Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, where Dr. Steven Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone. Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long, happy life.
Dr. Gundry:
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. This is a very special episode today. Not only is it the 300th episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast, but today my guests are people just like you and me, who followed the protocol outlined in all my books and discussed here on the podcast. And get ready to be inspired by their health transformations. Joining us today is Shelly Beck from Tennessee, Hector Gavia from New York, Cassandra Savaniano from Texas, Cassidy Gerken, also from New York, who actually drove all the way from New York to be here today. Cassidy, thanks so much for coming.
Cassidy:
You guys are very special. I know.
Dr. Gundry:
Also joining me today is Christine O’Donnell, the original producer that launched the Dr. Gundry podcast back in 2018. And as a former news reporter, I can’t think of anyone better to moderate the discussion today. Thanks for being here, Christine.
Christine O’Donnell:
Thanks.
Dr. Gundry:
And thanks for doing this.
Christine O’Donnell:
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Gundry:
So get ready for a major dose of inspiration from my guests today. They healed themselves and their leaky gut. And you can too. Christine, it’s great to have you back in the studios after all these years. So you’re now the founder of the award-winning podcast production company called Bright Sighted, which specializes in helping people share the bright side that came from a dark experience.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah, good for you.
Christine O’Donnell:
Thank you.
Dr. Gundry:
And you’re here with your reporter hat on to find out how these folks transform themselves, correct?
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah.
Dr. Gundry:
All right.
Christine O’Donnell:
Let’s go.
Dr. Gundry:
All right. Let’s do it. All right.
Christine O’Donnell:
Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here and I’m so glad to meet all of you guys. Thank you so much for having me and being here to share your stories. So I’m going to start with you, Shelly, because I’d love for us all to kind of go around and share what our lives were like beforehand, before we found the protocol, the Leptin-free protocol.
Shelly:
Well, my life was not good. I would go to doctors and nobody could ever tell me what was wrong with me. I was just swelling up like a balloon. I was way overweight and it wasn’t until, well, I had hypothyroid, diabetes, hormone issues and fatty liver. It wasn’t until I had that one day that I went to the doctor to see at what capacity my gallbladder was functioning and they came back with three blood pressure cuffs later and a wheelchair and they said, “Your blood pressure is 255 over 120. We’re going to have to hospitalize you.”
And that was a scary moment for me. I had already seen my husband have three heart stents and I just thought, “Now it’s my turn.” Scary, scary stuff. So I went to my follow-up after being admitted in the hospital and I asked him, I said, “What’s wrong with me?” And he basically said, “It’s not your fault. It’s the environment. It’s the food that you’re eating. It’s all of the things that are around you. I know you don’t eat all day.”
I said, “Well, how do I get rid of this?” He goes, “You’re going to continue to get worse.” And he said, “Because of your age, you’re approaching middle age, your hormones and you’re not going to get any better.” So basically he sent me home with that. I got behind the wheel of my car and I said, “I’m not claiming this. I’m not receiving this. This is not how my life’s going to be and I’m not going to continue to get worse.” And that’s how it started.
Christine O’Donnell:
So how did you find Dr. G’s program? How did?
Shelly:
Okay.
Christine O’Donnell:
Because I imagine you were probably trying a few things.
Shelly:
I call this my God story because I had a connection with Dr. G before I started this. He was on a little show called The Doctors and they were ripping him apart and it was like, “You can’t live without tomatoes. You can’t live without bell peppers.” And then they started talking about the food pyramid and he was just so polite. That day, he was in the audience. He shrugged his shoulders, “Okay.”
And then I looked at the wall in my living room, I took my face off of the TV, stared at the wall in my living room and my intuition said, “This man’s telling the truth.” Little did I know two years later that I was going to be very sick and that I was going to be on this journey and I was going to use his protocol.
And so here I am. After that day, leaving the doctor’s office with my hands behind the wheel saying, “I’m not going to claim this. I’m not going to receive this.” Then I came straight home and got on the computer and he kept popping up.
Dr. Gundry:
Sorry about that.
Shelly:
And he kept popping up, and he kept popping up and I was like, “Okay, I’m going with Dr. Gundry.” So I started the very next day and history makes the rest. I did everything, 18 hour intermittent fasting, eating lectin free, never looked back. And I exercise every day. Changed my life for the better. And I’m surprised I’m not crying right now because when I think about it, every day I give gratitude because I know I probably would not even be here. It was that bad.
Christine O’Donnell:
What does your family think?
Shelly:
Well, my husband loves it. I’ve been married to him since I was 18 and I actually asked him kind of like a trick question I guess. I asked him a couple years ago, I said, “Which Shelly do you like better? Do you like your eighteen-year-old bride or…” At the time I was 51. I said, “Or your 51-year-old plant-based lectin-free bride?”
And I said, “This is not a trick question. You’re not going to be in trouble. They’re both me. There is no wrong answer. I just want to hear from you.” He paused a minute and he said, “You know what?” He said, “You’re not going to believe this.” He said, “I’m not blowing smoke.” He said, “I like you now. I like my plant-based girl.” He said, “You’re a lectin-free woman.”
Christine O’Donnell:
Not a T-shirt.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah.
Christine O’Donnell:
Lectin free woman. Cassandra, can we start with you next?
Cassandra:
Yes, thank you. My journey began after an accident, left me needing a knee replacement. Treatment was very strong antibiotics. Shortly after that I moved to Houston to care for my aging parents, my mom with Alzheimer’s, my dad with cancer. It was tough. I turned to the internet as we all needed to eat better, and that’s when I found Dr. Gundry’s podcast. After a couple of weeks, I bought the book, Unlocking the Keto Code, and we all began to eat based on the protocol. My parents eventually did succumb to their illnesses, but I know that the food did help them, and it continues to help me today.
Before I began the protocol I suffered from acid reflux, sleep apnea, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, and insomnia.
Christine O’Donnell:
And now?
Dr. Gundry:
Wait a minute.
Cassandra:
Yes.
Dr. Gundry:
No way either of you were like that.
Cassandra:
Oh, yes, yes. And I’ve come quite a ways. It’s been remarkable. When I started, I ordered my own blood work so that I could get many biomarkers. My biological age was 65. Now I no longer have any of those illnesses. In fact, my doctor told me two months ago, he no longer believed I needed to take a statin. The only medication he now has me on is one half dose of my sleeping medicine. No more sleep apnea, no more high cholesterol, no more high blood pressure. It’s all gone.
Christine O’Donnell:
I mean, I know we’re not supposed to ask people how old they are.
Cassandra:
Well, I’d like to answer that.
Christine O’Donnell:
Oh, okay.
Cassandra:
Based on my blood work from two months ago, my biological age is now 49. I am 64 years old. A full 15 years younger than my actual age.
Christine O’Donnell:
How does that feel?
Cassandra:
Fantastic. It makes every bit of the discipline worth it. And Dr. Gundry, I’m very grateful to you for that. Thank you so much.
Dr. Gundry:
Well, you’re welcome. You’re welcome.
Christine O’Donnell:
I was going to say, is this like a surreal moment?
Cassandra:
Yes, yes. It’s amazing. You don’t know how bad you feel until you feel good.
Dr. Gundry:
It’s true. You’re right.
Hector:
It’s true. You don’t know what you don’t know until you go on this diet. And it’s amazing the changes and the transformation and how all the inflammation just disappears.
Christine O’Donnell:
Hector, can we start with your story next?
Hector:
Absolutely.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah.
Hector:
Okay. I was always skinny when I was a child and growing up, but I experienced all kinds of issues like asthma. I was always exhausted, always tired. But when I was in college at 22 years old in the nineties, I had digestion problems. And I remember going to a doctor around 1992, and I was having IBS issues. And the best that they could tell me was that it was lactose intolerant. And they just looked at me and said, “Make a list of foods that bother you and good luck.” That’s literally the advice that I got from doctors. They didn’t know what to do.
So I knew already in 1992 what foods were bothering me and I was just not eating those foods. But it was hard because I was married and my ex-wife, my wife at the time, would prepare foods and it would still continue to make me sick. And I would have problems where I’d have to go to the bathroom constantly. Diarrhea. It’s embarrassing to talk about, but I’d have diarrhea, upset stomach, bloated stomach for years and years. And it was a problem and it really, I believe, caused a problem in my marriage. And eventually we got divorced. But I do blame the IBS issues for that.
What happened was I knew I had this bad relationship with food and I knew the food was making me sick, but I just didn’t know what was the cause. In 2011, Steve Jobs passed away from pancreatic cancer. I read his biography and I knew that he died from eating the fruits, but I had no way of proving it because I was not a doctor myself. And you had not written your book yet. And that was in 2011, but I kind of knew that. So I started Googling, is fruit bad for you? Are oranges making me sick? And I was doing that for years until finally in 2020 from my Google searches, I come across your videos and I watched the video and I’m writing down notes and I write down about lectins. I start Googling it, and I started going on the diet based on the videos. I found your YouTube channel. I bought your and I started going on the diet and that changed my life.
