Empowering Natural Healing from IBD

Sponsor Messages and Guest Introduction 0:00

Hey everyone, Dr. Rob here. I want to take a moment to spotlight my sponsors, Professional Co-op, empowering clinicians with premium access to top-tier lab services at a fraction of the cost. Since 2001, professional co-ops has redefined what efficient, patient-centered support should look like. No hidden fees. and you only pay for completed tests. Its lab access made simple, transparent, and affordable. Trusted by licensed healthcare professionals across the country, Professional Co-op is your strategic partner in delivering high-quality care.

Discover more at www.professionalco.gov. A quick shout out to my other sponsor, Functional Medicine University, one of the top online programs for learning functional medicine. Founded by Dr. Ron Grisanti, FMU has trained thousands of healthcare professionals in over 50 states and over 68 countries. It's completely online, self-paced, and CE approved for a wide range of clinicians, MDs, DCs and NDs PAs and more. At the end of the program, you are in your certified functional medicine practitioner credential, something that's truly elevated my clinical approach.

If you're ready to level up your practice with evidence-based root cause care, FMU is the place to start. Check them out at functionalmedicineuniversity.com. Hey everybody, Dr. Rob Silverman here. I'm excited. This guest is going to light you up. There's no doubt about it. He's gonna share some passion with you. We got Dane Johnson. Dain, how are you? Thank you so much for having me, Doctor Rob. Indeed, indubitably well said, no doubt. So three million Americans have IBD, ongoing inflammation of all or part of the digestive tract.

Crohn's disease is the whole digestive track. It's patchy, it's inflamed. Ulcerative colitis is more damaged. in the large intestine, both are chronic inflammatory conditions. Crohn's can have complete remission, which is kind of less common than colitis. Now, you are very unique in that you had one of the worst cases Yes. Of IBD in the history of the world. Why don't you tell everybody your story? Why didn't tell them where you came from? It is fascinating. Yeah, you know, the long story, but the gist and the biggest thing you need to know about this story is I was just a good old boy from Virginia who ate whatever I wanted.

And all of a sudden at 19 years old, I started getting blood in the stool, and it's looking like a crime scene. I'm in shame. What's going on? I was an athlete. And I like to play sports. But I didn't eat too bad. Growing up in Virginia, you only focus on macros, right? Go eat some Papa John's. Run it off tomorrow. That was the mentality. So we just focused on that. and I love to lift weights. Love to love play sport. Nice person. All of a sudden, I am getting sick. Oh, by 23, I'm diagnosed with this, this kind of shameful thing where my colon is inflamed.

What am I going? What is this? I don't have nothing going. I've never heard of this. My family hadn't heard this they called it ulcerative colitis.I remember even being in shame telling people the name of the disease. Like ulcative Colitis and you know, your friends going, what's that? It's like, well, my colons chronically inflame and it's injured and I can't go to the bathroom, right? And I have to go the bath from 15, 20 times a day. I just remember thinking extreme shame at 22, 23, like a lot of it, especially being a guy who worked hard to, you know, compete and be somebody.

And I had big expectations for my life. So my personality did not fit that very well. It really hurt me, caused a lotta trauma. Then another doctor said it was Crohn's disease.

Dane Johnsonu2019s IBD Origin Story 4:00

I said, what's that? Well, it's just the same IBD, but it is more from anywhere from the mouth all the way down to the anus. Then different doctors kept disagreeing on the diagnosis of what form of inflammatory bowel disease it was so eventually it Was just I've got Crohn's and colitis and I got an inflamed colon. It may be it's gastritis Maybe the Ilium is doing you know is inflame not inflames is it Crohns it we couldn't they would they were on indeterminate on that so Crohan's in colitas Then it, was like, okay, try to calm down the diet restrict this take some 5-as a mesalamine take 6-MP or immunomodulator.

So don't suppress the immune system yet, just modulate it, right? Like an exit off a highway. Just go that way. Inflammation, well, that didn't work. All right, let's go on Remicade. Now we're gonna go ahead and suppress that immune to calm down that cytokine reaction. By suppressing the system, we hope the body starts to heal itself. There's no growth factors in a biologic. It's just, We hope that body will start to stimulate a healing response. And I wasn't getting better with that. And so, okay, well, we were going antibiotics.

We're going on prednisone. Now, steroid prednison, which is a cortisol steroide, acts as an immunosuppressant. You can't be on it long term, so you have to be in it short term. Give your body a break and then go back on, taper all the way off, go on. So I tapered on and off for about four years straight of prednosone, And I went from, you know, 6 to 175, 180 pounds with a 315 bench press at 6% body fat. I could do 30 pull-ups straight, strong. To by the time I was turning 27 I wasn't the hospital for a month straight I weighed 122 pounds I could not walk I couldn't not go to the bathroom by myself.

My mom and my sister took turns staying at the Hospital with me was in that hospital four weeks straight and they put a bedpan under me to relieve just some mucus water and blood. And I was going in and out of consciousness. I had extreme pain. It felt like I'm pooping glass. And, I couldn't eat anything. So, because I could not eat, they eventually just put me on a TPN feeding tube where they make an incision and they basically feed you through your stomach, through the incisions under your lower arm.

And I was told I had to get a full colectomy and have a stoma bag. So you've got to your total colon removed, wear a bag so you relieve the bowels into the bag for at least six months until we could potentially have our reversal surgery for what's called a J-pouch. If that's unsuccessful or you're too inflamed, you might have to stay with a lifelong J pouch. This has happened to me while I'm turning 27. I turned 27 in the hospital fighting for my life. Almost died in December 2014. My birthday is November.

so I turned 27 in that hospital. I had just, and the crazy thing is, it was like two lives, Dr. Rob. It was two faces. On one hand, I started to make it.I was shooting movies, commercials. You know,I've been doing shots with Tommy Hilfinger, live television, Natica, Patagonia, flying around the world as a young 20-something where I made a career as an actor and model out of nowhere, but while I was facing basically a life-threatening disease. All this happened from 19 to 27. So I losing my life while at the same time, the universe had given me something that most of us think, that's never going to happen to me.

