Gut’s Connection to Depression & other Mood Disorders
Episode 162
Gut issues can cause a lot of discomforts, but is it really because you had a Latte, or is there an underlying gut-brain connectional issue that is causing a myriad of health issues in your body? Dive into today’s episode as Dr. Nicole on Integrative Wellness Radio addresses some of the cognitive brain dysfunctions which play a major role in affecting the gut’s health. She briefs us on some of the leading factors that cause mood instability and discomfort in our gut and what you can do to overcome them. Tune in to the whole episode to find out what gastroparesis is and learn more about other gut conditions. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! Noteworthy Time Stamps: 02:06 Conflicting information when it comes to gut health 06:28 Focusing on the linear outlook doesn’t take us anywhere 11:25 Job of the immune system when it comes to gut health 15:01 Myths about your gut 18:05 A patient’s story 23:10 What your brain runs on? 29:00 Not all fish is created equal 33:50 Tips to overcome gut problems 37:25 The right approach & testing for gut issues
Topics: health, mood, brain, issues, learn, unknown, integrative, immune
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Gut's Connection to Depression & Other Mood Disorders
- Understand the complex gut-brain axis and its influence on mood.
- Identify common factors that disrupt gut health and lead to emotional distress.
- Discover practical tips for managing and overcoming gut-related mood issues.
- Learn about the role of the immune system in maintaining gut balance.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
Beyond that, it's really just breaking some of the false beliefs that we're led to believe about our current symptoms.
Transcript
**Unknown:** I've been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here on the- Hello. Hello, everyone. Today is all about the lingering issues that can be happening with your gut that have nothing to do with your gut and are potentially being caused by a cognitive or brain dysfunction.
**Unknown:** So we're really gonna be shedding light on different issues like something called gastroparesis, which means that the gut is not mobilizing food properly. Uh, we're also gonna be talking about constipation, depression, anxiety, and a lot of other conditions that we're not always getting answers about, but in addition, we might be making a lot of efforts to get better and keep falling flat with our efforts. Let's dive in, guys. So number one is really just kind of establishing the foundation of what this concept of integrative and functional medicine is, uh, secondarily of understanding that you don't know what you don't know, and that really comes down to, have you had the proper testing?
**Unknown:** Have you been asked the right questions? And have you been evaluated in the right way? Beyond that, it's really just breaking some of the false beliefs that we're led to believe about our current symptoms. A lot of it is, "Oh, well, this is my new normal," or, "I'm feeling this way because I'm getting older." And I know that that is a common thing that I hear on a day-to-day basis, and I'm here to kind of bust that myth and elaborate a little bit further on it so you could really understand why you're feeling the way you're feeling.
**Unknown:** And then, of course, we always wanna have solutions. We wanna know, like, what can we do to start being proactive in our health? So we're gonna make sure that we touch on that as well. So first and foremost, the biggest thing you have to understand is there is a lot of information out there.
**Unknown:** It's very hard to navigate. There is a lot of conflicting information out there. So for everything that I really wanna talk about today is I want to just, first of all, give you information that I've learned over time, but I've also seen be valid in clinical practice. Because at the end of the day, it's all about the real-life situations.
**Unknown:** You know, you can look at a textbook and say, "Do I match the textbook?" But you probably don't, and if you don't match the textbook, then that means your treatment protocol really shouldn't match the textbook either. So it's a matter of understanding that it's complex. Doesn't mean that it's super hard to heal, but it really comes down to you need a strategy when it's, comes to your healthcare. It's not just this linear approach.
**Unknown:** Some of the downfalls that I find personally with medicine right now is that we have all of these experts, and we have all of these specialties and subspecialties. So tonight we're really talking about the gut, and we're also talking about depression and anxiety which, if you think about it, okay, your gut, you're gonna work with a gastroenterologist. If you have depression or anxiety, you're gonna work with a psychiatrist or a psychologist. And, you know, if you have a heart issue or low blood pressure, high blood pressure, you're gonna work with a cardiologist.
**Unknown:** But at the end of the day, nobody's talking to each other, and I personally feel that that is one of the biggest detriments to healthcare because all of these systems are communicating with each other. All of these systems are interacting with each other. And this brings me to my second point. It's like a lack of understanding basic physiology.
**Unknown:** So 90, some say up to 95% of our serotonin is made in our gut. So if we're dealing with a gut issue, and then we're also dealing with a mood instability, depression, anxiety, whatever the case may be, and we're working with two separate physicians that are not communicating with each other, they have two separate approaches, then how do we expect to ever really tackle it and really truly get better and resolve it altogether? So if we take a step back and we have someone looking at us as a whole person, looking at us from an integrative approach, we might actually be able to figure out what is the root and then be able to address the root opposed to feeling like we have to see a million doctors for a million different reasons. Because chances are there's one foundational problem, maybe two, and if you can figure out what those are, you can actually get better and also be more empowered to know, like, the way your body works and what it needs.
