Speaker 1: 00:00:00 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr Jay gives you the tools you need, to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Jay: 00:00:15 So welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. Well, could certain foods, even ones that are thought of as healthy, be sabotaging your health? Well, what do you think the answer to that’s going to be if they contain lectins? The answer is, of course, you probably know that lectins are toxic plant proteins that can unfortunately lead to digestive problems, weight gain, joint pain, brain fog, and almost any other health issue.
Dr. Jay: 00:00:47 So you want to avoid these edible enemies at all costs. And I’ll be the first to tell you, eliminating lectins from your diet takes willpower, consistency, and most importantly commitment. And once you see the difference though, between your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, most people actually agree that it’s worth it. So we’ve got a great guest for you today. Her name is Claudia Corichi, but if you look for her name, it’s going to be spelled Corichi with an I on the end of it. Right?
Claudia Corichi: 00:01:22 Right.
Dr. Jay: 00:01:23 Okay. But you don’t pronounce the I. She’s living proof of that, Claudia started to see her health decline in her late thirties, after relocating the United States from Dubai, where she had lived for about eight years. She actually gained weight. And I want her to tell this story because it’s a fascinating story, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t lose it. But all that changed when Claudia adapted the Plant Paradox Diet.
Dr. Jay: 00:01:51 Now Claudia, who’s studying to be a health coach, she shares recipes and advice and other resources on her Instagram account, which is a must click, and it’s a healthy lifestyle website at all. It’s called Creative In My Kitchen, and you probably know it and if you don’t, you should. The Art of cooking lectin free food. So she’s my guest today, and Claudia so nice to see you in person. As you know, I’m a big fan of yours almost from day one when you started writing.
Claudia Corichi: 00:02:23 Yeah.
Dr. Jay: 00:02:26 So, tell me about your journey. Get us to Dubai, to Dallas, Texas, where you live now and what happened?
Claudia Corichi: 00:02:37 Okay. First thing I’d like to say, thank you for having me. I’m so beyond excited to meet you. So yeah. When we moved from Dubai to Dallas, it was already another big change for me. And I started to gain weight slowly but surely.
Dr. Jay: 00:03:03 Now let me interject. You had just been newly married.
Claudia Corichi: 00:03:09 Yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:03:10 And your husband was introducing you to-
Claudia Corichi: 00:03:14 To burgers and some other not the healthy food, but still I wasn’t an unhealthy eater, so I was always taking care of what I eat and choosing the best choices. But I have to say my diet, especially in the bio, was very high in Lectins. Hamas, fattoush, tomato, cucumbers every single day [crosstalk 00:03:46]. And I continue to eat that when I came to Dallas, thinking that’s healthy food, having a salad everyday, having a whole wheat bread toast with some peanut butter, and some banana, that’s a healthy breakfast. Then I changed to oats because I thought, “Okay, oats maybe it’s better. Goji Berries.” I tried everything and I wouldn’t … Like it would just go up. I was doing yoga everyday.
Dr. Jay: 00:04:22 And you were telling me that you never got on the scale. That’s something-
Claudia Corichi: 00:04:26 I always scared, because I saw my sizes going bigger, and I was in denial. I didn’t want to see the number.
Dr. Jay: 00:04:38 When you weren’t sitting on the couch, watching yoga videos and eating cookies. You were actively exercising and eating a healthy diet.
Claudia Corichi: 00:04:50 Yes, yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:04:51 And it just kept going.
Claudia Corichi: 00:04:53 Adjust very slowly. But it was going up like-
Dr. Jay: 00:04:58 And then I like this part of the story. So you finally go see a American doctor.
Claudia Corichi: 00:05:04 Yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:05:06 Tell everybody basically what he told you, because I hear this all the time, but it’s great coming from you.
Claudia Corichi: 00:05:13 Yes. So I go to a routine checkup, am healthy, like I don’t have major health issues. But at the routine checker for the first time in some time, I had to weigh myself. So before I had the appointment, I saw the number and I had the like an anxiety attack. I was like, “Oh my God, this is the heaviest I’ve ever been.” And we had the checkup, I was considered healthy. And the doctor who was very kind and nice, he asked, “Do you have any concerns?” And I was actually thinking like, “Yeah, I’m concerned about my weight because it’s going up without me being … And am a healthy person.” And he said … Again, very gracious, very kind. He said, “You are healthy. There’s no problem it happens with women once they approach forties, there are a lot of hormonal changes and it’s something natural. You shouldn’t be worried.” And I don’t know, I didn’t know what to think. I just fell a little bit like, “Okay, so from now on is only-
Dr. Jay: 00:06:32 Downhill.
Claudia Corichi: 00:06:32 -Downhill.” Yeah. But I couldn’t accept this answer. Like I felt I was in a search and that’s when I discovered the Plant Paradox.
Dr. Jay: 00:06:47 How did you find the Plant Paradox?
Claudia Corichi: 00:06:50 So while I was … It was two years ago. It was right before my birthday. My birthday IS next weeks. So I’ll be 40 next week.
Dr. Jay: 00:06:56 Happy birthday.
Claudia Corichi: 00:06:57 Thank you. So it was the same time when I think we tend to be a more reflective around our birthdays. So I was thinking, “What am I doing wrong? Why is this?” Searching, searching and then one day on my Facebook feed, an interview with you and Goop came up, and it just caught my attention because it said, “The healthy foods, that might make you sick.” It was something along this lines. It’s like, okay, “I know I’m eating healthy foods.” What I consider to be healthy. “what if this is relevant?” So I read the article, I ordered the book immediately, the book was lost, didn’t come. So I received a message from Amazon that the book was lost. Then I was reimbursed for it.