Within a month, I made a transformation, and this was in starting May of 2020. Shortly after that is when I started following your protocol. And a few months later, people would see me and they didn’t recognize me. Eventually I lost over 60 pounds. This was during a pandemic in New York. We were isolated from everybody. So when people started coming out again, people would see me at events and not recognize me. I remember meeting somebody for lunch and asking my friend, “Where are you? I’m here in front of the restaurant.” And my friend looking from his car said, “That’s you?” Totally didn’t recognize me.
You saved my life. I want to thank you very much Dr. Gundry because you’ve made a major impact on my life and my family thanks you and I thank you very much. And I suffered for a long time until I read your book. I saw your videos. And I’m still learning even to this day from you and from everything that you have to share. So thank you.
Dr. Gundry:
I’m still learning from myself every day too. So that’s half the fun. Wait to you see when I got cooked up for the next book.
Christine O’Donnell:
I find myself thinking about this, right? Because when it comes to lectins and the fact that they’re in our fruits and our vegetables, and this is something that you first started thinking about when you were in college, and then you went that route, you went the straight and narrow, this is what the doctor path is, and now you stepped outside of that world and you’ve gone into a place that there is no rules. You’re kind of learning as you go. What is it like for you to hear these stories?
Dr. Gundry:
Well, every day when our videos are posted on Instagram or YouTube, we get comments. Just this morning, don’t listen to this guy. He’s a quack. And to me, it’s become quite a badge of honor because all I have to do is hear stories from yourself or see what happens to my patients. And I still see patients six days a week, saw a full crew yesterday. And so it’s like you guys, thank you for confirming what I’ve discovered over the last 25 years.
I’m reminded that back in the 1800s, women frequently died from an infection following childbirth, and it was really deadly to lots of women. And there was a physician in Europe by the name of Samuel Weiss, who became convinced that it was because the obstetricians weren’t washing their hands or changing their bloody apron between deliveries and they were transmitting bacteria from one woman to the next and infecting them, delivering their children. And it was such a radical idea that he was called a quack, that the obstetricians ganged up against him and the guy actually committed suicide. Because he just couldn’t take the pressure anymore. A few years after he died, Joseph Lister of Listerine fame, that’s where the name came from, discovered that bacteria were the cause of these infections and that antiseptics would stop and doctors should wash their hands. So sometimes being a quack is just being ahead of your time. So I’ll take it.
Hector:
Thank you. Thank you for being a quack. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I just want to add one thing too. Besides the major weight loss, all my inflammation is gone. Even my dentist wanted to know your information because I was suffering for the past few years with gum disease. And my gum disease has reversed as a result of that. And I have no more high blood pressure, no more asthma and other inflammation is gone. Thank you very much. Thanks to you.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah, this is amazing. All of these things, Hippocrates 2,500 years ago, the father of medicine said, “All disease begins in the gut.” And the guy was right, but 25 years learning why he was right. But all these things that we think are just a part of getting older, like I used to have receding gums and I’d go to the dentist and they say, “Yeah, you’re 45, and that’s normal,.” “Yeah. But my gums are bleeding.” “Yeah, that’s because you’re 45 and that’s normal.” And I had migraine headaches when I operated on newborn babies, and I don’t recommend doing that, but “Oh, your father had migraine headaches, that’s normal.” And I had such heartburn that I would carry jars of Tums around whenever I’d travel and I’d just be chewing Tums all day. “That’s normal.” And I don’t have those things anymore. Or you have high cholesterol, that’s because your father had high cholesterol. That’s normal. Well, I don’t have that anymore.
So all of these things that we think are normal aren’t normal at all. They’re actually a sign that we should be paying attention. And you’re right. It’s funny, my dentists say, “Geez, when your patients come in to see me,” I go, “Oh, you’re a Dr. Gundry patient.” He said, “I got nothing to do, darn it.” He said, “Stop doing that, would you?”
Christine O’Donnell:
Cassidy.
Cassidy:
Hi.
Christine O’Donnell:
What was your like before you found the protocol?
Cassidy:
Interesting. I have always been someone who’s had chronic autoimmune symptoms. As an infant, I had infant eczema. I was very asthmatic, put on a lot of plethora of antibiotics, was always developing skin rashes that were seemingly random, hives, other types of things. And when I got to my teens, I started developing really severe chronic pain. And it was a severe abdominal and pelvic pain that would just take me out for days at a time when it would flare. And my primary doctors believed it was IBS. I missed a lot of events because of stuff like that, and no one could figure out what it does or what it was. So I would take ibuprofen, do a heating pad from 14 years old, was experiencing that pain.
And when I got into my early twenties, I also had eczema this entire time as well, just minimally in the winter, but it was there. And in my early twenties, my chronic pain developed into severe joint pain, inflammation, migraines, and a more centralized pelvic pain that sent me to the ER a few times. I’ve gotten all the ultrasounds, the intravaginal ultrasounds. They’re like, “Maybe this is endometriosis, but we can’t diagnose it. We’ll put you on medicine for it.” And I didn’t want to do that. I had been on birth control for eight years and I was thinking it was mental health and I was anxious and I was a hypochondriac. And I tried Zoloft and I tried Xanax.
During the time due to feeling just crazy essentially because I was seeing doctors. I had health insurance still at the time. And I was trying to figure it out. And I thought I was nuts. And so I was also medicating with things like alcohol and substances and because I was just tired, I was exhausted. I was in a really awful relationship and the stress was high.
So I met my now partner a couple years ago, and we’ve been on a journey together of trying to figure out just who we are as people. And I became vegan early last year and I was like, “This is it. I’m going to handle this pain. I’m going to figure it out myself.” And when I went vegan, I did lose some weight and a few things, but my eczema just became something. It had never been. It covered half my face, my hands, down the back of my leg. It was completely brutal. So while the chronic pain was semi-subsiding, this was becoming something really intense for my life. I still was obviously having to go to work. We couldn’t not work. And my partner was working 60 hours a week.
It was really rough, as you guys all know. You have a sense of identity loss and there’s a crisis there where you don’t really know. You’re not really sure what’s going on and who you are and what this means. If I like no more makeup, no more doing my hair, no more wearing anything but cotton and the skin conditions are insane. I have insane empathy for anyone going through that.
So my partner is a big bookworm and he made a Barnes and Noble trip and came back one day with the plant paradox and he said, I have a gut feeling we should try this out. So silly.
Christine O’Donnell:
What kind of feeling?
Cassidy:
A gut feeling, gut check. So we studied up and we’re like, “There’s nothing to lose here. We need to try it.” And he did it with me. And three months later, and exactly three months, my eczema began to vanish, but essentially completely vanished. I began this last September, so this is all very recent. And by late December, just in time for Christmas, it was gone.
Dr. Gundry:
That’s wonderful.
Cassidy:
Yeah. So there’s a lot that I’m still figuring out. I’m leaning into the next level of what can I do for my health because there’s a lot to repair still. But yeah, I’m really, really grateful to have been lucky enough to get the knowledge. And I think knowledge is power and everyone… It needs to be spread. People need to really be aware that they can help themselves and we need to take that initiative for our own bodies. We are so powerful.
Christine O’Donnell:
I feel that way so deeply. And when I hear you guys talking, I just think about the power you all have because you’ve worked to get here. You’ve tried and erred on yourselves over and over and over again for yourself. And I think it can be so frustrating when we’re trying to figure out what’s going on with us. And then the doctors just say, “Oh, it must be IBS. Someday it might just go away, or not.” And you just don’t know. And instead of just leaning into maybe these ideologies that our society naturally conforms to or that we’ve been spoon-fed since children, taking the initiative to move through life with yourself, like figuring out what it is that I need to do for me, because health is very much, I think, something we all have to figure out what works for each of us the best, right?
Hector:
Yes. Yes. What I wanted to add too is something else that I’ve changed is I learned how to cook my own food now.
Cassidy:
I agree with that. Oh yeah. I was not a cook.
Hector:
Yeah. Because even five years ago, I wouldn’t know how to cook anything. But now I prepare everything myself and I’m pretty much like 95% lectin free and sugar free. And that has saved me a lot. And I also suffered with skin conditions and hives, and that’s gone away as well.
Christine O’Donnell:
Dr. G, you mentioned your story. Do you want to share it?
Dr. Gundry:
Well, gee, where to start? So I grew up in the fifties and sixties, and back then kids get tonsillitis constantly. And everybody was always worried that it was strep throat because if it’s the wrong kind of strep throat, it’s potentially a very dangerous illness. So my sister and I were constantly given antibiotics and luckily I guess for me, I kept my tonsils, my sister lost hers because what you did back in those days.
And when I was in college at Yale, I was constantly sick getting sinus infections, and I was always in the infirmary getting antibiotics. And because that’s what you did. And in fact, I missed three months of my second year at Yale because I was…
Dr. Gundry:
… Three months of my second year at Yale because I was just sick and couldn’t even go to school. Anyhow, a fast-forward during Yale, I had a special major in those dark ages where we could design our own major. Major I designed was the thesis, you had to defend a thesis. The thesis was you could take a great ape, manipulate its food supply, manipulate its environment, and prove you’d arrive at a human being. Pretty gutsy.
