Back To Basics: Simple Solutions To Overcome Hashimoto’s

Introduction and guest background 0:00

You can 100% reverse Hashimoto's if you make a conscious effort and choice to do things that are good for your body so that your body can heal itself, which can be very difficult today in this day and age, right? Because there's so many processed foods. Easy is not always the best way to get more work done instead of going to sleep is what is praised. But yes, you can 100% reverse Hashimoto's. You know this, I know this. I've done it with thousands of people, but you 100% can do it and you can do it No matter how busy you are.

Hello everybody, welcome back to Reversing Hashimoto's and Thyroid Disorder Summit. I'm your show host Dr. Anshul Gupta and I'm really excited for our discussion today because I have a great expert who's going to talk about how she was able to reverse her Hashimoto's and she's also going to talk about how different aspects of gut health and inflammation levels can impact Hashimoto's and how you can lower them. So before we delve into this discussion, let me introduce our speaker so we can start our discussion.

So Dr. Casey Smith is a dual board certified physician by the ABIM in endocrinology, diabetes, metabolism, and internal medicine. She founded Modern Endocrine after years of struggling with autoimmune thyroid diseases herself. Dr. Smith is passionate about functional and holistic medicine. focusing on uncovering the root causes of disease due to her own medical journey with grave disease and Hashimoto's, which left her without answers for many years. At Modern Endocrine, Dr. Smith and her team are dedicated to providing comprehensive and personalized endocrine care for conditions such as insulin resistance, weight management, thyroid disorders, and hormonal imbalances.

The practice follows a 10-step system to repair cellular damage, restore gut health, enhance metabolism, balance hormones, and promote overall wellness through a holistic and preventative approach. Dr. Smith believes in the power of personalized medicine to deliver the most effective and appropriate care for each patient. Modern endocrine tailors treatment to each individual's unique needs by thoroughly understanding each patient's medical history, lifestyle, and health goals. This information is combined with extensive lab work, gut and genetic testing, customized treatment plans, and guidance on lifestyle modifications.

As an expert endocrinologist, Dr. Smith helps patients overwhelmed by their health challenges make meaningful changes to rebalance and align their well-being. Dr. Casey Smith, welcome over here. Thank you for having me, Dr. Gupta. Absolutely. And I think you yourself went through Hashimoto's disease. So if you don't mind, I would like to start a discussion with you sharing your story of Hashimoto's and how you were able to overcome it. Yeah, of course.

Dr. Smith's Hashimoto's journey 3:04

So I think like a lot of providers out there I kind of stumbled into this role thankfully by way of being a patient myself. So I was, you know, brought up like most Americans, like we thought we were healthy, but we probably weren't. My mom cooked a lot of meals, but we ate out a lot. There was a lot of processed food in my house. There wasn't really an emphasis on sleep and rest and listening to yourself. It was very much like go. I decided I wanted to go to medical school and because I loved helping people and I was fascinated with why some people got ill and some people didn't.

And then I was also fascinated with how do some really sick people live forever? And some people just get sick and die. Like it just, none of it made sense to me. And so I go to medical school and I want to learn these things. And while I am in residency, I developed Graves' disease, which is overactive thyroid. And I thought, okay, this really sucks. Anyone that's had Graves understands that it's not fun. And while you're in med school as well. But what was so frustrating to me was I'm a fixer.

I've always been a fixer. So I'm like, okay, well, how do we fix this? Right? I go to the endocrinologist and I say, okay, well, I don't want this and I don't want to take these medicines. So what do I do? Well, you just take the medicines. And I'm like, okay. And then it was like, well, or we could just ablate your thyroid. And I'm like, well, it seems like that's a pretty important organ to me. I don't think that's what I want to do either. And so I was just very frustrated with the fact that it was, well, you don't fix it.

You just take the medicine and go on. And what I found myself was that, you know, med school in residency are not conducive to being nice to yourself at all. They're conducive to the world we live in, which is more, more, more, more. And the more I did, the worse I fell, you know? And I was very consumed with, like, a lot of your patients, like, how do I actually get better? You know, I don't feel good, I have brain fog, my joints hurt, I'm young, this is not how I want to live my life. But I couldn't find anyone to give me answers as to, like, how do you make this better?