Dr. Jay: 00:07:55 So you gave me that one star on Amazon for them losing the book.
Claudia Corichi: 00:07:59 No.
Dr. Jay: 00:07:59 I knew it. Only one star, it was you.
Claudia Corichi: 00:08:02 Actually I got reimbursed and then the book came.
Dr. Jay: 00:08:06 Oh good. Oh, so you got a free book.
Claudia Corichi: 00:08:08 So I got the book. I was like, “Okay, this is meant to be.” I felt like it was something like, it just came to me. Then I read it. And if you see my book is just like, highlighted all the colors, and I read it like several times.
Dr. Jay: 00:08:27 So you’ve lost 25 pounds.
Claudia Corichi: 00:08:31 Yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:08:34 So what’s … I think a lot of people, particularly in when we chat and I get emails or questions on Facebook or Instagram, a lot of people say, this is impossible to do. It’s an impossible diet. And you weren’t sick, you weren’t obese. So what was your motivation? How did you do this?
Claudia Corichi: 00:09:07 There are several things. One of them was that … I mean weight aside, like if I looked at myself in the mirror, I couldn’t recognize myself. I felt like this is not me. I wasn’t that much concerned about the weight. I wasn’t obese or not even like overweight by some standards, but I felt that way, because we all know how we normally, like our normal weight or figure or is, and so that was one thing I didn’t like myself.
Claudia Corichi: 00:09:50 And then with all this I had other problems that people consider normal in our days like sinus pain, like painful periods. I was swollen. So not only the weight that your heavy, but I guess there was some water retention and all that stuff. I had heartburn, I had to take those toms every night. But those we consider the normal today. Right? We think, “Everyone has that. I also have it. So-”
Dr. Jay: 00:10:28 Tell me about your sinus conditions, and how you had to keep escalating your over the counter drugs. Tell me about that.
Claudia Corichi: 00:10:40 Yeah. So, I never had sinus issues until I moved to Dubai. Something happened. I don’t know if it was some change. I mean, of course the air is different. There’s a lot of AC there. There’s a lot of dust in the air. So maybe that was something, or maybe it was the gads that was changing and that gave me … Anyway, I started to have sinus problems first they would go away with Advil, just simple Advil. Then after a while I had to change to Advil Sinus. Then after a while, that wouldn’t work anymore. I had to change to Advil Sinus Allergy, you know there’s like … And then after I moved to Dallas, even the allergy one wouldn’t work. There were times when I had this pain on my sinuses. I could take anything. It wouldn’t work. Now when I think about it, it was probably food.
Dr. Jay: 00:11:43 Yeah. When I was a college student at Yale, I was always in the Yale infirmary and with these severe or what we call sinus headaches, and they give me antibiotics and they’d give me decongestants and I must’ve been in there every other week. Just, I couldn’t … It was just constant headache and they said, “Oh, this is your sinuses.” Actually funny story, I got allergy testing and they put all the needles on your back and they actually said, ‘We’ll be right back.” I’ll never forget it.
Dr. Jay: 00:12:24 And so a couple of minutes later I noticed my mouth swelling and then my tongue swelling. And the next thing I know, I said, “This is very interesting. I’m a pre-med and I swear I’m having anaphylactic shock.”And just then, the nurse walked in and apparently took one look at me, giant blowfish. And she said, “Oh my gosh!” And she got an adrenaline shot. And she’s, “Wow! I’ve never seen a reaction like that.” So he’s like, ‘Oh, these are allergies and that explains everything.” So I was actually on allergy shots for a number of years. I have no allergies anymore interestingly enough.
Dr. Jay: 00:13:05 Once I started doing all this. It was food that I was reacting to, not just ragweed or pollen. I’m going to go back to something because I think this is really important, and I’ve actually written about this as a long time since I talked about this. So I was obese, even though I was running 30 miles a week, and going to the gym every day, and eating what I thought was healthy.
Dr. Jay: 00:13:34 Interestingly when I was obese, and in a lot of obese people think this way, we look in the mirror and we do not see that obese person. We actually have a visual picture of ourself when we were skinny. And I can tell you, I know exactly the picture I had of myself is when I was 17 years old at the beach in Daytona beach, and I was standing on a surfboard and I was thin and trim, and that is my visual image of me. And even though I was just big giant, Pillsbury Doughboy, even when I looked at pictures of me, I did not see that Pillsbury Doughboy, I saw this slim good looking guy and I talked to so many obese people. That’s part of the problem that they actually don’t see that what right in front of them. They don’t see it, but you at least saw it. And I think that’s very interesting.
Dr. Jay: 00:14:41 So I think that’s great, if you see it, then that’s pretty good motivation to do something about it. But for everybody who’s listening, don’t beat yourself up, because I know and I’ve researched this that, so many overweight and obese people do not see themselves as obese, even though you’re fallen out of your clothes and you’re wearing stretch pants that are too tight, you don’t see it and just it’s okay, but that’s what happens. You’re not walking around thinking you’re obese. Oh yeah. That’s amazing that you saw it.
