Well, hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes ketose a.com, and
today we get special, repeat guests dr.
Kozlowski, aniline. Last time he was on, we talked
all about gut health, improving the microbiome.
He had written a book book called unfuck your gut.
So we Dove deep into proper gut health.
He just recently published another book, this one being
called, get the funk out and this one's all about, you know,
toxins hormonal health and just how to improve your body from a
detox standpoint. Basically and basically Ali,
like all the, the xenoestrogens, the hormonal disruptors that we
have in our system. So we dive deep into that to how
to improve that. What works, what doesn't work?
We kind of cut through a lot of the nonsense out there.
As far as many detox programs go we talk about what an actual
functional medicine, doctor should be capable of what their
training looks like, and we just kind of dispel some of the
rumors around that as well. So I thoroughly enjoyed the
conversation. He is a very bright guy.
He knows his stuff. He's been doing this for quite
some time. So I always learn something when
I chat with them. So without further Ado, sit
back, relax and do a podcast with dr.
Kozlowski We are live doctor Kozlowski.
How are you sir? I'm good.
It's great to be back. Thank you for having me back
again. Yeah man for sure.
For sure. Enjoy our last conversation
which was in 2021, I believe and you have since published a new
book and I'd love to kind of dive into that man.
So for anybody that didn't listen to the first episode, can
you give us a quick little run down on your back story and what
got you into nutrition space before we dive into your new
book. Yeah, absolutely.
So I'm a traditional family practice.
Doctor that switched over to the dark side and went into
functional medicine. And the whole point of
functional medicine is to look at the underlying causes of
disease. So, when someone comes to me
with, I be a guest, or, with lupus, or rheumatoid, arthritis,
or Dementia or Autism. I'm not thinking about what
pills to give them to feel better.
I'm thinking, let's figure out why this is happening.
Opening. And if we get rid of what's
Happening, then the symptoms will go away on their own.
And so when we talk the first time, my first book was all
about the connection to the gut and and Hippocrates said it
3,000 years ago that all disease begins in the gut.
Well, the first step in healing the gut is your diet and
nutrition. So in the first book, I
recovered nutrition and I covered the gut microbiome and
balances like sibo and candida. And some of those are some of
the things we talked about last. Time and then the key to good
health, which is the mental emotional and spiritual
component, right? And stress, and living in that
sympathetic nervous response and how it shuts down your gut and
how the gut will never heal. When you're chronically stressed
out, not working on it. So when I when I was done with
that whole you know putting that book out, I kind of realized
that I had left a couple subjects untouched and Cuz I
say, when somebody comes to me as a functional medicine, doctor
there's five main areas. We look at and they are food
gut, health mental, emotional spiritual health, which are the
first three that I covered in the first book and in this new
book which is called get the funk out and it's Funk spelled
with a see because we used to say my practice that we put the
funk and functional medicine. So this new book is get the funk
out and the two areas that it covers our And toxins and the
connection between the two. So, I've got a chapter on the
thyroid, the adrenal glands, insulin and blood sugar, and the
pancreas are all together. And then I've got one on
testosterone and my own story of low testosterone, and my
experience with that. And then for women estrogen
dominance and other hormonal, imbalances that women
experience. So, the first basically five
chapters are all about the The different hormones.
And then, the last half of the book is all about the different
toxins that were exposed to. So a lot of people are hearing
about detox and don't really know what it is or what you're
detoxing from. So, I hit on the, the biggest
toxins that we encounter, which in my experience, are heavy
metals like lead and Mercury mold.
If you've ever lived in or worked in water, damaged
building and then all the other stuff.
So the average Woman is exposed to a hundred different toxins
before even leaving the house and that comes from makeup and
deodorant and hair. Straighteners, and what's in
your smoothie, the almond milk, the vegetables, what's in the
air that you're breathing, you're if you have dogs that
toys, the Plastics that their toys are made out of if you have
kids, the Plastics that their bottles or toys are made out of
emfs from cellphones and Wi-Fi, routers and 5 G, and And that's
tough. And so we're under this constant
Onslaught all day of environmental toxins and when
we're not, detoxing properly, our hormones, get screwed up.