And no one found me. I wouldn't build this in LA.I took a one-way trip right after college a little while later and just moved to LA and Just kind of made it happen. And I had to work the system, right, to start doing something besides being a waiter, you know, working in software sales. So I worked for Oracle Software for a while out of college to build my degree after that. But nonetheless, it was like, Can you, everyone out there who's been sick, can you imagine being given a gift and then giving like the opposite worst, like, the worst thing that ever happened to you and the best thing to ever happen to with the age of 24 happens at the exact same time.

They both, I was diagnosed and I then I given, was signed by one of the biggest agencies in the world in exact the same year. So it was just, to me it's an irony. It was like is someone, am I someone's plaything? Is God smiting me? I look at my mom and my dad and the usual thing is you do as a kid is help me, save me. Then they write a check, run themselves around in circles to fly around the country. And you just think, okay, there's going to be a doctor who's just going go in. They're going jab me with something, give me a pill.

I'm going back to my life. That was me at 22, 23. that was out I conditioned to, right? I was conditioned as young man that we just delegate out our health. So that's what we did. 30 to $40,000 later from a middle-class family, we were not rich. Both my parents worked nine to five jobs and they worked hard for a lot of years. The house I grew up in when I was a kid was worth about 150, 000 bucks. This is not like we didn't have a lotta money. We weren't poor, but we weren' wealthy. So $30,00 later, trying natural medicine, going to conventional medicine.

Out-of-pocket expenses my network wouldn't cover. Thirty, 50 grand later I'm more sick than where we started. And so it was testing every fiber, everything I knew about life. Like when something bad happens to you, a lot of us just wanna clam up and just become resentful. I just resent this. Well, I'm just gonna throw my arms up, am a victim. Am just going to bench Netflix. am not gonna get dressed. Why should I even get dress for the day? Why Should I Even Care Dad? why should even care mom? Yeah, doctors is gonna tell me the same old thing.

Just another colonoscopy. Yeah you got inflammation, duh. Yep, we need to get this or surgery or that medication. And so it took me a lot of years to even get to a point where I was willing to be the CEO of my health and that's when my life changed and I went down a very foggy journey that some people had gone through, you know, books out there, Jordan Rubin, shout out to him and his book, The Maker's Guide and Patient Heal Thyself and some of the 90s leaders, the nineties and early two thousands leaders Elaine Godshaw.

GD Patel-Thompson, some of the people in the IBD space. And all I really had were their books because the internet wasn't where it is. These podcasts weren't were they are. There weren�t leaders in this space of functional medicine as strong. It was still like, okay, let's just fast and do 50 bananas a day, the fruitarian diet, or let�s just do the carnivore diet. I was a little sick beyond just using a famous diet to get the result. And I had a lot I have to do. But in 2014, when I checked myself out of the hospital, I'd already been practicing natural medicine for three or four years.

I was working with my naturopath professor, becoming a functional nutritionist, specializing in gut health and IBD. And it took me about a year. It was housebound for a years, Dr. Rob. So I get out of the hospital, I almost die. What saved my life was an antiviral chemotherapy. And this is where I started realizing there are deeper problems beyond just inflammation. There's a why for the inflammation, there's why this happening to you. All of a sudden a big one hit me. It was a doctor in Florida.

who my mom became the doctor, right, in the ER room. I'm dying. She's calling every doctor I'd seen over the last five years. There's a doctor in Florida who believed that cytomegalovirus had taken over my body. It was active in my colon, causing my colin to become so inflamed. Got on with the insurance company and the local doctor at that hospital and say, if you don't give him this antiviral chemotherapy, he's going to die. And I was dying. No one could figure it out. I wasn't for antibiotics.

It was on three grams of infused allotted. gave me the antiviral. Within two to three days, I woke back up, became conscious. About a week later, i decided to check myself out of the hospital despite their recommendations because there's only so much you can do with a feeding tube under fluorescent lights in a stressful environment like that. It was just like I thought I'd be better off at home getting sun and eating and just been there. I've been here for a month. So I was housebound from a year there.

It took me about two to three months to regain my ability to walk. So it was bedridden for about 2 to 3 months. And then it took about a years to be able to get normal and healthy again. 18 months later, I had booked a lead role in a movie. And to me it was just like, I just went through hell and now I'm back into this industry and I had to learn. I spent at least 50, 60 hours a week studying any kind of natural medicine, nutrition, immune system response, the gulp, mucosal membrane, microbiome, working with all my naturopath professors, just constantly training because I was patient zero.

What actually gets a probiotic to work? What is actually the role of fiber? what are the benefits of carnivore, ketosis or fasting and how do I do that when I'm malnourished, underweight and anemic? And so I had to really try this stuff on me. That was the beautiful thing, because when I was going through school, it wasn't just concept. I Iwas doing it on myself. And it's like that's when i really decided I retired at 29 from that career. i walked into my agent's office and they had a few jobs for me the next week.I was working for like Laura Piana and I got another booking and someone was gonna fly me out somewhere for some campaign.

I'm moving back to California because I need to be with the earth, I needed sun, need organic food. I was living in Manhattan, and I am going to go ahead and hang up my hat. And I think I've done with industry. Instead of the industry firing me, but I walked out on my own terms, which I always felt good about that. Because I have been able to work some throughout all those experiences, not in that year. That year I did not. But around that, you know. If you guys want to see that actually. or God even manifested this for me.