**Unknown:** A lot of times when people come to us they often say, "Why doesn't everybody do what you guys do? Why doesn't everybody use this technology? Why doesn't everybody, you know, understand the body this way?" And my response is usually that it comes down to the, the most common testing in the US. The most common testing that we use is going to be chemistry-based testing.
**Unknown:** So chemistry-based testing is blood work. What is the most routine thing that you get every year? Is blood work. And most of the time you're getting very basic blood work.
**Unknown:** So if all of our testing is based on chemistry, then it makes sense that the healing approach is going to be based on correcting our chemistry. So the primary way that we correct chemistry is by using pharmaceutical drugs. So the testing shows us where the imbalance in our chemistry is, and then we correct it with pharmaceuticals. SoAt the end of the day, there's a lot of money to be made in pharmaceuticals, and if we wanna ignore the fact that all of medicine is for-profit, then we can easily stay really, really confused as to why the system works the way that it does.
**Unknown:** That is why there is this whole industry of functional integrated medicine, is because we're taking that step back, we're using other testing, we're using better testing, and we're able to look at the body in a different way opposed to always relying on how are we gonna fix the broken chemistry? We're asking why is the chemistry broken? Is it stress? Is it, uh, imbalanced lifestyle?
**Unknown:** Is it lack of sleep? Is it toxicity? Is it any of those things? When we always focus on the linear outlook of always looking at the chemistry and looking at nothing else, then we're always going to find limitations with finding the root cause.
**Unknown:** So if we can't find the root cause, at the end of the day, there's a high probability that we cannot get better. And last but not least is it comes down to this, this concept of there's gonna be a one size fits all treatment or one day they're gonna figure out that one pill that's gonna resolve all of your problems. If we stay in that mindset, we're gonna be in really big trouble, and if anything, we are in big trouble already because it's not that simple. I personally wish it was that simple because that would make my job a lot easier, but it's not about just that one size fits all treatment because every single one of us are so, so different, and every single one of us needs something different.
**Unknown:** I don't care if you and your best friend have the same exact gut symptoms, you will not need the same supplements, and you will not need the same diet. You will need completely different things 'cause you are different people with different genetics and different composition and different sleep patterns and different stress patterns and different brains. So we need to think that we're all very, very different individually, and we need to be looked at individually. So one of the most fun parts of my job is getting to blow minds, and that's usually when I get to see those people with their jaw dropped, and really the reason we're able to blow minds is partly because of some of the amazing technology that we have, but also it's because we spend a lot of time with you, and we spend a full 75 minutes when you first come in to dig, dig, dig, dig, dig and really understand the timeline of how you got where you are right now and how you developed the symptoms that you did.
**Unknown:** So we ask a lot of questions, and some of those questions some people think are really bizarre, but one of the questions that I often ask is, "Do you feel worse around a full moon?" And this is really valid to what we're talking about today because under a full moon is actually when an organism called parasites are the most active. So we always hear that phrase is, "Oh, the crazies are out. It must be a full moon." The funny thing is, is there's validity behind it. There's a reason why that people are saying that, and it comes down to parasites that get into our system through sushi, uh, contaminated water, contaminated fish, contaminated meat.
**Unknown:** Trust me, it is very common. One in four people have parasite issues. So ... And I'm gonna talk all about that and how we miss it through the testing that we do.
**Unknown:** But if you have this issue, you can easily find that you're super irritable, you're moody, you're anxious, or your stomach is killing you around a full moon. So that simple question alone is something that's really valid. Um, second to that is a lifetime of con- constipation. So I have people that have come to me, and usually, unfortunately, it's not their first rodeo.
**Unknown:** They've been other places. So when someone comes to me with a lifetime of constipation, I don't even care if it's a lifetime or five years of constipation, I'm gonna start asking them a lot of neurological questions, and the reason I'm doing that is because it might not be their gut. It's more than likely their brain, and that's really the whole thing that we're gonna talk about tonight. So in addition to that, you know, diabetes and gut issues, something that people don't often know is that your pancreas is actually part of your gut.
**Unknown:** So talking about the first point, if you have something like parasites that got into your system through contaminated food, then you can easily have that infection affecting your pancreas, and then all of a sudden you go to the doctor and they go, "Oop, you're pre-diabetic." And you're like, "But I don't even really eat sugar, and I'm low carb. I eat keto, paleo," blah, blah, blah, and it has nothing to do with what you're eating. It actually has to do with an infection. Second to that, respiratory issues.