Luckily residency, it kind of burnt it out of me, I guess. And so I actually ended up developing Hashimoto's. So my Graves went into remission before somebody talked me into doing radioactive iodine. And then I go into Hashimoto's and so now I'm hypothyroid. So now I'm taking medication and my hair's falling out and I don't have eyebrows and I'm tired and my brain fog is like, it is real. It's real stuff. And I'm told all the time and just like. nothing's working and so then people are saying well it's just the other side of it you know like that's just how it goes here's your medicine and I'm thinking like there's gotta be something going on and so wild I had this experience where I'm sitting there as like a third year internal medicine resident and I'm thinking you know Hippocrates said like food is medicine right and I'm eating a bunch of garbage.

Nobody's talking to me about what to eat. I'm just trying to feed myself something in between seeing a million patients, walking down the hall, shoving processed food in my mouth, not even setting down to eat. I don't know this moment where I was like, I don't want to be sick. I don't want to feel like crap. There's no way I can actually take care of people and make them better. And I'm not even thinking about this from like a logistical standpoint. Like if you go back to like what I know from anatomy and physiology, like I need to figure out how to heal myself.

And so that's kind of where my like trajectory took off. And at the time I was in Kansas City and I had a doctor that just was not functional medicine based. And so I decided I wanted to go to fellowship and like endocrinology so I could figure out, like, how do I truly help these people? And so I moved to Oklahoma City and I did a fellowship, a great fellowship program, you know, Harold E. M. Diabetes Center in Oklahoma have all this money to do this research. I had great, you know, people, but none of them wanted to talk to me about how to fix Hashimoto's.

Like, how do you fix it? Well, you don't, you just treat it. Well, I'm like, well, you know, there are studies that say we can eat and we get so we'll just went through this rabbit hole of like, I know there's a way that you can get better and it's not through medication. And so unfortunately, I had to teach myself a lot of this and my patients helped and but you know, fast forward. Eight, nine years later, I'm so glad that I did. Every single day I wake up, we get the choice to make decisions about whether we're going to improve our health or whether we're going to hurt it.

And there's so much noise out there about what you should be doing, what you shouldn't be doing. And really it all comes down to like you as an individual figuring out what makes your body feel good and you know how to do some basic things like rest and eat right and exercise, move your body, sleep. And so that's kind of how I figured it out. So I did some training on my own. I did. a lot of gut health stuff, you know, completely changed my diet, started exercising differently. I actually started lifting weights, doing mindful meditation, yoga, movement, sleep.

And I just kind of slowly over time by listening to things like this that you're putting on, And finding providers like you fixed myself, which was pretty cool, right? So like my antibody levels just started to go down. I started to need less and less medication. And so that's kind of how I really got into this was, you know, I know what it's like to be on the other side. So like, if you're listening to this, I know what brain fog is like, like real brain fog, like cannot find a word, cannot finish my job.

I know what it's like to lose your hair. I promise. I know what it's like to pick up handfuls of hair and fry. I know what all that's like, and I just choose health and the other way. And I've kind of committed my life to helping people the other way. And that is such an inspirational story because most people who are listening over here, you know, have been to multiple doctors and they have been told, I'll just take the medicine. Nothing else can be done about it. Forget about those antibodies.

Forget about reversing the disease. And you actually, by being persistently looking into the answers, looking into the solutions, changing you know like your lifestyle choices of what you eat, how you process toxins, how you sleep, how you do the body movement, you are able to finally able to reverse it. So I want to hear it from your kind of you know saying it one more time that yes can people reverse Hashimoto's disease or not. They 100% can. It's a choice and this is what I tell people. I have a saying, it's on my refrigerator at my office and I read it every day.

Health is not owned, it's rented and the rents do every single day. So it's not something that you just do for a little while and you leave it by the wayside. But yes, you can 100% reverse Hashimoto's if you make a conscious effort and choice to do things that are good for your body so that your body can heal itself,

Can Hashimoto's be reversed? 10:11

which can be very difficult today in this day and age, right? Because there's so many processed foods, we're all doing a million things to do things easy is not always the best way, you know, to get more work done instead of going to sleep is what is praised. But yes, you can 100% reverse Hashimoto's, you know this, I know this, you know, I've done it with thousands of people, but you 100% can do it and you can do it no matter how busy you are. because I hate that too. I get that from people all the time.

