Ep 593: Detox, De-Inflame & Reset: A 21-Day Cleanse for Total Health

Intro to the De-Inflame Protocol 0:00

Welcome to the Health Fix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, fit physiques, or life. Hey, health junkies. On this episode of the health fix podcast, I'm doing a solo one and we're talking about the number one question I get at the beginning of Should I do a detox? Is it time for detox, is it the time to cleanse? How should I Just because it's the beginning of the year doesn't mean you have to start with a detox, but it is a great time of year to clean out a little bit after all those indulgences.

And if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll notice I have a pimple. Guess what happened? Too much chocolate. Over the holidays. This is what typically happens to me. So in my mind I kind of be like, probably time to do a lil' de-inflame. My protocol that I have come up with from over the years of recommending cleanses is the de-inflame protocol because to reset your system after say a holiday or a vacation or just because I think at this point two times a year it's a good idea somewhere in the beginning of the year and somewhere moving closer towards after summer is a a time of fall.

The Chinese will tell you spring and fall are great times to do a detox, so does it have to be right now after the holidays? No. I mean, technically, you can do detox whenever you want. Really. But if we want to sync with nature, or we wanna sync what Chinese medicine principles put out there, it's more spring AND fall. Now, Chinese New Year doesn't start till February 17th this year, so you could postpone till then. It gives you enough time to prep. But because it's such a common question, I decided, you know what?

I'm going to dive in in this podcast. So we're going be talking about my clinical protocol, the de-inflame protocol. We're gonna be taking about how I can piggyback a cleanse with a little bit of peptides and how I recommend trying that if you're interested in it. And when I say peptide, if your new this podcast, I'm not just meaning GLP-1 weight loss peptids. I am talking about other kinds of stuff too. Because when we reset the body, it sets the Doing well with say hormones doing well With with peptides and and things that are a little bit more advanced than icing on the cake And yeah, they spent the you know, you're gonna spend a lot more money to use those So why not get the most out of them?

So in this podcast, I'm gonna be going about all going over all of that stuff now, of course I must give the disclaimer of Course that nothing I say in. This podcast is meant as a substitute for medical advice it's just me giving you a bit of idea of what I do this time of year and what i've done with some patience and maybe you want to look into it get some ideas inspiration let's call it cleanse inspiration for the beginning of the year or maybe spring if you wanna sink a little bit more with less of Gregorian calendar which is start all new things on January 1st, and maybe ease in more towards what's going on with nature.

So, your call, I'm just gonna dive into it today. All right, so let's get into. What is this de-inflame protocol all about? It's really a way to help you detoxify the cells, the kidneys, liver, lymphatic system, gut. Five parts, not just a colon blow because a lot of folks will think about detox in terms of, I'm gonna have to spend all day near the toilet because I just keep going to the bathroom. Those can be incredibly depleting. Cleanses aren't meant to have colon blows. They're not meant for you to drop a ton of weight.

If you have a lotta inflammation in the body, you may lose a lots of inflammatory weight, sometimes people will lose 10 or so pounds when they do a protocol like this. But it's not something that I am saying, like, do this because you want to lose weight. It's do it because it can reset your body after either a stressful experience or eating a ton of foods that were not so great for you. All the things. The other big thing that I want to make clear and also just kind of like explain, if you've been hanging around the podcast for a while, or you listen to me on other podcasts, you may have heard me a couple years ago say that, I like to have it so that the body can detox itself versus having

Why Detox Timing Matters 4:46

to put the buddy through two detoxes or more a year. Well, here's the thing. The longer we've been on this planet and especially in the last few years, I think it's more important that we do support the body a little bit more to cleanse. I used to have this really great idea that we could do it on our own, and I still 100% believe that every single one of you have the potential to heal yourself. Your body is very intelligent. But we have a couple things working against us, like lots of toxins in the air, the food, water and life.

And sometimes our worst toxic material is up here in our brain and the things we think. So I've changed my tune a little bit over the years in that I do think it is worth it. to do a cleanse at least twice a year just to reset the body. Not because you necessarily want to drop a bunch of weight but more just reset body and use it as a jumping point for you know making some real change in your body but also using it has a jump in point to really get to understand where your buddy needs support. Where you may be overeating where you maybe you stress eating things of that nature.

Alright, so diving into the protocol. First and foremost, I always like to get some baseline tests to know where are we at before we dive into a cleanse. And if you're interested in seeing everything I talk about in the form of my clinical protocol, you can click below in the notes or if you're watching on YouTube you can click below and get yourself access to my handout which is a PDF that just kind of outlines everything I'm talking about today. I like looking at a complete blood count, which looks at your red blood cells and your white blood cell, because in that information there's a lot that can show us where are you inflamed.

Because if your blood red cells, and something called hematocrit and hemoglobin are all on the high end, that means your are blood sticky. That's an inflammation state. We can also see if your white blood cells are low, or if you have a lot of something called eosinophils, which means there's an allergic picture going on in the body, Or if we have flip-flopped lymphocytes and neutrophils. What are these things? Lymphocites and Neutrophil are two types of white-blood cells. The lymphocyte are kind of like the army, the neutrofils are the marines, The neutrophyls go in first, and the lymphosites follow up after them.