Claudia Corichi: 00:15:22 Yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:15:23 One of the things that I actually recommend people do, is get out that old picture of yourself. Almost all of us were thinner than we are at some point. And you may not be this stick figure that looks like twiggy, or Frank Sinatra thin, but all of us started at a lower weight and get out that picture, make a couple of copies, put one on your refrigerator, put one on your bathroom mirror, and then particularly in your bathroom, just stare at you and stare at that picture and say, “I got to get back to that.” And if you’ve read the Longevity Paradox, you know that it’s never too late to take the step to get back to that.
Claudia Corichi: 00:16:15 I used to do that a lot looking, I like to look at my … Not because I like myself or am too … But the old times in Dubai with my friends and I look at my pictures and like, “Oh my God. That’s me. Like boom, this is me. This is not me.” I think that’s how-
Dr. Jay: 00:16:32 Yeah. Okay. So now you, you’re on the Plant Paradox and obviously things are happening for the better. So what motivated you to do Creative In My Kitchen?
Claudia Corichi: 00:16:49 So, I always love to cook. Since I was a little girl, I like to experiment, to take my mom’s cookbooks, and surprise my parents with fancy dinners or that kind of stuff. So I love-
Dr. Jay: 00:17:05 Did your mother encourage you to do this? I mean, did you cook with your mother?
Claudia Corichi: 00:17:09 Yes, we participated. The kids, we participated in the cooking process, always. We were helping, we were doing something, whatever she told us to do it. But I think I was also like, my sister was not … didn’t like it that much. I like it more. So I guess it’s also what’s … So I always love cooking, but especially after moving to Dubai, it’s this an environment where you go out a lot and you go to restaurants. And I started to use the kitchen less and less.
Claudia Corichi: 00:17:45 And when I moved here, I was curious to try all the restaurants, and all the American food. So I didn’t use the kitchen that much, but I was still doing cooking at home, and I was never a person who follows recipes. I would just make up things. So get inspired by something and then make my own thing. I would never measure, and I would always forget what I had like the week before, I would want to recreate a dish, and I’ll be like, “Oh my God, I forgot what I did.” So that motivated me to start keeping a journal.
Claudia Corichi: 00:18:23 And what’s best for this than Instagram, keep a visual journal and few words about like what I ate and when I started the plant products, that was the motivation key that will help me to see what I eat, and well take it from me. I wasn’t planning to have this big … like my name back then I had to change it. It was something like that. I would even forget it. I wouldn’t remember it. It was just something weird. But yeah, so that’s what motivated me to keep track and to be able to look back and see what I ate.
Dr. Jay: 00:19:05 I mean, that whole Instagram experience is blossom, you’re coming out with a cookbook and the first quarter of 2020. You got any idea of what the title is so people can be looking for it?
Claudia Corichi: 00:19:19 Well, for now a working title is, The Living Well Without Lectin cookbook. And then some other like about 125 recipes.
Dr. Jay: 00:19:31 Wow!
Claudia Corichi: 00:19:32 Yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:19:32 Okay, All right. You’ve been busy.
Claudia Corichi: 00:19:34 Yes. Very busy.
Dr. Jay: 00:19:36 That’s great. And who’s the tester? Is your husband the tester?
Claudia Corichi: 00:19:41 Oh, well, it’s a lot of the people that are following on Instagram. If I post something, and they give me feedback, I have a friend in Dallas, Christie who always makes my recipes and then she always gives me feedback. And everything she makes from my website, she makes it better. Like if she brings me something like a one of my recipes, I’m like, “Oh my God, this is much better. It looks better and it tastes better.” That makes me happy.
Dr. Jay: 00:20:13 And she’s a Vegan. Yes?
Claudia Corichi: 00:20:17 That’s actually another friend. Well, both of them, but my friend Christina, Christie Christina, and my sister is Christina, and my husband is Christian.
Dr. Jay: 00:20:29 Holy cow!
Claudia Corichi: 00:20:29 So yeah, I’m attracted to them. So yeah, and my husband a little bit, but he still eats his stuff.
Dr. Jay: 00:20:42 Oh No.
Claudia Corichi: 00:20:43 Yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:20:44 All right. So things are going well, and you’ve got this cookbook going, but you’ve recently had some health challenges and tell me all about that.
Claudia Corichi: 00:20:59 So about four months ago, one day before that I was feeling like hyper, and I was feeling like I’m super woman. Like I can do anything, and I’m doing all the stuff and super busy. And one day I had … After I ate something that I would always eat. It wasn’t anything new. I had the reaction, I started like my ears got blocked and then my nose got stuck and my throat started to like close. So I would say I never had allergies ever any kind of allergies. But I imagine that, that’s the kind of reaction you have when you have a food allergy, or some environmental values. But there was nothing new in my environment. It was just a brand new day, the usual stuff. And then this happened.
Dr. Jay: 00:22:00 Hadn’t moved into a new house, didn’t get a new mattress, new carpet. You didn’t go on vacation. You didn’t have a weekend off.
Claudia Corichi: 00:22:08 Nothing. Complete the same thing. And then, I was so low … because I didn’t know when the reaction was so strong followed by anxiety, followed by a panic attack. And that was the scariest thing I’ve ever lived, I have to say from a health perspective. So yeah, for a while I didn’t know what it is. I went to emergencies. The second time I had this reaction, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. So I went to emergencies. I thought it’s pollen allergy because it was the season. But they gave me anxiety and depression medicine, and I didn’t want to take that, right? So I started to-
Dr. Jay: 00:23:04 Well, let’s stop right there. Okay. So let’s take a quick break.
