Full Transcript Summit Introduction and Guest Background 0:00 Welcome everyone to the Gut Health and Longevity Summit. 0:02 I am so glad you're here. 0:04 Today we're going to begin with the foundation of everything 0:08 we're going to cover this week, the gut and how deeply it shapes the immune system 0:13 that protects you, or in some cases, can turn against you. 0:17 Most people have been told that autoimmune disease is one of the most confusing 0:21 and frightening diagnoses in medicine, and has a direct line back to gut health. 0:27 Our expert this week is here to change that, 0:30 and starting with a conversation I want to bring to you for a long time. 0:34 What happens when a physician who was told that her disease was incurable, 0:39 set out to prove otherwise, and then publish the data to back it up? 0:44 My next guest was diagnosed with a disease. 0:47 Her own doctors told her she would likely manage for life or lose her life to it. 0:52 Instead, she reversed it herself and then spent the next two decades 0:56 proving in published case series that her patients could do the same. 1:00 Doctor Brooke Older graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University 1:04 for Genetic research in leukemia and neurobiology, 1:07 earned her medical degree from Temple University. 1:10 I'm a Philadelphia person to 1:12 and was chief resident during her psychiatric residency at UCLA Harbor. 1:16 She is the creator of the Hyper Nourishing Nutrition Protocol 1:19 and the autoimmune lecturer for Cornell Plant based Nutrition Certification 1:23 Program, and sits on the Forbes Health Advisory Board. 1:26 She is also the author of A Goodbye Lupus, A Goodbye Autoimmune Disease 1:31 and The Recipe Companion. Goodbye, lupus. 1:33 Hello, delicious. 1:34 And her 2024 case series in Frontiers in Nutrition documented three women 1:39 with lupus and Sjögren syndrome reaching symptom remission in four weeks or less. 1:46 That is absolutely amazing. 1:47 And she's been featured in so many places people magazine, 1:51 A disease, Reverse Reversal, Hope and Eating You Alive 1:55 and reaches so many followers on all of her platforms. 1:58 So Doctor Brueckner, welcome. 2:00 I'm excited to bring your story and your data to this audience. 2:04 So let's dive in. Sounds good. 2:07 Glad to be here. 2:09 All right. 2:09 So before we get into the science, I want to start with you. 2:13 Your doctors told you that you would likely spend your life 2:17 on immunosuppressants or lose your life to your disease. 2:22 What was actually happening in your body when you were diagnosed? 2:26 And what does lupus do to someone's immune system? 2:31 Yeah, so long before I was ever a doctor or an author, 2:34 all the things you mentioned, 2:36 I was a patient, and I'd been a patient since I was 14 years 2:39 old, at 14 of starting with really severe migraines. 2:42 And I mean, just in bed vomiting for days. 2:45 They couldn't find anything wrong. 2:46 I had all the tests done, all the wires on my head and okay, it's just genetic. 2:51 And here's your medicine for migraines. 2:53 And it was a couple of years after that, from 15 to 16, 2:57 where I started to have other symptoms, where I'd get joint swelling or pain. 3:00 And usually by the time I got to the doctor, it was better, 3:03 but it would kind of work its way around my body. 3:05 It might be in my shoulder, 3:06 and then it'd be in my knee, and then it'd be in my toe. 3:09 And then, you know, just kind of move around. 3:11 And it never made sense to me as a kid 3:12 because I was used to pink coming from injury. 3:14 So I was thinking, if I hurt myself playing volleyball, my right shoulder, 3:18 how come I left shoulder hurt the next day, 3:21 which can be part of autoimmune disease? 3:23 But I didn't know that back then. And then I started getting rashes. 3:25 I had a rash across my cheeks, over my nose. 3:28 That was worse when I went in the sun and all sorts of just, 3:32 and then that would be mixed in with the migraines and fatigue. 3:35 And I was a mess. 3:37 So 16 right before starting my junior high school, I had a really bad day. 3:42 Been out in the sun all day with my friends. It was a fun day. 3:44 And that night I was just throwing up from a migraine. 3:48 And when I came out, I was swollen and my cheeks were really red 3:52 because the vomiting brought out the rash and I ended up in the air. 3:55 And my doctor, who had still she'd been trying to figure out 3:58 what was wrong with me, but hadn't discovered it yet. 4:01 And she met us there, and she took a look at me and went, 4:04 I think I know what this is now. 4:06 And I and my mom told me recently it made her angry
Lupus Diagnosis and Early Kidney Failure 4:09 because she looked at me and said, I think this could be lupus. 4:11 And my mom's like, oh no, it's 4:12 not like you don't get just like I've been taking her to you for a year. 4:16 You don't get to decide that. 4:18 The only reason my mom knew what lupus was, is we happened 4:20 to have one member of the family that had it, but not related. 4:22 It was someone married into the family had it, who had died from lupus. 4:26 But she did all the testing. 4:28 And yes, I tested positive for lupus. 4:30 But what we didn't know 4:31 because it was a silent thing, I didn't have symptoms of this, 4:34 was they told me that I was also in kidney failure. 4:37 And so, you know, there was I had no symptoms or pain 4:41 that told me I was in kidney failure, but my blood pressure was through the roof. 4:46 They wanted to keep me in the hospital because of my blood pressure. 4:49 They had me do an immediate kidney biopsy, and so it was like two days 4:52 after that that I saw them to. 4:54 And he was the one who said, listen, you have the most aggressive form 4:58 of lupus nephritis, which is lupus attacking your kidneys. 5:01 It's called membranous proliferative. 5:03 And it's so severe that without doing experimental treatments, 5:07 because we don't have any treatment currently that will stop this with without 5:11 doing some experimental treatments, you may only have six months to live. 5:16 Oh, wow. So I wasn't told. 5:18 You're going to have to manage this rest of your life. 5:20 I was told you might be dead in six months. 5:22 And so we said, well, what's the best we could hope for? 5:25 He said, the best we can hope for is dialysis. 5:28 But if you're willing to undergo some experimental treatments, 5:31 we may be able to put this into a remission. 5:34 So what do you say? 5:35 I mean, okay, let's save my life then. 5:38 But it was extremely difficult. 5:40 And it's something that, 5:42 you know, it changed my life in so many ways that I consider positive. 5:46 I think, you know, most of us at 16 are thinking more about prom and SAT scores. 5:51 And I was thinking about what's going to make my life matter, 5:55 because not everybody knows that their life is limited, 5:58 especially at that age. 6:00 And so I come from a family of Holocaust survivors. 6:03 My grandmother, who at 16 was in a prison camp. 6:07 She was there when I got my diagnosis. 6:09 And, you know, she was on her knees like praying to God, like, 6:12 take me and spare her. 6:13 And it was just, I mean, seeing the pain of caused 6:16 my family changed me because I learned that we're never sick alone 6:19 and that we have to take care of ourselves for the people who love us. 6:22 And I also knew that I was still really lucky because at 16, 6:27 my grandma was much worse off and I was surrounded by people who loved me. 6:31 So even though I had a scary diagnosis, I was still lucky 6:34 and I was going to do whatever it took to live. 6:38 So I had to take seven pills a day. 6:40 They gave me high dose steroids. 6:42 They gave me hormones to suppress puberty. 6:45 They gave me high dose chemotherapy 6:48 that now is commonly used situps and chemotherapy. 6:51 But I was one of the people they tested it on, and they raised the dose every month 6:55 to see if they could use. 6:57 The side effect of chemotherapy was, which is that people's immune systems 7:01 go down right. 