And so that's the connection, a lot of people don't realize and
that's what I tried to write about.
In the book is it's very easy to diagnose a hormone imbalance.
So if somebody comes to me, tired constipated dry skin
thinning hair, you know, I'm going to test their thyroid, I'm
going to look at their adrenal glands.
And I can diagnose them with a low thyroid or adrenal fatigue,
but my patients, aren't that easy that?
They're not like alright, cool, I have a low thyroid so that
it's good. My patients want to know why.
And so, a lot of the time, it's our toxic environment.
And so that's the connection between the two.
So that's what get the funk out is about.
I can make the argument that every one of us has one hormone
balance. At least, if not more, and You
know, in regards to toxins we're all being exposed, the question
is, is how much do you have in your body and how do you get rid
of what's in there? So those are the major points of
the book. And so I'm down to talk about
any one of those. I don't know if you have a
follow-up question or which direction you want to go in.
Yeah, yeah. Let's definitely down for any of
them was stepping down deep and all this.
I've seen several headlines as of late about like the rapidly
decreasing male testosterone like that.
Average male testosterone from what it is.
Now versus what it was 100 years ago.
It's like half of what it was on average.
Correct. Something crazy like that.
It's insane. Yeah.
Yeah, what is that? The primary driver there.
Do you think it's it? You think it's like a, just a
summation of the Obesity rates, getting higher, the toxins, the
the foods like, is there any one thing that is the primary driver
is just a combination of all the above?
It's my belief that it's all of the above.
I don't think it's just one thing in a regular medicine.
They're always trying to pick one thing, you know, they're
always trying to find the one cause and in my experience
whether I'm working with low testosterone or Autism, or
autoimmune disease, I rarely find just one thing going on and
you know, for me, I can use myself as an example.
So I got diagnosed with low T. When I was 32.
And and I was pissed, I was offended.
When the doctor even suggested that I might have low T, and
then we test it in my level was below, 200, which is a disaster
but it made everything make sense for me that I think I had
it for way longer than that. But you know, my own story is,
is I had a terrible diet growing up.
Like, I was an immigrant, my parents are from Poland and the
number one way for me fitting in was eating McDonald's and pizza.
'He and Burger King and in Chicago, Italian beefs.
And and so my diet was terrible, I started binge drinking when I
was in eighth grade. I never learned how to manage
stress. When I did my toxin testing, I
had a bunch of lead in my body. So I had all these different
factors. I don't know which one did it.
I think it was all of them, but and so I find different stuff in
different men and and You know, just there was a study, a couple
weeks ago. I don't know if you saw it, but
they were testing the rain in New Zealand and they found
microplastics in the rain in New Zealand, right?
And so then they found those same microplastics in the testes
of men. So yeah, when you're, you know,
your testes there where you're going to be making the majority
of your testosterone if they're full of plastic than.
Yeah, they're probably not going to be making as much
testosterone as they would be. If they weren't full of plastic,
100 years ago, right? And so, you can pick any of
those toxins when we talk about the toxins like lead or Mercury
or mold or glyphosate or Plastics, a crazy 12.
Sorry. Now, that I thought about it is,
if you start looking at some of the athletic clothing that
people are wearing, there's plastic and a lot of this
athletic wear and we can absorb toxins through our skin.
So, you know, people need to start reading the labels.
Is not just on their food, but on their clothing to.
And so the any of those toxins are fat soluble.
So they try to get into our body, through our skin, through
our gut, and through our lungs, those are your barriers to
keeping the environment outside, right?
And so those are your first detox, organs, your skin, your
gut and your lungs. But let's say you've been
smoking a long time, so your lungs are weaker or you have Had
a really poor diet and you've got a leaky gut, so those toxins
can get in easier. Well, all those toxins are fat
soluble so they will get absorbed two things that have
fat in them. Every cell in your body is
surrounded by a membrane that has fat in.