I didn't have any income and I'd done a lot of stuff to be able to make sure my costs were really low and the universe brought the company 23andMe to my doorstep because they wanted to shoot a documentary on inflammatory bowel disease and they paid me a few thousand bucks to come to My house and document me trying to heal myself. So you go to YouTube and go 23 and Me, Dane Johnson. You'll see it. It's in like 2014. 140 pounds and they're looking at me drinking bentonite clay with psyllium husk and me chopping up all these carrots and get rid of the skins and pressure cooking them to reduce lectins and be able to handle the fiber.

And I was having 10 bowel movements a day when they record that. What do you think was the moment. And more so than that, I mean, wow, so much there to really unbox. What do you think was moment where you said I gotta move on and I got to take care of myself? Like you say, want to be the CEO of my health.

Conventional Treatments and Near-Death Hospitalization 15:00

and what for you was cause? Did you ever really figure out what the cause was? The biggest epiphany I had is there's no such thing as a root cause. It's root causes. You have to change the perspective at which you look at the problem or looking at it wrong. I love it. And I agree. There's a myriad of issues. A myriade of causes, I hardly agree with that. Excellent. Okay. So here's some things I found. Number one, I had been using Invisalign for 13 months prior to me getting ulcerative colitis. You look at the clinical research now in 2025, and it's coming out that people with IBD have up to 50% more microplastic in their GI tract than the average person.

Microplastics, I think, is destroying the gut. We never have drinking water out of plastic water bottles ever before, about 30 years ago, ever. plastic plastic is a massive problem every single anywhere you look in function medicine the core problem is these chemicals and toxins are inhibiting the growth of beneficial bacteria they are disrupting the microbiome allowing the gram negative proliferated bacteria to grow so the candida supposed to be only in the colon is being able to proliferate up the GI causing CFO and same with the bacteria going up, the G I causing small intestine, bacteria overgrowth, SIBO.

And then that is causing a massive increase in lipopolysaccharides and endotoxins that are making it into the bloodstream and overwhelming the liver. Cause all of the Bloodstream vessels, The blood vessels in the gut leading to the Liver causing metabolic endo toxinia. Then that's also making the lymphatic system completely overwhelmed. So we have, we are taking a river, the body, a natural energetic strong body is a running river and autoimmune disease is stagnant pond. The increase in lipopolysaccharides, endotoxins, bacteria overgrowth, fungal overgrowth, in the inhibiting growth of the good bacteria is cascading a massive disease state of the body, drainage pathways, lymphatic, liver, skin, your ability to have a bowel movement, okay?

And your kidneys, they are not properly working. They are overwhelmed. The microbiome has lost its balance and now you're getting an inflammatory response from the dial, from dysbiosis, and from SIBO. If you have IBS and IBD, there's probably a 9 to 9.5 out of 10 chance that you had some form of dysbiosis and SIBo. I can almost guarantee it. Even though SIBO is hard to find, it is there. I'm not just relying on methane or a hydrogen breath test to tell me if you have SIBo or not. Yeah, I got to pull the reins on you.

You just gave everybody, wow, now I love it. So everybody knows how important the gut is. It's a delicate ecosystem. Great discussion about Lepa polysaccharides, the endotoxin, direct binder. I really enjoyed your description of what goes on with SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and something that's not talked enough about, CFO small intestine fungal overgrow, 97% of the fungals are Candida-based. outstanding. And really the gut-to-the-liver pathway, whatever you do to your gut, you deliver.

Whatever you're doing to deliver, do you gut. I do not know why people do no discuss liver anymore. i've been in functional medicine for 20 years and we used to have detoxification liver in every seminar discussion. Now it's an afterthought. That pathway has not gone away. It's not absent. it was not erased by the pencil head. However, what's most interesting is the idea of dysbiosis, that unleveling of good and bad bacteria. And I agree with you that that may be the bane of our existence and it's not discussed enough in our genre.

Within that, one more key point. I agreed with the tests for CFO and CPO are not necessarily that accurate at this juncture. Leaky gut, dysbiosis were there. So, take your time, baby. Keep going. Let's go. So here's the thing. The second thing I found, why aren't the doctors even mentioning the word SIBO? SIBo is not woo woo. SIbo is just real. It's classic. Mayo Clinic or Cedar Sinai or UCLA ever looked to me and said, maybe you have small intestine bacteria overgrowth. Maybe you'll have smaller intestine fungal overgrowth where Candida albicans and Candidas species have become overgrown causing inflammatory reaction.

The clinical research is there. We know it increases inflammatory action in cytokine reactions. No one mentioned it. And, and so I had dysbiosis. I had SIBO. Here's also what's interesting. If you've been sick more than five years, I can almost promise that you have SIbo. It's getting worse as the problem starts to proliferate. The colonic dysbiosis easily turns into SIBo when not checked. Small intestine fungal overgrowth versus basic over growth in your colon. Colonic Dysbiosis versus SIBO. it will turn into the other.

especially when the mucosal membrane is weakened, because that allows the bacteria to grow up the 28 feet of the GI tract. The muxosome membrane keeps that in check, and it also keeps in-check the endotoxins. When you have a thick, healthy mucus membrane, it helps to keep in checked endo-toxins, stopping the metabolic endotoxinia where your liver is getting overwhelmed, where the amount of lipopolysaccharides is in your gut. Some research has shown, I was talking to Dr. Tom Fabian about this as I speaking at a conference last week with him, and we were talking about how people with SIBO can have upwards of six to 10 times the amount of LPS in their bloodstream than the average person because there's no strong mucosal membrane in the upper GI.

the strength of how you protect the gut lining, the mucosal membrane is much weaker in the duodenum and the jejunum than it is in colon. So as it proliferates over time, it exacerbates the problem. That's why at year three, you could handle certain foods. Year six, your getting more strict. Your seven, are getting a more histamine reaction. Now you've got MCAS, now you got different autoimmune, Now, You've Got Chronic Fatigue, pancreatitis, skin reactions. It's all just exasperating from the same root issues.