Well, you just don't have any idea how busy I am. And I'm like, really? Because I'm running a private practice, I have a podcast, I have a summit coming out. Trust me, I know how busy you are. But it's a choice, right? And it's also finding a provider that understands that and will help walk you through. Absolutely. And again, you know, like we are in a day and an age where there is so much information out there and some people are just kind of, you know, propagating very extremes of things, extreme diets, you know, extreme regimens of supplements, you know, extreme detoxification and things.

But then, you know, as you and me were discussing before also, like it's about like just not doing the extremes, but, you know, picking up a few things which you can do consistently. And if you do those consistently, things start getting better, right? Correct. And you know, one of my good friends and your co-host, McCall McPherson, you know, she's a thyroid expert and I love this. She says this all the time. She says, I'm not ever going to ask patients to go to an extreme that I don't do myself.

And I think that that is, it's so true. Like I'm the same way. I don't ever ask my patients to go to an extreme I haven't done myself. Now every now and then when you're trying to fix your Hashimoto's or heal it, do you maybe have to do something you don't want to do forever? Maybe, you know, like AIP diets, they're hard. I've done it twice for 60 days. It's a lot, but it doesn't mean I'm going to do it forever. To your point, not being extreme but consistent is the best way to do things. Listening to your body, it's so crazy to me how a lot of people in this world are so out of tune with their body right like just clueless like i'm tired well what's you know i'll ask people like what does tired mean to you well i'm just tired well explain it to me is it you can't find words is it your muscles hurt is it you physically can't pick up a leg i don't know i'm just tired like what you know and so it's just listening to yourself and getting back in tune with that and that's why mindfulness you know you and i have talked about this it's so important like i make it a practice to do yoga once a week i hate yoga but i love the concept of laying there and literally like how does my finger feel how does my wrist feel how does my arm feel when i move like this how does it feel when i breathe like this how does it you know and it's so important so that you understand your body and are listening to your body.

I think that's one thing that we just do not do enough of, especially when you're trying to heal your body. One of the things I struggled with in healing my Hashimoto's was you need to eat right, you need to exercise. Well, what does that mean? Well, if you go on social media, people on social media that are exercise coaches are going to tell you, you need to lift weight six days a week and you need to do cardio seven days a week. I'm going to tell you that that's not working for me. Like when I lift weights six days a week and I do cardio seven days a week, I feel like complete garbage.

But when I lift weights four days a week and I do cardio, you know, maybe those four days a week, but I only do it for 20 minutes, not for 30. And I do it where I can talk to you, not super hard. And I do yoga one day a week and I might throw Pilates in there. I might not, but I take some rest days. That's what works for me. And so it's like, you have to figure out what works. for you with guidance from a provider that knows what's going on, but you have to listen to yourself too. Like your body's trying to heal itself.

Everyone's going to need different things. Absolutely that is so important that's what when people actually start working with us you know like I said you know like I'm not going to be there forever with you because I want to teach you how to listen to your own body and then follow the protocol based on that they said well you know like I don't think I can do it I said well that's exactly the point that you know during the time that you are going to work with us you are going to start listening and trust me you are going to be able to do it and eventually they do and that's the biggest kind of you know thing that I think you know like I give to my clients is that help them to kind of become first of all advocates for their own health and second of all start listening to their body so they know what exercising is right, what food is good for them, what supplements are working for them and things.

So that is all those things are possible to do that. Yeah, and I mean, I tell patients this all the time, I put this on social media, but your body cannot call you, it can't text you and it can't send you an email. When it needs something from you or you're doing something it doesn't like, it does it in the form of symptoms. So if you have joint pain or you have a rash or your legs hurt or your stomach is bloated or you're constipated, your body is telling you something. It's just we live in a world where it's like, go, go, go, go, go.

And it's like, there's a symptom, I want a medicine to fix it right now instead of a, where is that symptom coming from? And how do I mitigate that? And that's a huge problem in this country and not only healthcare, but how we live. And so I think that's really important for people too. Like if you don't feel well, set out and write why you don't feel well, write every symptom you have and then think, okay, well, Do I have brain fog because I'm not getting enough sleep? Is it because of what I'm eating?

Go back to just being a little bit of a detective with yourself and you'd be shocked at what you find because when you start giving your body what it needs, what it's telling you, all that stress and all those cortisol and inflammation, it all starts to calm down and then that actually allows your body to heal itself because your body can't heal itself when it's under attack. It's kind of like thinking about a war. If you're being shot at and missiles are being thrown at you and buildings are burning down around you all the time, there's no repairing things.