**Unknown:** So respiratory issues and the diaphragm, this has a lot to do with the topic we're talking about tonight. If you have major issues with your vagus nerve, which is the nerve that innervates your lungs and your heart and your gut, and again, this comes from top down, brain down. If you have an issue with your vagus nerve, you might be dealing with constipation, but in addition, you might have a lot of respiratory issues too, and nobody can figure out what your respiratory problems are, and no matter how much cardiovascular activity you do, your respiratory system still doesn't get better. So last but not least is the root cause of autoimmune conditions.
**Unknown:** This was something that we touched on in a previous webinar, so I'm not gonna dive too deep into it, but just, like, a basic understanding is that when you think about what the job of the immune system is, is it's to attack foreign invaders. Foreign invaders can be infections. They can be all different types of chemicals. So if your immune system's job is to attack foreign invaders, if that foreign invader is living in your gut, you might all of a sudden develop celiac or develop, uh, something called antiparietal cell antibody syndrome, which is, um, autoimmune pernicious anemia.
**Unknown:** I'm not trying to throw fancy words at you. But overall, what I'm trying to say is that if your immune system is attacking an organism, then it can ... That organism can be in a tissue that's almost, like, in the line of fire, and your immune system now is damaging that tissue, and you get diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. So with the-Epidemic of celiac disease, we need to start thinking about, do we have organisms in our gut that should not be there, and are we not getting the right testing?
**Unknown:** So reiterating what I said before, I'm here to tell you you don't know what you don't know. If you have only done a colonoscopy, if you've only done an endoscopy, you don't have the whole picture. There's no possible way that you do because your gut can be influenced by infections, by toxins, and you will never see that through imaging. You're not gonna see it on a CAT scan.
**Unknown:** You're not going to see it on an endoscope. You're not going to see it on a colonoscopy. You need to understand that those tests are very linear, and they're very limited. So if we can start exploring better testing, we actually might be getting more answers.
**Unknown:** So my example, how many of you are dealing with irregular bowel movements and unexplained bloating? I have people that come to me that say, "I drink water, and I get bloated. I don't even know what to do. I don't know what to eat.
**Unknown:** I don't know what else to eliminate. Like, I don't even know what to do anymore." And if you have tried to change your diet and take supplements and do all these great things, and you keep falling flat, we need to start exploring things outside of the box. And the primary thing that needs to be explored is your neurological system. And your neurological system can be compromised for a million different reasons.
**Unknown:** Me, as an example, mine was compromised because I had mercury toxicity, but I also had a head injury at some point. So there's many reasons why your neurological system can be compromised. And also, when we just talk about anatomy, your vagus nerve comes from your brain stem. How many of you are dealing with neck pain?
**Unknown:** Your brain stem really is part of your neck. So those of you, "Oh, my neck, my neck, my neck, my neck," just your neck pain alone can be a sign that your vagus nerve is not functioning optimally. And I'm gonna give you guys more tools with that as well to understand more about the vagus nerve. But the point of me saying this is we need to take a step back.
**Unknown:** We need to stop accepting these symptoms as our normal. We need to stop saying, "Oh, I'm just getting bloated 'cause I ate out. Oh, I get bloated. Everybody gets bloated.
**Unknown:** Oh, you know, I didn't go to the bathroom for two days, but it's probably because I traveled or because I got on a plane." You know, like, when you sometimes think about it you go, like, "Does this even make sense?" Like, "Oh, I traveled, so I can't poop?" And you know, these are things that happen to a lot of people, so we think that they're very, very normal. So we need to stop just adapting and just normalizing these symptoms because they're not normal. We're supposed to go to the bathroom three times a day. So for us to think that these symptoms are normal, they're, they're definitely not.
**Unknown:** So the major myths that I'm gonna bust tonight, number one is going to be the gut is the only problem, and your mood and mental health are completely separate. Number two is your testing is always accurate. And number three is that you have to give everything up to get your health back. Okay.
**Unknown:** So starting with number one is the gut is your only problem and that your mood and your men-mental health are completely separate. So going back to what I said earlier, ninety to ninety-five percent of your serotonin, which is your feel-good hormone, is made in your gut. I know that that is, like, mind-blowing to some people. So when we are dealing with a gastrointestinal issue, I do not care if it is as simple as burping, if it's occasional heartburn, occasional indigestion, or if it's full-blown Crohn's, full-blown ulcerative colitis, full-blown constipation, diarrhea, whatever it is, all of those are symptoms of your gut not being healthy.