So, normally the neutrophils should be higher than the lymphocytes, but if they're trending very close together in number, or if the Lymphocites are higher then the Neutrophiles, We've got kind of a viral picture or we've gotta chronic illness kind a thing going on. Maybe it's a bacteria, maybe it is a bug. Most of the data shows it could be a chronic viral situation. So that means we need to work on your immune system a little bit. And that could part of something to watch to see if just doing a low cleanse gets your white blood cells back in order.

One of the ways to look at this, in a complete blood count and a comprehensive metabolic panel, if most docs order those as annual labs, If you don't have these, you can easily order them and pay for them yourself through Quest Diagnostics. They have a walk-in way that you go in and go pay cash labs. It's quite nice and Quest is everywhere practically. So there's that where you ask your doc if they'll run them for you, which both of these are super mellow, easy tests, so I don' see any reason why you'd get any kickback.

Now, within the comprehensive metabolic panel is your liver enzymes, your AST and ALT. If those guys are trending on the high end and normal, chances are your livers bogged down a little bit. Now caution if you do your labs and the day before you did a really hard workout or you ran a marathon or just really pushed it with something. probably likely you're gonna see a false elevation of liver enzymes. So just make sure you've got like 48 hours in between a serious workout and getting your labs drawn.

Just a little public service announcement to not have yourself going down any crazy rabbit holes. But if your liver enzyme are in the higher end of normal, then chances are you might be looking at a bit of a fatty liver situation. The other big thing is is you can do and I've talked about this before you, can go online and you test and literally not test but plug in your numbers for your liver enzymes to something called the hepatic steatosis index and use your BMI with that so body mass index. There's some faults there but you know what this is a good idea to see if you've got fatty liver starting.

It's incredibly common over 40. So, something to think about there, and if you've got fatty liver, your liver's gonna have some trouble detoxing. And one of the best ways to help, like, reset the liver is to do a cleanse. Now, you're glucose levels can also show you if your got some troubles going on with the blood sugar. anything over 90 on a fasting glucose indicates like something might be creeping up a little bit because optimals 80 to 90 but if we start getting like 95 99

Lab Markers for Inflammation and Detox 10:04

something to think about not going to be like oh you're diabetic not that but we're looking at we need to look at that hemoglobin a1c this is blood sugar over time i look it as how sticky is your blood and sticky meaning because the hemoglobin A1c is a marker for blood sugar and it's used commonly to diagnose um in addition to a couple other things like fasting glucose two times in a row being above 120. The hemaglobin a1 c we're making sure that in my world i don't like it above 5.5. In the conventional medicine space that hemoglobulin a 1c number just keeps getting higher in terms of what's acceptable and what pre-diabetes.

That's weird. 4.8 to 5.2 is optimal, 5,5 you're really pushing it towards pre-diabetes. And I'll see this commonly with a lot of folks. They eat well and they're like, what is going on? possibly insulin resistance, possibly a cortisol insulin issue, which is super common over 40. The higher your hemoglobin A1C is, the more stickier your blood is which, is inflammation. And you can correct this by doing a cleanse. You can crack this, by looking at what's causing your inflammation in the first place.

Is it up here in your brain and all those food noise talks that are going on, or is it the chatter about I'm not good enough, I am not this. All that can be part of it too. We'll talk about that. Now, of course, everyone's really, really on top of the cholesterol panels. We're trying to make sure our total cholesterol is not too high, and we're tying to get that LDL, so the low-density lipoprotein, down. But the truth is, is if those are up a little bit, yeah, your liver may be bogged down, And maybe it's repairing something, too.

And it is common for the Cholesterol to go up over 40 if we are starting to have a metabolic dysfunction. Once again, looking at your labs. Because what I've seen over and over again is if we do a cleanse protocol or a de-inflame protocol, we will see those levels change. And sometimes it lasts for a while. Someone can maintain a pretty decent 80-20 closest to nature kind of diet. Now, we can get advanced with our cardio metabolic deep dives, so looking at heart, looking a metabolism. So fasting insulin levels are another great lab to look to see like what happens with your insulin when you're not eating food.

If it is over six or seven, you are looking possible insulin resistance. The more it's in like the 20s, which crazy enough, the normal range is into the twenties. That's like full blown insulin resistant. Like I said, between 6 and 7 is good. Anything over that? We're starting to question how your body metabolizes insulin and we're looking at cortisol and let's reset the system. Now, oxidized LDL. This is another really great marker to see how cloggy are your LDLS because oxidize ones mean that we've got some inflammation and so we can use that level too to assess what's going on.

There's also apolipoprotein A and apolypoprotin B. These are fractions of your cholesterol molecules, and in particular, apoliipo protein B has to do with your LDL, your low-density lipop protein. And if that apob is going up, now you're like, ooh. This LDL elevation is a big deal. Like we want to be paying attention to this. This is inflammation. We got to make some dietary changes, we've got make fiber changes. we got some gut changes and we gotta get moving a little bit more in terms of mobility and exercise.

So, uric acid is another one. I use this one especially if someone's telling me they got joint pain. Yes, Uric Acid is related to gout when high, but sometimes if it's on the high end and normal and you're not fully in the g out ranges, you may be headed there. And this is something that Deinflame Protocol is amazing to help reset for. Now, there's a lot of specialized testing, micronutrient tests, something called true age epigenetic testing. This one I love because the epi genetics shows us the the DNA that can change right on us, like things we can make a difference on.