You're going to wait till everything is calm and, you know, you don't rebuild something when missiles and things are being fired at you. You have to wait till all that stops. And that's not going to stop when you're not listening to yourself. Right? Absolutely. And let's kind of switch gears a little bit. And, you know, I want to talk more about gut health because that's what you mentioned that, you know, very important key when you were healing your Hashimoto's of looking at your gut health and improving it.

First of all, let's talk about like, you know, how this gut health, you know, or like gut disorder is related to Hashimoto's because people sometimes are not able to put two and two together. Like Hashimoto's is my thyroid and my gut is separate organ.

Why gut health matters for thyroid disease 16:48

So how does that affect, you know, talk about leaky gut, talk about, you know, the gut microbiome. Yeah, so your gut is kind of a representation of your overall health. So if you're having thyroid issues, whether it be hoshies, whether it be hypo, whether it be inflammation, graves, that is your body telling you that something is wrong with your gut. Because your gut is where all things start, right? So our gut is how we fuel ourselves. And so when you're fueling yourself, you are either helping or hurting your costs, right?

It's just like a car. You put good gas, like everyone knows what kind of gas they put in their car, right? They know what kind of oil they put in their car, but you have no idea the crap you're shoveling in your mouth. It's wild to me. So your gut is so important because that's where you actually process nutrients so that your cells are able to do what they need to do so that you have energy, so that your hair grows, so that your thyroid works. And so when you're processing things through your body that we don't even know what they are, hyper palatable chemicals that are made to make you, you know, crave them, it's not even real food, your body doesn't know what to do with that either.

And so that's the problem in this country. Number one, we don't regulate food well enough compared to other countries. So people are eating things that are ultra processed and then they're tearing up our And so GI maps are very, like we use them in my practice all the time. I encourage every patient to get one so we can see the integrity of your GI tract. Is it, you know, together? Is the food actually staying in your gut? Are you actually able to absorb the food or is it just leaking out into your body and causing all these immune complexes and all this inflammation?

And so whenever I started really focusing on, you know, what Hippocrates said, like food is medicine and thinking about it, I'm like, okay, half the stuff I'm struggling in my mouth has so many ingredients, I don't even know. And then I can't even tell you what the ingredients are. And so when you're eating stuff like that, no wonder your body's not processing it well, right? Like that's like going and get like 30 grade premium gas when your car needs an 85, like it's just complete garbage. And so, you know, I started thinking about, okay, I thought I like to make things easy.

I'm a country girl, easy. What would my grandma eat? My grandma didn't like a lot of processed stuff. She wanted to make it at home, didn't like to eat out. She wanted to can it. She wanted to pick it. So I go back to whenever I was thinking about what should I be eating to help my gut, well, it should be real food, it should be nutritious, right? And it should be something my grandma would have eaten or known what she was eating. But I should be able to tell you everything that I'm actually putting in my mouth.

And so that's how you make it easy. Like that's what I tell my patients. Eat single ingredient foods. that you know what they are, you can mix them together if you want, stay away from too much sugar processed foods obviously, eat a lot of protein, eat healthy fats, and then add carbs after you've eaten your protein and your healthy fats. It's going to get you a long way right there. Just knowing what you actually put in your body. Because your body can digest and process these things. It can't digest and process things that we've created in factories or labs.

And so when you give yourself, when you give your body foods that have been created, in fact, for your labs, think about this. You're literally putting toxin and poison in your mouth. Well, of course, your gut is going to start to break down over time, right? If you put toxin and poison on your hands, you're going to get a rash. Same thing when you eat this stuff. And so your gut eventually is like, I can't hang anymore, like I'm gonna start making holes because these things are toxic to me. And then when your gut starts making holes and these toxins start leaking out of your gut, you get joint pain, you get a rash, you're bloated, you're constipated, your brain's foggy, your insulin goes up.

And so that's what's happening. all day long, every time you feed your body, if you choose not to feed it with full nutritious food. And it's really that simple. It's really as simple as every time you put something in your mouth, do I know exactly what I'm putting in my mouth? Do I know every ingredient in this food? And if the answer is no, don't put it in your mouth. Right? Because you've got all this inflammation. Yeah, I mean, you get all this inflammation and then that does affect your thyroid.