7:02 They use the chemotherapy for cancer to stop fast growing cells. 7:05 But the side effect is that can suppress their immune system. 7:07 And it's why a lot of people with cancer dive infections, 7:10 well, they were on purpose trying to suppress my immune system. 7:12 Since in lupus, it's the immune system that's attacking the kidneys, right. 7:16 Attacking the joints. 7:17 So they wanted to shut down my immune system as aggressively 7:21 as they could without killing me. 7:23 And so they said they had every month raise the dose 7:25 because they gave me the full dose all at once. 7:27 That could kill me, too. Or even a horse, my doctor said. 7:30 So I was going through all that, and I went to high school. 7:33 And so I learned how to also kind of put things where they needed to be, like, 7:37 here's my pills. 7:39 And I learned how to swallow all seven pills at once, 7:41 so I wouldn't have to take more time than needed. 7:42 Thinking about health, I took my pills, and then I went to school, 7:45 and I took in my AP classes, and I was myself with my friends. 7:50 And yes, 7:51 I, you know, had low energy at times and I couldn't go out the way I used to. 7:55 And, you know, 7:56 I couldn't go out to the Jersey shore on the weekends, go play beach volleyball. 8:01 But I was still able to graduate top of my class 8:04 and I was still able to get into college. 8:07 In fact, I got a scholarship to my dream school, 8:10 and I started at two weeks after I finished chemotherapy. 8:12 I finished chemo, and then I went to college. 8:14 So, you know, it's life with lupus is 8:18 is complex and it can be painful and it can be tiring. 8:22 But for me, it was still life. 8:23 And I just figured I would have a life that mattered as much as possible, 8:28 and I was going to enjoy it fully 8:30 and I was going to achieve fully and then see what happened. 8:33 And yeah, I'm sitting here today, I'm about to turn a few months away 8:36 from turning 50, and I have zero health problems. 8:39 I've been in remission for over 20 years, will be 21 years next month, 8:43 but back then I had no idea what was going to be next. 8:48 And so I recently was told by an interviewer 8:50 that I've been living like I'm dying for over 30 years. 8:53 And yeah, I definitely had in the best possible way, 8:56 but it made me really the one of the reasons I wanted to be 8:59 a doctor was because I wanted to help people with chronic disease 9:03 know that they could still live and maximize their ability 9:06 to enjoy their lives and not let it stop them. 9:09 And so I thought, you know, that's why, like, 9:11 even with my patients today, they said they'd never had a doctor 9:14 who goes line by line through the labs and explains everything 9:17 to them and sits with them. 9:18 I don't see people for less than 75 minutes. 9:21 Right. 9:21 Like I just I want to make sure that I'm in this with them. 9:24 And it's one of the reasons why they recover so well and feel good too, 9:27 is that I'm there with them. 9:28 I understand them, I know them, and I can hold their hand 9:32 while they're sick and then celebrate with them when they're well. 9:35 So yeah, that's my summary of life with that. 9:38 That's quite a story. 9:40 I mean, to be dealing with this when you're a teenager, 9:44 and I know many of the people who are watching or listening to 9:47 this are like, well, you know, my autoimmunity came later in life. 9:51 And I know for myself, 9:53 you know, you were blindsided as a teenager with this diagnosis. 9:57 I mean, just to go in and get a kidney biopsy. 9:59 And I'm glad you, you know, you use the words glomerulonephritis 10:04 because me as a trained pathologist, 10:06 I'm like, I've been looking at kidney biopsies. 10:07 I know, like I'm visualizing exactly what you were seeing. 10:11 But those are really big and scary words. 10:13 And, you know, for me, 10:15 I personally developed autoimmunity after a traumatic brain injury. 10:19 Right. 10:19 So anybody is in the space where they can 10:23 develop autoimmunity anywhere along their health journey. 10:26 So this is why this conversation is so important, because I 10:31 myself had to reverse my own autoimmune that that I developed. 10:35 So it's really interesting. 10:36 Yeah. And it's progressive right. 10:38 So the thing about autoimmune disease 10:40 is we're taught that it's progressive and chronic meaning chronic. 10:43 You'll have it forever and progressive is going to get worse. 10:46 And that was my experience before changing the way I ate. 10:50 I mean, you know, I got through college okay. 10:53 And I maintained what they called a remission. 10:55 So I went off chemotherapy after two years 10:58 and because my kidneys were no longer failed. 11:01 So I still had some protein in my ears. 11:02 But they said that'll be chronic 11:03 because you'll always have that because of damage that was done. 11:06 But you're no longer a kidney failure, which was huge. 11:09 I still had arthritis. 11:10 I still got rashes from the sun, but medications, oral medication 11:14 to care of that. 11:14 And I was thrilled not having to do chemotherapy. 11:17 I already felt like I was like freedom. 11:19 You know, I still had to take medication when I had, you know, migraines 11:23 and miss class for that. But I still made it through that. 11:26 But medical school almost killed me. For real. 11:28 I mean, medical school. 11:30 I couldn't make my, you know, I couldn't just take a day off 11:33 and sleep in if I needed to, like in college and the the call. 11:36 Oh my goodness. Nowadays they actually limit call 11:39 where you can't work more than 30 hours straight. 11:41 But back then we didn't have that protection. 11:44 Remember my first 72 hour call where I basically drove home 11:49 and threw up because I had my body had never been awake. 11:53 I was in New York actually, for my rotations. 11:55 It was a torture. Yeah. 11:57 And there's no reason for it. 11:58 It's not like we're good at our job 11:59 once we've been up that long, but as med students really. 12:02 But yeah, I, I remember, you know, 12:05 I was getting sick and I knew it, but I wasn't having my previous symptoms. 12:09 I was having episodes of Double Vision and where I literally be 12:13 walking down the hospital hallway, and then I'd have to hold on to the wall
Managing Severe Autoimmunity Through Medical School 12:16 because it was two worlds, and I had to wait for them to come back together. 12:20 I was getting little red dots all over my body and okay, this is bad. 12:23 And I actually went to 12:25 my attending at the time and I said, I think I've got something going on. 12:29 I have lupus, 12:29 and you can see there's dots in my nails and I'm getting some double vision. 12:33 And she actually she told me that, you know, 12:35 she basically made it seem like medical students are hypochondriacs. 12:39 And I'm probably fine. 12:40 And like, I'm not opposite of a hypochondriac. 12:42 I don't want any of it. I've already had enough. 12:45 I don't want any of it, you know, and and I said, okay, you know what? 12:49 Next month is 12:51 Thanksgiving. 12:52 I'm going to go home and go see my doctors will work this up, 12:56 which I should have gotten to work up sooner. 12:59 But I had a really scary episode after that where I 13:03 was seeing patients at a clinic and I was trying to read the chart, 13:07 and I suddenly couldn't read it, 13:09 and I didn't remember if I couldn't figure out if I was awake or dreaming. 13:13 I was trying to figure it out, and I couldn't 13:15 talk to the person who was next to me. I wanted to say something. 13:17 I couldn't talk to him and I woke up later. 13:20 The clinic was closed and I was sleeping on the chart, 13:23 and they must have left me there thinking like, oh, there's another med student 13:26 who's exhausted, you know? 13:27 But it was really bad. 13:29 And I remember when I woke up, I just wanted to go home. 13:32 I wasn't thinking clearly. 