Speaker 4: 00:23:08 If you’re listening to this podcast through your favorite podcast app, I’ve got some great news. You can also watch every episode of this podcast, plus hundreds more special videos on my youtube page. Just go to youtube.com/doctorgundry and be sure to click the subscribe button.
Dr. Jay: 00:23:30 Because this is so common particularly. And so you’re now basically a 40 year old female and you’re having a panic attack and for what apparently is no good reason. And of course you’re thinking about a 40 year old woman with a panic attack is this is anxiety and you need antidepressants, and you need prescription of Adavan or whatever. And it’s interesting, I saw a young man yesterday in my office, who is 23 years old and he’s had the exactly these sorts of attacks, but primarily in his abdomen, stomach. It feels like a knife is stabbing him. And he was told that this is anxiety, because they give him some Adavan and the pain would go away. And that proved that this was anxiety.
Dr. Jay: 00:24:46 This is the least anxious person I think I’ve ever met in my life. He’s a typical laid back 23 year old, surfer dudes sort of and he’s sitting there like this. And I said, “You know, you don’t strike me as an anxious individual.” He said, “Dude that’s not me.” And I said, “Yeah, but they’re dragging you up.” He said, “Yeah, I know I get it.” He says, “That’s just crazy.” They take his gallbladder out, because they tell him it’s his gallbladder that didn’t make the pain go away.
Dr. Jay: 00:25:16 So he’s been actually going around, he’s been to Stanford. They told him, “It was anxiety because there’s nothing wrong with you.” And low and behold, he has markers for an autoimmune disease, lupus that nobody ever bothered to look for. And so we’ve been working with him. I met him for the first time, but my PA Mitsu saw him a few months ago. His lupus marker is now turned off by following the Plant Paradox, but we’ve still got some issues and we’re going to get into that. We’ve got some really cool leaky gut issues. But, so tell me about histamine.
Claudia Corichi: 00:26:01 Right. I had no idea what histamine is. I just knew the word from those pills that people take for allergies or seasonal. But I had no idea what they are, but searching my symptoms and trying to understand what’s happening with me. I found out, I came across some articles like about histamine and then I was trying to look at what I was eating. And it’s true. Like my diet was, I would say heavy and what is considered high histamine foods.
Dr. Jay: 00:26:43 So tell our listeners what those foods typically are.
Claudia Corichi: 00:26:47 So, Avocados, spinach, mushrooms, and leftover animal proteins, and dairy. This is not really necessary, the whole thing. But I gave up dairy.
Dr. Jay: 00:27:05 That’s what you gave up.
Claudia Corichi: 00:27:05 Yes. But it usually, what is aged, It’s consider high histamine. So a cheese that is aged. So and fermented foods. I love sourcrouts. I grew up with sourcrouts. I would put avocado and sourcrouts on top of each other and I would eat that for breakfast. So I think those were the food that for me maybe tip the balance to make it like, this is a over load and maybe combined with some seasonal allergies and some pollen. I don’t. I still don’t know exactly.
Dr. Jay: 00:27:50 So you know histamines are trendy things to talk about. So we have a set of cells that are in our skin, and our nose, in our GI track, that are called mast cells, like the mast on a sailing ship. And these mast cells have little granules, that have histamine in them. And if you stimulate mast cells, they will release histamine. And histamine actually among other things, makes things turn red. Those of you who take Niacin or who I’ve asked you to take Niacin, know that the Niacin flush is actually caused by Niacin activating mast cells to release histamine. And sometimes some people are so sensitive to Niacin that even a little bit of Niacin, and a multivitamin will make somebody’s nose run.
Dr. Jay: 00:28:52 So histamines will release actually a lot of nose running. It can make things swell, but histamine anti-histamines, tell mass cells not to release histamine. That’s actually how they work. So were … believe it or not all allergies basically release histamines, because you’re actually producing lots of mucus with the idea that you’re trapping pollen and oh by the way lectins. So lectins in themselves will release histamine. And that’s why many of us believe that it’s not histamine so much, as it is lectins that actually start the problem. So you’ve taken those foods out of your diet?
Claudia Corichi: 00:29:42 Right? Yes.
Dr. Jay: 00:29:43 And are things better?
Claudia Corichi: 00:29:45 Yes. I control my symptoms without those foods. I still have like every time I eat I feel something, no matter even if it’s low histamine, but it’s very light. Like it doesn’t give me that kind of … And then goes away. So it’s like … Yeah. I feel like it’s getting better and better.
Dr. Jay: 00:30:09 Well it’s interesting. I profile a woman in the Plant Paradox who was definitely allergic to nuts, all tree nuts. And as kind of part of the program, she, one day, I think, gashed maybe a year into the program, she and a friend went out for a salad, a Caesar salad at a restaurant in LA. And she noticed that her face felt a little full and her tongue felt fuller, but she said, “Hey, you know, it’s probably Pollen in the air.” And that sort of thing. And she didn’t give it any other thought.
Dr. Jay: 00:30:51 And her friend called her the next morning, almost in a panic. She said, “Are you-? Oh yeah, thank goodness I hear your voice. Are you okay?” And she said, “Yeah, why?” She said, “Well, I just found out the Caesar dressing there is made with walnuts and you’re deathly allergic to walnuts.” And she said, “Walnuts. Huh?” So she actually went out and bought some walnuts, and she bite a little piece of walnut off and she said, “Well, yeah, there is that kind of feeling.” But now she actually has worked herself up to complete tolerance of all nuts just by introducing little bits.
