arm. And many, many people die. In fact, as many people die from taking those drugs as from asthma or leukemia.

So imagine if we literally eliminate those drugs, we'd basically be essential, it'd be the equivalent of curing leukemia or asthma. So it's not a joke. So, you know, statins, for example, even cholesterol drugs, like statins like Lipitor, they may not have their main effect by lowering cholesterol. In fact, it may be because they actually lower inflammation. That's what they do. It's a side, quote, a side effect of the statin, but actually may be their main effect.

So how do you know if you have inflammation? Is there a way to test for it? Is there a blood test? Well, there are, and there are more and more coming. So the most common one that people do is called C-reactive protein. It's high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. It's something your doctor can order. It's on any lab panel you can get.

And you can also see that as a sign of hidden inflammation. Now, if it's super high, it could be infection. But if it's in the sort of one to ten range, that's usually the hidden inflammation. Ideally, it should be less than one. Any higher than that means you're on your way. Now, there are other blood tests you can check cytokine, cedrine, and so forth. may not be as helpful, but there's a new test developed by a professor at Stanford called I-A-A-A-G-E, meaning immune age. And it really looks at your immuno, which are 50 different cytokines, many of which you've never heard of.

There are molecules that are regulating immunity and inflammation that he was able to correlate by using artificial intelligence with disease. So he found there, really, there were about four that highly correlated with your risk of heart attack, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's and so forth. It's so amazing that this test is really not that expensive. It's easy to get and you can track it over time. And then the good news is you can change things and change your inflammation. Anyway, enough with that. So, you know, the reason we really don't track this is because doctors just kind of are not thinking

about the root causes of disease. they're like, okay, what's your symptom? What are you suffering from? Okay, let me find the drug the best matches that. You know, if you have a strep throat and I can give you a penicillin, great, I'll get a cure, but most of the time I'm just managing symptoms and, or I'm giving you an immune suppressant. And that's not the answer, unfortunately. So, okay, so let's say you've identified the causes, you've figured out you have inflammation. You know, how do you live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle? It's the same old stuff. I hate to say it, but it's eat real food, lots of phytochemicals, all those colorful plant compounds are anti-inflammatory.

All the phytochemicals in food are so powerful for reducing inflammation. Also, you know, just real whole, unrefined, unprocessed foods, not lots of sugar and starch, no trans fats, no refined oils, and get lots of those phytonutrients. Good fats are really important, too. Avocados, olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, ideally, omega-3 fats, things like sardines, herring, sable, wild salmon, they're all really rich in omega-3 fats. and they're very healthy for you. Exercise.

Lots of research on exercise can reduce inflammation. It supports your immune system. It strengthens your heart. It corrects insulin resistance and improves your mood. It helps reduce stress. I mean, it's one of those miracle therapies that can really do so much for you at so many levels. Practice active relaxation,

which sounds like a contradiction or an oxymoron, but no, you have to actively relax. It's not, I don't mean sitting, watching TV, drinking a beer. I mean meditating, doing yoga, deep breathing, thening massage, doing something where your body just kind of hits down into the parasympathetic state and calms your nervous system. Hot bath, I love that.

Last night I was a little, had a very busy day, a lot's going on, and I just took a hot bath, with Epsom salt, and I just kind of floated away. It was great. Also, food sensitivities are another big factor. You might not know this, but a lot of hidden inflammation can come from not allergies, but food sensitivities, things like gluten, dairy, and certain things that people react to that they may not know they react to. So I often recommend an elimination diet, like the 10-day detox diet that I've created

to help people reduce their overall level of inflammation, and then you can add back foods and see what's really the problem. So maybe it'll make a lot of things, and then you just add back one at a time. And for example, dairy, I know cause inflammation. If I have dairy, I get pimples, my skin's weird, I get congestion, so I don't need dairy. although I do manage to tolerate goat and sheep, okay. Healing your gut, you know, doing a gut repair program, that's why we created gut food.

That's so important. I think many people would benefit from actually a focused gut repair program because a lot of their imbalanced bacteria are causing inflammation. And lastly, it takes the right supplements. A multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, all help drop inflammation. But what are the things in your mind that you go through as a checklist if someone comes in with an autoimmune disease? Well, the first step I'm going to go is looking for celiac disease and gluten sensitivity.

I mean, that is a do not miss in anybody with an autoimmune condition. I mean, if you just look at the overlap, you see higher prevalence of celiac disease and gluten sensitivity in anybody with any autoimmune condition. I mean, we've talked about this before with Cindy Baker's tack rules. If you're trying to control the autoimmune condition but you're sitting on that gluten tax, it's going to be really hard to quiet everything down and feel good. You have to remove the driver of the inflammation and the autoimmune up regulations. That is the first place that I go.