And last year I had my testing done and I was horrified because my heart and my brain were so much older. than they were the years, I think it was like two years prior that I had them tested, or maybe it's a year prior. That was disturbing. And so this year I'm going to retest it again and be like, okay, where am I at? Have I improved? Now I have used this test specifically with some patients who are like I really want to know are my interventions making a difference? Am I doing the right thing?

And true age epigenetic testing has a awesome way to be able to look at all of your organs epigenetically. So this is genetics, but the genetics that you can change, not the ones that are fixed. That's pretty cool. Now, whole body thermography is another way look for hotspots in the body, which is inflammation, anything that's given off heat. And then total body MRI is a little bit more expensive than a whole-body thermograph, and then identify organ-specific inflammation looking at the total- body MRI.

Interestingly enough, 2500 years ago, the Chinese were talking about inflammation in the body specifically related to organs. And what's fascinating is they connected it to moods and like your predominant mood or your predominantly emotion that you experience. Oddly enough, if you sit in a level of anger, frustration, irritability a lot, and this is a LOT of women in perimenopause will feel that way. And yes, we can counter it with progesterone and supporting the proesterones levels, but the other side of this, is the liver.

If it's not happy, then we're going to have anger frustration and irritable. Hmm. So, If we have that anger emotion, maybe if we cleanse the livers a little bit, We can feel a bit better. I'm a big believer and you've seen research out there by now that our gut microbiome and what's happening in our got influences what is going on in the brain. What kind of bacteria we have in out gut influences whats going in in brain? So why wouldn't it make sense that because the liver is very intricately connected with gut function, that if the livers wasn't moving blood through it well, we would get a little frustrated, angry, hot headed, things of that nature.

Now the other thing that the Chinese notice that happens is if we have chronic worry, we're constantly worried about life, money, children, you know, parents, work, the world, especially, a lot of people right now, like what's going to happen? How are things going play out? And this worry can beat up our digestive system. And the Chinese connected it to something called spleen-chi deficiency. Well, your spleen is your one of your biggest lymphatic organs. So if you're a big worrier, you your lymph isn't moving well.

You're also going to have gut trouble because the chinese didn't differentiate splean and stomach. They're kind of together. Now, granted, if your a traditionalist and you are into Chinese medicine, You will know that there are spline and Stomach channels. And yes, that's true. But when I look at worry, these two organs are affected. And when the Chinese really dive into it deeper, they start to break it down even more. Large intestine is actually connected to your lung, and lung's primary emotion is grief, not being able to let go of things, holding on to things.

So if you've got a little bit of issues of not letting go of something that, you know, maybe irritated you something, that that happened, or maybe someone's past and you're just not able to let go with them, we're a pet for that matter. But nevertheless, grief can create imbalances within the lung and large intestine. Maybe you have heard this, the long is actually a detox organ. because our ability to exhale carbon dioxide is one of the ways that we can help the body to detox. Now, I tend not to use herbs to support the lungs in a detox, usually I'm gonna say, okay, let's do some breath work, you know, exercise, because that's gonna get the lung moving anyway.

But the large intestine, this is very much part of a detox. Probably the focused on one when it comes to the colon blow kind of protocols, but nevertheless, that your large intestines. Now, you might be thinking, all right, then what's the small intestine? What does that go with? Well, I'm glad you asked. The small intestines goes with the heart, and in particular, the pericardium, which is the sac that the hearts sits in. And when we look at the hear energy, that goes, with anxiety, really common over 40 to have some anxiety as women in particularly.

Really common to something called small intestinal bowel overgrowth, SIBO, if the smallest intestine. and the heart have a little connection. Well, what does that tell us? Could some of the feelings of anxiety, could some that stuff be connected to things we experience in the small intestine? So, by telling you this, anything that addresses the intestines, small or large, is going to have an effect on other organs. So small intestines has an affect on the hear, large intestine has and affect the lung.

Pretty cool. Now the only one I didn't mention is kidneys. Kidneys and the urinary bladder channel, those two go together. And kidneys are connected to the emotion of fear. So many people experience fear in many different ways. Sometimes we procrastinate, we won't do certain things, sometimes we'll behave certain ways because we're afraid. Sometimes,we have these defense mechanisms because were afraid, a lot of times we have voices in our head that tell us kind of fearful thoughts. One of the things I noticed as I got over 40 is that all of a sudden my brain would have weird thoughts about like, what if you got in an accident right now?

And just weird, like worst case scenario thoughts. If that's you, then thinking about like, okay, there's all this fear, how is this impacting my ability to detox through my kidneys? Anytime there is an overt emotion, it is going to slow down the chi or energy or blood flow or nutrients, if you will, to that particular organ. There's a lot of folks with kidney issues right now. Slowed filtration of the kidneys, stage, you know, anything Anything that is under an 80 of a glomerular filtration rates of GFR, which is in your comprehensive metabolic panel, you can see what your kidney filtration rate is.