Dr. Jay: 00:31:33 You know there was a woman who unfortunately has passed away, and you probably saw her website, The Histamine Girl. If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth looking at. And for years she was really on a campaign to get histamine out of her diet, and she had low histamine cookbooks and she actually finally wrote a post, she says, “Actually I think this is all from lectins and that’s the troublemaker.” But you bring up a very interesting point.
Dr. Jay: 00:32:07 And I mentioned these new exciting tests and I don’t have a relationship with them. It’s called Vibrant America. And I don’t know who their PR guy is, but these tests are really stupidly named. They’re called zoomers. And there is a wheat zoomer, a corn zoomer, electron zoomer, a dairy zoomer and eggs zoomer and there’s even a neuro zoomer. And what they look for is number one, they’ll look for all the usual suspect Lectin foods, including gluten, which is a lectin. And then they’ll look for leaky gut.
Dr. Jay: 00:32:44 But what’s been surprising, I see a lot of patients who really toe the line on the Plant Paradox. They really don’t cheat because it’s been worth it for them. But things aren’t perfect and there’s like yourself. And so we started to get these tests and unfortunately insurance doesn’t cover them. So there’s a cost. So I’ve been reluctant to use them because I really want people to have health care without incurring too much expense. But I’ve yet to regret these tests.
Dr. Jay: 00:33:20 What’s been fascinating to me, and there won’t be a test on this, but there is a very interesting lectin in spinach, potatoes, corn, soy beans, green bell peppers, not red bell peppers. And there’s one other one, I think I said potatoes that it’s the wildest thing. There’s little pores in plants that open and close so that plants can breathe. They can actually breathe out water vapor. And if it’s really hot in Dallas Texas, they close these pores so that they can serve water that exactly what they do.
Dr. Jay: 00:34:10 It turns out that you and I have these same little pore control things in the lining of our gut. And we have them in the lining of our brain, the blood brain barrier and the plant Aquaporin lectin looks virtually identical to the Aquaporin, that sits in our gut and sits in our brain. And three of my female patients now who swear on a stuck of vitals that they’re perfect, they react vigorously to the spinach lectins.
Dr. Jay: 00:34:46 I had another woman who was gluten free who reacts vigorously to the corn and potato, Aquaporin lectins. So I’ve actually … Probably in my next book, I’m going to stop recommending spinach to people, because it’s … And I’ve seen several people with what looks like Pseudo Parkinsonism or Brain Fog, that they react to these Aquaporins and they have a leaky brain and we can measure it. So scary stuff. I’m so glad … Not glad that this has happened to you, but I’m so glad that you started looking for, “Okay, what is this? I’m doing everything right.”
Dr. Jay: 00:35:39 And one of the reasons I keep seeing patients, not a day goes by that people say, “You don’t need to see patients. You’ve done all that. You’re famous, blah, blah, blah.” Every day I learned something and if I hadn’t had patients come, “You know, I’m saint I’m doing everything right, but things aren’t right.” And I go, “Well, we’ve got a good look into this.” And now with these new tests, I see people who not only react to casing in one melt, but darn it, they react casing too or they reactive way.
Dr. Jay: 00:36:17 So, they’re quest bars have got to go, and their goat cheese has got to go, and their sheep cheese has got to go. Or I have some people who react to the white of egg. Believe it or not, the egg white is far more antigenic than the egg yolk. But I have people that will react to both.
Dr. Jay: 00:36:38 And the other thing shocks me, and I’m not saying this is happening to you, I have yet to see an individual who swears that they are gluten free, who doesn’t take test positive for gluten in their bloodstream, and the components, many of them are women or men who are married and their spouse or significant other doesn’t eat that way. And they bring gluten into the house or it exists in the house, and even kissing your husband will contaminate you In one case.
Dr. Jay: 00:37:23 I have another woman who is so allergic, she literally can’t leave her house. She came in to visit me completely gloved, mask and her husband has a whole wheat English muffin every morning, and she makes it for him and puts it on the plate. And she … When we tested her for leaky gad I mean, you’re just like a sieve and there’s gluten and whole wheat, the gluten all in her blood and she’s just shocked. She said, “That’s impossible. I don’t eat gluten.” I said, “You have a husband who does, and you gave him his English muffin.”
Dr. Jay: 00:38:06 So I’ve been so impressed with these tests getting through. “I do everything right and why did this happen to me?” And I would be willing to bet if we did the test on you, that we would find you still have leaky gut.
Claudia Corichi: 00:38:25 That’s what my … I had to go to a doctor because I was desperate, and we took blood tests and everything, and that’s exactly what he suspects. I mean, histamine issues they don’t really come unless you have a leaky gut.
Dr. Jay: 00:38:41 That’s great.
Claudia Corichi: 00:38:42 I guess like, so you … I think now if I look back, And that’s maybe something I would not recommend, but just from my experience, I wish I took those blood tests when I started the Plant Paradox. So I go hand in hand and I target specific issues. I had heavy metals in my blood, like very high. I had to do a liver detox because of that and other imbalances, they normally … We don’t know unless we have the numbers and the tests. So I wish I started that a bit earlier.