Before you go on from that, I want to need to explain the rest. But I just want to emphasize that because, you know, when someone comes with an autoimmune disease, getting a celiac panel is like checking up blood pressure. It's just the most basic thing you can do. and often people misinterpret it because the levels are quote normal but they might be in the continuum so what if normal is up to 20 but your level's 18 or 17 or 15 or 10 is it relevant and the answer is yes it's relevant because it means your body's having an immune response to an antigen or foreign protein in the gluten that you're absorbing across your gut

and your immune system is seeing and then getting missed off about and creating a systemic reaction around. Now, how bad is that reaction? Will it cause symptoms? Do you feel bad? Maybe, maybe not. But it is causing some low-grade level of inflammation, and it's a low-grade hidden inflammation that's driving so many chronic diseases. Right. I think that's a really important point. And it's another one of those that's sometimes doing more in-depth testing. Somebody might say, well, I don't have celiac disease, but every single other gliadin or gluten protein is showing up elevated. That might be a big motivator to say, all right, I guess I do need to stop eating the bread and remove the gluten from the diet. So sometimes we do more testing to convince people or really engage them

because it's hard. If those are foods you love, it's hard to get people to give up what they're used to eating. Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course there are other foods that could be culprits too, but gluten is the number one in my list. So go through now the rest of the kinds of things you think about with an autoimmune disease. Yeah. So I also think about gut health. and the health of the intestinal lining because anything that disrupts the health of that lining creates more input to those antibody-producing cells. And I think if we quote Alessio Fazzano,

unlike Las Vegas, what happens in the gut, doesn't stay in the gut. If it's not healthy, if that wall is more permeable and there's more bacterial proteins getting into the bloodstream or more food proteins getting to the bloodstream, there's that immune system just going to, ah! And it's not just acting at the gut level. It can start cross-reacting to organs that we should normally be tolerant to, hence an autoimmune condition.

So we really want to understand the health of the gut microbiome, the integrity of intestinal lining, how well are we digesting and absorbing our food? Do we have an overgrowth of bacteria and the small intestine? That's the second priority. Yeah, so you've got gluten, you've got the gut microbiome, you've got leaky gut. What else goes through your mind when you see someone with an autoimmunease? Well, so you also think about whether there could be a toxic insult, a toxic exposure that could be upregulating the immune system. We know that, and I won't say that stress per se necessarily causes an autoimmune condition, but it can certainly perpetuate the cycle of inflammation. Makes it worse, for sure.

Makes it worse, just like sleep deprivation, the same thing. Yeah, so toxins, like you said, are actually immunogenic, and there's a word for the rule of toxins in, autoimmune disease. They're called autogens. You literally cause an autoimmune response in the body, whether it's pesticides, heavy metals. And I've seen this, and I'm sure you have seen you many times in your practice. And you never know if it's that. Or so we've gone through the gluten and we've gone through the microbiome, we've gone through toxins. And there's a few other things I think about, like food sensitivities besides gluten that can be a play role, which just goes along with a leaky gut. And then the last thing I think about are infections that are

of infections because we often ignore those. And the bodies, you know, you're living as a host to all sorts of bugs, right? And when you have AIDS or HIV, you don't die from the AIDS virus. You die from all the latent infections that you actually have already living in your body, like pneumocystis or candida or CMB or tuberculosis or whatever you've got kind of laying around. It's just your body's handling. It's, that's what kills you. And in the autoimmune disease, I think there's an unrecognized role.

of infectious disease. And there is some literature about this for sure. Absolutely. What was interesting to me is that nobody chases it down. So even though if you look at the PubMed, the National Library Medicine, you look at all the data on autoimmune disease, you can type in autoimmune toxins and diet

and gluten and allergens and Lyme disease. And you can have you, you can, and you'll find all these papers. But what's striking to me is that when you go see the rheumatologists, they don't go, oh, we should look for these things. They just don't. Sometimes they'll check a celiac panel. That's actually more common now. But they don't really look at diet. They don't look at toxins. They don't look at allergens. They don't look at allergens. They don't look at latent infections. And you'll often see dramatic improvements when you actually help people with those issues.

Well, you know, Mark, it's interesting. When we were in medical school way back in the day, we learned about Riders Syndrome, right? writer's syndrome were where people would show up with symptoms like rheumatoid arthritis, hot swollen joints, and positive rheumatoid markers, and it either came after a gut infection like Shigella or Yersinia, or it came after a genital urinary infection like chlamydia. So we knew even 30 years ago that those infections can actually trigger an autoimmune reaction. And more recently, there's been a link with porphyrimonis genitalis, So a oral bacteria and rheumatoid arthritis.