So my second thing is no one had even talked to me about the balance of the microbiome and the clinical research of what even endotoxemia was and how the liver was involved. By the time I found this, Dr. Rob, I had massive amounts of candida overgrowth right there in a non-invasive quantitative PCR stool analysis. You don't have to a colonoscopy. I didn't do an invasive potential proliferation of a colina. Just do a stool test. It was right there. No one told me I was so angry about this, but it wasn't their job.

Their emergency care physicians were healers. OK, and so I had to learn emotionally to separate. They saved my life, But function of medicine will empower you to live your best life. and be able to treat these root issues. This isn't about the debate of root cause or not. this is just science, this just obvious. The liver can get overwhelmed. You need optimal digestion. People with IBD tend to have an overwhelmed liver, poor digestion, they have a weakened mucosal membrane, They have low keystone microbiota like acromansia.

So when I learned this stuff, it was like, wait, I don't have to worry about what the root causes of IBd is, just fix the machine. Just fix the anatomy. This is anatomy, this is not up for debate. You have low stomach acid, you have dysbiosis, your liver's overwhelmed, and you no beneficial bacteria growing in it. That's not for up debate, it's just there, let's look. It's there. Well, that's the cause of IBD. Let me ask you, Doctor, if I optimize my digestion, regulate my microbiome and start incentivizing my mucosal membrane to be nice and healthy and formed, do you think I might get less blood, less bloating, more cramping, better brain fog, and better energy and be able to retain my weight, electrolytes and get rid of anemia?

What do think? Do you thing I'll be to absorb iron better? You think we'll break down a steak better, handle fiber better. Why is it we have to go on a little fob map? Because we've dysbiosis. Absolutely. So this is like the big thing, that and the toxins and then the viral load. And I found the more sick you are, not to cut you off Rob, the sicker you, are the, more of these symptoms stack. It's not that you caught it, it's that your body is now susceptible to the parasites, low stomach acid and poor microbiome makes you susceptible, to parasites makes, you're susceptible bacteria infections, makes your susceptible viruses.

Makes you to mold toxicity. Your cell, even at a cellular level, lipid fat bilayers are not strong. Your cells can't even protect themselves from intercellular toxicity. And your cellular matrix can no longer detox, your lymphatic system doesn't work. You did a great job of making a point that we don't discuss enough in functional medicine. We always talk about the leaky gut in the lower GI tract. we never talk the upper GI track. Yeah. Right there. And the expression of LPS increases the incidence of heart disease by three times.

What doesn't it increase? What disease does it not increase. It's crazy. How is it, not a prime marker for any kind of Western doc? I don't get it. Dr. Rob, there's one test that's really looking at it. Vibrant America Wheat Tumor Blood Analysis will give you an idea of lipopolysaccharides. It also gives you and idea zonulin in the blood, which is your protein that helps to show amount of leaky gut. So if you're looking for leky gut, you want to look at zionulin and the stool, and you will get zanulin the in blood both.

because I'm going to give you more of a permanency where the gut can change and heal really quickly. So the amount of zion in your gut might be down, but it might still be really high in you're in, your body saying, Hey, you still need to, he'll seem to watch it. Well, I want to one up you. All right, here we go. This is great because we don't have to agree, as long as we agree. Disagreeably now we want agree agreeably. Yeah. Bottom line. I like the KBMO diagnostic test, it's blood. It does test for LPS, test our zonulin and occludin, and clandida.

But what it does, the key element for the zionulin, is test the Zonuline antibodies. Because Zionulone goes up and down all day long.

Root Causes: Microbiome, Toxins, and SIBO 25:00

So it is the antibody. And that is truth in many of these pathogenic diseases like Lyme, leaky gut, any of these things, you were not worried so much about the presence of something. You worried about production of antibodies. Name that test again for everybody, Dr. Rob. What was the name of that KBMO diagnostics, it's a leaky gut barrier panel. He uses one, I use the other, but at least we're testing and not guessing to see all that we have to in a reveal and hopefully get to the blind spots. That's it, you got it.

And what are we learning from this? How excited? I think everyone out there, the reason why Dr. Rob's so passionate about this, and I'm so passion about, is we've taken our power back. We can now help heal ourselves and our families by just understanding the body and how you respond to adversity. This is what I like to say. The cure for Crohn's and colitis is not the ability to eradicate dis-ease. I wanna get into some of the causes of IBD. I'm gonna hit you with some. Sure. And then I want you to add to it because I know you have some specific ones that you highlighted in your program.

Number one, genetic components. Mom has it, you can have it. Immune system, autoimmunity, environmental factors, which you've highlighted just before. The microbiome, what you gave a great dissertation on. Stress, Which is something you were probably going through because you had to book your next job. age. You don't have to worry about that. That's more my genre now. Ethnicity. IBD is more common in people of European descent as myself. And lastly, non-steroid anti-inflammatories. Leave Advil and ibuprofen.

Now you had some that were directly pertaining to your issue. So there's a lot there that we could go over. The whole idea of genetic, The more we learn about genetics, the more see that they're interwoven with our experience and our microbiome. The cells are talking to the bacteria and vice versa. And so when mom has these underlying root issues and she has the active TH1 response to these issues, this can be passed down. And that's what's happening. I talked to a kid yesterday, his mom's had ulcerative colitis.

He's in Long Island. His mom had a ulsterative Colitis for 30 years. She had her total colon removed. he wanted to join the program out of hope that he wouldn't follow. Cause at 28 years old, he started getting 20 bloody bowel movements a day of UC and he's scared as can be traumatized as it can. And my belief, okay, just what I believe. And what I would want to bestow on anyone that like that is you can change how your body responds by cleaning up. Number one, what it's responding to. and you can condition the body to be better, just like you could lift a weight.