13:33 And I remember I had my teas and I got in my Jeep, 13:36 and thankfully I lived only about a mile from the clinic. 13:38 But I remember stopping at every intersection to try to look 13:42 and see if I saw my house, because I wasn't sure how to get there. 13:46 So I got back to my house. 13:47 I and I went to bed. 13:49 I woke up like ten hours later and I felt normal as like this was bad. 13:54 So I went back to my doctor back home. 13:56 And that's when I found out that the lupus was no longer. 13:58 My kidneys were still stable, but I had developed something called Antifa 14:01 lipid antibody, where lupus was causing blood clots. 14:04 So I was having mini strokes. 14:06 I was sending blood clots into my brain, and that was causing the double vision 14:09 and the confusion. 14:10 And so then I had to go on a blood thinner. 14:13 And they told me for the rest of your life, they said, 14:14 you know, the rest of your life you're going to have a major stroke. 14:17 And I said, But I'm really clumsy. 14:19 What if I bleed into my head? 14:21 You know, I 14:21 fall, I, you know, and they're like, this is the safest thing you can do. 14:26 And considering the history of kidney failure 14:28 and the current issue with blood clots, which at the time I think I was 26, 14:32 they said, you know, you can never have children. 14:34 It would kill you if you even managed to get pregnant, 14:37 considering that you had chemotherapy during puberty. 14:40 You know, we don't. 14:41 So it was just kind of like this thing. 14:43 And that was the first time I think I ever really cried for myself. 14:46 And I think it was also because I was now a year away 14:49 from becoming a doctor fully, and I understood what I had better. 14:53 When I was 16. 14:54 We didn't have the internet, I didn't Google what I had. 14:57 I only knew what my doctor told me, and my mom gave me a book. 15:00 I got a chapter in and said, this is really depressing. 15:02 And I threw it away. 15:03 And and so I really understood how serious it was, how much danger I was in. 15:09 And I had made peace with the fact that I'd probably be 15:12 physically disabled by my 40s, having had the business as a teenager. 15:16 But the idea that I could lose the only thing that was going for me 15:19 was my brain. 15:20 I was like, I could be in a wheelchair 15:21 and I can practice medicine, but if a major stroke, I have nothing. 15:26 So it was about two weeks of crying. 15:29 And then I went, you know what? 15:30 I'm the comeback kid. 15:31 Every time they tell me I'm dying, I take my medicine, 15:35 I get better and I keep going. 15:37 And that's who I am. I take this shock my belly every day. 15:39 My blood is thin. 15:40 I'm still going to graduate. 15:41 I just gotten into my residency program in California, and I was like, 15:45 you know what? I'm still here. 15:46 How many people are living their dream? 15:48 And, you know, 15:49 and so I just kind of like, put it where needed to be and kept going. 15:52 And so I was actually fully happy with living my life that way. 15:55 And you had mentioned in the introduction about how I, I had like, 16:00 almost like I decided to try to find a way to get better and, 16:04 and discover intentionally a way to heal. No. 16:08 Never did. 16:08 I was raised with lupus, basically, and always relied on medicine and believed 16:14 actually fully that there was no other way that I could survive without medication 16:19 and Western medicine. 16:20 My recovery was purely an accident and it was the best accident 16:24 that ever could happen. 16:25 But yeah, I just felt lucky that for every disease that I developed, 16:30 for every symptom I had, I survived and there was a medicine 16:34 that could keep me going. And for me that was enough. 16:37 You just you reminded me that like I remember in medical school 16:41 a residency actually how you know. 16:44 Yeah they think you're a hypochondriac because everything you learn 16:48 it's like I had that but I remember I got misdiagnosed 16:52 and my gyn just totally was like, oh, there's nothing going on. 16:57 I'm just regular pap smear, nothing. 16:58 And I'm like, 16:59 And then one of my colleagues goes to me, she's like, all you do is eat ice. 17:04 And I'm like, what are you talking about? 17:05 She's like, you're always snack. You're sitting next to me. 17:08 And, you know, we had our cubbies where I was like all the other residents. 17:11 She's like, you're just always eating ice. 17:12 And I'm like, well, that's pica. 17:14 I guess. 17:15 She's like, you should really go get your bloodwork checked. 17:17 And I'm like, okay. 17:18 And I was I was literally in residency doing call, 17:23 doing everything with a hemoglobin, the hematocrit of six and 22. 17:28 I was so anemic when I went to the emergency room 17:30 and they're like, oh no, we need to do a transfusion. 17:32 And I'm like, I'm not doing a transfusion. 17:34 I'm fine. I'm on call tomorrow. 17:36 I have slowly worked your way down. 17:38 Then if you can walk around that way, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I have to work. 17:42 And nevertheless, there was a story behind that. 17:45 But it's interesting because if you don't know anything 17:48 about how the human body works and what the signs 17:51 are to look for, you're kind of going through and struggling this. 17:54 So my next question for you is that most people are taught that autoimmune disease 17:59 is something that you manage, not something that you reverse. 18:02 But you got off every medication and your labs came back clean. 18:07 So what is wrong with the manage it forever model? 18:11 And why do you think your own doctors did not expect what happened to you? 18:17 Well, I think that, you know, part of it 18:19 is that chronic disease, the idea of chronic disease. 18:25 I believe that that's really man made. 18:26 You look elsewhere in the animal kingdom. 18:29 There isn't chronic disease. 18:30 You don't see like an elephant with arthritis limping, you know, 18:34 they can get sick and die. 18:36 They can get an infection, they can get a wound, they can get hurt. 18:39 But the idea that you you get sick 18:42 and stay sick, it actually goes against biology, right? 18:45 Everything in ourselves, 18:47 everything in our system is designed to be able to repair damage. 18:50 So you can get a paper cut and not bleed to death, right? 18:53 We have blood clots to seal off the wound and then our skin can regenerate. 18:57 We have enzymes that are released that allow us to have the immune cells 19:00 that flow in there and repair damage, like our whole body is designed 19:04 to repair itself, but we are not living in a natural way anymore, right? 19:09 Even simple things like getting enough sunlight to have vitamin D, 19:12 which is actually a hormone that's necessary 19:14 for our immune system to function. 19:16 I live in this room mostly, right? 19:19 I have to supplement vitamin D to have my immune system work properly. 19:22 Right. 19:22 That there's little things like that changing our entire way of eating, 19:26 that all of the things that we need to repair damage to ourselves, 19:30 they come from our diet. 19:32 So it's kind of like the way I explain it to my patients. 19:34 It's like a Lego set 19:36 where you know, you have the instructions and then you have the pieces. 19:39 Our DNA has the instructions, our cells and tissues have the instructions. 19:44 But if you're missing the pieces, you can't finish the set. 19:47 You can't repair the damage. 19:48 And so in that way, we can get sick because of what I love myself 19:53 because I'm always like, this is what you need to support. 19:56 So we're going to get into it. 19:58 Yeah. 19:58 So, you know, what happens is we get damage from many things. 20:02 We get damaged 20:04 because of environmental factors, you know, maybe exposures to things. 20:07 I was just just got 20:08 off the line of someone who developed a, you know, issues with having 20:12 nerve damage from exposure to a toxin, you know, a pesticide, right? 20:16 We can get damage from external factors.