So absolutely. That can also be a source, right? Yep, which I didn't mention. So absolutely. So if someone comes with the rain nodes, you're thinking about all these things in the back of your head, and you're wondering, oh, what's this person's story? And you go into their story,

and you can usually ferret out what the issues are for them. And then you can start to chase down the things that are really abnormal. So tell us about rain nodes. How common is this problem? what are the symptoms and, you know, what is the general approach with traditional medicine? Sure. Sure. So you talked a little bit about the sentence that it's typically fingers, sometimes toes, sometimes nose turning white or blue in the cold, and then when they come in, and it can be very painful, and then you come inside and as it warms up, they can turn beet red.

So it's small arteries that react to the cold. And there's two primary, they're two types. of reynodes. There's primary renales, which supposedly is just the renalds by itself, and then there's secondary renal nodes, which is associated with autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and progressive systemic sclerosis.

And the second component tends to be more severe. It can even lead to ulcers on the tips of the fingers and things. It's more common in women. It's more common in lean women, interestingly enough, and it can significantly affect quality and quantity of life. And if it's a primary source, it's usually reassurance, wear mittens, stay out of the cold.

If it's the more serious issues, sometimes they'll use topical nitroglycerin, calcium channel blockers, even medications like Viagra. Wow, so Bayagra, which is increases blood flow, so it makes sense, right? Yeah, isn't that interesting? Yeah, with some benefit, right? But I think the important thing is to say, well, what does it actually mean either if you have small, arteries that tend to react to cold or if you've got an autoimmune condition because that opens the door into thinking about things from a much broader comprehensive way. Yeah. And so from the perspective of the biology of it, you're getting this sort of contracted blood vessels. What is the

cause of that? Well, we don't know 100%, but those arteries, if we think of the importance of artery elasticity. So your arteries are dynamic. They can dilate and they can constrict when needed. Sometimes it's a way to kind of maintain core body temperature. But those small arteries in particular, we think of that inner lining, the endothelium that's responsible for regulating the tone. It is another one of those proverbial canaries in the coal mine. It's affected by a lot of other things besides cold.

In fact, it's affected by many of the other factors that increase our risk of cardiometabolic disease. We know that arteries can spasm in response to an unhealthy diet or hydrogenated oils. We know that arteries can spasms in response to stress or sleep deprivation. Arteries can spasin in response to air pollution. So there are many, many other factors that will make maybe a predisposition become more significant and more relevant. And the other piece is there's some evidence that if you have arteries that are prone to spasms, it may be a marker that you are at higher risk down the road of developing high blood pressure, heart risk, and stroke.

So it's really a time to pay attention to the health of your arteries. So it could be found in isolation just as a random condition, quote random, or it can be associated with other autoimmune diseases. People have like chagrin's or lupus or other conditions. And essentially it's almost an autoimmune disease of the blood vessels, right? and it creates inflammation. So then the question is, you know, how do we think differently, you know, if you're just giving drugs like Viagra or you're giving drugs to, you know,

like increasing blood flow, like blood pressure pills and so on. What do we do differently in functional medicine? How do we think differently about this problem? One of the diagnostic approaches we use to test and figure out what the cause is. And what do we do in terms of treatment? Well, I think it's important, number one, to really, do a deep dive into vascular risk measurements. We want to know somebody's quality and quantity of cholesterol. We want to know their glucose and insulin and how they're able to manage

glucose. We want to know their inflammatory markers like their C-reactive protein, and do they have evidence of oxidative stress? Anybody with an autoimmune condition mark, I mean, you've talked about this for such a long time. We want to figure out what the underlying causes that's up-regulating the reactivity and leading to the auto conditions. So we want to look for food triggers. We want to look at the health of the gut lining and all of the other things that people are familiar with. So it's really looking for upstream to see from a vascular standpoint how healthy that

is and what's driving it. And from driving and upregulating the immune system, what we can identify and remove and address. How do we assess people? Is there a test for a reynos or is it just sort of looking at the symptoms? You know, it's primarily a symptomatic diagnosis, to be honest. There are tests you can do to look at artery elasticity in general. They're not widely available, but some places will do them.

They're usually done in the context of cardiovascular disease to look at how resilient these small arteries are. You know, there's one by a company called Itamar based out of Israel called an endopat. I don't know if you're familiar with that one. it's not very comfortable. They basically put a little probe on your finger and, and pump up a blood pressure cuff to block the blood flow for two minutes and then measure how quickly it takes for the blood to get back to your finger when they let it down again. So they can tell you about all arteries.