Anything. That's a low kidney. Filtration rate under 80 is the stage one of kidney disease. A lot of people are sitting in the sixties for their kidney, filtration. This isn't good. And that can mean that we can have some trouble with our detox. through our kidneys. Now am I saying don't do a cleanse if you've got some kidney trouble? It depends on how your kidneys are truly functioning. If you are on dialysis, that's a whole nother conversation that you gotta talk to your doctor about. And like I said at the beginning of this podcast, always talk with your doctor to make sure that it cleanses appropriate for you.

Have I worked with folks with kidneys that were a little bit under functioning? Absolutely. And there are ways to do it. It's just really about watching the amount of herbs and supplements you're using in any given case.

Emotions, Organs, and Chinese Medicine 22:08

But I must bring it up because a lot of folks will show on one lab that they have lowered kidney function and then the next lab, their kidney functions looks all right. That's because of chronic dehydration. So one of my big requirements in the de-inflame protocol is filtered water and making sure you're staying hydrated. Absolutely crucial. Same thing goes along the lines of if your electrolytes run on the lower end. Electrolytes are sodium, potassium, and chloride. Look at the levels. If you're on the lower end, like say your sodium's like 136, 138, that's on low end.

Say your potassium is in the threes. Like 3.8. Not quite four. It's in lower-end. What about chloride? Say chloride's under 99. That's on the low end. So these are things to be thinking about when you look at how's the body functioning? What are electrolytes related to? They're related your adrenal glands. These are small little glands that sit on top of your kidneys. What did I just tell you kidney was? Well, what's that emotion with kidneys? Fear. Adrenal glands will be affected quite a bit by fear.

So, if that's one of your predominant emotions, look at your electrolytes. See where they're sitting at. Look at you kidney filtration. That's the EGFR. Blood urea nitrogen bun is a marker for kidney filtrations in terms of how you are detoxing proteins. And then there's something called creatinine. Creatinines is related to creatine, and if you're taking creatines, your creatininine level will likely be high. you don't want your creatinine level to be much under 0.65, because that's related to muscle wasting, but it also can be related a depleted kidney.

So check these things out. It's fascinating to look at your labs and see where things are labeled normal, But honestly, that is normal for someone who's sick. And likely if you're listening to this podcast, you are looking to optimize your health. You cannot get healthy or stay healthy if you are sticking with standardized lab values. They just keep getting wider and wider. From the time I started practice to now, I have seen the liver enzymes just widen out in terms of the amount of what's acceptable.

And why does this happen? Because we're looking or the labs are constantly using the population averages to see where people sit as to what's quote normal. We're taking averages of sick people, not optimal. So keep that in mind when you look at lab values and I highly recommend talking with a doc and somebody like myself that's looked at labs for years and years, and really can hone in on them. Yes, chat GPT can help you. but chat GPT was not created by someone that has decades of practice, seeing patients.

It just doesn't have the human experience. So keep that in mind. Can guide you, but it is wise to ask, just get some help so you know where you sit, especially if it's not incredibly obvious to you what's going on. Now, why do we want our labs done? Well, we wanna know we stand because I typically will run a repeat lab about 30, not 30, about 90 to 90 days or even like up to six months afterwards just to see like what's going on. 30 days is too short. It's too sure to sea. Now, technically my cleanse protocol involves a 21 day cleanse.

So it's using the standard process company's 21-day cleanse standard. Process has been around since 1929 as created by Dr. Royal Lee. It is still owned by his family. And in fact, I've met the owner of Standard Process, his name's Charlie, lovely guy, for about wanting to meet who uses his products. I have been to the farm, the facility where they make all the supplements. Not many places open up their doors and let folks in to experience and look at what is going on behind the doors. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Yes, I'm a little biased because Standard Process is a Wisconsin company. It's out of Palmyra, Wisconsin. But hey, if your gonna put time in to meet me, you're gonna time to open your doors to your farm and clinic, or not clinic your firm and facility, amazing. There are very few companies that do this. So something to think about, especially in this day and age of transparency, you want to know where your stuff's coming from. So standard processes, 21 day cleanse is what I use, been using it for years and it's what i use myself.

And I used it as a jumping point because it helps to open up the digestive system. It improves digestive health. it works on your kidneys, helps the kidneys helps, the lymphatic system, as well, and we're helping to open up the liver at the same time. All the targeting, all the main areas. But you may have noticed, I forgot one part, the cells and the mitochondria, your little factories in every single one of your cells except for red blood cells. This is very, very important. And sometimes if I have had access to someone's labs before we decided to do a cleanse, like say maybe we did a micronutrient test before, and I see that they have under-functioning mitochondria.

I'll explain that in a second. If I that, I'm going to add in added support. How can we tell if your mitochondrial work well? A couple different things. Are you tired and fatigued? Do you have low B vitamins, like B12, folate, B1,B2, and B3? Those are the biggies. Do or have you ever had a detox and you felt crappy the whole time and even afterwards? That means that your mitochondria, the little factories that make ATP, that energy and all your cells, we're trying to make energy for you. But the exhaust, the cell poop, as I call it, wasn't cleared out.

That's where we have some issues. So the mitochondria make the energy, but we need antioxidants to clear out the Mitochondria. And so we can have two issues on a cellular level. It could be the mitochondria, it could the ability to be able to take away the things called free radicals that are cell-poop. from going through the process of making energy. And so I can tell if you have a free radical problem. There are a couple different labs that you can look at to see. But in particular, if have low glutathione, which is your body's natural janitor.