Why Autoimmune Disease Can Be Reversed 20:19 We can get damage from extreme stress. 20:21 We can get damage because we're not sleeping enough to repair the damage, 20:25 because we not only need all the pieces, but we need the time to put it together. 20:28 And that happens largely while we're sleeping. 20:30 We can get damage from eating things that our bodies are not meant to 20:33 have inside of them. 20:35 And so we have all these different types of damage, 20:37 and then we have to have the things we need to repair the damage. 20:40 And it's one of the reasons why my protocol is very specific. 20:42 It's something that we trademark called hyper nourishment. 20:45 And it's about over supplying the supplies your body uses to repair the damage. 20:48 So to me, chronic disease means we have something that's damaging us 20:53 either continuously or in the past caused damage, 20:56 and we're lacking what it takes to repair the damage. 20:59 And it might be one or the other for some folks. 21:02 I've helped a lot of people who are already plant based, for example, 21:05 who stalled in their recovery until they added hyper nourishment. 21:09 So it was like, okay, I was getting better 21:10 not eating animal products anymore, not eating processed stuff anymore. 21:14 But then I never fully recovered. 21:16 Okay, you're just missing some of the other stuff. 21:18 And but for most folks, they're still eating things, 21:20 making them sick, 21:20 and they're still lacking the things they need to get better. 21:23 And then there's the emotional components as well. 21:25 We know that grieving and stress and anxiety, depression all create damage. 21:29 Great inflammation. 21:30 So much so there was a study where they thought 21:32 they should give to people with depression to steroids. 21:34 I'm like, no, it's not good. 21:36 But really. 21:37 So it's humans are complex that way. 21:40 And so because of that we can have damage that should have repaired itself, 21:45 become chronic. 21:46 One of the most great examples right now is long Covid. 21:50 I've had, you know, when I was I have these programs 21:53 called Rapid Recovery where I work with people every day 21:55 before to six weeks. I love taking care of people 21:57 and being there for them and helping them recover. 21:59 And so in the 22:00 when I was doing these programs during Covid, because we do them online, 22:04 when we talk to each other online, people who had severe autoimmune diseases, 22:08 cancer, heart disease, diabetes, who should have been the most vulnerable, 22:13 they weren't getting Covid when their family members were all sick. 22:16 So we went, okay, something weird here, right? 22:18 But also we've had people who had long Covid, right? 22:21 So think of it, an infection. 22:23 Most people would never think 22:24 you get the flu and have it the rest of your life, right. 22:26 That would be the czar. 22:28 But long Covid is like chronic Covid, right? 22:31 Chronic disease caused by an infection. 22:33 And we've had people come to us over the years who had had symptoms remaining 22:38 for 1 to 2 years, and they disappeared once they added those other ingredients. 22:42 So because of the work I've done, it's really shown me over the past 22:47 20 years that chronic diseases mostly our fault, 22:50 that we don't need to be chronically ill, 22:52 that we can reverse diseases even when we've had since the beginning. 22:55 But that's not how we're taught as physicians. 22:57 So going back to my doctors, doctors were amazing. 23:00 They saved my life when I was a very seriously ill kitten. 23:04 It could have gone either way. 23:06 And so my nephrologist, he was amazing. 23:08 You know, being on the cutting edge using the chemotherapy, you know, 23:12 this was before 23:12 even we had the medicines we use now is mostly just high dose steroids. 23:16 Back then we didn't have, 23:17 you know, any of the any of the current meds that they use regularly. 23:21 Now when I was 16. 23:22 So, you know, they were brilliant, amazing doctors. 23:25 And it's funny, my roots from back in the day, doctor Franklin, 23:29 he sent me an email probably in 2016 or 2015 when Goodbye Lupus came out 23:35 and roaming email saying, I'm so happy that you're not only alive, 23:39 but you're doing well. This is so cool. 23:40 I love what you're doing. 23:42 My nephrologist, who's brilliant, loving so much, Doctor Levy, was amazing. 23:48 I went back to see him. 23:49 Goodness, my boys were little and I went back to see him 23:53 because I was in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and he's now the head of the hospital, 23:57 and I he came out and he saw me and he started crying and he hugged me. 24:01 He's like, I can't believe it. 24:02 He was like, I had to look up your name to see, is this really the woman that. 24:06 I think it is? 24:07 Because there's no way she's still alive. 24:08 Like he just assumed it. 24:10 And he saw the children and he was just, like, crying and hugged me. 24:13 It was this beautiful reunion, and I thanked him for saving my life 24:16 and told him about my protocol and how healthy I am now. 24:20 And I have normal kidneys and no lupus at the time 24:23 for I don't know, it was over a decade at that time. 24:26 We had a great reunion. 24:27 As we're walking out the door, my younger son 24:30 pointed to his candy bowl and I said, no, no, we don't eat that. 24:34 And he's like, okay. 24:35 And my hands, I'm walking out. 24:36 I remember I was holding the door and he goes, I don't know. 24:39 I still think when it comes to food, moderation is best. 24:42 And I remember because I tripped on the door 24:44 like I almost fell because I was just like, what? 24:48 You just saw a miracle with your own eyes and your brain's like. 24:52 And he was the one who told me when I was sick 24:54 that pizza was the perfect food because it had all the food groups. 24:57 And my parents owned a pizza place and always gave him free coupons. 25:00 So it might be part of that, you know? 25:02 But but he's still even in the face of a miracle. 25:05 And I got to say, 25:05 nephrologists have been the hardest to get on board, even when I help people. 25:08 Like my first publication was getting someone 25:10 off the kidney transplant list doubling or kidney function 25:13 in six weeks, and her nephrologist said, no way it's gonna work. 25:16 And then when it worked, he said, it wasn't the food. 25:19 I don't know what it was, but it's just a miracle. 25:21 So he found religion, but he still refused to believe that it works. 25:24 I don't know why nephrologists are my hardest ones. 25:26 I'll get there. They'll get Alice's nurses. 25:29 I have a dialysis nurse who keeps slipping people my website 25:33 because they'll tell me I was complaining. 25:36 There must be a better way. 25:37 And she just whispered in my ear, this lady has gotten 25:40 some of my patients off dialysis and she just slides them the bar. 25:43 So the nurses, that's actually how a lot of patients end up on my way to is, 25:47 is the either the nurse practitioners and the percentage like just go to her. 25:52 Well, it's our training, right. 25:53 Like my I learned nothing about nutrition and medical school. 25:57 I graduated knowing so much about biology and physiology and and medications. 26:02 We didn't have iPods or anything back then. 26:04 We had to remember all the medicines and their side effects 26:06 and all our fairy giant books, and we're from the same generation, so I get it. 26:11 Yeah. 26:11 You know, the big pockets that cause the chronic neck pain 26:14 on the two three beepers, and you don't want to be the first. 