It's like medical torture. Yeah, medical torture. Well, that's fine. So that's good. But then it doesn't really tell you why. I just tell you they're not working, which is really good at in medicine is figuring out what's not working, but we don't know how to figure out why it's not.

working. You know, what's not working, but not why it's not working. And I think that's the beautiful thing about functional medicine. So, and I've seen, you know, patients in renails, when we start to dig down these issues, we look at toxins, we look at their microbiome, we look at allergens, you look at food sensitivities, we look at infections. We can really start to figure it out what the issues are. And I think of these people a lot better. So what is the approach then from a functional medicine perspective for renal syndrome? Yeah. So from a diagnostic standpoint, as I mentioned before, we want to look at all those cardiometabolic risk factors.

We want to look for the underlying tax that are upregulating the immune system, whether it's gluten or food sensitivities or something going on in the gut microbiome or an infection. And then from a treatment standpoint, a lot of the same lifestyle things that we normally want to do specifically help those arteries be more resilient, less reactive. So we know, for example, that studies on meditation and yoga biofeedback can show improvements in reynos and artery elasticity after six weeks of a regular consistent practice. Wow. Just yoga meditation.

Right. That's great. So you can basically meditate your blood vessels healthier, right? That's good. Yeah. What was that story years ago of somebody meditating and they could change the temperature in one hand versus the other? Oh, yeah.

Five degrees or something incredible. Yeah. So we have more control over that autonomic nervous system than what we thought. You know, I've often found, you find any other things around diet or supplement it's helpful for these patients. Yeah, there's a lot. So, again, specific food components, omega-3 fatty acids have benefits on artery elasticity,

whether that's fish, fish oil, nuts and seeds. You know, arginine is an interesting amino acid. It's used by the arteries to make their own version of nitroglycerin. So it's a precursor of nitroglycerin, which, of course, dilates blood vessels. Nitric oxide. Nitric oxide. Yes, thank you.

Nitric oxide. So getting nuts and seeds. or maybe even supplementing arginine. The deeply pigmented foods that are rich in bioflavinoids, a lot of those polyphenolic foods also relax the arteries. Things like Resveritral, for example. Folate-rich foods, dark leafy greens, another powerhouse for the arteries.

So if we think of that extra virgin olive oil, another food that has natural benefits on relaxing the arteries. Yeah. Yeah. That's really a lot of what I use, Sammy. And I often, you know, I'll supplement with arginine if they're very symptomatic if they're going out and often even ginko, which is another product. And I think the nitric oxide is interesting. You can increase nitric oxide by your breathing too. Just putting everything practices. We had a Louis Gnarro on our podcast who, in the Nobel Prize for his discovery of nitric oxide in its role and improving overall

health, reducing inflammation. And it's incredibly important for lung health as well. And with COVID, they're finding nitric oxide being very effective in, in treating COVID patients. And he talks a lot about that on the podcast. But the nitric oxide can also be increased by Viagra or Cialis or any of those drugs that are used for sexual enhancement. But they actually, they actually work by increasing blood flow in circulation. So that's a good thing. So, you know, maybe if you have rainos, that might help as well. So arginine you can take or you can do those drugs or you know you can actually inko and other things bioflavinoids I used to use quite a bit and combining that with the root cause the medical detective piece because you can't just give those something like oh give them

argyne no well why have they have reanos like what is the cause what is the root and I think that's what often people miss even in integrative medicine they'll say oh well you have rhinos use arjun I'm like no no no why do you have rhinos like what is the root cause and this is the part that we're often missing medicine. And that's why at the Ultra Wellness Center, we really have such a robust practice because we are the medical detectives looking for the root cause.

And I just tell you, I just say like an anecdote of a patient I just had this week that was just, you know, it's one of those stories. He's really awesome guy, and he developed a tick, ticks when he was, not tick bites, but he developed like motor ticks, you know, when he was eight.

And I started asking about his story and a doctor was nothing you can do, take these drugs, whatever. So I said, well, what was it like? What was happening? Did you get infections? Did you get this? So I started digging into a story.