And I actually defended my thesis and I got out and gave it to my parents and went away and became a famous heart surgeon. So in that thesis, I showed that we were basically plant predators, but we had evolved with certain plants and that there were plants that were introduced into our diet thousand, 10,000 years ago in the forms of grains and beans, which had never been in any animal’s diet because they were deadly unless they were cooked.
And when humans started eating these, we actually shrunk a foot in 2000 years, we were about six feet tall and we shrunk a foot in 2000 years. And there’s never been a case of arthritis seen in a human skeleton before the advent of agriculture, ever. And you go, huh, that’s interesting. These plants don’t want us to eat them.
Fast-forward, all of us originally from Africa, originally from Africa, Europe, or Asia, and none of us, not even Native Americans are from North and South or Central America, we’re all from somewhere else. So none of us ever encountered a new world plant until approximately 500 years ago when Columbus started trade called Columbian trade.
So many of our favorite foods are literally brand new. Fast-forward when I was this heart surgeon, like I said, I had all these conditions and it was normal. And then one day, fateful day, I met big Ed who reversed 50% of the blockages in his coronary arteries in six months by following a diet and taking some supplements from a health food store.
And that’s impossible if you believe the literature, you can’t reverse coronary artery disease. And yet he did it. And when I started asking him about the diet he had been following, all of a sudden he starts describing my thesis of what he had taken away from his food.
And when I started asking, he showed me the supplements he was taking, I was very famous for protecting the heart from damage during heart surgery and transplant. And I was putting this cool concoction of goodies down the veins and arteries of the heart.
And in that concoction were a lot of the supplements he was swallowing it never occurred to me to swallow the dumb things. And I was a healthy guy running 30 miles a week, going to the gym one hour a day and eating a healthy, low fat vegetarian diet, which was the Adventist diet. And yet I was 228 pounds and wore braces on my knees to run and had all these issues.
So I actually called my parents in San Diego, say, “Hey, do you still have my thesis?” And they said, “Oh yeah.” I said, “Send it up.” So I put myself on this thesis and I lost 50 pounds the first year and another subsequent 20 pounds. And I started taking all these supplements.
And really within months, my arthritis went away, my blood pressure went away, my cholesterol went away, my pre-diabetes went away and my migraine headaches went away. And also fun story. Anybody know what a trigger finger is? Anybody know what Dupuytren contracture is? You see the TV commercials of flat palm if you can’t put your hand on the table because you got all these contractures in your fingers sometimes called the Irish disease.
Anyhow, trigger fingers are if you move your finger, it catches. Now, if you’re a heart surgeon, you really don’t want trigger fingers because if you’re doing something delicate and your finger catches or then releases, that’s probably not a good thing.
Hector:
No.
Dr. Gundry:
And so I had trigger fingers, luckily in my left hand, you could feel nodules in my tendons. And lo and behold, my trigger fingers went away, the nodules went away. And I go, “Well, that’s kind of interesting.” So I started putting my patients who I operated on, on my program after I operated on them, and it was really funny.
They’d call in and say, “Hey…” I’d send them to Costco or Trader Joe’s for supplements. There wasn’t an Amazon then. And they call in and say, “Hey, what supplement are you giving me that’s making me dizzy?” And my nurse and I would look at each other and go, “There’s nothing that would make you dizzy. Come on into the clinic.” And sure enough, their blood pressure was really low. And we’d go… And most of these folks are on three blood pressure medicines because that’s normal. And we go, “Well, let’s get rid of one of those.”
And then a couple of weeks would pass, I’m still dizzy, well get back in here. And their blood pressure would be really low. Well, let’s get rid of that one and so on. And then people would call and say, “Gee, I can’t think straight. I’m really light-headed. I think my blood sugar’s low.” And well get in here.
And sure enough, their blood sugar’s low and they’re on two or three diabetes medications or even insulin. And we’d say, “Oh, let’s get rid of these.” And then we’d have people who were scheduled for a knee or a hip replacement and they go, “I’m going to cancel my knee replacement because my knee doesn’t hurt me anymore. What do you think about that?”
I go, “That’s pretty cool.” So then on a fateful day, about a year later, I looked in the mirror before I went to work and I said, “I got this all wrong. Instead of operating on people and then teaching them to avoid me in the future, I should teach them how to eat so I never have to operate on them in the first place.”
Cassidy:
Yes.
Dr. Gundry:
What a stupid idea. What a stupid career choice. At the height of your career, I set up a clinic in Palm Springs, which is very near Loma Linda. And because I’m a researcher, I just told my patients, I said, “Hey, I want to tell you to not eat certain foods and I want to have you eat certain foods and I want you to go to the health food store and buy a few supplements, and I want to track your blood every three months and let’s see what happens.”
And I said, “Insurance will pay for it and let’s see what happens.” And so kind of the rest is history, and that’s how it all started.
Hector:
I have a question for you. How did you know that it was lectins that was the source of all these problems? How did that come about?
Dr. Gundry:
Well, all animals in general are plant predators and plants have a system to try to convince an animal not to eat either them or their babies, their seeds except fruit, believe it or not, plants want us to eat their fruit, but that’s another story.
We had a remarkable defense system in terms of our microbiome to defend against these plant toxins, which include lectins, which include oxalates and other things. And there was a beautiful balance of power. And that balance of power was interrupted by our modern antibiotics among other things and our foods which contain antibiotics.
So one of the real eye-openers with me is I saved my tonsils, but for most of my adult life, I would get these big white hard things inside my tonsils that would work their way out. And all of a sudden I’d kind of cough up this hard round, really weird shaped, smelly thing.
Shelly:
I had those too.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah, they’re called tonsillolith. And one day I am reading, and there’s a description of where tonsillolith come from, and your tonsils are basically fortresses that guard your harbor where you swallow, and they’re the first interaction with lectins, and you actually get pus on your tonsils from your white blood cells attacking these foreign compounds, lectins.
And you actually, this is the leftover of that battle. And there was the description that lectins were the cause of tonsillolith. And I went, “Oh, son of a gun.”
Hector:
Wow.
Dr. Gundry:
So then I started asking all my patients, “Hey, do you ever have your tonsils taken out? Did you have tonsillitis all the time?” Yeah. Well, it turns out none of us had strep throat. All of us were reacting to the lectins that were being attacked by the fortresses, and that’s where all this redness came from, and it was amazing.
Most of my autoimmune patients to this day either describe having horrible tonsillitis and infections as a kid and got lots of antibiotics or they lost their tonsils and that was normal. And so it’s that sort of thing that just goes, gosh, this, I guess this is real. People say, you just made this up. Well, no, we’ve known about lectins since 1880.
That’s how we blood type people. Lectins actually make red blood cells stick together. So I mean, it’s not like, and I have no reason to make this up. I just see what happened to me and my patients. And you guys had no placebo effect. You didn’t meet me. I didn’t [inaudible 00:36:17].
Shelly:
Dr. Gundry, I really admire you because you helped people get to the root of the problem. As sick as I was, I never got a list of, hey, Shelly, eat this. Hey Shelly, eat that. And sitting here listening to all of my lectin free friends around this table, I had every single thing that you all had too. I had the migraines.
Hector:
Same.
Shelly:
Everything, the tonsils. I mean, it was disgusting. And I always had strep throat. I was always on antibiotics. I always had a urinary tract infection. It was always something. I had the eczema, terrible. My hands were so bad. That’s terrible. I had it on my ankles, I had it on my feet, but never just another steroid cream, just another antibiotic.
Never got any relief from a doctor. Well, I’m proud to say, and I don’t even think I told you all, I lost 112 pounds in nine months.
Hector:
That’s amazing.
Shelly:
In the first three months, I lost 70 pounds. I don’t have insurance anymore. I had insurance back then. My insurance is lectin free.
Cassidy:
That’s what I say. Just turned 26. So like lectin free insurance?
Shelly:
Yeah, just eat lectin free.
Cassidy:
And then fast, exercise, too.
Hector:
Yeah, I’m 100% medication free. And just like the other stories here, I had headaches all the time, almost daily. I was taking Sudafed and ibuprofen and I didn’t understand what was going on.
And I found out by accident after shortly after going lectin free, I just said to myself one day, wait a minute, I haven’t had a headache in two months. And I realized that it was the lectins and the sugar that was causing these headaches.
Cassandra:
Well, the food is healing our gut and our microbiome and our mitochondria. And so those are workhorses and that attributes to a lot of the health improvements that we have. My inflammation went from 2.93 to 1.4, and I’m still bringing it down. I was very inflamed.
Hector:
I want to add something else too. I’m a Cuban-American. And my mother is a retired RN. And at first when I went on this journey, I called them up, they live in Florida. I said, you got to go lectin free. And they thought I was crazy.
But then they saw the changes and they see the videos I post on social media and the pictures and all that, that she shared a story with me that in Cuba with her grandmother, they would prepare beans because Cubans eat a lot of rice and beans and other foods. And she shared with me that to make the beans, it was a process that took about four or five hours of constantly rinsing the beans.