26:18 So, I mean, so it was just not in our training. 26:20 And so I think, you know, even I've had so many patients 26:24 where their lupus went away, shoguns went away. 26:27 Other autoimmune even miss. 26:29 And the doctor will say, well, 26:32 it's incurable, so you must never have had it. 26:36 And we just misdiagnosed you. Like literally. 26:39 Didn't it be amazing? 26:40 Instead of carrying a pharmacopeia in our left 26:44 pocket, we actually had a nutrition guide in the right pocket. 26:48 I mean, I feel like we should just write it, right? 26:50 It's changing. 26:51 It's changing its medical schools around the world like I've had, 26:54 you know, medical schools in New Zealand and Australia, like, 26:57 have me do a grand round for them 26:58 where they over zoom because they're looking for the info. 27:01 You know, I've taught at conferences with hundreds of doctors. 27:04 They're like, it's changing. 27:05 It's not fast enough for the people who need us right now. 27:07 But in my lifetime, I'm in awe of how quickly 27:11 things have changed and how more acceptable it is. 27:14 My published goodbye lupus. 27:15 I was getting people slamming me online. 27:18 It's incurable. You can't. This is not true. 27:20 You know, you're you're selling snake oil. 27:22 I'm like, I'm selling nothing. 27:23 Like I'm just telling you. Here's the information. 27:25 My husband and I decided to give it away for free. 27:27 Like to just share the protocol just to save people's lives. 27:31 But now it's, like, accepted. Like. 27:33 Oh, yeah. 27:33 In fact, now everybody's got their own program, like, oh, we reverse autoimmune 27:37 and you just need to take our parent type parasite, blah blah, and you know. 27:42 Oh well that's not go down the parasite route. Just. Yeah. 27:44 But let's talk about because that's a whole other let's we won't get there 27:49 hyper nourishment. 27:51 So you call your approach hyper nourishment. 27:54 It starts at the level of the gut and the cell. 27:56 And you've distilled this into six specific steps. 28:00 Call the hyper nourishing protocol. 28:01 Can you walk us through each of them and explain why the order 28:07 and the combination matters, not just the individual pieces? 28:11 Like like, what is it about this that matters? 28:14 Yeah, absolutely. 28:15 So the six steps to reversing disease using supermarket foods. 28:18 Right. 28:18 So that's called the steps sets in my book of by lupus. 28:21 But I've shared it publicly a lot. 28:23 You can distilled into really two parts. 28:25 The first three steps are really about don't get sicker right.
The Six-Step Hyper Nourishing Protocol 28:29 If you want to heal, stop getting sicker, right. 28:32 It's like if you're trying to lose weight, stop. 28:34 Stop getting fatter, right? 28:35 Like you have to stop doing the thing that's making you sicker. 28:37 So those are the first three steps. 28:39 And the second three steps are hyper nourishment. 28:41 These are the nutrition items you need for recovery. 28:45 So the first three steps are 28:46 the things you need to stop eating in order to get better. 28:48 And those I think have been universally discovered, 28:51 especially when you look at the plant based world. 28:53 I didn't come into this wanting to be plant based. 28:56 I didn't even know it existed. 28:58 My husband and I are scientists. 29:00 We discovered this by accident. 29:01 My husband is actually so. 29:04 His master's degree is an exercise science and health promotion, and his research 29:08 was focused on how to create a fast metabolism 29:11 so that any person can have low body fat, high muscle. 29:14 That's all he was looking to do human esthetics. 29:16 And when we met and he wanted to marry me, knowing 29:20 that I couldn't have children and he'd be taking care of me when I died young. 29:25 I mean, he's incredible. 29:27 I was like, well, if we're going to get married, 29:29 I want to do your program so I can look great in my wedding dress. 29:32 Like I never even thought about getting married, you know? 29:35 And so he gave me his protocol to do. 29:38 But his protocol actually included meat free range meat. 29:41 It's like, kind of like what paleo became. 29:43 But I was a vegetarian since I was a kid. 29:46 I ate tons of eggs and cheese and process of junk, 29:49 but I wasn't willing to eat meat, so he had to change it for me. 29:52 And it was the first time he ever made a plant based version of it. 29:55 But there was no dairy because that increased people's body fat 29:58 and there was nothing processed. 30:00 It was high in raw foods and a mega three and water intake. 30:03 And and then for me, he's like, all right, well, just won't do the meat 30:07 and see what happens. 30:08 You know, maybe have some soy beans or tofu or something. 30:11 So I got the same results as everyone else in terms of the fat loss. 30:14 I went from a size 11 to a size three. 30:15 In three months, I was ripped. 30:18 I was like, oh, I just so ripped. 30:20 But I was 28 years old. 30:22 I was still under a lot of stress. 30:24 I was in my intern year of my residency. 30:26 I was working 30 hour shifts on a regular basis on call. 30:29 Thankfully, the law had passed, so I had 30 hours max. 30:32 Right? Although who really went home with 30 hours? 30:34 You still just signed all your notes and stuff, but still it was contained. 30:36 But when we went to go to our wedding, I was like, I've never felt this good. 30:40 And at 28, I'd had lupus for 12 years straight. 30:44 Even when I was told I was in remission, I took medication, I took blood thinners, 30:48 I had positive labs with antibodies and a and a dsDNA. 30:52 I had I had, you know, protein in my urine. 30:55 And I was like, I just feel so good. 30:57 I don't want to stop eating like this. I really, really like it. 30:59 I have tons of energy. 31:01 I, you know, I would go on call and then go to the gym after like 31:04 not normal for someone without lupus, you know. 31:06 And so right before going to our wedding, I got 31:09 I had a new doctor out in California and they ran my tests and he called me 31:13 and said there was a mistake at the lab because he's obviously aren't your labs. 31:17 I got your labs from your doctor before, 31:19 and these are negative for lupus, so they're not your labs. 31:22 Go get married, have fun, come back. 31:24 We'll retest it. And I was like, that's funny. 31:27 What happened? 31:28 My wedding came back, retested and they were negative. 31:31 And that was back in 2005. 31:33 And I have never relapsed since 2005. 31:35 It's been it'll be 21 years next month. 31:37 I have never realized 31:38 there was no protein in my urine, negative A and a negative dsDNA. 31:42 Normal compliment in every measure you can look at. 31:45 Plus, I'd had high cholesterol since my 20s, which my doctor said was genetic. 31:49 Nothing to do with all the cheese I ate, you know, and my cholesterol was like 156. 31:54 I was like, so that's that was what happened 31:57 that started this because there was never a thought. 32:01 I was not smart enough to realize that maybe there was something more, you know, 32:05 I was first a geneticist and then a doctor and, like, just wanted to lose weight. 32:09 And it worked. 32:09 And then I don't know why my labs are better. 32:11 Maybe a blessing for love, I don't know. 32:13 But when I had my first son four years later with no relapse, 32:18 no medication, that's when we went, okay, that's this is impossible. 32:23 Now, how could I still have lupus and have normal labs have a baby? 32:27 No blood clots, nothing. 