I got tons of infections and strap and all kinds of things in. You know, we know there's a syndrome called Pandos, which is pediatric, autoimmune disease, of neurologic, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't forget what it stands for fun so long. And that is associated with strep infections to cause behavior issues, OCD ticks. and when I checked his labs he had super high antibodies to strep and on the cutting end

panel he had really high antibodies against some of the components in his brain related to strep. And yet no one had even thought to ask the question of why. And so whether it's taken disorders or whether it's Raynos or whatever, if you get into the

habit of thinking, which is what I love about functional medicine because it makes you think as opposed to just sort of wrote memorization. and knee-jerk reaction, that's sort of what we get in medicine, which is we make the diagnosis,

then we don't have to think anymore. We just basically say, here's the cookbook protocol that is in 2021 for XYZ disease. And functional medicine is different. We have to start thinking. We call it thinking and linking. We know why you're,

we know why your fingers get cold and turn white and you have no circulations because you have ray nodes. Like, no, that's just the name of what it looks like. That's the name of the problem. not the cause of the problem, right? And so that's what so beautiful of functional medicine. You get to actually go into thinking and linking with what Sid Baker talks about. This idea of thinking and linking and changing the way that we actually approach diseases by, once we get

the diagnosis, that's the beginning of the process of thinking and connecting the dots and being a medical detective. And that's what we do in functional medicine. One of the first principle, the first pillar, is eat real food. Real whole food. Understand that food is medicine. It's not just energy or calories. It's truly medicine. It's information, it's instructions, it's code that literally programs your biology with every bite. It regulates your gene expression, your hormones,

your brain chemistry, your immune system, your microbiome. Pretty much everything is controlled by food. And if you're eating a wrong food, you're sending all the wrong message. It'll be the right food. You're turning on the right method. So maybe the 10-day detox.

You're basically taking out the bad stuff and putting into good stuff. You're taking all the foods that cause inflammation that are toxic. to your system that are inflammatory and best with your gut and you're putting in foods that actually help reset your system. And it's pretty much a very simple approach. It's lots of veggies, so mostly veggies, lots of good fat, lots of fiber, lots of good clean protein. And what does that look like? It's tons of non-starchy veggies like broccoli, any kind of veggie you think up. It's not

basically a potato. You know, sometimes sweet potatoes are okay for people. avocado, good shots of avocados, olive oil, nuts and seeds, lots of good protein, grass-fed, organic regenerative meat, fish chicken. Sometimes, you know, for vegetarians, we can, regans, we can use plant-based proteins like tempe or non-GMO organic soy, tofu. Those are the most dense sources of protein, but you do need protein as you detoxify. So for the 10 days, you're going to be getting rid of all the other jobs, right? processed food, other carbs, sugar, dairy, coffee, gluten, alcohol, pretty much actually all

grains and beans. And the reason we get rid of grains and beans, they're necessarily all bad, is a lot of people have issues. A lot of people have issues with their gut. A lot of people have issues with inflammation. A lot of people have issues with insulin issues with insulin resistance and prediabetes and obesity, and they can be problematic for these people. So basically get off all the bad stuff.

Now, it's not calorie counting. You can eat as much as you want. We're not like crazy. How much macronutrients and percent of this and percent of that? No, it's just pick the right foods and we focus on what to eat. You don't have to focus on how much to eat, right? So when you look at your plate, it can basically look like this. Three quarters of it should be non-stargy veggies.

And I often will put two or three veggies in my dinner. I'll make mushrooms. I'll have a, you know, broccoli. I'll make some, maybe a salad. So I have lots of veggies. And I'll have a portion of protein that's essentially the size of my palm, four to six ounces, usually 30 to 40 grams of protein. Now, it's a good amount of protein, but you don't need that much if you're having

in all protein. It should be very generally raised, should be pasture raised chicken, wild caught fish, should be low mercury, obviously, all that. And we'll put all that show notes, lots of good fats with dinner, like avocados, nuts of seeds, olive oil, and your veggies. You can even use, for example, ghee, which is a kind of butter, but it actually has the inflammatory proteins remove casein and weight. It basically has just the fat.

It's called clarified butter. It's very common. You can get my book, The Ending Detox Diet Diet, you can get the 10-Day Detox Diet cookbook, whatever you want. We'll put all the show notes and links to get it. I do call it the 10-day detox diet, but sometimes you need to do it longer, like two weeks, three weeks, 10 months, maybe even 10 years, depending on this situation. But we're going to talk about the 10 days and how powerful that can be to transform your help.