And she said that as little girl, she would see the clouds going up. And I let her realize that those were lectins that were being released from the beans, and our ancestors must have known that it was safer to make the beans that way. I asked my mother, well, why did your grandmother make the beans that way? Did she ever explain it? She said, I don’t know.
And she also shared with me that they never ate the skins of any fruits. They always remove the skins of the potatoes, the tomatoes, everything that they ate. And I asked her, why’d you do that? She said, I don’t know. We just did.
And the same thing with the white rice. She shared with me that whenever they make white rice, that they would do a process of rinsing the white rice until you made sure that it was clear that you could see the white rice. And a lot of these skills that our ancestors knew have become lost because we no longer live on the farms. We don’t grow our own food anymore. We don’t make our own food.
We live in the cities and we have to trust that the food industry is doing the right thing, which by the way, I don’t trust the food industry. I don’t trust big pharma, and I don’t trust doctors except for you.
Shelly:
That’s why I don’t eat meat anymore. I went with what was safe because I can’t trust the source.
Cassidy:
Right, it’s hard to know what you’re eating,
Shelly:
Right.
Cassidy:
You just can’t.
Shelly:
Very much So
Cassandra:
That’s why you have to prepare a lot of the foods yourself.
Cassidy:
Exactly.
Cassandra:
And if you buy from the farmer’s market where they came from, and that’s important too.
Hector:
It is. But the only thing I get concerned about is, and I learned this from Dr. Gundry, is what are they feeding those animals? And you have to hope that you trust the labels. And it does get confusing because even in New York, friends of mine have told me that there are farms where they have it grass-fed chickens.
I ask my friends, well, what do they do in the winter? What do they feed those chickens when there’s snow? And there’s no way for them to eat the grass and bugs.
Cassidy:
Well, this is an interesting point because I’m Prescatarian pretty much right now, but whenever I eat an egg or two or more eggs in a week, my eczema will develop a little patch and then if I go without, it’ll go back away.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah. Well, this is I think a place to kind of talk about or a moment to talk about commitment. How do you stay committed to this protocol?
Because I imagine, I don’t know. I mean, it sounds like when you have the results you guys have had, why would you not? But there’s issues, you said you started to really notice a change, and then Christmas came.
Cassidy:
Yeah.
Christine O’Donnell:
So when Christmas comes or there’s holidays, or there’s families and there’s partners and relationships, there comes expectations. So what has it been like to stay committed to this protocol for you?
Cassidy:
Honestly, I just went very cold turkey. My partner, I’m lucky enough to have a partner who didn’t seemingly have any health issues, but at the time was like, no. Yeah, I take this completely seriously. We’ll both do it.
And so for Christmas, we made our own meals every night, and we’ll make our own cassava cookies if we want treats, but we just have garnered the knowledge and we’re using it. But I think everyone needs a support system of some type, and that’s what’s really, really tough. And it’s why I think doing it on my own would’ve been a different journey.
Not that I couldn’t have done it, but whether it’s siblings or friends or anything, I really think it’s important to have that human connection because growing through this whole experience has been very mind bodied, spiritual for me in every way. Every element has been really important.
We had a tough year together before that, and we were like, it’s just time to go. Time to shift here.
Christine O’Donnell:
Are there any naysayers in your life?
Cassidy:
In ways, no one’s hopped on the program necessarily fully, but mostly, I don’t know. I end up just feeling a lot of empathy for everyone in our lives, even if they don’t necessarily believe in it much, because they all are at the end of the day suffering from some type of chronic issue, like every single one.
And it’s really hard to tell someone who’s halfway through their life, this is the thing that’s going to work for you, and I know you’ve tried this, this, this, but I’m 26, and now I’m good. So here you go. Try it. Because I’ve been the person who has, especially when my partner brought this to me, I said, I’ll try it, but I don’t expect anything to work.
You get in a dark place when you feel sick. So I think we’re slowly trying to lead by example. It’s been seven full months of us doing it now. In the past year, lost 50 pounds, I say on accident. Now it’s time to build muscle, but there are physical results as well. And I think I obviously feel better.
I’m a better person who can show up for them in different ways. So I think I hopefully can lead by example in that. And I really care about the people I love. I want them to pursue it, but everyone’s on their own path.
Hector:
Yeah, in terms of holidays and being invited to different parties, that always becomes a challenge. So what I do, for example, if I get invited to a Superbowl party or something where I know they’ll serve food, I go to these events making sure that I eat before.
And that’s probably the best advice I would give anybody. Because if you go somewhere to an event, and this has happened where I’ve made a mistake where you’re hungry, then you’re going to start to make mistakes and eat something, and then the next day regret it.
So I try to do that, or I volunteer to bring food that I know is safe that others can share as well. Okay. So that’s good advice. Now, my family has been very supportive. I also have two children. My son is 22, my daughter’s 23. And my son was always a jock and athletic, but he suffered from headaches.
And he read your book. I bought another copy for him, the quick and easy version of Playing Paradox. And he read the whole thing and he started going on the diet and he’s improved. And now he may not be a hundred percent sold on it because I think part of the challenge is unless you have so much inflammation and problems, you’re not convinced because you don’t see a direct cause of your problems.
Not everyone can see that if they have arthritis, that that’s because of the food they ate. But my son certainly has changed his diet and his headaches have gone away. So I’m very happy about that. My daughter’s not totally convinced, but they see the transformation that have taken place. And even my mother, the retired RN believes in it.
But she says she wants to be happy and she still will eat the bad foods despite having high blood pressure, and I want to try to save their lives. So they are sold on it. But the challenge is that they have families. They like the food, they grew up on it, they enjoy it.
I don’t argue with them, but I do share with everybody that if anyone ever suffers any type of inflammation, now you know how to fix it and reverse it. And here’s the guidelines to do it. Yes,
Shelly:
Yes. I couldn’t even go upstairs. I would cry. My joint pain was so bad. My legs were so swollen, it was horrible. My shoe size is a size nine. I went all the way up to a size 11 in my shoe size. My legs were starting to look like tree trunks. And that’s how much. And you try the compression hose and you try this and you try that. The inflammation was just unreal.
Dr. Gundry:
Wow.
Christine O’Donnell:
Have you dealt with naysayers in your life or people? Has this been difficult to stay committed to?
Shelly:
Well, when I started, I had an army of people against me, but it went like this. I knew I almost died. That blood pressure was so dangerous. It went like this. I’m taking my life back. Two hours are mine every single day.
I was a caregiver. Let me tell you all that. Everybody, I could never say no. I was a yes person, but at the end of the day, there was no time for me. My time was a shower, washing my hair and brushing my teeth.
And I look out at other people and I can look at them now because if they look like me, I’m like, yeah, you got leaky gut. You got leaky gut. But I’ve learned not to say anything. That’s not a good thing.
Christine O’Donnell:
Why not? What happened?
Shelly:
Well, some of them, you want to try to help somebody in the gym and you’ve watched them for two years when you’ve been in the gym for six years, and they’re not going nowhere. No fast.
Hector:
Exactly.
Shelly:
And if you ever want to just lose that kind of quickly, this girl can help you out. They don’t know who I am, but sometimes people get offended. So I’ve learned when people approach me and ask me questions, then I help them.
But if they don’t approach me, I’m not going to just do it because I don’t want to cause any offenses. But what I did, I have a large family, so it was just you and your significant other. But for me, it was my large family. So what I did was I would cook for them. I would say, I’m not handling this stuff again.
You guys can eat it. I’m going for a walk. Put the leftovers up, clean it up, do whatever. I don’t want to smell it again. And I just ate my lectin free. Same thing before holidays. I would eat before, just like Hector said. And they fought me, first of, they said, oh, here she goes, here’s another fad diet. Yeah, mom, you’re going to last a week.
And I shocked them all. And then it becomes, mom, I’m getting big. Can you help me? And it’s reversed now. I used to be the largest one around the table, not anymore. And now everybody around me is getting sick, and I know what it’s from.
And I told my 30-year-old son, I said, look, you came from me. You have the same blood type as me. You have the same markings on your body as me. And I’ve noticed that everything that’s happening to me and my generation is bumping up almost 20 years in the generation of our offspring. He’s already dealt with high blood pressure. I didn’t deal with that until age 47.
And he’s not even 30 yet. He’s going to be 30 in May. This stuff is so real. But yes, I had to fight for it. But I’ll tell you one thing, I made some believers.
Dr. Gundry:
That’s great.
Christine O’Donnell:
How about you, Cassandra?
Cassandra:
Well, when my journey began, it was just myself and my parents. And I worked from home at that time because I was caring for them. So there were no outside influences. And-
Cassandra:
… so there were no outside influences. And over time, with the results, I gained the discipline and now it’s easy and I don’t beat myself up. If I happen to have something like a grass-fed steak every couple months with my God sister, I’m good with that. It’s not a cheat, it’s a treat.
Christine O’Donnell:
Ah. I love that.
Cassandra:
Yes.