32:28 And that's when we decided to research. 32:31 How do the components that are creating the fast metabolism? 32:33 Because it worked. 32:34 I had my son and within nine days I was back in my pre-pregnancy jeans. 32:39 His metabolism worked. 32:41 He has his own book, Miracle Metabolism. It worked. 32:43 But how does that have anything to do 32:45 with my immune system and repairing my kidneys? 32:48 Because I no longer have protein or how? 32:50 And so that led us to really starting to understand how does nutrition 32:54 impact cellular functions, cellular repair, immune function. 32:58 And that became this protocol. 33:00 So just so people understand, it wasn't like I want to be plant based. 33:04 What do people doing? 33:05 But it just so turned out that those first three steps, every plant based after 33:08 I met was like, yeah, processed foods, all the added, all the animal products. 33:13 Like that's definitely causing damage. 33:15 I'm like, I'm all in on that. 33:16 The part that I found that was more compelling, though, was that 33:22 people are, are, are staying sick 33:24 because of what they're missing, sometimes even more than what they're eating. 33:27 Because if you can't repair damage, then no matter how little, 33:32 how much you avoid inflammation, you're still going to have trouble being well. 33:35 So the thing a lot like the average human, 33:38 especially in the US, when I'm looking, I'm like yourself. 33:42 It's like we're overfed and undernourished when it comes to our cellular health. 33:47 Like our people are malnourished. 33:49 Yeah. So people are eating. We just aren't. 33:52 We don't have the nourishment. Yeah, yeah. 33:54 And that's actually when my husband was doing his research back in the day. 33:57 He was looking he was working with them like scientists who create supplements, 34:02 who were running their own labs, looking at what people are deficient in. 34:05 And they were most efficient. And minerals, actually. 34:07 And the only reason they weren't more deficient in vitamins is a lot of people 34:10 take multivitamins, but they were really deficient in minerals. 34:13 Where do minerals come from? Minerals come from the earth. 34:16 Well, what food do we eat 34:18 that's in contact with the earth that has the highest mineral density? 34:21 Vegetables. 34:22 Which vegetables have the highest content of minerals, vitamins, 34:26 and actually all phytonutrients combined cruciferous vegetables. 34:29 That's how cruciferous vegetables and other high 34:31 nutrient vegetables like spinach, for example, 34:33 became the first component of hyper nourishment. 34:35 Hyper nourishment is how do we supply what we need to heal as quickly as possible? 34:39 Plus, my husband and I both come from immigrant mothers. 34:42 Keep it simple, right? 34:43 So many people are told eat the rainbow every day. 34:45 Who does that? 34:46 In fact, even in nature, no animals eating the rainbow over day. 34:50 We're eating whatever's right in front of us. Right? 34:52 Like wherever you are outside, there's a lot of green, right? 34:55 But you're not having a rainbow, right? 34:57 And so we're like, how do we make this simple and effective? 34:59 And so we found this. 35:00 Cruciferous vegetables by far have all the vitamins and minerals 35:04 that the other fruits and vegetables combined have. 35:08 So if we get people to eat at least a pound a day of cruciferous vegetables, 35:11 what happens is their level of nourishment goes through the roof. 35:14 Vitamins. Minerals. 35:15 Antioxidants. Other phytonutrients. 35:17 Now Johns Hopkins is discovering other things like sulforaphane 35:20 and how it's anti-cancer and into viral. 35:22 And so we didn't even know all the ways in which it worked. 35:26 We just knew that if we correct this deficiency, 35:29 people's health changes in a measurable way quickly. 35:31 So high nutrient vegetables in the raw form, 35:34 we tested cooked and raw cooked in work and then the raw did. 35:37 So we're like, all right, this is so all of our protocols came from results. 35:41 First we had to test it in volunteers, which we did. 35:43 We had volunteers from the Lucas Foundation 35:45 and people were like, we didn't release it until we could replicate it 35:48 in the volunteers. 35:49 We didn't want to just say, it worked for me, because what if it wasn't that? 35:52 What if it was an accident? What if it was a miracle? Right? 35:55 We it had to be reproducible. 35:56 So that was the first component. 35:58 And getting people to eat it, that was the hardest part. 36:00 That's how we came up with the smoothies, because it turns out 36:02 people won't even eat vegetables to save their lives 36:04 if you think they will do it while vegetables. 36:08 Right. So that's number one. 36:09 Number two, severely depletion of mega three fatty acids. 36:12 Mega three fatty acids are necessary for having cells that function properly. 36:17 You know, you showed that cell. 36:18 You need it in the membrane of the cells to allow nutrients in and toxins out. 36:22 And if you don't have a mega threes in your diet, 36:24 they're rigid and they don't allow that process. 36:26 So you can eat the best foods and the nutrients don't enter the cell 36:30 because you're Mega three deficient. 36:31 There's a big barrier I hit when I first entered the world 36:33 of this, because a lot of plant based people were anti all fat, were like, no, 36:37 very important fact number two on mega three fatty acids 36:40 become the anti-inflammatory immune system. 36:42 They're also necessary for nerve cells brain function memory, cognition. 36:47 And so that was something we felt like okay, we have to find a way 36:51 to get these numbers up high. We're the highest sources of it. 36:53 And so now what we use is flax and seeds, which are super cheap cold pressed flax 36:58 for people who can't handle the fiber but still need it. 37:01 It works really well. So that's the exception to the rule. 37:03 And again, tested over decades, even even when I developed my autoimmune 37:08 after my TBI, 37:09 the dose of omega I was taking, well, not just from the brain health perspective. 37:14 I mean, I was on a very, very high, like, 37:18 not something you're like GP is like, oh, go take an omega pill. 37:22 I mean, I was like three times the amount because they don't work those pills. 37:26 You know, my husband taught a grand rounds back in the day at 37:29 a family practice about a mega three, and he had them open up all the 37:33 supplements and even the prescription, and they all smelled like rotten fish 37:37 because they're rotten. 37:38 Yeah. 37:39 So they oxidize easily with air and with heat. 37:43 So yeah. 37:44 So with if somebody's sick, we go for like a half cup a day of flax 37:48 with to seeds or a few tablespoons of flax. 37:50 Well, if you're well, a handful of flax or seeds or a tablespoon of Blackwell 37:54 will give you what you need. 37:54 But the other problem is our immune system function is very much affected 37:59 by the balance of a mega six to Mega three. 38:01 A mega six isn't everything. 38:03 It creates our inflammatory immune system, but it's in boils. 38:06 It's in every type of food. 38:08 It's high in animal products, but it's also in other things like nuts and seeds. 38:11 But in Mega three, it's hard to come by. 38:13 And so what was coming out at the time was about how the balance of 3 to 6 38:18 was causing huge amounts of health issues, making people get inflamed 38:22 and stay inflamed because the mega threes help us come back to normal. 38:26 So we were trying to affect that balance. 