You can conditioning the nervous system to better. you condition immune system better you help to condition that autoimmune reaction, you rebuild the mucosal membrane, rebuild epithelial soul lining, diversify the microbiome. It's like, if you just went, here's a good example, If you go to Bali, it's very common that a western person will get Bali belly. But people in Bali don't get Bali belly. Why? Because they've been conditioned for the environment that they can now, that, they could handle it.

Okay. So if a Western world go person goes to Bali, preps themselves right, starts conditioning yourself within a year or two, They will no longer get bali belly, the microbiome and the immune system can start to respond and find balance in a brand new environment. Same thing in Africa. So if that's true, why can't this be true with how we respond? Because now we need to find, even if the immune system is highly reactive, if we can find out what it's reacting to, we could help increase the chance of remission.

I was extremely reactive to Candida and virus, okay? Now you could argue what's making me so reactive. Is it underlying mold toxicity? Is EMFs? is it a chronically messed up nervous system where you're in a sympathetic state too long, right? Is it the microbiome? It's always a little bit of these things, but how much influence does it have on this unique person? So every person needs a custom answer because we're all responding different to the environment. So you have to piece together what's really influencing you.

They always say, right, genetics load the gun, And so I think I really believe it's like that because if you look at the opposite, Dr. Rob, that's an epidemic. One million people in the United States were diagnosed with IBD in 1999. By 2015, it was two million. Now it is over three million, and I believe that is way higher than that. I agree with that and so all these people who don't have family members who have been diagnosed, now we are getting it for the first time. And what will happen is society will try to enroll people into this whole generational IB-D thing in about another 10 years because we will be on second and third generation IB D.

And it's not because it is an epidemic. And in every epidemic, you have to understand the laws of epidemic that it must be environmental for something to be spread across tons of people with different genetics who have no family history of it. Because IBD is only 70 years old. So that's my feeling on that. It's only seventy years. Like the first cases in the westernization world were really the 1950s. There was some talk of back in early 1900s, like very rare, very, rare thing. 1915 is where it started moving.

And if you look at the growth of inflammatory bowel disease with the Western world, it's very parallel. As the world becomes more Western, IBD becomes Western. That takes us into more of the environment over society and skin. I think it is very similar to what we see with vitamin D. If you take a person of deeper complexion, it's harder for their body to make vitamin D that nourishes the immune system. Remember, vitamin d acts more like a hormone than a vitamin to help protect the system we saw how important it was for COVID.

Well, if you take a person of darker skin pigment, and you put them in Canada, It's gonna be a lot harder for them to be able to convert and make vitamin D than a lighter complexion person. Well, the higher up north you are, The higher complexions the population tends to. I think there is a relationship on Western people, Netherlands, UK, Canada. The highest increase in IBD right now around the world is Canada and around UK. Western Europe, Northern Hemisphere. So we see that connection to maybe the equator.

And also, anyone with autoimmune disease is going to tell you they tend to get worse in the winter. Flu, COVID, viral, you don't get as much of the fruits and the natural foods, stress is higher, less sun, all of that, right? So I think that has something to do with it. And any of those people out there who've talked to us and really taught us explain the epidemic of vitamin D and brought up the equator and bought up our abilities to use vitamin d. I think it just makes a lot of sense because we know that a person of lighter skin complexion, their body out at the beach can make 25,000 international units of Vitamin D within about 30 minutes of sun exposure.

Okay, so this whole idea that 5,000 or 10,00 I use of vitamin D is high, I don't agree with it personally. I think we're way under dosing vitamin d, and I the hypercalcification and hypomagnesia problem is more of mineral deficiency, soil deficiencies. Like vitamin K is deficient in the soil, we are not getting it in to the poultry and the meats that we eating. So I, you know, that's an example of what I there's just changes in our environment and in human body. with the EMF, the blue light, toxins, and the lack of sun exposure.

I mean, how much sun have you gotten today, Dr. Rob? I haven't gotten much because I've been working since 8 a.m. You got fluorescent lights sitting on us at the same time. Yeah, all the lights for our podcast to brighten us up. To revert to what you said about genetics. Could we say now, could we coin a phrase that in the environment is now making an epigenetic moment in reference to IBD? Let's ponder that for a while. Second thing with vitamin D, we've discussed that, man, in tremendous detail here on the podcast, but it's never discussed enough.

And to speak to what you're saying, somebody came in yesterday, oh, I have a 62 vitamin B, the functional medicine doc said it is good. Yeah, 60 to 80 is efficient. 80 to 100 is okay also. And I have yet to see anybody walk in that's vitamin D that is too high and have any side effects. So, I do want to piggyback on what you said. I want do some rapid fire with you. You live in Manhattan, so you know what rapid-fire is. Do it, do it up, and we do this a lot. Yeah, that connecting subway. Are you ready?

Labs for IBD, Crohn's colitis. CBC, anemia, infection, inflammation, yes or no? I would say it's not guaranteed, but I'd say I'm sniffing around it. I say 75% yes. C-reactive protein and ESR? Highly needed, highly indicative of metabolic endotoxemia. High-related IBD. Liver function markers? Same thing, yeah. ALT, AST, same thing. And there's not a good liver test, there is not really a great liver tests out there. You have to go on symptoms and patient and what's going on with them. So yeah, liver is absolutely key for autoimmune disease, highly overlooked.

Autoimmune antibodies. Great for a diagnosis and understanding what is going, but it doesn't do as much for me to actually treat the root issues. Stool tests, predominantly cow protecting. Fantastic for the colon. I like the Vibrant America Gutzoomer because I look at multiple levels of inflammation, EAP, Lactoferrin, Calprotectin. But yeah, it's predominantly going to be the colin, a lot of what you find in a stool is not going tell you too much about the small intestine because all that bacteria is made in the column.