Christine O’Donnell:
I was going to say, is there one thing or maybe a few things that you really struggle with not eating, or perhaps they become treats instead of cheats?
Cassandra:
The food list from, unlike in the keto code protocol, is so expansive. It’s 19 pages of different foods. And so I can cook every day and rarely repeat.
Christine O’Donnell:
Does anybody have something that have a hard time? Yeah.
Hector:
I wanted to answer your question. It’s easy to stay on this diet for me because if I deviate or eat something that’s bad for my body, it’ll get me sick. And so I look at the bad food, the anti-nutrients as food that will literally kill me and that’s why it’s very easy for me to stay on this diet. And what I also wanted to add is that I have a lot of friends. I know a lot of people, and when they saw this transformation, people would ask me constantly, “Hector, how do” you do it? And I said, “Well, we don’t have 20 minutes now to speak about it, but let’s go to dinner.”
So I started organizing these lectin-free lectin-like dinners, and I started in a restaurant, but then shortly afterwards I realized I can’t control all the ingredients in there. So I started having my own lectin-free dinners and inviting my friends to come. And they really enjoyed it a lot. But as I said earlier, it’s hard for people to maintain this unless they’re getting sick and they see that direct connection from what they eat to what inflammation and bad health they’re experiencing now.
Christine O’Donnell:
Anybody have extra virgin olive oil just in their purse?
Dr. Gundry:
No, but I’ve got my Vital Reds.
Cassidy:
I’ve got some in my car.
Hector:
You know what’s so funny? I stay in so many calls now because of it.
Shelly:
They wouldn’t let me bring my olive oil on the flight, so I did leave it at home. But I do take it to the restaurants with me.
Dr. Gundry:
Yep.
Hector:
That’s great.
Shelly:
If I order a shrimp fajita and say onions and mushrooms because I don’t do tomatoes and bell peppers, then when they bring the hot fajita, because I don’t trust the kitchen because I’m afraid they’ll use the fake oils, so they’ll bring me the food on the hot plate, and then when it gets to the table, I’ll do my drizzle of olive oil, and it still sizzling and it just gives it enough coating. It’s delicious.
And another thing that I’ve heard people say to me is, “Shelly, the list is so big, I don’t know where to start.” I started out with 10 of my favorite lectin-free foods, just 10. I turned them into sautes, I grilled them. I made soups, I swapped them up different ways, but I was always eating lectin-free. But it made it simple and I focused more on my exercise, and I realized it is crazy food anymore is I thought I was, because my sugar levels were at bay and I wasn’t hungry all the time and I found myself forcing myself to eat.
I have never done that. And I can fast forever. I am the fasting queen, and everybody’s like, “You’re not shaky. You’re not jittery. Oh, I would have a headache. I would become unglued.” They would be hangry.
Hector:
I’m familiar.
Christine O’Donnell:
Hungry and angry. It’s just so good to just not have to worry about the shakes or the hypoglycemia. Or any of the things that I used to deal with.
Cassandra:
[inaudible 00:50:03]. May I say something?
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah.
Cassandra:
In addition to the foods that we should not eat because they contain the lectins. There’s so many foods that Dr. Gundry recommends in the protocol that we can eat, the yes foods, and the list is expansive. So we’re not restricted in any way in what we can eat. The few little lectins don’t compare to the vast variety of things that we’re able to eat.
Hector:
That’s a good point because I always bringing up to my friends that the yes list is much bigger than the no list.
Cassandra:
That’s right. That’s right.
Dr. Gundry:
It is. You’re right.
Cassidy:
Well, it’s just everything that’s accessible is really harmful. And I think especially if you’re talking about wealth gaps or anything like food deserts, the only thing that’s available is when you go to a store, even supplements, we don’t get supplements at the store. We order them online because we really look into the ingredients and we order your supplements.
Dr. Gundry:
Thank you.
Cassidy:
You’re welcome. But yeah, it’s really scary, it’s honestly, it’s freaky. You just really need to do your own research and we shouldn’t have to.
Dr. Gundry:
You’re hearing stories from people who, in a lot of ways who are within for their health issues and there’s obviously a lot of motivation to make a change. And as things start happening, it’s obvious that, “Wow, this is working.” But what’s impressed me through the years is, I’ll use you two examples. I have a gynecologist who’s a patient and last month he came in for his semiannual visit and he says, “Hey, I got to tell you some interesting stories.” He says, “I actually have your book in my office and I’ll give my patient a copy.” I said, “Well, thank you very much.” And he says, “No, no, let me tell you.” He says, “Recently I’ve had three women with endometriosis that I had scheduled for surgery,” laparoscopic surgery, go take these things out. And he said, “I’m scheduled out like three or four months, but I gave him all the book,” and said, “We got a few months, would you mind trying this?” And they did.
And he said, “We canceled all three of their surgeries because their endometriosis is gone.” And he says, “What do you think about that?” And it turns out there’s a ton of literature that endometriosis is caused by bacterial leaking from leaky gut. Fibroids are caused by bacteria and LPS is leaking from leaky gut.
The other story, I was recently referred a very healthy individual, 72, he’s had three stents, looks like an Adonis. And he comes in, he said, “I don’t know why I’m here, but my buddy wants me to see you.” And he says, “I’m so healthy, you can’t help me.” And I said, “Oh, really? How come you have three stents?” He said, “Oh, well, I have a cholesterol issue, but I’m on two statins and another drug to lower it down and I’m fine.” And I said, “Well, I see here that you’re on three medicines to shrink your prostate.”
And he says, “Yeah, what does that have to do with it? All guys have a big prostate my age.” And I said, “Really? I don’t, and I’m older than you.” And he said, “What do you mean? Of course you do.” I said, “Oh, I used to have a big prostate, but I don’t anymore.” And he said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Well, believe it or not, leaky gut is the cause of a big prostate because your colon, your rectum is sitting right next to your prostate and the bacteria get into your prostate and your white blood cells attack and cause inflammation and that’s where it comes from.”
And long story short, he had leaky gut and we started him on this program. And his cholesterol now is so low we’ve had to stop all of his cholesterol medications, which he, and he started eating foods that he thought would raise his cholesterol just to test the theory. And he keeps texting me and he says, “This is so bizarre.” He said, “These aren’t raising my cholesterol. Why was my cholesterol so high?” I said, “Well,” and he’s a doctor, and I said, “Did you ever read about when you’re in septic shock that your cholesterol goes through the roof, particularly LDL?”
He says, “Oh yeah, I remember that.” I said, “Guess why your cholesterol was so high? Because you had leaky gut and you had endotoxemia, you healthy guy.”
Hector:
That’s a great story.
Dr. Gundry:
So the point of all this is Hippocrates is right. All disease begins in the gut no matter how trivial. And another way to describe it, which I think is even more of it, is death begins in the gut and you fix that and look it, we all can thrive. So just because you don’t have some life-altering experience doesn’t mean that this process shouldn’t be attended to.
Christine O’Donnell:
But I’d love to know if you guys can each think about what your eureka moment was. When was the moment when you did try this protocol and you were like, “Oh, this is it. This is actually working.” Because I’m sure you all have this one moment. It sounds like you’ve tried so many different things, but how did you know this was the one and what was that moment? Shelly has it. I see it.
Shelly:
Okay. Yeah, I do have it. Three days in, I was like, “Whoa.” Three weeks in, I was like, “Wow.” Three months in, I was like, “This is me. This is my lifestyle. I’m eating like this the rest of my life. There will be no cheats.” And I didn’t cheat. I am a lectin-free eater and I’m never turning back because I was living in a body that I didn’t even know. And you know what? I discovered myself afterwards too. I was hearing my voice again. I was so sick back then that I was just existing, just getting through the day, wasn’t hearing well, couldn’t just, I wasn’t balanced. And then after I did it, it was just amazing. I was rediscovering myself.
Christine O’Donnell:
What was your moment, Cassandra?
Cassandra:
When I began to see the results, the first being that I had adult acne and I started having fewer breakouts.
Christine O’Donnell:
How far along were you?
Cassandra:
Maybe a month in.
Christine O’Donnell:
Okay.
Cassandra:
Yeah, a month in. And after that I began to feel really, really good, giving me the stamina I needed to care for my parents. Food tastes good. Everything you’re tasting your food, the brain fogs gone, you have the energy. I feel wonderful. Not for a 64-year-old gal, y’all. I feel good, and there’s no turning back.
Hector:
That’s amazing. That’s awesome.
Christine O’Donnell:
What was your Eureka moment?
Hector:
Within the first few days of starting the diet, just as you mentioned, I had more energy. I didn’t have diarrhea. I didn’t have the upset stomach, the bloating, and it was going away. It was amazing. And within a month I started losing weight. And then a few months later, a lot of weight that people noticed. I went for a job interview. I had to wear a suit. With one hand I had to hold up my pants when they were falling off. With the other hand, I shook hands with the interviewer and it’s been a great journey.
I made mistakes along the way where I would eat something and then get sick and realize that this is the right path that I’m taking. It’s the right lifestyle. I don’t want to call it a diet. It’s a lifestyle.