38:28 And if the ratio for health, they're still not sure anywhere from 38:31 1 to 1 to maybe 9 to 1 is probably good for human health. 38:34 The average human they were testing back 20 years ago 38:38 was like 40 to 1, but I've seen 200 to 1. 38:41 So that's why the mega threes are huge. 38:44 And a lot of folks 38:44 that I found people were resisting that piece of it were like, I feel good. 38:48 But if I eat one thing that's inflammatory, I feel sick. 38:51 The next day I'm like, you're mega threes. 38:53 You need them. And then that fixes it. 38:54 And then the other component that was missing was water. 38:57 Most people are really dehydrated, and water is necessary 39:00 for every single chemical reaction that takes place. 39:03 It affects everything from kidney stones to vision to blood 39:07 sugars, blood pressures, kidney function, everything, even glaucoma. 39:11 Everything you could think of head to toe 39:13 is affected by water, and a lot of people are meeting. 39:16 They're having whatever I accidentally swallow 39:18 and I brushed my teeth, you know, or like, does soda count? 39:21 You know, and and I was teaching people to get these kind of jugs. 39:24 And this is a gallon. That's a big one. 39:26 This is a gallon. That's what I drink a day. 39:29 But getting people up to 96oz or more now that one I have to be careful with, 39:32 because if you have tinny failure 39:34 or heart failure, we have to give you the water that you can absorb 39:38 if it's sitting in your ankles or make it in your lungs, it's not right. 39:40 But but generally speaking, and when we combine those together, 39:44 it creates an incredible cascade of healing where we could get people, 39:49 especially if they were only hyper nourishing, that people could have years, 39:52 even decades of disease and symptoms go away in a matter of weeks. 39:56 So you were talking about my K series. 39:58 That was one just looking at three women with lupus and active on medications 40:03 who were completely symptom free between 2 and 6 weeks in the group, 40:06 who were still symptom free off of medication years later. 40:10 And that was published a few years ago. 40:12 I just saw one of the ladies who did it in 2021. 40:15 She did at my program, 40:16 and I just saw her to conference last weekend, and her mother and her sister 40:20 were hugging me and crying because she still healthy today. 40:22 I saw her at the gym, so it was to show. 40:24 Not only can they get symptom free in a short period of time, 40:27 but maintain it for years afterwards without relapse. 40:30 One of the women in there for eight years, you know, 40:33 that is the case study you published in 20 years. 40:36 In 50 years. Right. And here's the nutrition. 40:39 Was the three women with lupus and Sjogren's reaching remission. 40:43 Now, what did that look like for them? 40:46 And why do you think mainstream 40:48 rheumatology really hasn't caught up like what was actually going on with them? 40:52 It was basically your hyper nourishment protocol. 40:55 But yeah, so they were. Yeah. 40:59 So the cool thing about that article though, is frontier 41:02 still has it as being viewed more than 99% 41:06 of any other article in that in that edition. 41:09 So it is being looked at, and it's one of the reasons 41:11 why I waited for something like frontiers, because there are lesser known journals 41:15 that will publish, but I wanted doctors that are reading journals to read it. 41:19 I didn't want to publish 41:20 for the sake of publishing, and it took about almost three years 41:24 to get a mainstream publication to take case series and plant based nutrition.
Case Series Results and Remission Outcomes 41:28 It was hard to do, and it's one of the reasons 41:31 why don't just publish every day, 41:32 because the amount of time to work and and try to get someone to do it. 41:36 And even when we tried to publish it, they had to replace one of the editors, 41:39 because one of the editors obviously had bias and they were like, 41:43 well, you talk about what about if the carnivore diet, 41:45 shouldn't she mention that? 41:46 And I was like, that has nothing to do with my case series. 41:49 Who is this person? And then they were replaced. 41:51 It was hard to publish, but all of them did something called rapid recovery, 41:55 where one of them did a private program with me for four weeks and the other did. 41:59 The others did my Rapid Recovery group, 42:01 which is six weeks where you do it as a group format. 42:03 And so when we do that program, what we do is we actually only put them 42:07 on the raw hyper nourishment program until they reach remission. 42:11 And then we add in other cooked plant based foods for maintenance. 42:14 So we increase the food. 42:16 So the minimum fiber nourishment is 16oz of cruciferous a day or more. 42:20 If that's all you're eating then it goes a lot higher. 42:22 So we'll get them, you know, to 24oz or more, plus unlimited other raw vegetables. 42:27 You can use as many raw vegetables as you want. 42:28 We add fruit for flavor with the smoothies, but 42:30 otherwise keep it minimal. 42:31 The omega three flax and chia seeds. 42:33 They can use the oil if they prefer the water intake, 42:36 and they're going to eat the fullness of these foods every day. 42:38 And so then we get to and then we do what I call step down 42:42 where you can add other plant based foods. 42:44 But we stay away from the animal foods forever. 42:46 Whenever people relapse, it's because they start eating animal products again. 42:49 So it's like you already know that it took this severe of a program to get you. 42:52 Well, just let's not do that. So. 42:56 So they all became symptom free. 42:58 Like I said, 42:59 between two weeks was the and six weeks, almost four weeks by six weeks. 43:03 And then their own doctors took them off of their medications. 43:07 So one of the things I did in that program is I'm not acting as your doctor. 43:10 I am your nutrition and wellness coach. 43:13 I also, in that program, work them through every other aspect 43:16 that will make them have an anti-inflammatory lifestyle. 43:19 So the nutrition being optimal. 43:20 Step one 43:21 I also make sure they're getting enough sleep every night, at least 43:24 seven hours or more if they need it for fatigue 43:26 so that their body has the time to repair damage. 43:28 I have them doing excessive levels, excessive high levels of self-care. 43:32 I want to see moods that are anti-inflammatory. 43:34 So if you're stressed, we got to reduce cortisol. 43:37 We have to increase mean. 43:38 And and I teach them how to be in that state. 43:41 That's always helped me survive. 43:43 I think before I had nutrition, the reason my meds worked so well 43:46 when other people, even with meds alone, still die, 43:49 was because I stayed in that place of gratitude. 43:52 That, and happiness in my life. Right? 43:54 That we found has been such an important part. 43:57 When I first started doing this protocol, I found that nutrition alone worked for 44:01 the people who are otherwise happy, but the people with anxiety and depression. 44:04 It was slower and I realized I've got to use everything 44:08 I got to get them into that happier state, and then they don't have the slow result 44:12 with the faster results. 44:13 So call it self-care. I call it cell care. 44:16 Yeah, exactly. 44:17 So so I make sure that every aspect of their life is healthy right now. 44:22 My rapid Recovery group, I'm helping people with abusive relationships 44:25 and making decisions about their careers and, you know, releasing past traumas. 