So wonderful there. You got to take some things with a grain of salt, but sometimes the answers are right there and obvious in non-invasive stool test. And obviously you and I both love leaky gut, testing for the tight junction protein enzymes, the actual inhabitants, et cetera. So you have something called the SHIELD program. I love the metaphor of the shield to protect you. Yes. There you go. Can you tell about the Shield? Yes. So, you know, for me, it's about creating what I always needed and I needed an emotional shield.

I need a way to protect myself. How do I get healthy and happy at the same time? And how do we deal with this idea of an incurable disease?

Testing, Genetics, and Environmental Triggers 35:00

So shield really, I want to get in the offense like don't just survive with his thrive. You need to divorce your old life and create you 2.0 and just stop poisoning yourself and start optimizing yourself. And so shield is a way of saying it's my unique answer and I can work with other people doing the shield, building their shield and i can take what works for me and leave the rest so I could work every community. I don't have to just put up one flag. Okay, I can build my shield. I talk to 2,000 other people building their shield for gut health, and then I take or leave what I want.

This person's vegan, doesn't matter, still a great conversation. this person is carnivore, this is fruitarian, fasting, using this binder, theory. It's all about understanding the total 360-degree process of what you can do that fits your shield, so shield can include anything out there. Right? Now, SHIELD, what does it stand for? Supplements, herbs, imagination, exercise, lifestyle, diet. Don't build a SHield, build your SHielD and do it with everyone else in the same room. Now that's the acronym.

Metaphor, it is the ability to respond to adversity. The problem is, is we think that we have to live in a bubble to protect ourselves against disease when we just need to be running up the hill towards the life we want, because we're all going to die anyways. We need be able to response to the adversity of disease. So SHieLD is like, imagine, Inflammations coming at you, poor digestion's coming, GERDs coming. Arthritis is coming to you. How are you going to respond to any disease? You want to get married?

Get the best shape of your life? Run a marathon? Live to 150 with Brian Johnson? Want to go out there and look amazing or make a lot of money and work 80 hours a week getting that promotion at that law form? Build your shield. How do you respond? It's yours. And just get around others and then learn. We started learning how to hack our... The best metaphor I can give for people is about 20 to 40 years ago, we took back our power of managing our own wealth. Remember in the 50s and 60s, it was really like unions, dad worked, mom stayed at home.

Everything was a lot of this company to take care of for the rest of life. A house cost 65 grand. outside of San Francisco. That's what my grandfather bought his house for. Okay, 65,000. Now it was sold for 1.1 million. It's crazy. it's like, oh, you made so much money. No, it costs somebody else that much for the same stinking house. Its inflation. So we took back it because we lost our power over our wealth and we back. All of us are looking at the S&P 500 or crypto or how to invest and put this in savings.

We're in the the thing with wealth. now we all just have to take back our Power with health. we have build wealth in our health Hey, what are you taking? What are doing? what protocol you're running? Why are your fasting? And what is the value of fasting. Why should I do it? You don't just build your shield for the defense of disease. It becomes the offense of the best life you wish you didn't even know you wanted. Anything you've ever wanted in your life, anything, you want a better sex life. You want to live longer.

Want to have less pain. Do you not have to worry about extra 10 pounds on you? Do want fix your thyroid? Fix your natural energy? Don't want have take five cups of coffee? Build your shield. Just get on the offense. Don't do it out of fear. See, I got into natural medicine out the fear of disease. Now I thrive in it for the passion of optimizing my life. Wow. Compelling. Like I said, love the metaphor. So I'm going to hit you with some more thing. I did a lot of research on your SHIELD program, so you know it's out there.

Okay. Works, AI, all that stuff. So we're going to talk about identifying triggers. I'm going give you a trigger. Thumbs up, thumbs down, epigrammatic answer. Let's go. One of the triggers, inflammation. Yeah, that's the disease in itself, chronic inflammation, yes. Immune responses. Yes, that's the problem of the disease as well. Yes. There's different layers, but yes. Toxins. I think you talked about them. 100%. Infections. You got me here. Food sensitivities, because I believe that they're one of reasons for chronic inflammation.

And I love that you inserted that there. So food sensitivities are huge, but I go at them a different way. I think that the food sensibilities are developing because of the destruction of body's anatomy. Agreed. So if you're chronically sick and you are doing an IgG IgA food panel and everything is coming up, I'm going, well, duh, Sherlock Holmes, you can't break down these proteins and got leaky gut leaking into the bloodstream causing a sensitivity. You've got to refix the microbiome, you've gotta fix that gut lining.

So obviously, that's the whole idea of restrictive diets. Restrictive diets should be a temporary solution to help the body have a healing response, no more. But what we do is we don't actually get the healing respond, so we stay in a restrictive diet of carnivore, SED, ketosis for 20 years, and that is not healthy. It has a short-term massive value and we should all practice it, but after a while it loses its validation, really. And it just means that something else is actually not getting fixed.

So food sensitivity, I say yes, but you need to fix it and it will no longer be sensitive if you do it right. Meaning I didn't have even cow dairy for six or seven years, But I was fine with it while I grow my entire life. And I did not have an IgE2 true allergy. so I rebuilt my body's ability to handle cow because I no more sensitive to it once I fixed my gut. I love it because when you think about it, it's the chicken and the egg. Did leaky gut come before food sensitivities or did food sensitivity cause the leakey gut?

Who really knows? And does restrictive diet incentivize more food-sensitivity over long periods of time or does it continue just to keep it at bay? Because if you constantly just eat restrictions, what happens to your microbiome and your diversity and you're ability to handle these foods? If you have never had it and God knows how long, the problem is not whether a food is good or bad. The problem, is whether the food, fake or real. I'm with you, man. Yes. But dysfunction, I don't even think I have to ask you that.