**Unknown:** And that is going to affect how your brain is functioning, and it is going to affect your mood because now at this point you do not have the ability to make proper amounts of serotonin. So for us to sit back and say, "I just need to go on an antidepressant," we will find that we'll feel better for a little while, then all of a sudden we need to up the dose or we need to switch the medication or we need to add a medication. And also, too, this is just a side note when it comes to mental health is first of all we assume that all of our depression and low mood stems from serotonin. You have another hormone called dopamine.
**Unknown:** Dopamine, for those of you that love your wine, your cigarettes, your, um, your mocha latte, your cookies, like you call them your vice or you call them your addictive behavior, that's a dopamine problem. So to go on an antidepressant or an SSRI for that, it's not gonna work. So second to that is if you have too much of any neurotransmitter, serotonin as an example, so serotonin, dopamine, all of them, it is a balance. If you have too little, you have a problem.
**Unknown:** If you have too much, you have a problem. So low serotonin makes you depressed, makes you not find joy in anything you're doing, makes you not have pleasure in anything that you're doing, seeing, watching, eating. Then if you have too much serotonin because you started taking a medication and maybe you didn't need it because you didn't do the right testing, then all of a sudden you're anxious. So it's so, so important for you to know if you've been on a long, long-term antidepressant and you are super anxious, you might have an serotonin overload or toxicity.
**Unknown:** So there are tests that exist. There are urinary tests that you can do to actually measure your neurotransmitters. And very, very often I find that people are completely overloaded with their serotonin, especially in the event that they've been on medication. So telling you a little story about a patient.
**Unknown:** Patient came, was dealing with constipation for ten years. Patient also had a history of depression and anxiety. So we started to dig a little bit deeper.Through the consultation, what we started to unravel was a timeline, essentially. And in that timeline, there was a snowboarding accident that resulted in a severe concussion, neck sprain, thirteen staples in the head.
**Unknown:** Shortly after, started having some sporadic constipation, came and went, wasn't always there. Then the person started to de-develop dizziness, and then they actually started to have fainting spells, but the fainting spells were mainly around their menstrual cycle. Then anxiety, then came burnout, then came memory loss. So I know this story very well because it was me.
**Unknown:** And I wasn't able to piece this puzzle together for a really, really long time. But I was-- when I s- first started my career, I didn't know what I know now, and I thought I had gut problems, gut problems, gut problems, gut problems. I was constantly going from one diet to the next, one supplement protocol to the next, constantly chasing the symptoms. And when I took the step back and I started to understand the integrative approach, I realized that my health was a snowball effect.
**Unknown:** And the snowball effect started at a young age because I'm sure that I had the mercury toxicity since I was really young. But my snowboarding accident was a huge, huge culprit for how my vagus nerve became compromised. And my vagus nerve started to cause problems in my gut first, then it started to cause problems with my respiratory system, which I was having a lot of shortness of breath 'cause I was a big runner. Then I started to have dysfunction with my, um, blood pressure, and I was actually low blood pressure.
**Unknown:** Best part is, is you go to the doctor, and they go, "Low blood pressure, you're doing great." So my low blood pressure was actually not allowing me to get proper blood flow to my head, which was causing my dizziness. So that's something important for those of you to know is one of the ways that you can know if you're not getting proper blood flow to your head, so if you have cold hands and feet 'cause that means you're not circulation to the most distal parts away from your heart. Your head is one of them, your hands, and your feet are the others. So that is part of-- it could be just strictly a blood pressure issue, but it also can be stemming from a vagus nerve dysfunction.
**Unknown:** So then on top of that, because my blood pressure was so low, I started to have some issues with fainting. And this only came around my menstrual cycle, so it was super confusing to myself and also to my doctors. So pretty much as the snowball kept going year upon year 'cause I didn't know what was wrong with me, is then I started to develop anxiety. Funny story, though, is I would have never in a million years ever admitted that I had anxiety, and it wasn't until I actually did some testing, and I was working with this physicist, and he-- we actually have one of the technologies that he's created in our office.
**Unknown:** And, uh, when he analyzed me, he goes, "You're kind of anxious, huh?" And I was like, "No, I don't think I'm anxious." And when we were-- we were actually in New York at the time, and the comical thing was, as we were going to meet this physicist, we were in a cab, and it was summertime. So sitting in the cab, and the air conditioning in the back must have broken. There's the glass between us and the driver. So the driver took a tube, and from his vent where the air conditioning was coming out, and he put it through the glass, so we could get air conditioning, and I started to hold my breath.