44:30 And, you know, there really it's kind of it's an opportunity to really let 44:34 go of the things that made us sick on every level. 44:36 So it's a very intensive program with very, very high support. 44:40 And so when they finished the program, 44:41 they all went to their respective rheumatologist. 44:43 So it was in that way blinded 44:45 where the rheumatologists were like, What's going on with these people? 44:48 And based off of their labs and their lack of symptoms, 44:51 they were all taken off their medications by their rheumatologists, 44:54 and they have all remained off all medications by their rheumatologist. 44:58 So now it's been, I think, since that study, I think is 45:02 the shortest person is is like five, five years out 45:05 and the other person is over eight years out. 45:07 And she's had two babies since and still never relapsed. 45:10 So all of them had had active symptoms, even on medication, 45:14 before changing their diet, and were completely symptom free 45:17 within weeks of doing the protocol, 45:19 and have remained that way off all medication with no relapses. 45:22 And so it was just to be able to show that it's because, 45:25 you know, sometimes people can get results short term with little things, 45:28 but being able to show that you can maintain it 45:31 and then you can live this really full life 45:32 where you can exercise, have children and really have a full life. 45:36 Because to me, that's what matters most. 45:38 You know, to me 45:38 what the best part of my life is, not that my labs are perfect, 45:41 it's that I've been able to have such a full, beautiful life, 45:44 to be able to have a family, to grow old with the person I love, rather 45:48 than have him taking care of me right now, being disabled. 45:51 It's just such an incredible to be able to make a difference in people's lives 45:54 and be a doctor in such a greater way than I ever thought I could have, actually 45:58 helping people get well, I want people to have that. 46:01 And so whenever I meet someone, 46:02 that's always my goal. And I always ask them, like, 46:04 what do you want from your life that you don't have? 46:06 What are you doing when you're healthy? 46:08 And I want to help them create that life for themselves. 46:11 And our health is such an important part of that. 46:13 Yeah, I don't think we've worked this hard in life in general, 46:16 anybody to just spend the rest of their days being sick, right? 46:20 They want to live their life. 46:21 So last question, and I want it to be concrete. 46:24 So for somebody listening right now who maybe was just diagnosed or has been
Practical First Steps for Autoimmune Recovery 46:29 managing an autoimmune condition for years and is simply exhausted by it. 46:34 What is the first thing 46:36 they can actually do this week alongside their doctor's care? 46:40 What's their homework? 46:42 Doctors love. 46:43 Yeah, and I love being practical. 46:45 So I think one of the most important things 46:47 people can do is start by adding what they're missing. 46:49 Right. 46:50 So it was okay, I can give my website because I have free recipes. 46:53 So we have so one website, we have a small smoothie shred.com smoothie shred.com. 46:59 And my husband created that as a public service is completely free. 47:02 You don't even enter your email. People can just use it. 47:04 And we have free recipes and videos for people to start hibernation. 47:08 And we created as a public service. 47:10 I say it's to save your life. And he says it's to save your life. 47:13 But for us it's very important that people have this information. 47:16 So I think a great place to start is you add what you're missing. 47:19 And and so 47:20 smoothies are a great way to do it because you can put the high nutrient 47:23 vegetables in there. 47:24 You can put your flexor chia seeds in there. 47:26 You can put your water in there. Right. 47:28 And then boom, you put a straw in and then you can drink that down 47:32 and you can start getting nourished without having to think too hard. 47:35 And then what happens 47:36 is if you're drinking your smoothie, well, you have less stomach space. 47:40 So you might naturally skip the bacon in it, 47:43 and you might not need that extra bar that you normally eat. 47:46 Right. 47:46 And then I would lean into the information and support. 47:49 So we have a ton of free resources. 47:50 Like I said on my social media every day outside of my work 47:56 helping people, I try to help the public every way I can. 47:58 So every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. 48:01 Pacific time, I do free 48:02 Wellness Wednesdays on my Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and TikTok. 48:06 Good lupus just to give public support. 48:08 And it's really cool because people show up every week and go, 48:11 thanks to you, I just had I was just looking today at somebody who 48:14 said, thanks to you, my my alopecia, my Hashimoto's is gone. 48:18 You know, I've never met this person, never met them. 48:21 They just use my free resources. 48:22 People just come on to say, hey, my kidney function is back to normal. 48:25 Like all this stuff. 48:26 And it just it makes every moment I was ever sick worth it. 48:29 Every time I see something like that. 48:31 So I would start there what you're missing and start getting the information. 48:35 Come show up and and ask your questions. 48:38 And just know that there's so much more that you can do that. 48:42 Yes, you need your doctors. 48:43 If you are sick, they can save your lives, and you can do something 48:47 to make sure that your body has the optimal ability to recover. 48:51 Because truly, 48:52 if someone like me could get better with kidney failure or mini strokes, 48:56 and years over a decade of illness can become healthy than anybody can. 49:01 And I've helped people in their 80s. 49:03 90s. My oldest patient who reversed autoimmune disease was 100 years old. 49:07 And you know who said he got a positive immune marker? 49:10 And he goes, I don't want all disease. 49:11 And he jobs. 49:12 Now, I don't think he's fast, 49:13 but he jobs you know like it's like jogging is in though. 49:17 So tell him it's okay. 49:18 Yeah. Hey I'm here for jogging is a thing. 49:21 And squats and eats big salads and feels grateful for his life. 49:25 So I think that, you know, that's one. 49:27 And I think the other is to look at it as an opportunity. 49:29 Sometimes people, especially when they're sick, the thing they look forward to 49:32 is getting high off of some sugar or some cheese or whatever it is. 49:37 And so it feels like, oh, great. 49:38 Now I have to have disease 49:39 and I have to eat salad versus seeing it as an opportunity. 49:43 Like, I can take my power back 49:45 and I can get out of this hole and I can feel better. 49:48 And it's the best thing you'll ever do is just so worth it. 49:51 Amazing. 49:52 Thank you, Doctor Goldner. 49:53 This has been genuinely moving. 49:56 The idea that your immune system can be taught how to stand down, 49:59 and that you have the data to back it up, is a message I want everyone watching 50:04 to carry with them. 50:05 Doctor Goldner can be found at goodbye lupus.com, 50:09 and I encourage you to look up her books, particularly Goodbye Lupus 50:12 and Goodbye Autoimmune Disease, along with her recipe collection. 50:16 So here is a key takeaway for this episode. 50:19 Your immune system is listening to what you eat. 50:23 The question is whether you're feeding it calm or you're feeding it chaos. 50:28 So thank you so much and stay tuned for another episode.
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