Cassandra:
That’s right.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah, right.
Hector:
Because people, I mean we use the term diet because that’s maybe the only way to describe it, but it’s a lifestyle. Just knowing. In the beginning though, it was hard for me to understand because I was, and I’m still learning, but I had to constantly refer to your list to see what was good, what was not. I would be at a restaurant somewhere and try to figure it out. Over the years, I’ve been doing this now for four years, and I’ve become more knowledgeable and understanding of it that I can go somewhere and look at a menu and be able to dissect it and figure out what’s [inaudible 01:02:25], what’s not.
Christine O’Donnell:
What was your moment?
Cassidy:
My moment, which anyone who’s had skin stuff can probably relate with, was exactly a month in the inflammation that you feel with eczema. I don’t know how to describe it. The way people say a bone deep itch or that bone deep inflammation feeling. The eczema was still patches everywhere, but I didn’t feel it from inside inflaming, and I don’t know how else to describe it, but I really didn’t feel the inflammation happening anymore. So it felt like the surface was just beginning to heal, and I didn’t feel like I was as on fire. Also, my vision, random, my vision prescription got better. So that was interesting to say the least because I wear contacts. That was probably my moment.
Christine O’Donnell:
Better eyesight.
Cassidy:
Yeah. I don’t know if that has anything to do with, or if you’ve seen that.
Dr. Gundry:
Oh yeah. Macular degeneration is part of this.
Cassidy:
Right.
Dr. Gundry:
Nobody ever had it in the past.
Cassidy:
Right. And then my partner was reading up about how the mitochondria in the eye, something in regards. He’s so much more eloquent at talking about it.
Shelly:
Mine got a little bit better too. Because of my hypothyroid my eyes were out of shape and-
Cassidy:
Interesting.
Shelly:
… the shape came back-
Cassidy:
That’s interesting.
Shelly:
… and so the vision got better. I don’t understand it all, but I’m telling you it’s true.
Cassidy:
Yeah. There’s some things where I’m like, “Is this placebo?” But I swear are better.
Shelly:
My doctor had an aha moment, the one that couldn’t help me, who never gave me a solution to get to the root of the problem. When I walked in three months into eating lectin-free, he looked at me and said, “What have you done?” And, “Shelly,” and he’s shaking and he’s like, “Can I get a tape measure out? Can I measure your stomach?” And when he measured my stomach, I thought he was going to jump up on the table, the examining table. He was like, because he had just told me three months prior, “You’re going to be like this the rest of your life.” And I walked in and I was like… Lost 70 pounds. And so he measured my stomach. He said, “Do you know what you’ve done?” “What have I done?” And he said, “You have just gotten rid of your illnesses.”
He said, “We’re going to start taking medicine away.” He said, one by one, “You don’t need this anymore.” He took a lot away that day. “You don’t need this anymore. You don’t need that.” And almost immediately I found myself, just on thyroid medicine. He took it. So I thought that was pretty, that was an aha moment for him. But I will tell you this, he pulled me aside after leaving the room that day, and he said, “Shelly, I got to talk to you for a minute.” He said, just like this, “God must have something really special for you because I’m going to tell you everyone can’t do what you’ve done.” And you know what I said to him? I said, “It’s how bad do you want it? It’s really not that hard. I just changed the list of what I eat,” and I have found an alternative.
I’m not missing out on anything. There’s a lectin-free alternative for anything.
Hector:
Absolutely.
Shelly:
And I always was a cook, and it was really kind of depressing. I kind of got away from the kitchen a little bit because I realized after all those years of me slaving, breakfast, lunch, cooking things from scratch because I was a healthy eater. My problem was I was eating corn chips and salsa and tomatoes and bell peppers and eggplant, and that was how I ate. And I thought I was doing myself justice. Those were my favorite foods, and they were just causing me to be more inflamed, and more inflamed. When I took all of that away, it was insane how quickly the inflammation came out, and then I started losing the weight. It’s just unreal.
Hector:
I want to share something. One of my friends, he worked for me at the time. This is back in 2020, and I had just started the diet. I was three months into it, and he saw a major change back then. He bought the book, he downloaded the audio version. Then a few months later, I see him again. Not only did he lose weight, but he said that his doctors took him off the diabetes medication and heart medication, that he was disease free. And he explained, “I got this book from Dr. Gundry.” He’s explaining that to the cardiologist, and because of you, you put his doctors out of business.
Dr. Gundry:
Sorry about that.
Cassandra:
And it only continues to get better because the new book, “Gut Check”, I thought I had studied and learned everything I could learn about our microbiome. And you brought it home with that one. You did.
Hector:
It’s a great book. Yes.
Cassandra:
It’s so many items in the book that no one’s talking about. It’s almost as if people had began to rehash old things. But there’s something for the seasoned health seeker as well as the new health seeker and the way you deliver it. It’s the why that lets people know I need to take care of my gut microbiome.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yep.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah. It’s very true. Thanks.
Cassandra:
You’re welcome.
Christine O’Donnell:
Dr. Gundry?
Dr. Gundry:
Hm?
Christine O’Donnell:
I have a secret to tell you. So when I moved from LA and went back to my hometown in upstate New York, which was about three years ago now, well, I was sad. I think I was really sad. There was a lot that I was going through just kind of I think with my mental, my everything, just my mental health, my physical health. And I ended up with chronic stomach aches, and I went to so many different doctors to try and figure out what is going on. The gastro, the nutritionist, a allergist.
Then I finally, well, it took a long time. It took a long time to find a doctor who could figure out what was going on. So in the meantime, I just was like, “Well, what if I tried the Gundry protocol?” Because I knew it. It was like my like, “Oh, I’ll just do it. I’ll just see.”
Dr. Gundry:
Why not?
Christine O’Donnell:
And everything got better. And it really, it made such a difference for me and through the process, and it took a while. It took a while for everything to get back to normal, but through the process, I found myself with a, I went to a neurologist and it was migraines, but my migraines present as severe stomach aches.
Cassandra:
Wow.
Shelly:
Interesting.
Christine O’Donnell:
Which is very rare, but it is very much a thing. And I just was like, “Well, of course it’s the gut.” My [inaudible 01:09:15].
Dr. Gundry:
Duh.
Cassidy:
Amazing.
Christine O’Donnell:
Of course.
Cassidy:
A meridian chart.
Christine O’Donnell:
I know, but it just was like, I was just so thankful that I had the knowledge that I had because we had worked together because it was so easy for me to just slip back into the protocol that I just hadn’t been doing because I was like, “Well, it’s one size fits all. Different things for different people,” but when I was in a really emergent situation, it helped me a lot. Thank you.
Dr. Gundry:
Thanks for that.
Christine O’Donnell:
And I’m super objective. So I do want to see if there’s anyone listening, do you have any advice you could share with them if they find themselves recognizing themselves in your stories, what would you say to them? Shelley?
Shelly:
I didn’t realize I was in a perfect storm then, but I do now. Waking up in the middle of the night when you go to bed and you have eczema, I mean… Sorry.
Christine O’Donnell:
That too.
Shelly:
Waking up in the middle of the night and all of a sudden you have welts, and you’re having anxiety, and you’re having panic attacks, and it’s like you’re a perfect storm. Your body is giving you signals. I wasn’t aware. I was just like, “Okay, something’s wrong with my thyroid. This is my thyroid. This is what this doctor’s telling me,” and so I wasn’t aware.
So I would say pay attention. Early signs. If you’re having any of these things that we’ve discussed today in this podcast, get somewhere. And if someone doesn’t tell you to change your diet, run. Lose the doctor. Go somewhere else. Because these Western medicine doctors, some of them are great. I’m not just downing doctors, but they are not trained. They are trained to read their books and what they’ve studied to help us, but they’re not trained to heal. And doctors like Dr. Gundry get to the root of the problem. And we need so much more of that because we’re not going to get to the root of the problem with another pill. And I’m telling you, I had plenty of those shoved at me.
Christine O’Donnell:
Cassandra, do you have any advice for anyone who might be on the fence?
Cassandra:
Yes.
Christine O’Donnell:
And do you want to look at the camera when you share it?
Cassandra:
Yes. The highly processed foods and the seed oils are very, very harmful to us. And it’s amazing that our bodies will heal when we give it the foods that are healthy for us.
Cassidy:
Absolutely.
Cassandra:
And so if we take the time and learn about what we should eat by simply reading, because doctors like Dr. Gundry have done the hard work. It’s all laid out for us right there. And they too can enjoy good health just like we are enjoying right now.
Christine O’Donnell:
Thank you. Hector?
Hector:
Yes. My advice would be if anyone’s experiencing any inflammation, whether it’s migraine headaches, skin problems, arthritis, understand that the cause of your ailments is from food, the food that you’re eating, and pay attention to what you’re eating and make a change. Now, the challenging part will be in how to find the food, because in the beginning I had to be more of like a detective to go to the supermarkets and try to find the food that I wanted to. But I was able to. I was successful, and now it’s become second nature for me. But in the beginning, it was hard to find where I could locate okra or locate certain foods. But I found that I could go into, for example, the frozen vegetable aisle and I purchased frozen okra, frozen spinach. So this way I know it’s always fresh and then I could cook it at my time and when I need to do that.