**Unknown:** And I didn't say it out loud, but what I was thinking was, "Well, you know, he's gonna probably turn on some gas, and then he's gonna abduct us, and he's gonna, like, sell us into slavery." And the best part is, is after this guy is like, "Wow, you must be anxious." So I said this to my husband, and I go, "Just so you know, this was my thought process in the cab, and maybe this is what he means by me being anxious." And, uh, my husband goes, "Wow. I was just thinking he was really nice for allowing us to get air conditioning." So this is really, like, o- eye-opening because I wasn't a person having panic attacks, but this was where my mind went, was like doom and gloom. So for those of you listening, you might relate to that and be like, "You know, I'm not having panic attacks, but I worry a lot." So kind of back to, like, understanding the bigger picture here is my vagus nerve started to dysfunction massively from the snowboarding accident, and it started to just be this trickle-down effect. And I really started to get concerned at one point because my memory was actually really bad, and it was really bad at a very young age.
**Unknown:** And when I was able to dig deeper, I was really able to unravel the bigger picture here and really understand that my vagus nerve was contributing to my gut. It was contributing to my low blood pressure. It was actually even contributing to low blood sugar. And, um, for those of you that are hypoglycemic, meaning you have low blood sugar, um, one of the things that's really important to understand is your brain is not getting a good amount of glucose.
**Unknown:** So if you don't have proper amounts of glucose, that's what your brain runs on, and you're gonna have a lot of issues. And I know that it took me a very, very long time to correct this or suck it up to address it because I woke up in the morning, I wasn't hungry. And then I would drink coffee, and that would suppress my appetite, and then it would be two PM, and I'm, like, ravenous, and I'd grab for carbs. I know that I tell that story to a lot of people, and a lot of people can relate.
**Unknown:** So what it comes down to is you have to eat breakfast to correct your hypoglycemia, and you have to go almost more keto with your breakfast. Even if you're a vegetarian, there's options. You have to eat fat and protein in the morning. So if you're relating to this, and you're like, "Oh, I do feel like I have low blood sugar, and I do-- I'm not eating breakfast.
**Unknown:** I don't feel hungry in the morning. If anything, I feel nauseous in the morning," those are all your signs that you're hypoglycemic. So that is definitely important when it comes down to how are we gonna correct the vagus nerve. These are all significant things.
**Unknown:** And again, I'm gonna elaborate further on that and how to correct it.So number two is your testing is always accurate. When it comes to your testing, you have to just make peace with the fact that you probably haven't had elaborate testing, and if you've gone to a functional doctor and you did a lot of very expensive labs, you still might be missing pieces of the puzzle. And I know this because I learned from it, and that's why I do what I do now and why I have a lot of technologies that a lot of people have never even heard of. But kind of first and foremost is understanding, just like with celiac testing, I know that a lot of people get celiac testing, and they say, "Oh no, I'm fine.
**Unknown:** I don't have celiac, so I don't have a problem with gluten." So first of all, that's not how it works. You could easily have a problem with gluten and not have celiac, so that's kind of fact number one. There are six markers that are run on your traditional celiac test. Those six markers are run through Quest and LabCorp.
**Unknown:** There is going to be over twenty different markers that are run on a comprehensive celiac test done by Cerrix Labs. So the point of me showing you this is you can easily not be getting all of the information and think that you don't have celiac and also think that you have zero problems with gluten because you haven't had the right testing. So it's important to understand that there is a lot of variables when it comes to testing. So one of the most important ones that I want to, um, talk about is the limitations on testing when it comes to infections, especially when it comes to parasite testing.
**Unknown:** So the only test that exists for the most part in the US to test for parasites is going to be stool analysis. And for those of you that have worked with a gastroenterologist, and you've done a stool analysis, when they test your stool, they're testing it through your in-network lab. So they're gonna test it through LabCorp, or they're gonna test it through Quest. If they send in your sample, they're only looking for one organism.
**Unknown:** So it's almost impossible to know what organism to look for. So if they test it, and they say, "Oh no, you have no problems with parasites," they really were only able to test for one or two parasites max. So the other types of stool analysis that exist are labs that are called Doctor's Data or, you know, other labs that are private labs. Genova is another one.
**Unknown:** I personally like Doctor's Data. So when it comes to Doctor's Data, I used to use them religiously to look at people's gut health. But the problem was is that nobody really ever came up for parasites, which I thought was, "Okay, well, clearly they don't have a problem with parasites." And what I then found out, I had a patient who came to me, and he was a kid. He was about seven years old, maybe eight, and he had a lot of sensory issues.