If you low N-acetylcysteine. if You have Low vitamin C or E. Or you Have low alpha lipoic acid. How do these all tie in? We need vitamin c and e. to make glutathione. We need N-acetylcysteine with the vitamin C and E to made glutothione and then we need alpha lipoic acid to recycle it. If you have any issues in that department you might feel crappy while doing a detox. Now the other biggie is something called methylation. you may have a genetic mutation in the MTHFR pathway. Sounds like a dirty word.

And back in old days, we thought there was just one main mutation, the mthfr. But now we know that there's mtrr and mtr, and that goes together with the transulphuration pathway that helps to make glutathione. So basically these are two main detox pathways through cells. Now those could be bogged down. You could also have bog down pathways of detox through your liver. you can check all this out if you do genetic testing. now there's DNA company, there are a couple different companies, actually there is many companies these days out there to check DNA.

And that's cool. It is another tool for us to assess what's going on. So if you've ever had trouble with detoxing or say you were born someone who was just always tired or you're always getting sick. Well, worth it to take a look and see what your DNA is up to, because it can unlock a lot of different clues. Now, I have mentioned all these different pathways and the cells and mitochondria. I did not mention your largest detox organ, your skin. Your skin is the way things come out of the body.

Core Cleanse Protocol and Supplements 30:38

If you're watching this, you can see my big old pimple right here. Yes, adult acne. Good times. And if you also notice, it is in my stomach channel here. The stomach channels right along your cheek and down, just kind of like midline of your cheeks, like where your iris is and your pupil lines up right in the middle goes right straight down. That's the stomach Channel. So clearly I was reacting to chocolate. You may have other things. Had I had a bunch of dairy, I would probably have a lot more of these guys.

But it's coming out of my skin. And sweating with exercise is a perfect way to be able to get things out the body and onto the skin! Now there's saunas, there are sauna bags. Infrared sauna, regular sauna doesn't matter as long as it gets hot in there and you're sweating. Anything you can do to sweat while you are cleansing your body, huge. Because now we're pushing out the stuff. Now I mentioned electrolytes. If you sweat quite a bit, you want to replace your electrolyte. One of the easiest ways to replacement electrolytes is taking a capsule.

There's a brand called Salt, S-A-L-T-E. Great option. You could also do Hammer Nutrition. They have electrolytic capsules. Hammer's been around for a very long time, very popular with the biking community. Now there are plenty of electrolyte drinks these days. I actually use something called Perfect Hydration, PRFCT hydration, and that's another option. If you're really struggling to sweat, if you are a person that does not sweat I often recommend taking an extra herb like Ginkgo or Tonkwai to help you to move your circulation better to promote sweating.

I used to recommend niacin, too, in these cases, but niocin can be tricky because if you take niicin that's not niucinamide, so not the niecinimide form but Niacine straight, you can flush. And for some people that can feel really crazy to your nervous system. I don't want anybody having negative outcomes when they try this. If you've ever taken niacin before and you played with the flush and the warmth, okay, you know the drill and go for it. A lot of docs recommend a protocol to use sauna bags with niocin just to promote extra sweating.

There's plenty of podcasts out there on that. You can learn more about that now. Last but not least is a herb called St. John'swort. It's commonly known for helping to counter depression, but it's amazing for help with cellular detox. Say you're like, oh man, I've tried glutathione before. It really didn't do anything for me. Its expensive. I don't really want to take vitamin C, E, you know, all the things. St. John's wort's a great option. And you just have to make sure that you do not have any medications on board that are metabolized through the CYP pathways of the liver.

So this is why I always consult with a doc before you add St Johns wortt to any regimen. And of course, if you're going to consult with a doc, just make sure it's somebody that knows a little bit about herbs, because otherwise you are not going get a standard answer of no. But yeah, something to do. All right, so how does this process work? Once we've tested things, we know what we're targeting, what want to go after, cause if we did the micronutrient test before you took the cleanse, you went into the cleans, now you know if have any bogged down detox pathways.

The other way, like I said, is you could do a genetic test or you can just base it off your symptoms and emotions like explained. It is not a precursor that you absolutely have to do testing. I just think it's great because it can help you to know. The other part of this is using a toxicity questionnaire that I'm going to link below. Standard Process has one just to outline where are you most toxic in the body. And I think its fascinating to that before and after the cleanse. before starting it and at day 22, take it again just to see.

And it's just a written thing, just see what's improved. Because I think so many times we do cleanses and we're like, did anything happen? I don't know. You know, and if you're a woman, you are like I didn't lose 25 pounds in three weeks. This didn' work. Sometimes women logic in terms of the weight loss thing. I'm not saying it is everybody. Don't want to offend folks, but it' reality. It's what I see, so I'd like you to do the toxicity questionnaire before and after because then you know What happened?

And you know if things improved for you. And it's more than just the weight, because I hate when everything becomes just about weight loss. Anyway, moving on. Day one to 10 of the cleanse protocol is really vegetables and fruits and legumes. You're going plant-based because if we take the meats out, we're taking away that level of inflammation because animals come to the table literally with their stuff, their energetics. Even though they're dead, the energotics are still in there of how whatever they ate, because whatever you eat, you're eating what they eat the energy from what the foods they so got to think about that.