So when you have inflammation in your gut and you develop leaky gut, that inflammation causes inflammation in your entire body. When you have inflammation, your thyroid is not able to make thyroid hormone. Because there's all this inflammation. It's in the way. Your thyroid's like, I don't know what to do. And so inflammation, not only your thyroid's not going to make hormones, your adrenal gland's not going to make cortisol, your body's not going to make sex hormones. And so inflammation is the cause of all illness.

And it comes from ultimately what we eat. Yeah. And that is so important. You know, like I think, you know, like I like that idea about making it simple. because again the world we are living in everything is so complex and everybody wants to make diet or food plans so complex that you know like you have to be extremely regimented which is great in some people but for majority people it becomes overwhelming like you know how you pointed out that you did the AIP but doing that AIP is a big task and doing it forever is totally like you know not possible for a short amount of time when you have high inflammation levels you want to get better that makes sense but for long-term basis it is absolutely not possible.

So making it simple you know which the research also suggests the same thing that you know kind of some pillars about the diet are important beyond that case by case basis might be needed for a short amount of time. Yeah. When you go to the grocery store, just stay on the perimeter of the grocery store. That's what I do, right? Go to the fruit and vegetable section. Get all your fruits and veggies. Get anything you like. That's what we do. When we go to the grocery store, any fruit and vegetable that I like, raw, I get it.

I take it home. I wash it. I put it in a glass container so I can see it. Then when I go, whenever I'm hungry, I think, okay, how can I eat these vegetables? What do I want to eat them with? Do I want to chop them up? Do I want to put them in a stew? Do I want to dip them in hummus? I make, you know, dips out of Greek yogurt, lactose-free Greek yogurt, but stay in the perimeter of the grocery store. Don't go down the aisles because you don't know what that crap is. Just get whole food and eat it.

Put it together and eat it and you'll be shocked how much better you You know, and we have a whole generation too, Dr. Gupta, people who can't cook, which is also alarming, but I'm one of them. Like I don't cook, but there are so many easy things you can do. Get a croquette, throw bone broth in there, put your chicken and vegetables, walk away, you know, make your own. I'm the queen of making my own desserts. Like I love dessert. I don't skip dessert, but I make. Oh, like I make good dessert, right?

So I'll make things out of like Greek yogurt and organic peanut butter powder and berries and things like that. So, I mean, you can still eat well, but I know everything that's going in there and I eat them in limited quantities and it's not like super sweet. You know, normally when I make desserts for people, they're like, this isn't even sweet. Is this dessert? I'm like, Yeah, it's dessert. So it's just, it's about balance and it's about making sure you give your gut the nutrients it needs to actually heal because the cool thing about your gut, a lot of people don't know this, your entire GI tract completely regenerates itself every 30 days.

So if you're listening to this right now and you're like, I eat terrible. I just, you know, you're shoving McDonald's in your mouth while you're eating this, whatever. And you say, you know what, Dr.

SIBO, microbiome imbalance, and probiotics 24:18

Gupta, Dr. Smith, I'm going to change. If you start right now today and you decide I'm not eating processed food, I'm not eating all this garbage, I'm going to eat a whole food diet, 30 days from today, your gut will have completely regenerated itself. And I promise you, it is impossible to not feel better just from that, right? And it takes 30 days. Yeah. And 30 days, just 30 days, you know, that's, I think that's a very important key. Sometimes people think or they read, well, you know, like, do I have to do this forever?

I said, well, some part of it is forever, but if you do 30 days, that is enough to kind of get you back to where you need to be. So that is so powerful. I want to switch gears and talk about gut microbiome. Everybody is talking about gut microbiomes, but the concept of SIBO or C4 is still a little bit alien for a lot of people and they don't know exactly what that means. So talk about gut microbiome and talk about what is this SIBO and C4 that people might be going through. Yeah, so your gut microbiome are just the microbes or the bacteria that live in your gut, right?

So we have good guys and we have bad guys. And what you want are a lot of good guys and not very many bad guys. The problem is, because I look at a lot of gut studies, most people have a dysbiosis or a misalignment of their bacteria. So their good bacteria are dying and their bad bacteria are overgrowing. And when you have overgrowth of bad bacteria and a lot of it, that is SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. That gives most of the symptoms that people have, not only with Hashi's, but in general.