**Unknown:** They honestly thought he was, um, kind of borderline, um, on the spectrum, and he also had a lot of gut issues. So when I did his stool analysis, it revealed that he had a lot of fungal overgrowth, um, which we-- candida was the primary thing that came up, but he did not come up for parasites. And then, um, we did find a lot of neurological stress due to, um, heavy metal toxicity, which l- was also a big part of his, um, sensory issues. So because he had sensory issues, what happened was, um, we didn't-- We-- He couldn't take a lot of supplements.
**Unknown:** So with that being said, we actually started to, um, do some detox work with suppositories. Suppositories, for those of you that don't know what a suppository is, it is a little capsule essentially that goes into the rectum to help someone with detox or to help somebody with their gut, not necessarily for constipation, but it can be used for other reasons. So this was the option that was best for this kid. So in the process of his mom administering this, she came to me and said, "I saw a worm." And then we did another stool sample.
**Unknown:** Still no parasites came up. So then I did a different company, and I-- it was a company that was supposed to be really, really specific for parasite infections. So three stool samples later, about a thousand dollars later, no signs of parasites on the testing, but at that point, she saw worms three times. So the point of me telling you this is that there is a lot of limitations when it comes to the testing, and you could easily have this problem, and you could easily have infections in your gut that nobody is finding.
**Unknown:** And once you do know if they're there, it's actually pretty easy to get rid of them and to recover completely. Um, for those of you that are completely horrified by this conversation about parasites, um, I was a pescatarian for ten years, meaning I only ate fish. I did not know that not all fish was created equal. I ate farmed fish.
**Unknown:** I ate sushi. I ate buffet sushi. I ate all of it thinking that I was doing great because I was, you know, eating low calorie, and I pretty much ended up with a boatload of parasite infections. So it's common.
**Unknown:** It's not uncommon. Uh, again, one in four people have a parasite issue. So we definitely need to entertain that, especially in the event that you have IBS, you have Crohn's, you have ulcerative colitis. We cannot ignore that that might be part of the puzzle.
**Unknown:** So overall, um, I kind of gave it away already, but mom's observation was there was clearly a parasite issue, and then when we started to treat for the parasite infection, we definitely found that he almost resolved all of his neurological issues because parasites also have a tendency to hijack our behaviors and to make us very, very cognitively foggy. So it's really-- it can be brain down, but it also can be gut up, and it's really, really important to get the right testing to figure out which is which for you. So the other big thing, um, that I wanted to talk about wasThe concept of having to give everything up to get your health back. And at the end of the day, if you figure out what the root cause is, is you don't have to give up your life and not be able to go out, not have the glass of wine, not eat out, and be on this crazy elimination diet.
**Unknown:** If you understand what's causing your gut issues, then you can easily get back to where you need to be. And then in the event of chronic constipation, chronic stomach pain, gastroparesis, which is when you're having lack of motility in the gut, you need to evaluate the neurological function of the patient. The vagus nerve needs to be evaluated. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to evaluate the gag reflex.
**Unknown:** So it goes one of two ways. Some people gag super easily, like they smell something bad and they gag. They brush their teeth, they gag. They try to gargle, they gag.
**Unknown:** And then there's other people that have no gag reflex. So both of those are problematic, if it's overactive or if it's underactive. So being able to monitor that reflex actually tells you, do you have a vagus nerve problem? And again, if you have had chronic gut problems, especially in the world of constipation, and no supplements and no dietary changes have helped you, chances are this is more of a neurological problem.
**Unknown:** So with that being said, going on an elimination diet is not going to fix that. It is not going to get rid of the constipation because it doesn't stem from the gut, it stems from the neurological system. So understanding the vagus nerve is extremely important, and understanding there is a bigger picture just beyond diet. So this is what the vagus nerve does.
**Unknown:** It starts in the brain stem, so let's say that's the top of your neck to keep it super simple. But this will pretty much control your rest and digest. It controls your heart rate. It controls your breathing.
**Unknown:** It controls how well you break down your food. It controls how well your liver detoxes you. It controls your bladder, and it also controls your ovaries. So if your vagus nerve is dysfunctioning, you can have the constipation, but you also might have bad PMS.
**Unknown:** You might also have breathing issues. You might also have problems with detox. You might also be drooling. I know that sounds weird, but if you wake up and there is drool on your pillow, that is because you have a vagus nerve issue.
**Unknown:** So it's very, very important to understand that there is a bigger picture behind this. Your constipation is the sign that your body is giving you saying there's something wrong. And unfortunately, we kind of put the trust in the physicians to say, "Tell me what's wrong with me, and tell me how to fix it." But again, someone who's looking at the, the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system, that's a neurologist. And then you have your gastroenterologist.