And so, If we go down to plant-based, we are eating something that really just used the ground to grow on whatever air came, sunlight, nature. So it's a big deal to go to that simple way of eating for a little bit of time frame. Maybe you're going to stick with it. Shoot, vegetarian suits me. Great. Just don't become a cheese and breaditarian. I tried that in college. It didn't work out so well. So day one to 10, it is vegetables, fruits, legumes, and you're taking three supplements, actually four.

So we have the shakes that are vegan based shakes, that have herbs in them. Then we're also going to take some capsules called SP cleanse capsuls that help with all the organs, the liver, they kidney, we help them with the gut. And then we'll also have helping the body with a lymphatic system. We also use green foods, which are in capsul versus a drink. Love that because green drinks to me, tough to get in. So the capsules, good stuff. And that's vegetable form. Anything from standard process is going to be whole foods based.

Then last but not least is whole food fiber, which is apple, carrot, beets. Powdered, dried vegetables. and fruit that go in to help with your microbiome. That fiber's lovely for your gut. I recommend the powder because you can throw it in a shake instead of taking a capsule, because now you're gonna be taking more capsules. And for a lot of people, if swallowing is not your thing when it comes to capsuls, it can be a lotta them. It's only for 21 days, but hear me out. You can feel a little pain in the butt.

Now, day 11 through 21, you start to reintroduce proteins. and I like this re-introduction because can see how you feel. Like, if you feel amazing day one to 10, all right, great. See what happens on day 11 when you start to bring back in the lean proteins. And of course, I'm going to be like, bring in organic grass-fed grass finish things or pasture-raised things. Be very discerning about what you bring between day eleven and twenty-one. And take notes. Take notes the whole time. Because anytime you do a cleanse, anytime do you a peptide like a GLP-1, you learn a ton about yourself.

because it's gonna show where you were craving something, where that stopped, what was it, What was the sequence in which you crave something. So important to take note on these things. Now beyond day 21, say day 22, this is when you take your toxicity questionnaire again to see what happened, and then you're gonna start reintroducing other foods. And by the way, coffee, caffeine, alcohol, all out on this cleanse. It's very fascinating how people feel about coffee when they try to bring it back in.

Some people have stopped completely because it just didn't taste the same and do the the things for them. Very interesting. So one by one, you reintroduce them every 72 hours, take notes, because you have a lot of gold right there to understand how your body does with something when it's been out of your system for a little while. If you get a reaction like gut upset, headache, migraine, just don't feel good, brain fog. Take a note, Take that food back out for another month and then retry it again and see what happens.

Something new, Just one thing every seventy two hours. So, That's the base protocol. And then from there, you can jump into another pathway, another de-inflame protocol if you want. So one of them is moving into something called the BioClear protocol by Biocidin. It's an herbal protocol to kill down microbes in your microbiome. The idea is to reset the microbiomes. And you kill these down, it could be bacteria, fungus, parasitic, viral, remember how I said white blood cells? Flip-flopped, if those lymphocytes are higher than neutrophils, I'm going to recommend the BioClear protocol after you finish the cleanse.

It'll reset the microbiome. Now, I have people take the herbs to work on the non-beneficial bugs in the gut. And then you're going to take a detoxer, meaning it's a binder. It's called GI detox, but really what it is is a bindered zeolite as a little charcoal, and it'll grab whatever you are killing and carry it out via the guts. This is incredibly important because if we do kill things in the body and we don't bind them and carry them out, they can recirculate. Much like toxins can re-circulated if our kidney, liver, lymphatic, and our gut are not moving properly.

And this is why I do the cleanse first, then this protocol. Because unfortunately, so many people will be put on bug kill protocols and the bowels aren't moving well. It's not a good idea to try to kill bugs in a gut with the bowel's moving. You gotta move the bows. Gotta have those moving. Now, the last part of this one is a probiotic. And Proflora for R is one probiotics that comes from the same company, The Bioscience Company. I like Therabiotic Complete by Clare Labs. Also like Seed Probiotic.

and I also like Microbiome Labs' Magaspore if someone has diarrhea. That's a good. Spore-based probiotcs are really good for diarrhea, seed is the spore based probiotc as well. So that's this protocol. That one is for if you have gas bloating, you had white blood cells that were shifted on your complete blood count. It's also if just want to go a little deeper with things. Now the other pathway that someone may go is say they really do want to lose weight. But they wanted to make sure that if they're going to loose weight, all of their detox pathways were open before they dove into a weight loss protocol.

Because when we start to use weight using these GLPs, we do wanna be able to be sure we have somewhere to eliminate the toxins that are released from the fat cells Like when we burn fat cells and we lose weight, we want the body to have a way to get rid of all those toxins when you lose weigh.

Reintroducing Foods and Tracking Reactions 41:48

So a GLP-1 or a GLP-3. GLp- 3 is something called retratatide. And a glp 3 has three particular target capabilities. And that means it has the appetite suppressant effect. It has a de-inflaming effect and then Retractetide also really, in my opinion, helps with the mind just as much as Tersepidide to help just like calm that noise. And between terzapatide or retratatide, what's my favorite? Right now, I'm still leaning towards terzeapatite. I still see quite a bit of benefit there. But if you've stalled out on benefit from terzepotide I will move to retractatite I don't go back to somaglutide.