Now, I find that most people have never connected the dots between how they feel and what they eat. They walk around with what I call FLD syndrome. That's when you feel like crap. And that is a big problem for people. What do I mean by that? Well, you might be tired and slug you. you might have brain fog, maybe I have digestive issues, refluck, heartburn, aerial bowel, maybe you have nasal congestion, sinus issues, muscle aches, joint pains, headaches,

insomnia. Should I go on? Rashes, acne. I mean, it goes on and on and on. And many of these things are caused by food. And the only way to know is to do a total body reset. Like hitting the reset button on your commuter, when all the systems are jammed, it's a completely complete reboot. How do you do a reboot? It's very powerful. And most people have narrow experience systems. This is why I love to do with people. And I actually run programs all around the world where people can come and actually experience this. We do programs where we have people do this just in five days, not even 10 days. People have a 70% reduction in all symptoms from all diseases. Now, I'm going to put in the show notes the medical symptom

questionnaire that I use in my practice, which essentially gives you a score based on the degree and frequency and severity of symptoms. So if you have a headache, is it at zero, meaning never, or four, I get it all the time, they're really that, or some version in between. And then you get a score at the end, and, you know, people have a score of 60, 70, 100. It should be less than 10, maybe even zero. Ideally, I usually have the symptoms. It's not normal for human beings to suffer this much.

And that's really why I created this book and the program, the 10-day detox side, because I was doing this with my patients and seeing such incredible result. So I do this personally regularly. I do it at least two or three times a year, four times a year to really reset my system to kind of get my body back on track to get rid of all the bad stuff, putting all the good stuff. Now I want to walk you through how to do this. I'm going to teach you how to hit the reset button, reboot your system, and to optimize your biology to help your gut, you help your detox system, to help your immune system, to help reset your nervous system, and it's powerful. So if you

want to really see how your body can feel and get rid of what we call FLC syndrome, I would do this. Most people are like the frog that's in cold water where you turn the heat up slowly and it starts to boil to death. We just kind of get used to it and think it's normal. These symptoms are not normal. I want to do this with a junior high school once. And the teachers are like, well, we might have to get permission from the parents to see

if it's safe. You know, maybe they don't want their children doing this. I'm like, what, is it safe to eat fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and protein? cut out sugar and starch and processed food. I mean, they should get a note that it's permission to eat the junk food that they have in school, it's the opposite. But anyway, yes, it's very safe. Anybody can do this.

And some people, by the way, you know, need more of certain things or other things. But basically, it's a very universal approach to resetting your system. A second pillar, aside from which we eat, the food is really important. And by the need to be approaching the morning, you need to make sure you get rid of sugar and starch in the morning. It's super important. and many people start their diet, their day with carbs, which is the worst thing you can do with sugar, sweeten coffees, teas, cereals, muffins, bagels, breads, done.

Second pillar are your daily habit. Essentially you love a pattern of eating and living. They put your body back in rhythm. It helps you reset your nervous system. And there's a few really important habits as part of the 10-duty type. One is when you eat and also when you sleep. Let's talk about when you eat. Now, when you eat might be as important as what you eat.

So many of us don't eat in the right pattern. We tend to, you know, eat all day long. We tend to snack. We tend to eat before bed. We snack late at night. It's kind of bad. So basically, when you eat, it's very important. Research shows that doing that can really be bad for your help if you eat at night.

So the first is make sure you give yourself at least 12 to 14 hours between dinner and breakfast. So dinner is six. breakfast at eight, that's a 14-hour fat, okay? If you eat at six and then you keep snacking all night, that doesn't count, right? And it's the most simple form of what we're called time-restricted eating. And it's basically giving our body a rest and getting the body to reset. And I wrote a lot about this in my book, The Young Forever, but basically there's a whole process at night that happens called autophagy and clean up and repair. You want to get your body the ability to do that.

The next is food. Now, you can do a breakfast if you're eating, you know, for example, dinner at six and breakfast at eight or so. That's a 14-hour sauce. Really important to have protein in the morning are not carbs and sugar. Also, not eating three hours before bed is really important. So most people eat and snack after dinner, don't do that. Have at least three hours the time you eat and you go to sleep.

That way you will lose weight. Your body can repair and heal instead of trying to digest and store the food. What about sleep? Sleep is one of the most underrated people. have helped. It's probably even before exercise, meditation, maybe even before nutrition. Because when you don't sleep well, you're going to eat tons of sugar and carbs. You're going to crave more. So you want to focus on sleep and restore to rest. We know that getting in a routine of waking and sleeping can help with a deeper, more restful sleep. So try to take the same bedtime every

night, try to get off your screens for an hour two before bed, keep your room, or use blue block your glasses, keep your room dark and cold, probably 55 to 68, really important because your body does much better with sleep at night, try to relax at night with meditation, do a guided imagery, do breath for, stretching, journaling, gratitude, practice, whatever you like, but do something, very important. So your evening routine should be like, set a bedtime and stick it over the 10 days, turn your phone off and get it out of your bedroom, turn the TV off for at least an hour or two before you go to bed, and then use the time of night to read, to journal, to meditate,