When it comes to eggs, you might think you’re allergic to eggs, but you actually may be allergic to what they’re feeding the chickens that lay the eggs. So it’s important to try to get pasture-raised eggs that were grazed by chickens that were allowed to run around and eat grass and eat the bugs and eat what’s natural. And the same thing comes with any of the proteins that you eat.
I will say I do love meat, so I do eat meat. I’m a blood type OO positive, and I continue to like meat, but I will go to stores. And I’m finding now, believe it or not, even my local supermarket does have grass-fed meat that comes from grass-fed cows, so I’m very happy to see that. So you don’t necessarily have to go to the specialty stores to find the food that you’re looking for, just spend the time that you need.
And what’s great is you can also go on Amazon and find a lot of foods on there as well, so because of the internet, it does become easier. And I highly recommend that you purchase the Plant Paradox and you read that book cover to cover because it really is a great guideline on better health. And download the yes and no list and bring that with you everywhere that you go. That’s really important.
Christine O’Donnell:
Cassidy.
Cassidy:
My advice, I guess would just be that even if you are young, because I’m very young, but I’ve had these symptoms for a long time, but someone like my husband isn’t someone who’s had those symptoms. So I think the information is important for everyone, even if you think you’re in really good health, because there is a point that your body will let you know and send check engine lights and tell you that things aren’t going too well, and you don’t want that to be later on. As early as you can I think it’s important, and obviously y’all are amazing examples-
Cassidy:
… you can, I think it’s important. And obviously, y’all are amazing examples. I’m so in awe of all of your stories.
Christine O’Donnell:
Thank you.
Cassidy:
But it’s important for everyone and especially for women, there are so many toxins in our environment, so many estrogen mimickers, so many of us on birth control. And I think it’s extremely, extremely important to understand that you deserve your health.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yes.
Cassidy:
You are worth it. And it does take courage, which is why I empathize, like I said, with everyone in my life and everyone who hasn’t taken it on, and it’s a big step. But you completely deserve it and you should be able to take your health into your own hands. You completely can, so don’t allow anyone to tell you that you can’t. At the bare minimum, you can ease your symptoms. I completely believe that for every situation, almost.
Christine O’Donnell:
Cassidy, that was wonderful.
Cassidy:
Thanks.
Christine O’Donnell:
But you’ve been in this place since you were really little. And so as a mom with a three-year-old and a five-year-old, my son has eczema right now.
Cassidy:
Oh, no.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yes.
Cassidy:
No.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah, I know. And also hypermobility, and so these things I just… I’m listening to you guys and I’m like, “Hmm, what would…” If your parents had done something for you when you were younger, what would you have suggested they did or wished that they did?
Cassidy:
I think-
Christine O’Donnell:
Because I’m sure they were already trying to do everything.
Cassidy:
They absolutely did their best. They know I know that. I know that. I would never blame them for anything. But the knowledge is not out there, freely available to everyone in the ways that it should be. So I don’t blame my parents. But I would say limiting the grains, the things that are so present in the diet because you can even be going for optimal health, but there’s never… Even then, there is so many environmental things incorporated, especially for young ones right now. And this generation of children growing up, I don’t worry about necessarily, but at times I do. It’s scary, and I think they deserve so much better than what they’re getting, than food that is more expensive but made worse. And everything is constantly advertised to them in ways that it just wasn’t with me, even.
And I think just letting them know that they have control and they are completely capable… Bringing themselves to a really healthy place. Getting a lot of exercise… The hypermobility is a weird one because the only thing that helps that is for me, because I had extreme joint pain, was about to get a bench for the shower, stairs. Chronic pain is really rough, so a preventative is just as much muscle as they can build and obviously, the anti nutrients really restrict the ability to even do that. So Gundry protocol, I guess, is what I say for everything. But it’s worked for me and I still have things here and there.
Christine O’Donnell:
I was going to move on to overcoming obstacles. We’ve talked about some of these things already, but I’d love to go through here and just talk about the yes and no list. Were there modifications any of you guys had to make when looking at the yes and no list?
Hector:
By looking at the yes and no list, it made it very clear to me that I was going in the wrong direction. And so by looking at your list, it helped me tremendously. I mean, that, by itself saved my life and it helped me to then take my journey in the right path. There were foods that I used to eat that I don’t eat anymore because now I know that they’re not safe.
Christine O’Donnell:
Do you have a go-to Plant Paradox meal?
Shelly:
I can tell you what I started out with and how I do it.
Christine O’Donnell:
Yeah.
Shelly:
So I did 18-hour intermittent fast, and I would always do my morning exercise. And when my window would open, I start out with broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Call me crazy, but I’m telling you what? Fiber is amazing and that is how I start my meal out with. And then it’s also, broccoli is amazing. It’s a great lectin-free food, but it’s also great for the liver. So I eat a lot of cruciferous vegetables. I mean, I chow down on some broccoli and cauliflower. It’s so good.
Cassidy:
Delicious.
Cassandra:
For me, mushrooms. Mushrooms, sprouts, especially broccoli sprouts. The tubers because of the mole rat, yeah.
Dr. Gundry:
Naked mole rat. Yeah.
Cassandra:
Naked mole rat. And so I eat a lot of the purple sweet potatoes, the yams, the beets, the radishes, carrots. And those are my go-to. And the fermented foods, I eat a couple of cups of the fermented foods every day.
Christine O’Donnell:
What kind of fermented foods?
Cassandra:
After I have my coffee in the morning, I’ll have a cup of kefir. And with my big green bowl that I make every day, I put the kamish, the kraut, fermented garlic, as well as carrots. And I love that, the couple cups of the fermented foods every day.
Hector:
Love to eat sweet potatoes and constantly eating that. Spinach, which I mentioned before. Millet, I love millet. That’s a great alternative to rice and it’s one of a few alternatives that’s actually cheaper, believe it or not. And it’s great and it’s easy to find. All you have to do is just go out there and find it. Now, that I know my source, I eat it constantly. I love it. And salad. And I love salmon. Of course, it has to be wild caught salmon.
Cassidy:
Oh, I too love salmon. I love to do a lot of stir fries and I like to feel like I’m having a cheat meal. I’ll get miracle noodles or something and I’ll just stir-fry a ton of veggies in and just do broccoli and mushroom. And also, a classic is a salmon salad. If you get a BPA free can, I like to do that and mix in some turnip root, and broccoli, and stuff. But sometimes I just saute some shrimp over a cauliflower rice and just spice it up. There’s so many fun things you can do with it. Sometimes I feel like I’m eating ramen. If I put a, not a lot, a little arrowroot starch into miracle noodles with a bunch of stuff. I don’t know. It becomes really fun. And celery and almond butter. There’s just lots of stuff that even seem normal like-
Shelly:
Uh-huh. That was [inaudible 01:21:51].
Cassidy:
… blanched almond butter. And if it hasn’t flared me up, then we know it’s probably fine.
Christine O’Donnell:
What are some of your meal prepping tips?
Shelly:
I’m quick on the fly. So I’ll be at the gym if my brain says or my body says, “Hey, Shelly, you need this today.” Then that’s when I go home and I cook. It’s so easy. I don’t meal preps, it’s in the fridge. I eat a lot of frozen vegetables like Hector. I feel like in my area where I live that I’m getting a better quality sometimes. Because sometimes I just feel like the vegetables on the shelf in my store, they go bad two days after you bring them home, you’re like, “How old are you?” So no meal prepping for me. Quick and easy.
Cassandra:
I make sure I always have the foods in the house. I go to the farmer’s market every weekend and I get the things that I need to make sure I don’t just decide at the last minute what to eat and there’s nothing in the house.
Christine O’Donnell:
So do you go to the farmer’s market?
Cassandra:
I go to the farmer’s market.
Christine O’Donnell:
Do you go to the regular grocery store in your [inaudible 01:22:52]?
Cassandra:
Rarely, to get a few things. I go get my water from the Whole Foods and I may pick up a couple of things there. But primarily, all of my plants come from one farmer’s market where they actually grow the items right there on property. So I know who’s growing them, they’re fresh. One day Mari and I went together, there were only two green onions left there, and she said, “Oh, I wanted two myself.” The lady sent the guy back out and picked some more and brought them in.
Christine O’Donnell:
How sweet.
Cassandra:
They’re fresh.
Shelly:
That is awesome.
Dr. Gundry:
Awesome, right?
Christine O’Donnell:
What was the greatest impact going on the diet had in your life or your families, friends, community?
Hector:
The greatest impact is that it helped me gain a tremendous amount of confidence because when I was sick all those years, it makes you very nervous to get out of the house. I always had to know where the nearest bathroom was and that creates a sense of fear and insecurity, and it’s not a good feeling to have. So when I discovered Dr. Gundry and the Plant Paradox diet, it really made me a more confident person because in addition to losing so much weight, I had to buy new clothes. Thanks a lot. I have to buy all new wardrobe altogether and donate my clothes to charity. And people come to me and say, “Hector, you look amazing.”