**Unknown:** So if they don't talk to each other, they're not gonna piece that puzzle together. So that's really where this integrative model comes in, is being able to understand the whole picture and have a physician that's really looking at every single aspect here. So I wanna give you guys tips. So if you are someone who is like, "Oh my gosh, I have no gag reflex," or, "I gag all the time, and I've definitely been struggling with constipation.
**Unknown:** All of my efforts haven't helped. My elimination diet hasn't helped. Nothing has helped my gut problems." So a couple of things that are so, so valuable. I know this sounds really weird, and I usually see a very funny face when I talk to my patients about this as well, is you need to gag yourself.
**Unknown:** You need to brush your teeth and press on the back of your tongue with your toothbrush twice a day. If you brush your teeth more than that, do it more than twice a day. And the way that you know you activated your vagus nerve is if your eyes get watery. And that is a step towards getting your vagus nerve working better.
**Unknown:** The other thing that you can do is gargle. So the gag reflex and gargling, think of gag reflex as like the push-ups for your vagus nerve, a strengthening exercise. Gargling is like sprinting for your vagus nerve. So that's gonna be more of like a, like a cardiovascular exercise.
**Unknown:** So those two things alone can start to repair your vagus nerve function. And then lastly, not everybody's favorite, but doing enemas. You can actually do something like coffee enemas on a day-to-day basis. I know that's a commitment.
**Unknown:** But doing that will actually stimulate the vagus nerve from the bottom up, so it'll stimulate it from the gut up to the brain. So if you're able to do those things, you can actually start to repair your vagus nerve on your own. Um, obviously, it's not always that easy for everyone, especially if you've had a head injury, um, if you've had a bad neck injury. If you've had a significant neck surgery, you might need to be seeking out care from a professional to really work on that.
**Unknown:** So as we're finishing up here, one of the biggest things that I said earlier is really just don't be fooled because very, very rarely do things look like the textbook, especially in the event that you're dealing with a variety of different things going on. You know, you might not have, you know, the, the telltale symptoms or the telltale textbook description of constipation 'cause maybe you're only constipated sometimes. Maybe you're only constipated when you travel. But regardless, you're still dealing with it to some capacity.
**Unknown:** So it's really just understanding that if you don't match the textbook, very unlikely that your treatment protocol should follow the textbook. So it's a matter of taking a step back, looking at the bigger picture, and understanding that your needs might be very, very different. So with everything that I've described tonight is it's really kind of looking at this old model versus the new model. And I'm not even talking about conventional medicine versus integrative medicine.
**Unknown:** I'm even talking about functional medicine versus integrative medicine.Because when it comes down to functional medicine which I used to do more of, is I used to have people come in, I would do a lot of testing, their testing would rack up to thousands of dollars and then at that point I have to hope that I know exactly what's going on with them. And then my, my tools were diet and supplementation. And I felt very frustrated with that because not everybody got better with that. And as I continued to learn and grow and evolve, one of my mentors said to me, "Don't call yourself integrative if all you do is diet and supplements." And that was extremely eye-opening to me.
**Unknown:** My business is called Integrative Wellness Group. So it made me realize there's more to the picture, there's more to health, and it's really understanding the big picture behind what's going on here. So as we have transitioned in, into this integrative approach, our testing has changed pretty dramatically which I'm gonna talk a little bit more about. So I've talked all about this amazing, amazing approach that we do and, you know, I've talked a little bit about testing and all of that.
**Unknown:** Um, but just to kind of clarify the, some of the tests that we do, um, some of you may have heard of them and some of you may have not. But just to give you kind of the global view is the type of testing that we do is we look at the body from an emotional standpoint, we look at the body from an energetic standpoint, looking at the meridians, so we're almost taking this concept of the way acupuncture works in Chinese medicine, then we're also looking at your biochemistry through your blood work, and then we're also looking at your body from a DNA standpoint, getting down to the DNA level and looking at the most subtle changes in your DNA. And our bioresonance technology is the primary technology that allows us to see that. What's absolutely amazing is we can see changes before they fully manifest, so talk about being preventative.
**Unknown:** You can actually be preventative with this type of technology 'cause we're able to really, really see what's going on. And then with the bioscan, this is the meridian-based, um, technology that I was mentioning, but this technology is endless because we can look at everything from toxicity to environmental allergies, to food allergies, to emotional, um, things that we're holding onto. Like, the sky is the limit, and the technology fascinates me on a day-to-day basis. And in addition, we're always evaluating is there a toxicity piece, and unfortunately, in this day and age, there is a huge issue with toxicity, and that toxicity is usually causing us to be very deficient in a lot of our vitamins and minerals.