It's just something that's as effective. Sure, some people have that benefit, but the terzipotite and retracatitide are my two favorites for peptides for weight loss, But also de-inflaming the body, calming the food noise, calming those negative thoughts in your head. And you can learn a ton from these things by taking note of where the appetite's being suppressed, where you're cutting down on your portion sizes, and what's happening with the thoughts in the head. Now, you do not have to use a GLP-1 or a 3. to get benefits from de-inflaming.

There is something known as KPV. It's three amino acids. Its lysine, proline, and valine. I've talked about it before in previous podcasts. So I'm not going to dive super into it, but oral capsules of it can help to deinflame the gut. But we can also use an injectable right now. It is on and off available because it is a research peptide, meaning that the FDA did not approve it. And right. Now in 2026 is going to get a little interesting with peptides that are research. Peptides as the current administration figures out who's a scammer and who is not.

because the peptide industry really blew up over the last couple years and they got to get a handle on it. And I also think that they want some of these things to make into medications. But you want to be thinking about specifically with peptides, their amino acids and their amino acid chains. APV is an amino acid sequence that we have in our bodies. And GLP-1s and GLp-3s are also amino acid sequences that we have in bodies to tell our body to de-inflame and to work on appetite suppression and things of that nature, but they're tweaked a little bit, whereas KPV is just three amino acids.

It's hard to patent something like that. So, that being said, There are other peptides. If you feel like you're mitochondria, so your ability to make energy has been hijacked and you've tried to be vitamins and done different cleanses and things aren't working, SS, SamSam-31, is a peptide that can be incredibly helpful to help with mitochondrial support. It's not magic where it gets you jumping off the walls and your so happy and energetic right away, but over the course of a couple times throughout the year, cyclically, quarterly, it can be really helpful for yourselves.

There's also something called MOTS, M-O-T-S-C. I've used this one quite a few times over the years. It is a research peptide, so availability can on and off with this, but it is the quicker boost to the mitochondria. And I used those, gosh, for over a decade for folks that are really adrenally fatigued. So M.O.T.S.C.' 's another one. Simus and alpha-1 is another peptides that I really like. For folks who are struggling with their immune system. Maybe there's a thyroid picture going on like hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's, but there may also be back to those lymphocytes, the white blood cells, maybe you're low on the White Blood cells.

maybe your more trending towards anemic, Maybe you get sick a lot, your immune systems really depleted. I will tend to use thymus and alpha 1. In this case, this one's also another research peptide, helps with boosting the immune system, comes from the thymus, which is a gland that sits on top of the heart and shrinks as we get older, but it's like incredible gland for an immune systems. So those are kind of some of directions I go with peptides.

Peptides for Detox, Weight Loss, and Energy 45:48

Now there are peptids that can help with cognitive function, improve brain function since part of this de-inflaming is looking at brain fog. There's CMAX and CELNK, there's Synapsin, and there is also something called Cerebrolysin, we can't get a hold of it in the U.S. anymore, but these four types of peptides can be incredible for helping to boost your cognitive function. And so C-Max, Celenk, you can use it at the moment when you need to be productive or be on point. There is nasal sprays that go with them.

You can also use them in injectable forms. Every single one of the ones except for synapsin, so CMAX, CELINK, and cerebral lysine, which you can't get in the U.S. really anymore unless it's underground, but C-Max, Celink, those are research peptides. Synapsine is not. It is on the formulary for compounding pharmacies, we can prescribe that. It's much like methylene blue. If you've heard methyline blue, that is another type of it. It is not a peptide, it's actually a dye that we've used for years in the microbiology space to dye bacteria, to see, or to die a smear on a slide to if there's a particular type bacteria in it, but methylane blue also has been found to help with cognitive function.

The problem is, is it turns your teeth blue your whole mouth's blue I'm not really into that. You can be peeing blue... I don't want to look like a Smurf. That's my stand on that, and that's why you won't hear me talk about it very much. I feel like we have better ways to help with cognitive function, versus turning ourselves into Smurf. We could Smurfs Juice, which is Clo, or Glo, any of the peptides that have copper GHQ in them, they're actually blue, so my loving term for them are Smrf Juice.

Clo has KPV, the Peptide BPC157, NTB500, Did you just say? It is a combination of peptides that can help with the skin. Clo is most known for skin and de-inflaming and glow is known And you complete it. And maybe you do the part of this for your gut as well. The next step is looking at, am I going to do a peptide? Am I gonna work with hormones? Do I want to work bioidentical hormones, do I wanna work brain to ovary signaling, brain, to adrenal signaling? Brain ovaries would be if you're before menopause, so perimenopausal or premenopas.

If you are post-menaposal, then you looking for brain-to-adrenals. For guys, you look for a brain testes. There are peptides that can help with that. There's oral ones and there are, of course, the hormones. I think these combinations work a lot better when we've done a cleanse to reset the body and when you've got some gut microbiome work to help reset your gut because resetting the gut, like I mentioned earlier, can reset a whole lot of our emotions and things of that nature. All right, so this is how my protocol goes.