to connect with the people you love, and just kind of wind. down. The third pillar is extra support we need on the journey, right? Now, we all need nutrients. They're called vitamins because they were vital amines, vital to life, right? And so we've seen a dramatic reduction in the nutrient density of our food, our organic matter's gone out of our soil, nutrients can't be extracted, foods travel long differences, we have commodity crops such are bread to actually breed out the nutrients and in the starch and, you know, yield. And so foods aren't nutritious as they once were. And probably 90% of Americans, according to the government-owned surveys, are deficient

in one or more nutrients at the minimum level to prevent deficiencies. So how much vitamin need or do you need to not get rickets? Not very much, like 30 units. How much need for optimal health? Probably three to five thousand. So we need to really probably focus on nutrients. And even with a perfect diet, you know, because none of us are hunter-gatherers anymore, or, you know, kinds of food that we never ate and, I mean, nutrition depleted,

we need the basic supplements. So we need a basic set of supplements. It's a multibitamin mineral foundational. Magnesium, a lot of us are deficient, probably 45% or low or deficient magnesium in involving more 300 different enzymatic reactions. Super important helps relax your nervous system at night. It helps you calm down. Also, people get constipated.

Sometimes when they change your diet. So taking magnesium citric can help. And lastly, vitamin, deep. It's also like fish oil, but vitamin D is really important. Vitamin D over 80% is lower deficient in vitamin D. It's involved in so many different things in the body. So really important. And it helps your mood, helps your muscle function, helps your brain,

help your energy, helps inflammation, autoimmunity. It's just super important. And most of us are low. Fish oil is also important. And I often recommend fish oil to people or omega-3 fats. So what are the program steps in the 10-80 time? What should be the test? And then we're going to go through the set.

The first step is to eat from the 10-day detox approved list for 10 days. So eat what I'm telling you eat, right? Whole foods, you know, whole food base shake in the morning. You could add, you know, protein powder, grass-fed protein, if you want. I have a grass-fed protein called super-single protein. But you really need to make sure you have a good breakfast. Second is commit to daily habits, right? Take your designated eating window, right?

You want a 12 to 14-hour overnight fast, which means we use. within a 10 or 12-hour window. Don't snack before bed. Try to have the same bedtime, get off your technology an hour or two before, practice some active relaxation, huge impact on your health. Step three is adding the supplements. Now, you don't have to do this, but I really encourage you to have a multibitamin, magnesium, vitamin D, and potentially fish oil.

And we're going to list which products you should take in the snow notes. So you have it all listed there. Also, what you should eat and what you should avoid during your 1080s. talk, let's go through that. So here's a full food list. You can, you know, we're going to have it in the show notes. You can take it with you in the store. It's in the book, the 1080 talks. It's in the 1080 talks. But essentially, here's what you should eat and what you should actually get rid of. What you should eat is protein. You need to write protein, right? So grass-fed or regionally raised meats is great. You can have pap to raised lamb, beef, bison, venison, elk, grass-fed beef,

pasta raised chicken, turkey, duck, all that's fine. What you should avoid is conventionally raised chicken and poultry and eggs and so forth. And by the way, you can also have eggs if they're pasturized eggs. Meat, get rid of all processed meats, deli meats, called conventionally raised feedlot meats, get rid of all that. But about fish and seafood. Lots of small fish are good, big fish are bad, right? Big fish like swordfish, tuna, feeling sea bath, halibate,

most farmish fish are pretty bad for you. What you should be consuming are things like the, I call this mashfish, small wild salmon, sardines, anchovies, herring, a mackerel. You can have black cod, shrimp, scallop, trout, all those are fine.

Eggs, as I said, pastures eggs are fine, non-organic, regular eggs are not fine. What about nuts and seeds? Very important. Amids, Brazil nuts, cashew nuts, hazelnuts, macadamia, pecan, pine nuts, pistachios,

walnuts, all that's great. Um, you know, kept, the cow nibs, chocolate, not actually chocolate, but where chocolate comes from. Uh, seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, all great. Uh, nut butter is also great. So, um, uh, unsweetened nut butter, so almond, cashew, pecan, mecademia, I love mechademia, a walnut. Oh, that's great. Um, you also eat, um, beans at their, if you're a vegan and you want to do this, you can use GMO-free or non-GMO tofu or tempe as your protein. What you should avoid are nuts that are with sugar,

they're cooked in oils that are with gasey candied stuff. A lot of nut butters have sugar, hydrogenate fats. Peanut butter, peanuts can be okay, but I would say mostly avoid peanuts because they have aphotoxin. They often are rancid. And so you want to be careful with that. What about oils and fats? Well, the ones you want to use are organic avocado oil.