So if you're bloated, you know, if you start the day and you look great and by the end of the day it looks like you're pregnant, you have SIBO. So if you're bloated, if you're constipated, if you have gas, if you have, you know, I call it acid reflux symptoms. So you eat, you burp stuff up. If you have diarrhea, I mean, all these things are symptoms that are not normal. If you have unexplained rashes, a lot of times there are bad bacteria in your gut produce histamine. Okay. And so when you eat and these bad bacteria are eating all your food, they release products that cause rashes.

And so you can tell so much from somebody by their gut. But the fascinating thing is we have tests now where we can see like what do your good bacteria look like? I look at so many gut studies and there are so many people that are missing a key B, good nutrient or good microbiome bacteria called acromantia. And it's so important for your weight and your immune system. And so when people come to me, because we have a wonderful weight loss program, and people will come to me and say, well, I've tried everything and I can't lose weight.

And I look at their gut and I say, I know you can't because you have no acromantia. So your body is not metabolizing things correctly, your metabolism shut down, and you have all these bad bugs that have overgrown. And so all you do is crave sugar. And they look at me like, yes. And I'm like, yeah. And so most doctors will say, well, eat less and exercise more. That's not the answer. The answer is let's get your good guys back and let's kill the bad guys. Because the bad guys are the ones that are craving all the bad stuff.

And so what happens is if you're eating a bunch of processed sugary foods, bad stuff, then your good guys don't want that. They're like, I'm not eating that, you know? No. And so the good guys start to starve because they eat fiber. So if you're not eating fiber, this is why green leafies are important, you know, the good guys start to starve. And when you need all this processed food, these, you know, ultra processed foods, a lot of our stomach can't even break those foods down correctly. So our stomach is responsible for breaking food into tiny, tiny, tiny particles.

A lot of times food just leaves our stomach not broken down correctly. Some of that can be from something called H. pylori, which millions of Americans have and aren't treated. Their stomach acid is too high. And so you get these large pieces of food that leave your stomach and they end up in your intestines. And our intestines are not meant for large pieces of food. And so these big bacteria go nuts. They love it. They start eating them. This is great. But as they eat them, they release gases, methane gases, different things.

So you're bloated and then you get constipated. And so that's what the SIBO is. It's just this unbalance of the bad bacteria having all this crap to eat because of the ultra processed food and the good bacteria not having anything to eat. And it really does change your sugar cravings. your metabolism, how your body makes hormones because imagine you know your body is getting that constant signal too of like hey all these good guys are dying and all these bad guys are living and all these bad guys are giving off smoke signals that are bad and the good guys can't go in and take care of the smoke signals and so it's not it's not a good a good place to be.

Absolutely. And most people are not even aware, you know, like as you mentioned, this particular bacteria, acromancia, that even one or two bacteria, which is so important, and research suggests that, right, you know, we have research studies supporting that, these can cause metabolic resistance, not able to lose weight, you know, and people are trying like these extreme diets and extreme, you know, like, you know, exercise programs while working on your gut and rebalancing the gut microbiome might be what you exactly need.

We can talk definitely about the diet piece of it, you know, like, you know, how you can do it, any, but talk about probiotics also, because again, people who might have these issues and they're taking tons of probiotics, you know, sometimes they feel even worse after taking the probiotics. Why that might be the case? Yeah. So probiotics, some people use it as like a band-aid, right? Like an excuse to eat that. Like I'm going to go eat at McDonald's, but let me take my probiotic. That doesn't work.

So probiotics, first of all, are only going to have two or three strains of your good gut bacteria in them. Now you can cycle probiotics. There's an acromantia only. I think pendulum makes it right. Most probiotics are going to have lactobacillus and bifido, like some, some different strains. And so you can always rotate probiotics so that you're trying to give yourself You know a large amount of good microbiome, but the problem with that is Most of them only have a couple and you need that whole range that whole phyla in order for everything to work Correctly, and they all eat the same thing which is CH2.

And so that's why it's so important to eat fermented foods and to eat fiber. And so some people will take probiotics and actually feel worse because they already have that strain of good bacteria and you're just giving more of it, but you're not giving the other good strains that it needs. And so that's actually pushing that down the line and it ends up even sometimes becoming food for bad bacteria. So you're just feeding the bad bacteria Even more and so it doesn't matter. It's kind of like thyroid, right?