Dr. Jay: 00:39:27 Yeah, it’s … Again, I think when particularly when things aren’t making sense, I think this, the new batteries of tests that are becoming available, really do find the answer. I’m going to bring up one more example. I just gave a lecture on this week. There’s a 75 year old woman who came to me in Santa Barbara who has been told she has celiac. And so she’s been in gluten free for years and she’s still had horrible bowel issues and her doctors, her husband tell her, “Well, you’re just crazy. You’re anxious and it’s all in your head.” So we actually did these set of leaky gut tests and sure enough, she’s got gluten all over the place. She’s got leaky gut. And she said, “But that’s impossible. I don’t eat gluten.” I said, Do you dine out?” She said, “Yes.” And I said, “Well, by dining out you are eating gluten.”
Dr. Jay: 00:40:29 And I have many restaurant tours, and chefs who were my friends and to a person, they say, you can not eat gluten free in a restaurant no matter what anybody tells you. I could give a lecture about that, but you can’t. She was eating corn as her primary, gluten free food, corn chips, corn muffins, corn everything. There’s a test, there’s a protein in corn that looks exactly like gluten. She had this crossover so that every time she ate corn, her immune system thought she was eating gluten.
Dr. Jay: 00:41:11 So when we started working with her, it actually took us about seven, eight months to get her leaky gut done. Now when we do her tests, everything’s green instead of bright red or yellow. So, and I keep telling particularly women, please visit a doctor who will keep you in mind, who will believe you and not give up until you find a reason. And getting back to the low histamine girl, the root cause of histamine reactions is a leaky gut because your immune system, and the root cause of allergies is a leaky gut. And your immune system just goes crazy, and it looks for anything that might otherwise not bother you.
Dr. Jay: 00:42:09 So let me ask you, what preparations are you using as anti-histamines to help you out? Any supplements?
Claudia Corichi: 00:42:23 Okay. Yes. I mean, I’ve been through a process, first I started with something just emergency or like helping to get through the like really, difficult time at the beginning, which was some anti-anxiety but just supplements. I did a liver detox protocol for a month.
Dr. Jay: 00:42:50 Tell me about that because I can … Yeah, tell me about that before I open my mouth.
Claudia Corichi: 00:42:56 Okay. So can I mention the brand, what I did like? It’s a Quicksilver Scientific.
Dr. Jay: 00:43:09 There are Quicksilver.
Claudia Corichi: 00:43:10 They have a Black Box, that’s what it’s called?
Dr. Jay: 00:43:12 Yeah.
Claudia Corichi: 00:43:14 I didn’t do it by myself, recommended by my doctor. So I did that for a month. Everything tasted terrible. Like, that was really bad experience. I had to do it in the morning and in the evening, and I did feel better after, it was a process and with the time I felt better. I don’t know if it was that or it was something else. But at the same time I was … I gave up dairy, I gave up animal protein, which is very small exceptions. I ate all the Greens, Dandelion Greens and all the stuff they supposed to help us. I kept it whole foods, vegetables, organic, local, like the best I could do.
Claudia Corichi: 00:44:11 So, that was something … I took everything out but I tried not to, because at that point, at the beginning I was feeling better when I didn’t eat to be honest. So I kept it for a while, just one meal a day. But I just felt like, “Okay, I also have to eat.” I was losing a lot of weight. I started with two meals a day and then eat all the colors, all of good veggies and yeah. And I started to reintroduce little things, but I didn’t do dairy at all. Like it’s out of my-
Dr. Jay: 00:44:53 How about eggs?
Claudia Corichi: 00:44:54 Every now and then I have one whole egg and maybe one York, but not every day. It just to add a little bit more extra. I know egg yolks have to be well cooked, egg whites have to be well cooked they’re quite high histamine. But it’s like I did a little bit of a beef liver, because apparently it’s a good-
Dr. Jay: 00:45:31 Well, so as you know elimination diets are popular and one of the latest crazes is the carnivore diet and this guy, I think a real push by Jordan Peterson, who claims that he now is intolerant to any food except beef. He cannot eat anything without getting a major reaction to it.
Claudia Corichi: 00:46:05 Okay.
Dr. Jay: 00:46:05 Nothing else. And in a way, I’ve listened to some of his interviews and he feels trapped, because every time he tries to add something and he can’t. So … but the carnivore diet is the elimination diet. All plants have lectins. They all have toxins. They don’t want to be eaten. But I think there’s, there’s better ways to do that than the carnivore diet. We’ve had carnivore diet expert on the podcast.
Claudia Corichi: 00:46:40 Yeah, I listen [crosstalk 00:46:42]. Yeah. And everyone got like a little bit confused like, “Hey, so what do we do now?”
Dr. Jay: 00:46:48 I like to give people the benefit of hearing them out.
Claudia Corichi: 00:46:52 Yeah. That’s important.
Dr. Jay: 00:46:53 What I think carnivore diet people don’t understand and there’s a new paper out sounding the alarm, and I write about this in all my books there a molecule in beef, lamb and pork, sugar molecule called Neu5Gc. We don’t have that. We have Neu5Ac lining our blood vessels lining our gut. And the new article confirms that if you eat Neu5Gc food, you will produce an anti-body against your own blood vessel lining, and against your own gut lining, that will eventually do you in with at least heart disease and probably cancer.
Dr. Jay: 00:47:40 So as a longterm idea, the carnivore diet, fortunately as a genetic mutation, we were not designed to interact with the Flammer report, [inaudible 00:47:54] it. So when somebody tells me I’m a carnivore and that was what I was designed to eat, well genetically, guess what? You were not designed to eat that stuff and we’re probably going to pay for it.