You can use organic coconut oil for cooking, grass-fed ghee. If you want to use tallow, lard, duck fat, chicken fat, that's okay as long as their path to raise or regenerative raised for salads. And you can use different kinds of oils like almond oil, flax oil, hemp oil, macadamia oil, and you can cook with olive oil, but only like tomato sauces and things like. that things that are not high heat. Sesame oil, tahini is great as well, great fat, sesame seed seed, kind of paste, walnut oil. Those are flavorful oils. They're not main oils. But you want to avoid the traditional oils, all the seed oils like canola oil, partially hydrogenated oils,

margarine, peanut oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, saffler oil, trans fats, vegetable oil, metropole, vegetable oil, metroposuriting, all that stuff, that. What about veggies? What should you eat? Well, you want to stick with lots of non-thargy veggies, or art chokes, organic, if you can. I use the Dirty Dozen Guide from the Environmental Working Group, EWG.org. I'll tell you which are the Clean 15, meaning you can eat them not organic or the Dirty Dousin, which you definitely not eat if they're not organic.

But I love asparagus, artichokes, avocado, bean sprouts, broccoli, Brussels, Brussels, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, garlic, ginger, hearts of palm, colabi, leaky greens, mushrooms of all kinds, onions, peppers, radicular, radish, rootabegas, all the kind of stuff. Wheat is great, lots of minerals, shallots, summer squash, tomatoes, turnips, zucchini. List goes on. We have it all in there. You can have some things like sweet potatoes.

I like the Japanese purple sweet potatoes, winter squash, carrots, pumpkin. All that's fine. I mean, carrots are fine because unless you're doing carrot juice or that's a problem. But basically try to limit it to like one serving, which is like half a cup a day. What you should be avoiding is corn and white potatoes mostly. A little, you know, some of the little tingling potatoes or the peasanties. Peruvian potatoes, primal potatoes, it can be fine. What about dairy?

You can eat pasteur-raised butter or ghee, but I encourage you to get up all dairy, including sheep and goat, which are mostly fine for people, but I encourage you'll just get all other dairy. And if you're having, you encourage you to have, make sure it's grass-fed or we're generally raised. What about beans? Well, you can have green beans.

You can have green peas. You can have non-GMO or organic soy, that's just tofu or tempe. You can have snap beans. You're going to have snow peas. But otherwise, definitely no, no beans. What about grains? No grains at all.

So even healthy grains, quinoa, buckwheat, things like that, I can't really get off all of that. Why? Because it just shuts down the insulin response, helps people lose weight, reduce inflammation. Not that these are necessarily all bad, but eventually you can add them back, but basically get rid of all the other grains.

Meat, barley, rye, rice, hamrin, mellatep, oats, everything. get rid of it. Fruit. Fruit can be okay, but small amounts of non-hyglycemic fruits. So organic blackberries, blueberries, kiwi, lemons, limes, raspberries, all that's fine. Not too much, right? You don't mean like, you know, two pounds of blueberries, but you can have a half a cup a day. I want to get rid of all the other fruit, all the high glycemic fruit, like bananas, pineapple, melons, cherries, brages, is the worst. Even foods that, fruits are you think, you know, maybe good for you, are actually good for you, right? Whether it's, you know,

peaches, pears, nectarines, cherries, for example, but you don't want to eat them while you're on the 10-day detox. You want to really shut down the blood sugar and some response. What about sugar sweeteners? Sorry, none. You can sometimes have a little monk fruit or cibia. You have in the shake, we have, but generally I tend to avoid all that stuff. Also, just get of all the other artificial sweeteners, all the sugar, all that stuff. If you have to ask, the answer is no, basically. Then what should you be drinking? Well, lots of water, herbal tea, green tea, all this kind of caffeine, that's okay. A little green tea is fine. You know, you get off coffee, sparkling water, mineral water, all the time. When you should avoid,

alcohol, coffee, bottled water, plastic, soda, obviously sugar beverages. Basically, that's the programs. If you love this, do you have a question about my favorite books, supplements, or recipes, then sign up for my free Marks Picks newsletter at Dr.hyman.com slash markspicks, where I'll share all of this information with you and so much more. You'll get emails from me every Friday with recommendations on things that have helped me on my health journey, and I hope they can help you too. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next week on the Dr. Hyman show. Podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your

comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health, where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guest's opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is is for educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor

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