You know, you talk about in your identifying triggers, trauma and emotional. I mean, that's a real salient point. Most people can't figure that one out, but just know this. What you perceive and what you feel as an energy will turn into a physical response through your nervous system. So if you hear that someone died, you will cry. You will have high amounts of cortisol. Maybe you won't sleep as well. Your heart rate will increase. That's a physical response to what you believe happened. So, if stress can make you sick, what can gratitude and prayer do?

You have to realize that energy actually turns into a fiscal response and changes the body through the nervous system. nutrient deficiencies. And the question is, is a nutrient deficiency because the food is bad or because your gut is leaky? That is leaking. It's a by-product of IBD and dysbiosis. If you had a system that needed to take a chicken and then turn it into all these different amino acids and fats and vitamins that your bloodstream and cells could use. If the digestion doesn't work, your cells can't get that.

So you're going to become nutrient deficient if your gut is still having these problems, whether it's IBS, IBD. Then you have the problem of nutrient-deficient foods. An apple only has 30% of the vitamin deficiency as it had 100 years ago. We have deficients foods, we have toxins in our soil, and we a destroyed microbiome. It's like the cell never had a chance. your elevator speech, how the shield program addresses these root causes of IBD. Start with a program that you, that is customized for you.

That is simple enough that can actually do it as a regular person. And that starts to address all these issues at one time that it's also safe and effective. So low risk and high reward. So build a system that you can eat you, can keep up with you get enough calories that is bioavailable that helps incentivize a reduction in inflammatory response and also helps to incentivise a healing response with the gut lining rebuilding the microbiome optimizing digestion and that You can actually do for a period of time if it's working you should most of us I'd say 60% of Us may see symptom relief within two to four weeks not perfect symptom Relief but you will know when it is working Some of our clients will see symptom relief, like 80% of relief in 14 days.

We see it often. Maybe 15 to 20% percent of clients we'll get that result. I know it sounds crazy. It sounds like a marketing pitch. Its not. The gut is the fastest healing tissue in the human body. When given a chance, you just have to make a symphony. Build your symphony and just let that thing sing. So I'm going to ask some questions off the script. Let's go. Do it. Hit me. Come on. An elevation of LPS. How long do you think it takes to attenuate that? Everyone's going to be different. It depends on the strength of your liver, your kidney, how well your lymphatic system's working, and how much LPS you're getting from that dysbiotic issue.

And the amount of biofilms you are dealing with, right? If you've been sick for more than five years, you probably dealing super biofilm. So just start and start reducing the LPs. I'd probably be using binders and things like that and using light microbiome or beneficial bacteria to help incentivize that. that die-off balance and then the more you support the liver and what's actually making it into the bloodstream, the faster it's going to go. But I think you can start to get that brain fog down and energy up within a matter of weeks.

You'll feel it. Yeah, I thing one, two, three, you'll see some of the system symptoms abate somewhat. LPS is a bear. Like you said, it is really hard to give a definitive time. It wasn't a gotcha question. it was just a conversational question Well, you can spend five years trying to get rid of like hidden deep LPS in your brain and your tissue. I mean, there's just you. Can't get. Rid of all of it. It's. Just you're trying. To balance how much you are getting because it's directly killing off the healthy cells in.

Your body. Increasing chance of senescent cells and increasing chance. Of cancer or any kind of. All cause mortality. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, it's killing off brain cells. That's how Dr. Tom Brian always says, just killing of brain cell, killing brain. Oh, yeah. He's my guy. First, he was the first guy, honestly, that I heard that said gluten was bad and he's getting hissed and booed. And I get boo'd in Wisconsin because they say no dairy. So the cheeseheads get real perturbed at me.

The SHIELD Program and Practical Healing Strategies 45:00

You really talk about something that's really intrinsic to me because I'm a chiropractor. You talk the nervous system. Everybody who follows the podcast knows that the enteric nervous is the largest nervous in the body. It's in gut. Gives us this perception of neuroception. Our ability to innately understand and feel subconsciously danger or safety. But you talked about the vagus nerve. So everybody's heard me give a dissertation on a vagus nerve. Give me your ideology of how the vaguous nerve is involved and how critical it is to have proper vagous nerve tone.

Well, it's helping to regulate the digestion process and the ability to move toxins in and out of the body. So when the Vegas nerve was not properly working, you're almost getting like a paralysis of and and so realize that the gut is the second brain right so what is going on with the god will affect your mood will effect uh... how you feel me all of its connected so for you to get your vagus nerve stimulated i mean there's a lot of different people do like electro stimulation or tapping or You know, some people will do it.

There's so many different stuff. You just type in vagal nerve stimulation into chachi BT. What are the fight? There is so much different theories on how you do that, but you can't get that properly working if you're constantly in a state of sympathetic stress. If your autonomic nervous system is not properly engaging the parasympathetic, the vagus nerve will not work. And also I was, um, had a great conversation with another doctor yesterday who was talking about poor lymphatic drainage in your neck and also affect the vehicle nerve.

And I was just like, man, it's all connect. It's just all connected. The ocean, you put a little bit of oil in the ocean and it has this massive cascade effect. That's the same with the body. And one of my favorite hacks I tell people, it's like, just get yourself salivating. If you can get yourselves salavating before you eat, that means that your parasympathetic nervous system is engaged. You're going to get better digestion, you're gonna have more pancreatic enzyme output, more digestive output.

Probably less pain, probably less urgency. Get yourself to salvate before your eat. Love it. I'm a big vagus nerve stimulator, the physiological side, too short breast. with one long breath, do a great job. I love, as everybody knows, using the laser to stimulate the vagus nerve. The key to the Vagus nerve, like you said so eloquently, was that it's a rest and digest nerve but it is also the most anti-inflammatory nerve in the body because afferent and neferent pathways are anti inflammatory and the vagal splenal nerve is anti inflammation.