Dr. Jay: 00:48:07 Have you tried quercetin and rosemary?
Claudia Corichi: 00:48:13 No to rosemary, but quercetin yes, I have. I even took it this morning before I came. It is … Yeah.
Dr. Jay: 00:48:22 Yeah. So you not only have to take quercetin twice a day about 500 milligrams, but rosemary tannic acid is far more anti-histamine than even quercetin, quercetin either way it’s great.
Claudia Corichi: 00:48:35 Okay.
Dr. Jay: 00:48:36 So get yourself some high quality rosemary extract or look for the words rosemarinic acid. Incidentally perilla oil, one of my favorite oils is full of rosemarinic acid.
Claudia Corichi: 00:48:50 Very hard to find.
Dr. Jay: 00:48:51 Oh, it’s on Amazon.
Claudia Corichi: 00:48:53 Really.
Dr. Jay: 00:48:54 Yeah. And it’s easy to find.
Claudia Corichi: 00:48:56 Okay.
Dr. Jay: 00:48:58 So other than losing weight, how did going lectin free benefit you?
Claudia Corichi: 00:49:02 In many ways. Firstly, I didn’t have to take a [inaudible 00:49:10], or any other type of medication for the past two years for anything. So no pain, no aches, no heartburn, nothing. So I’m very grateful for that. Something I wanted to actually say. I know it’s a topic that a lot of, especially women, they don’t want to talk too much about it. But there menstrual health, it’s two weeks after I started a lectin free diet. I got the first period of my life without pain in 30, eight years of life of course. So I think this is amazing. No one ever told me that you can’t just change what you eat and you will not have that pain. That was absolutely … It was terrible every month. Terrible. So this for me sold me like two weeks after I started.
Dr. Jay: 00:50:20 Yeah, it’s interesting. I even have a gynecologist who sees a lot of women with endometriosis, and she’s been shocked that if she can convince them to do the plant paradox and go lectin free, that their endometriosis pain goes away. And she said, “I think you’re on to something.” And thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, I think that it’s all related. So everybody says this is hard to do. It give us some tips. How do you get started doing this?
Claudia Corichi: 00:50:54 I think first people need to find their motivation, because if you don’t have that, then you’re not able to stick to it. So find your why, write it down on a paper and put it somewhere where you can see it everyday, every morning. And once you have that figured out, just make up your mind that this is a commitment. You don’t have to think it’s a lifelong, but think three months I’m going to stick to it. And then write down what the benefits are, and then put them against how you felt before, and decide is it worth it or is it not worth it? I think it will be worth it for everyone.
Claudia Corichi: 00:51:39 And then of course you have to cook, if you going on a lectin free diet. So just, try to enjoy cooking. Experiment with the new ingredients.
Dr. Jay: 00:51:58 Good resources like Creative In My Kitchen for instance?
Claudia Corichi: 00:52:01 Sure. I have over 150 recipes on my website for anyone, like from Vegan to vegetarian-
Dr. Jay: 00:52:10 For beginners.
Claudia Corichi: 00:52:12 For beginners, for the tree they cleanse, and there are also a lot of other lectin free bloggers that shared their ideas, what they eat every day. Just follow them and you will get inspiration.
Dr. Jay: 00:52:33 Okay. All right. So, audience questions. Normally as you know folks, we have audience questions, but today Claudia is the audience, so let me have it.
Claudia Corichi: 00:52:48 So a question I wanted to ask you, especially now that I had to give up animal protein myself. If we are on a vegetarian diet, do we have enough protein, especially if we can’t have nuts or other … If we eat only produce, is that enough?
Dr. Jay: 00:53:13 Well, as I tell my patients, a horse and a gorilla only eat produce, and they don’t eat beans, they don’t eat grains, they don’t eat nuts as a source of protein. So they do very well. They have more muscle mass than we could ever imagine. In fact, all the largest animals on earth are vegetarians or vegans and they do extremely well. Do you have to eat a lot of vegetables? Yes. The answer is a gorilla eats 16 pounds of leaves every day, but they’re a whole, lot bigger than we are. So it’s perfectly capable of getting all your protein needs by eating plants.
Dr. Jay: 00:53:56 And if you’re really worried, then for instance, hemp protein is a great source of protein and, or hemp seeds or hemp hearts. That’s an easy way to do it. I’m a big fan of mushrooms as a protein source. I like the Quorn products that do have a little tiny bit of egg white in them. Now, most Quorn products are off the list. They’re all sorts of mischievous stuff, particularly the Vegan corn products. But for instance, Quorn grounds are a great replacement that most people do very well with. But no, you do not have to have animal protein for health.
Claudia Corichi: 00:54:41 Okay.
Dr. Jay: 00:54:45 Next question.
Claudia Corichi: 00:54:46 I wanted to ask your opinion about liver detox. Is that necessary? How does that work? How can I support my liver? Speaking of protein, I see a lot of medical information that we need protein to support the liver detoxification. Is that … What do you think?
Dr. Jay: 00:55:16 So the liver is designed, to detoxify multiple compounds daily. And there are phase one, and phase two detoxification enzymes. Some people do have a defect in one or more of these, but in general things like milk, this’ll a compound called D-limonene, which is in orange peel and quercetin actually really booze the phase one, and phase two liberty dosing enzyme. So, that’s number one.