So if you're it's kind of like somebody who's severely hypothyroid You know, you know this you can give somebody with hypothyroidism all the thyroid medicine the world I can back a truck up and give you 500 micrograms of thyroid But if you can't absorb that medicine and convert it in the cell correctly to be used. You're not gonna feel any better Same thing with probiotics like you can take all the probiotics in the world But if you don't feed the rest of those good guys that aren't in that probiotic food when you don't stop feeding bad guys There's just gonna be this war and so when you're taking a bunch of probiotics,

Lifestyle habits that support gut healing 31:28

but still eating like crap The problem is you're feeding your good guys, but you're also feeding your bad guys. Well, there's only so much room in there. There's only so much space. There's only so much energy. And so they're each putting off different signals. And so you still get this huge distension, gas, pain, bloating. It actually makes the SIBO worse. So there's not an easy way to... You can't eat horribly and just take a probiotic. It all goes back to diet, unfortunately. with weight loss, you know, trainers will tell you this all the time.

You cannot out exercise bad diet. You just can't. So you have to make sure that you're picking things to fuel your body. That is not only good for your body from a nutrient standpoint, but it's good for your microbiome. Cause those, your microbiome are doing a lot of stuff for you. Like without them, we are nothing. They're the ones who break things down. They allow us to actually absorb nutrients. They're doing so much good for us, but you have to feed them correctly. Absolutely. So we spoke about diet, you know, how they can improve the gut health, what other strategies, especially lifestyle strategies, you know, like can improve the gut health.

Let's touch base a little bit about them too. Yeah, so gut health, again, it goes back to just chronic stress. I see so many people with terrible gut health because of stress. And stress comes in so many forms. I think it's important to remember that. So like, it can just be you're really stressed at work. It can be that you actually have like food scarcity stress, that you are scared in the environment that you live in at home if you're in an abusive environment, and it doesn't even have to be physical abuse.

It can be you know, verbal abuse. If you're abusive to yourself, if you're constantly talking to yourself and saying, I'm not good enough or I'm fat or I don't, you know, I don't look good or man, I wish I was skinnier or I can't get anything done. All the negative self-talk we give to ourselves, that actually affects your gut microbiome. That is stressful. And whenever your body is constantly getting all these negative, you know, negative warning signs like, I don't know if I have enough food or, oh, you're not pretty or, you know, just mean things, your body is going to tense up and it's meant to keep you alive and healthy.

And so it's going to affect your gut microbiome. It's going to affect how much food you absorb, how much nutrients you absorb. It's also going to affect you mentally. And so you're not going to want to eat the good foods that you're supposed to eat. So stress is, I think, one of the biggest ones that I see with people, you know, when I look at their GI maps, I can tell people who are who are very stressed and who have very poor parasympathetic nervous system based on their gut. And I talk to them about like, well, how is your stress?

And some people are clueless. They're like, well, I mean, I don't think I'm that stressed. But when you actually start talking to them about things, you know, social media is a prime example in TV. Oh, my goodness, right now after the election, right? So we're recording this the week after the election. People's sympathetic nervous system is like, you know, everyone just needs to get off social media for a week and not watch the news because all it does is And, you know, this causes a lot of issues.

Now, the other thing you can do is sleep. Sleep is so important because it allows your gut to restore itself and fix itself, right? And so sleep is the other thing that you can do. There's been so many studies that show, and I've done it on myself, you can wear continuous glucose monitors. If you sleep less than six hours a night, your blood sugar is higher the next day, your insulin levels are higher, and you crave bad food. Literally, your good bacteria go into hiding and your bad bacteria come out and are screaming, give me sugar.

If you do not sleep at least six hours a night. And the more you sleep, the more your good guys are more able to get what they want and less likely that the bad guys. So like your cravings change just from sleep, which that's huge. Because although you think you're mentally strong, you have trillions of bacteria in your gut. They are stronger than you mentally, right? And so a lot of people really, you know, they, I believe people and they say like, I crave sugar and I can't not eat it. That's where I go.