**Unknown:** And so many of us are taking B12 and vitamin C and CoQ10 and all of these great things, and we're peeing bright yellow, and we're peeing bright yellow because we can't absorb it, and we can't break it down, and our body can't even use it. So a lo- I hear it all the time when I talk about, you know, "Okay, these are the supplements that we're using because this is what your body tested for," then so much of the time people are like, "Well, what about my B12?" What about my multivitamin? What about, you know, my folate? What about my prenatal?" And I'm just like, "If you wanna have really expensive urine, then go for it.
**Unknown:** But right now, we need to do a little groundwork before we bring those things in." So again, I didn't actually say this before, but I say to every single one of my patients, "It's not about what you do, it's about how you do it," and that is so, so important. This is about strategy when it comes to your healing process. And that kind of brings me to this. One of the tests that we do is called autonomic response testing.
**Unknown:** This was a test that was created by Dr. Klinghardt. Um, it's very confusing to a lot of people that receive it, but as we get it done and it uncovers so much information, people are like, "Holy crap, this is, like, the craziest type of testing I've ever had," because it's always correct and it's always just so on point. But to keep it as simplistic as possible, the autonomic response testing is amazing because when I said how every single person is so, so different and every single person needs a different approach, even if your symptoms look similar to someone else, the way that we're able to customize this approach is because this testing gets down into the DNA level.
**Unknown:** And if we test supplements against your DNA, we can see which supplements are actually going to better the function of your body. We can also see what types of therapies are best for your body. So, like, when you go to the store and you're looking, and you're like, "All right, well, I think should take vitamin D," how many bottles of vitamin D are they? How...
**Unknown:** and you're like, "I don't even know which one to pick." And you don't know which one to pick because there's so many different options. They're all have different additives. They're all different companies. They're processed differently.
**Unknown:** And that's what's crazy, is sometimes we will test 10 different types of one supplement like a vitamin D, and that person will come up for one out of the 10. So it's not just about they need vitamin D, it's about they need that specific type of vitamin D. So when it comes to your supplements and you're the person, 'cause I know that I did this, I still have a cabinet that is filled with thousands of dollars of supplements. And then I started to test the supplements against my body to see what does my body need, and I realized I only needed a little bit.
**Unknown:** I didn't even need half the supplements I was actually taking. It's really important for you not only to get answers to the root of your issues, but it's also important for you to walk away with strategy. What are your best supplements? What is your best diet?
**Unknown:** What types of therapies do you need to do in addition to changing your diet and maybe taking some supplements? Because unfortunately, it's not super linear anymore. You know, for those of you that went down that road already, you might need more. You might need to detox.
**Unknown:** You might need to clean up your lymphatic system. You might need, need to do brain balancing exercises. You might need to do those things.So it's important to understand that there's a bigger picture behind it all. And the treatments that we're kind of left with, especially in the world of the gut, is we're left with, "Oh, you have an autoimmune condition?
**Unknown:** Great. We'll shut down the immune system using immunosuppressants." "Oh, you have, um, diarrhea? Okay, we'll put you on antibiotics. We don't know if it's a bacteria, but we'll assume that it is." "Oh, you have constipation?
**Unknown:** Okay, we'll put you on laxatives." "Oh, um, none of that worked? Okay, we'll cut out half of your bowel." They're all masking the symptoms. They're not ever getting to the root cause. And then on the flip side, we have the natural approach.
**Unknown:** "Okay, take these herbs, take, take these supplements, take these vitamins. Eliminate everything out of your diet." And then, then what? And then what, what about going back to a normal life? What about, you know, being able to eat more than five foods?
**Unknown:** It's about being specific, and it's about knowing what your body needs. So I really thank all of you for being here with me. I hope you learned a ton, and I, I do this because I love it, and my mission is to get the message out there in a really, really big way. But, um, you know, just for those of you that have been with me, just understand that this is an educational experience, and what you truly experience when you come to IWG is a breakthrough experience.
**Unknown:** And it's a breakthrough because you can literally sit back and be like, "Holy crap, that makes perfect sense, and now I finally understand why I feel this way, and I have a solution in place." So it's really, really just ... The things we see on a day-to-day basis, I just couldn't even begin to tell you. It's just such an amazing feeling, and it's amazing to see people's lives transformed. So thank you again for being with me.
**Unknown:** For those of you who wanna check out our website, integrativewellnessgroup.com. I would love, love, love for you guys to share this with, um, friends and family, those that you think can benefit from it. Sign up for the series. Send it to your friends.
**Unknown:** It's all about having information that you can actually use and, and take charge of your health. So again, thank you guys for being with me. All right, guys, I hope you have a good night, and I will see you next week. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio.
**Unknown:** If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com. All night, no sleep.
**Unknown:** 'Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming. Wide awake, that's okay
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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