So obviously we're fighting inflammation And also, it is a supporter through the spleen of the immune system, which really speaks to all your triggering contributions. And the idea which I just wrote, my new slide is Ponder is for medical doctors, chiropractors, natural paths and the like who venture into functional medicine. Is it root cause or root causes resolution? And I'm going to ask Dr. Jeffrey Glenn that, that I am going sit down and just listen to it. Yeah. I mean, I can't wait to hear that.

But it seems the writing is on the wall for so much of this. And you know, a big point Dr Rob I want to really give people right now as we start to wrap up is this idea that people have claimed they've healed in all of these genres we're talking about. I changed my diet, I healed. I did worm therapy, or I anti-parasites, I started to take high dose probiotics and drink raw milk and make my own raw yogurts and healed. None of these people are really lying, it's just they found the thing that their body was able to use to overshadow the disease.

So just don't take it as church, but just absorb what they're saying and then ask yourself, can I use an essence of what their saying, and compound it into my plan? my shield like if we know that people are claiming that nervous system regulation has helped heal them of autoimmune disease. How can you put something into your plan that works in conjunction with everything else instead of just saying that stupid that's hocus pocus that clapping my toes. Right? Well, you're saying on my head type stuff.

So where? I mean, it took me years to figure this out. But ask yourself, if I'm going to add in something, does it have low risk and high reward like VNS or like, helping to make sure you are in the parasympathetic? There's almost no risk. There is no risks. It's all reward. So put the ego down for a second and ask yourself, what can I do that can easily compound the diet, supplements, the root cause, and the lab work on a daily basis to get this avenue in? So you need to know those avenues, that nutrition matters.

It's not everything, but it's a big part of it. The nervous system, it is not every thing but a part. Supplements are needed, they are effective. These chemicals are alien. They are aliens. You need supplementation to take these alien toxins out of your cells, out your body. Your drainage pathways can't do it alone. All right, and you need to also be able to optimize those anatomy we talked about, like where am I with my anatomy? If you're stuck, say a scale of one to 10, where's my digestion? Just use your intuition.

When you heal, you have to sharpen your innate intuition, that is your north star for the rest of your life. You've got to regain your power and regain you confidence that you a feeling on where you should go. And because a lot of people were too scared, too traumatized, the answer is always outside of them. So they're always going, Dr. Rob, I'm not sure, paranoid, freaking out, going left and right, left, and you're like, this person has no confidence in their own self-belief and their what they believe to be true, right?

We can only lead a horse to water. That horse has to regain that confidence that I can still run. And so, we have to be able to, you have sharpen your intuition. As you're doing all this stuff, be the CEO of your health. Take it into consideration what other people are saying it's working. Even if you don't believe the story fully or you think it focus-focused, just ask yourself, can this help and how can it help? And can I do it with low risk and high reward? Compound everything together for your answer.

You'll get massive results. I have to say that they have be willing to at least lift their shield for the defense mechanism that the shield will provide. And I'm going to throw one thing from left field before we close because I am going ask you one closing question for a buddy of mine. Number one, obviously IBD causes a tremendous amount of inflammation throughout the colon and the intestinal tract. Within that, that type of inflammation decreases the effectiveness of the GLP-1 signaling. So if anybody has any kind of condition like that it isn't clear.

Contraindication for any kinda GLp-one signaling fix the problem first. But here's the question for you. My friend lives in Switzerland and he says, Rob, listen to all your podcasts. I always end like this. Give me one, two, three things that I can do on Monday morning to make my life better. Here we go. Stop drinking cold water, start drinking hot water. It's more bioavailable and used as a vehicle for a healing response. Maybe add in lemon, maybe add an apple cider vinegar for increased digestion, for liver support, helping to heal the mucosal membrane, slippery elm, a little bit of milk thistle, fennel, lemon juice for extra electrolytes.

Get rid of the cold, hot, water with lemon. Everywhere you go is going to be a great hack you can do. Number two is going to be, make sure that you're salivating before you are eating every day. Stop snacking so much. Use intent of eating. You can eat a variety of stuff, but be very intent on what you eating and why and make you salive before eating, and if you gonna have a celebration meal, because we don't cheat, we only celebrate. If you're going to celebrate, make sure you are actually celebrating.

Don't put a grenade in your body and then freak out about the grenade, okay? Actually make you sure your celebrating, that's going help with the nervous system. And number three is, I want you to try to read five pages a day of someone that has already accomplished what you trying to do. Books are cheap. You can get them for five bucks or seven bucks online, but I'm going to give you the hack. If you cannot think about your problems, you can not stay in a state of depression. We can do that with audible sometimes, but we can't do it with reading.

Read five pages a day about where you want to go. What it's going to do is attract it to be closer. It's gonna feel more possible. That's also gonna calm down your nervous system. And start giving you aha moments that are not gonna cost you much money at all. When you don't have a lot of resources, you've got to be resourceful. But reading every single day has, by and large, been the biggest reason I've been able to help thousands of people hire doctors around the world, work with doctors, and specialize in IBD, is it's constantly being curious.

Don't do this out of fear. Do it out a desire. Read five pages a day. It'll change your life. Hey Curious, I love what you're doing. I Love what your sharing. Keep that Y going. Please do me a favor. Anybody's interested that SHIELD programs available in the show notes, jump on it. And I know that you told me that if someone just wants to reach out and ask a question, you are available. Yes, they can reach out. And also we offer a free 60 minute session for anyone who has IBD and just looking to build trust and integrity.

We're going to sit down, we're gonna do a strategy session about your medication symptoms, what you've tried to whether you're a double black belt in natural medicine or you are just a beginner saying this is all overwhelming. we will hold space for you and we'll see if we can really help. But we have to have trust integrity to work together. That's non-conditional. IBJ, Jedi Master, Dane Johnson. Thanks so much, Rob. See you guys soon.