Oh my God, we have to fix your gut. You probably have yeast. You probably have bad bugs. And so I would say sleep, stress, and then movement. We know that exercise changes things. Myokines that are released when you exercise are good for your gut, are good for your brain. These are just some basic things besides actually the food that you eat. Then sunlight, like making sure you have a good circadian rhythm. So look at the sun when it comes up, go for a walk. Look at it at noon, set outside and eat lunch.

Look at it as it's going down and then make sure that your sleep schedule is on a circadian timed, you know, rhythm where you are asleep. by 11 o'clock at night and you're getting that good 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. sleep where growth hormone is released because growth hormone also helps your weight and helps your gut bacteria as well. So just simple things like that can be very beneficial to go. Absolutely and those are really powerful kind of tips and things and again those are so practical that's the best part about you know what all things you're talking about and we can keep going like you know and talking about gut health and what all things can be done but we are kind of short on time at this point of time so any other parting words or anything that we have not discussed that you would like to kind of share you know like as a parting gift to people Yeah, I think, you know, if you're somebody who's struggling with thyroid disease, first of all, just don't give up on yourself.

Like, I think as a woman, especially, you know, we are just prone to taking care of others. And so if you go to a doctor and you say, I don't feel good, and they say your labs look fine, but you know something's wrong, be your best advocate. Because if you're not in 10 years, you're going to be really sad. And you know this, like if you have uncontrolled hypothyroidism for 10 years, it's much harder to reverse. The longer it takes to diagnose you and the longer you are untreated, the more difficult it is to get you back to optimal health.

And so unfortunately, you have to be your own best advocate. So I would say as a parting word, if you feel like something is not right, find a provider that will listen to you and will help you because the longer every single day you don't, harder it's going to be to truly get your life back. If there are things that are overwhelming you, if you are following people or trying to take advice from people and it's just overwhelming, first of all, are they doing it themselves? If you're following somebody who's not doing the advice they give you, unfollow them.

If you have a doctor who's telling you to exercise and eat well and they are obese, go to a different one. Find people that truly are on your side and will help you and then just find things that work for you.

Final advice and where to find Dr. Smith 38:08

Because everyone's different and so I tell my patients is there's not a one size fits all figure out what works for you but just go back to the basics of sleep and nutrition movement meditation just what feels right for you and in order to do that you have to. kind of shut everything off, right? You're going to have to find 15 minutes where you're not on the internet, you're not on your phone, but you need to make time for yourself to do that every day because you're important and your health is very important.

And you know, some people don't realize how important their health is until they don't have it. And then they would pay anything to get it back. So you need to do it right now and you need to be preventative and you need to listen to yourself and find right providers like Dr. Gupta, like myself, like everyone on this summit. to help you because they are out there and they do want to help you. Absolutely. So obviously the next question comes in where people can find more information about you. I think you have a great thyroid ebook and a program.

So tell us a little bit more about that piece. Yeah, so Modern Endocrine, we are very active on social media. Our handles are at Modern Endocrine. So M-O-D-E-R-N-E-N-D-O-C-R-I-N-E. On Instagram, it's got an underscore. On Facebook, it's just Modern Endocrine. I'm on TikTok. We do a lot of great educational stuff. I have a podcast. It's called Back to the Basics because I literally try to take everything and make it very basic for people to be able to improve their health. You can get that on Apple or Spotify.

We have a brick and mortar clinic in Oklahoma City where we see people every day. We have a ton of programs that we've made, membership type programs where we walk you through everything. We have a thyroid one, weight loss one. I have an ebook on my website you can get for free. It's www.modernendocrine.com. I'm active with doctor talks as well. So I do things there and our brick and mortar clinic is in Oklahoma, but we are licensed in 10 states. So you can get all that information on the website.

You are always welcome to come to the clinic once and then we can do virtual. Or if you're in any of the 10 states, we have a license. We do virtual appointments. Awesome. Awesome. So please go check out all this great information. Obviously in the description, you will find her website and all the other great stuff too. So Dr. Smith, thank you so much for coming over here and sharing all this great information and knowledge that you have about this disease. Going through yourself obviously like, you know, empowers you to actually empathize with people and also share this great knowledge with them.

So thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for having me and make sure that you listen to all of this summit. He has great speakers and great co-host, so you'll learn so much. Absolutely. Thank you so much again. And this is it for today, guys. We will see you again next time. Take care. Bye-bye. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being.

For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website, www.doctortalks.com. Stay connected, stay healthy, and join us next time on Doctor Talks, real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.