Dr. Jay: 00:56:00 Number two, the fallacy of a liver detox is … And this was actually shown and I write about this, by Ray Wolford, who was a pathologist at UCLA, was a member of the Biosphere 2, the failed experiment in the Arizona desert years ago where the biospherians were locked in geodesic domes, simulating a mission to Mars. And they were supposed to grow all their food and generate all their oxygen by themselves. And it was a horrible failure.
Dr. Jay: 00:56:37 They had to pump oxygen in, and these people lost a third of their body weight in six months. And Ray Wolford was actually the father of calorie restriction. In fact, Valter Longo, Ray Wolford was his mentor. So Valter Longo is his student, and Ray Wolford studied heavy metals in the biospherians, and as they lost a third of their body weight, their heavy metals went up just huge. And it took a year for their heavy metals to go down.
Dr. Jay: 00:57:13 Why? Because all heavy metals like any other animal are stored in our fat and quite frankly, they’re harmless in our fat. That’s why a swordfish or a giant tuna, can go swimming across the sea, perfectly healthy with toxic levels of mercury in them, because it’s all in there fat. What most people don’t know about the liver detox is the liver has absolutely positively no ability to detoxify heavy metals, none.
Dr. Jay: 00:57:49 The liver instead takes the heavy metals and says, “Gee, I can’t do anything with these guys, so I’m going to get rid of them and put them in the bile, and it’ll flow out into the intestines, and we’ll be rid of it.” Only one problem. Our intestines rapidly absorb the heavy metals. So you may take mercury, or lead, or Cadnium out of your blood into your liver, but your liver will squirt it in your intestines, and then you’ll suck it right back up. And that’s why it took over a year, eating organic food in biosphere 2 to get heavy metals out of the blood.
Dr. Jay: 00:58:39 So what you have to do is you have to aid liver excretion of these, and there’s compounds to do it, but you also have to capture those heavy metals. And I use high dose Chlorella, and I use activated charcoal and knock on wood, I haven’t had anybody who’s mercury levels, lead levels, and Ketone levels. We can’t get down to normal by just having them add some phase two, and phase one liver enzyme and chlorella and activate charcoal. But the idea that your liver is somehow going to detox these things is one of the great myths, and it will not happen. And that was proven by Ray Wolford years ago. Okay.
Claudia Corichi: 00:59:31 Okay. And also a little bit related like the genetic testing. I just did mine, I didn’t get the results, but I just sent my samples but I had a little bit … Like it took me about two months to decide to do it. What do you think.
Dr. Jay: 00:59:53 Well, I think it’s useful to find out your APOE status. See where your carry the 4 allele, which is unfortunately called the Alzheimer’s gene in about 30% of us do. And there are things to do about that. I have recently, last week, so my 99 year old gentleman who carries the APOE 4, he runs his company and his daughters, three daughters do not want him to retire, and he’s 99 has the Alzheimer’s gene. And I can assure you he does not have Alzheimer’s. So having this gene doesn’t mean you’re going to get it, but there’s steps to do to prevent it from being mischievous.
Dr. Jay: 01:00:40 Since more than half of people carry one or more of the MTHFR mutations and the mother APOE 4 genes, I don’t think you need to be tested for that. Just take methyl folate, and methyl B 12 and you’ll be fine. On the internet everyone wants to blame everything that’s ever happened to them on these mutations that a mother APOE 4 genes. And I’m sorry, that’s not going work.
Claudia Corichi: 01:01:08 Actually, I discovered after my last blood test, I have a MTA mutation.
Dr. Jay: 01:01:12 Yeah, most people do and believe it or not, if you have a double mutation, it usually means you probably have some degree of ADHD. I have never met a successful person , a successful business person, successful Hunter Mart for neuro, who usually doesn’t have one or more copies of the MTHFR mutation. I think it’s actually good for you.
Claudia Corichi: 01:01:39 Okay.
Dr. Jay: 01:01:39 Okay. Alright, so that wraps it up. Claudia. Where can people find you if they don’t already know of you? You famous [inaudible 01:01:49].
Claudia Corichi: 01:01:50 Oh, well they can find me on Instagram at creativeinmykitchen. My website, creativeinmykitchen.com. I also have a Facebook group also search Creative In My Kitchen, the Plant Paradox. And then you’ll find it. And that’s pretty much all at the moment. Pinterest, all the social media.
Dr. Jay: 01:02:17 Okay. And your book will be out first quarter, we think?
Claudia Corichi: 01:02:19 Quarter 2020. Right.
Dr. Jay: 01:02:22 And it’ll be on Amazon.
Claudia Corichi: 01:02:23 It will be on Amazon and all the bookstore [crosstalk 01:02:26]. Yes.
Dr. Jay: 01:02:27 Great. And we always need more lectin limited, lectin free recipes. And thank you so much again for everything you’re doing.
Claudia Corichi: 01:02:37 Thank you for having me, and for everything you’ve done for all of us.
Dr. Jay: 01:02:42 Pleasure, and keep up the good work.
Claudia Corichi: 01:02:44 Thank you. Very helpful.
Dr. Jay: 01:02:44 We’re all in this together, so if you want to hear more, please leave comments on, or if you like the podcast, ask what you want to hear next because we’re always looking for something that you are going to like, and hope we entertained you today, and we’ll see you next week on the Dr. Gundry podcast. Thanks everybody.
Speaker 4: 01:03:09 Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google play, stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and if you want to watch each episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast, you can always find me on youtube at youtube.com/doctorgundry because, I’m doctor Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.