Just like what you say in your videos, people say to me, I don’t look 54, I feel 30 years old. And because of this major change I’ve been able to accomplish things I wasn’t able to do. And people say, “Oh, Hector, you look great because you go to the gym too.” No, it’s because of the diet that I’m able to go to the gym, I’m able to exercise. I am stronger now than I was when I was 20, 25 years old. Just having an overall positive attitude. And again, I can’t thank you enough Dr. Gundry. You have saved my life, my family. Thanks you. I thank you very much.
Dr. Gundry:
Nah, you saved your own life. I just gave you a few tips.
Cassidy:
I agree. I think the new life that I’ve gotten to have has given me such a confidence and radiance that my family’s noticing, my friends are noticing. And you really feel like you’ve gotten your identity back. And I feel like I’m honestly just beginning to build out who I am as a person from scratch. And I feel like I only get the opportunity to do that because I’ve been able to manage my pain and my illness, and it feels like I’ve had a lifetime of not really knowing who I was outside of that and identifying myself with my pain. And so I get to start fresh. That’s all it feels like.
Christine O’Donnell:
Greatest impact.
Shelly:
Greatest impact. Knowing that I’m going to be here for a long time to play with my grandson.
Cassidy:
Yes.
Dr. Gundry:
That’s great.
Shelly:
Knowing that when I went to the park that I could outrun my almost 30-year-old son. No pains, happy life. And I wowed a few people because I had a seasonal job and after they saw me three months and nine months later, a lot of people didn’t know who I was. So just identity again. Yeah, just being here for people. That’s why I did it to begin with. I didn’t know I was going to have such a transformation. I did it to be here, to be alive and to be healthy. And I achieved it, but I got a perk to go along with it.
Christine O’Donnell:
You sure did. Cassandra.
Cassandra:
I feel so good. I’m able to walk. When I started, I could not even walk around my office building, which was maybe only 1,000 feet. Now, I walk three to four miles a day-
Dr. Gundry:
That’s great.
Cassandra:
… with my 83-year-old neighbor who keeps up with me, Ellen.
Dr. Gundry:
Nice.
Christine O’Donnell:
Nice. Ellen.
Cassandra:
And that, to me, is priceless because I know now that through the way I eat, my lifestyle has changed for the better. That I’ll age gracefully and that’s-
Dr. Gundry:
That’s huge.
Cassandra:
… priceless.
Christine O’Donnell:
As with every episode, Dr. Gundry takes a question from the audience and we thought it would be fun to ask you to chime in. Is there a question you’d like to ask Dr. G about your own journey or anything else?
Hector:
I have a good question.
Christine O’Donnell:
Sure.
Hector:
My mother does not have IBS, but her mother and her grandfather had IBS as well as I have IBS. Why is it that my mother didn’t suffer from IBS, but she does have other issues like high blood pressure?
Dr. Gundry:
Well, there’s certainly a genetic component to most illnesses. Certainly, to autoimmune diseases. And it’s a small component. All right? I got to point that out to anyone who will listen. But you can inherit that tendency, but your mother got genes from two people and she got the genes that didn’t have that part of the problem. But for instance, I see tons of people with celiac disease, which is the extreme form of gluten intolerance. And you’re supposed to carry either one or two copies of a gene that makes you get that and yet, I see tons of people with celiac disease who don’t carry either of those genes. And so genetics only has about 8% effect on what’s going to happen to you.
Hector:
Thank you.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah, that’s it.
Cassidy:
I have so many questions. But I’ve decided I really want to know what you feed your dogs.
Dr. Gundry:
Oh, that’s a great question.
Cassidy:
Because I want to get a dog.
Dr. Gundry:
I just had another patient asked because they just had a couple of rescue poodles that come into their lives. Through our years, we’ve had a couple of dogs with severe issues. One dog, King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, who had just copious diarrhea, was losing weight, failing to thrive and a Wheaton Terrier was doing the same thing. And the vets told us that it was pancreatic insufficiency and you had to go on a no-fat diet. And we tried that and that got worse, so I actually put these dogs on a raw food diet. And they actually lived out natural lives on a raw food diet. I wrote about, previously, a Yorkie that I nearly killed giving her chicken strips from China and put her into profound renal failure. And the vet put her on a bunch of diuretics and high blood pressure pills, and she got sicker and sicker.
So I put her on the raw pancetta diet, which is Italian bacon. And she came back. Her edema went away, her kidneys started working again, and she lived out on normal life span too, despite me trying to kill her. Right now, we have four dogs. We usually have four dogs, usually two rescues. So we use a kibble called Tuscan Naturals that has olive oil in it, believe it or not. And that’s why we use it. And we change the bags from month to month. So right now they’re on fish, last couple months ago they were on turkey, and so forth. But we also give them raw pellets that are sardine and chicken primarily that are frozen and they’re called primal and you can get them in a lot of dog stores. And so everybody gets some raw food and then they all get freeze-dried chicken livers, and beef livers, and bison livers. So it’s about a half and a half raw diet and olive oil diet with kibble.
Cassidy:
Okay, Very nice.
Dr. Gundry:
And so there you go.
Cassidy:
Very nice.
Cassandra:
Dr. Gundry, you teach that sugar is harmful to the mitochondria, the fructose.
Cassidy:
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Cassandra:
However, I love a teaspoon of raw honey in my morning coffee. Is that harming my mitochondria if otherwise I eat clean?
Dr. Gundry:
Well, there are some benefits from local raw honey because of the agents that the bee picked up for you. On the other hand, I’d love to have you change over to non-GMO allulose, which will actually feed your friendly bacteria-
Cassandra:
Okay, right.
Dr. Gundry:
… and lower your blood sugar. So it’s a, to me, a win-win. In fact, I like it so much and I’ve written about it. Gundry MD makes our own allulose now, I’m so impressed with it as a sweetener.
Cassandra:
Thank you.
Dr. Gundry:
Okay.
Shelly:
Well, I’m not afraid of 50 and I’m about to be 53. So I guess I’ll have to ask you a menopausal question, if that’s okay.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah, sure.
Shelly:
Okay. So I’m hearing some controversy. When you become my age, seems like cortisol levels rise. So my question is really a fasting issue. Should I swap my morning fast for an evening fast or should I leave it the same? Because I’m hearing from some people, and it’s all over social media, that when you have high cortisol levels, you should feed yourself earlier and just bring the fast into the second part of your day. What’s your thoughts?
Dr. Gundry:
Well, menopause has nothing to do with cortisol levels.
Shelly:
Okay. Hey.
Dr. Gundry:
And I’ve seen maybe five people in my life with adrenal insufficiency, but pretty doggone rare. Cortisol stress made cortisol levels go up, then I would’ve seen massive increases in cortisol during COVID and quite frankly, never saw it. And you can get cortisol levels down really easily with a supplement called Relora, R-E-L-O-R-A. It’s one of the greatest sleep aids known to mankind. The fasting period is interesting. I think if you had to do it the best way, you would do the classic… Eat like a king at breakfast, a queen at lunch, and a pauper at dinner. I think that’s the best way. When I was writing the Energy Paradox, I actually proposed that to my editor and then we said, “Well, nobody’s going to do that because the only time most families get together is dinnertime.”
And so we switched. It’s a lot easier, I think, to delay break fast. Certainly, if you look at traditional cultures, there is no food. You have to go find it. There’s no refrigeration, there’s no cupboards. And most hunter-gatherers don’t eat until 10:00, 11:00 in the morning because that’s when they first find something to eat. So it works fine. It’s not going to raise your cortisol levels.
Shelly:
Well, I’m going to keep my fast the same then.
Dr. Gundry:
Yeah, right. And it’s working for you.
Shelly:
Thank you.
Dr. Gundry:
It’s time to wrap it up. I feel like it’s the Academy Award time. Doing 300 podcasts is not an easy feat. It’s hours and hours of behind-the-scenes coordination from guest bookings to editing these mistakes out that I make all the time. So I want to take this time to recognize the incredible team that puts this show together each and every week to bring you two new episodes every week. So thank you to our fantastic producing team of Laney Neal, Kate Holzhauser, Jaycee Ray, Nicole Hong, and Zachary Stein. And our very talented crew and I’ll probably screw up all the names, Frank Moss, Benjamin Munch, Katie Sanderson, Page Wagner, Chris Kwan, and Cader Roderick. And of course, thanks to our podcast hosts, PodcastOne. Especially the hardworking Kathy Langley, Alistair Walford, and Eli Dorkin.
And of course, last but not least, thank you for the irreplaceable engaged audience that tunes in every week challenges me and asks the most amazing questions. I do what I do because I love it, and I love offering the best science-back non-quackery findings to you at no cost to you whatsoever, to empower you to live your best lives just like these people that you see here. So for the 300th time and hopefully many more to come, I do this because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you. We’ll see you next week.
Speaker 1:
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also The Dr. Gundry Podcast YouTube channel, where we have tens of thousands of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long, vital life. Let’s do this together.