I kind of highlighted the big picture here and I have a ton of information in my PDF that will even expand more on the things I've mentioned today. Now, if we're looking at chronic fatigue, chronic illness, and I'm expecting the, the cleanse to help us feel better, but I know we have more work to do. I may recommend looking at going to see a holistic dentist because maybe there's something going on with the root canal. If you've had a root can now and symptoms started kind of around the time you got the route canal or a year after getting a route, you know, very important to look at that autoimmune screening.

There's in something called the advise test important. To look there. picture that we screened, say, your autoimmune antibodies, it's called an ANA with Reflex. You can do that with LabCorp, you could do it with Quest, and it came back positive. This is where I would do a VISE because a vise can be paid for by insurance. Most insurances will pay for it. And it is an expanded assessment of your immune stat, auto immune status. It looks for lupus, for Sjogren's, the most common auto-immune conditions, even mixed connective tissue disorders in there.

Even screen Hashimoto's antibodies for the thyroid. So I like looking at that. If we think that you have a strange bug that the body is still responding to or mold, there's something called the array 12. And that'll look at antibodies to multiple different types of infections that can be going on. Now, There's also something call the total tox bourbon and the Total tox burden test is coming from vibrant wellness. This looks at like glyphosate. So the pesticide that's put on wheat and other things, it looks at VOCs, so toxicities in your paint and your floors and, you know, new furniture.

And it's looking at different types of chemicals that you may be ingesting and in other types the pesticides. It also looks for mold. it Looks for other preservatives and food. and it is all done through urine, which is fascinating if we think there's a toxicity picture going on. Perhaps the cleanse kinda started getting things moving, but we need something a little deeper. Last but not least, the most important important thing to be thinking about during a cleanse of this kind of de-inflaming capacity is to take notes and really make solid notes as to how you're feeling, what's going on.

What are you learning about your body and having someone to consult with about this? Maybe it's a partner, maybe you've got somebody that you can work with, Maybe you got a nutritionist. Of course, I am here to help if you're interested in looking at this. One thing I have to say is that if your in New Jersey, New York or Rhode Island, we cannot order testing for you unfortunately. However, i'm able to console. and in particular Montana and Washington state and Wisconsin where I'm licensed. These are the places that we can do the most work with you.

And if you have questions, I am happy to consult and guide you in the direction that can give you more clarity as to what's going on and what would be the best way to consider cleansing and de-inflaming in 2026. So you can get a hold of me at info at doctor spelled out J K R A U S E N D dot com. And you can schedule a consultation and we can see what if and how I can help there for with the D inflame protocol. And then of course, you know, as I said earlier, all of what I've discussed today is not meant to replace any medical advice.

It is for information purposes only and you always want to consult with your provider, medical provider to make sure that this is going to be safe for you if you're deciding that you are going try any of this information out. And if your wondering about my specific protocol, the supplements, what they are, I also have a link to that in my podcast notes here and then also at

Advanced Testing and When to Get Help 52:48

drjkraussnd.com you can see what the standard process protocol is, what it looks like, and go from there. And I'm happy to answer any questions if you guys want to hit me up. That's what I am here about this year. With the podcast, I'm going to be really taking what I've learned from the surveys I put out. So if you are on my email list, you would have got an invite to give me your feedback as to what you want to learn. And I am going do a lot more solo podcasts this year because I have found that from a lots of my listeners.

You guys want hear what's going on in the clinic, what am learning and real live things that you can try out, or nevertheless, of course, always ask your doctor first, but real life things, that can look into, get ideas, insights, and have just a little bit more knowledge as to what to do to take control of your health and longevity. All right. You have survived another episode of the health fix podcast. I trust that you guys gained a lot of information from this podcast it was a lie. Definitely download that PDF it will summarize everything for you and I'm happy to answer any questions my my email is down below.

Yeah, we'll see if I can get rid of this lovely little pimple that came out with my cleanse coming up. And keep in mind that even though it's the first of the year, it is the beginning of 2026 and there's a lot of chatter about detox and weight loss and all these things, make sure that if you're going to do something you are doing on your time and when it feels right to you, don't feel like you have to be forced because of, uh, the calendar. All right. You guys have a great day, whatever you're doing.

Hey health junkies, I'm asked all the time about what brands from supplements to toothpaste to clothing that I use. 90% of the items that are sent to me to test out do not pass my standards. You might be wondering, what are your standards? Well, like companies that small companies, they're still family owned or at least owned by the original owners or someone from that group to maintain the standards, Now I also love a company with a great story of how the business came to be. I like things that are high quality, non-toxic, as well as transparency.

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Full disclosure, i do make a little commission if you buy any of the items on the page and this money goes back to helping me keep producing this podcast. If you're curious about a few of my favorite apparel companies for life's adventures, check out the website, thehealthpodcast.co-d-e-a-t-x.me. That's the health fix podcast dot co-de-adx dot me. And if you decide to buy anything, tell them I sent you by entering the code healthfix. All together, one word. Alright, thank you so much for watching the podcast.

You have a great day, whatever you're doing. Hey fellow health junkie, thanks for listening to the Health Fix Podcast. If you enjoyed tuning in, please help support me to get the word out about the Podcast, subscribe, rate and review, and just get that word