So, these toxins can literally get stuck in any cell in your
body. I haven't seen convincing
evidence, why? But they seem to be favoring our
reproductive glands. So your thyroid, your pancreas,
your ovaries of your woman, your Estes of you're a man, that's
where they seem to really like to hang out.
And and so detox is the process where the liver which most
people know as their main detox. Organ the liver, makes those
toxins water soluble. That's what detox is.
It takes those toxins and breaks them down, making them water
soluble so you can then poop pee and sweat them out and that's
what detoxing is. Well, if you're exposed Too, too
much. Like me.
Where I'm binge drinking. I smoked cigarettes for a while,
you know, I'm eating like crap. I'm not supporting my detox
because your detox your liver to detox properly.
Lee needs, lots of vitamins and minerals.
So if your diet you're eating at McDonald's, like I was and then
you're being exposed to all these toxins.
Your body can't keep up and they start getting stored and then
all sudden you're 32 and before, you know, it, your testosterone
is less than 2. Hundred and it's like what
happened then. And I don't know where things
went wrong, but they definitely did at some point and then
there's a lot of things I can look at during my timeline that
are probably risks of why I ended up with low T catch and
got you, it's like for somebody listening right now, what would
be their plan of action? Like, I guess just first of all,
you know, taking taking a analysis of them themselves
asking themselves, how I feel how they're performing and if
their energies, you know, waning over time just being conscious
Conscious and in tune with the body, I suppose the first thing.
But I'm assuming there are some recommended tests to see what
your level of these heavy metals or what the level of these
toxins in your system are, is that typically like a hair
analysis test, or a urinalysis test, or how is that typically
done? Yeah, different.
What I'm so in each chapter, I go through how to test your
thyroid, how to test your testosterone.
And I've got charts in there with what are normal ranges,
right? So I would typically like, you
know, if somebody, you know, a guy in his 30s, He's our 40s
came to me and they're like, listen, like you know, I'm
working out. I'm eating right, I sleep.
Okay. And you know I just carrying
some extra fat, right? I'm not turning muscle, I'm not
turning, I'm not carrying amount of muscle that I should be based
on my lifestyle, I'm going to test their testosterone and I'm
going to test their total testosterone to test their free
testosterone, and I'm going to do that via blood test so that
you can go to your regular hospital or local lab and it's
just a quick blood draw and we'll find Doubt your, your
testosterone levels. The crazy thing with
testosterone is that when you get the results, the lab has a
reference range of about 200 to 11:00 as normal.
Yeah. Well, that's a psychotic range,
right? Like, how could you have, a
level of 1,000? And that's normal.
And I have a level of 210 and that's normal like, that, that's
not right, right? So, they argue that an optimal
testosterone is when we're in our late 20s, and that's around.
800. So I'm looking for for a man, to
be close to 800 and then I will look at relative to their
symptoms and their levels of what the best options are to try
to get it up. So I'm going to focus first.
I'm trying to get you feeling better, right?
So whether that's using supplements medication or
hormone replacement to get your levels, back to normal, same
goes with the thyroid. It you know if I have a man or a
woman come in and they're like, listen, I'm tired.
I'm constipated. I have dry skin.
My doctors testing TSH and they're telling me my thyroid is
normal. I'm going to say screw that.
I'm going to test your tea for your teeth, three, your thyroid
antibodies. And we're going to look at the
ranges same thing. If you're at the bottom of the
range of T4 and T3, I'm going to diagnose you with a low thyroid
and we're going to get that going.
We're going to get your thyroid replaced, whether it's with
again hormone or with supplements.
And then if someone asked me about, like I want to dig into
why, right? Like why is this happening?
Opening the one test if I could pick just one test.
So, if anybody's listening to the first podcast, read my first
book, or checked out the second Booker is going to, you know,
the main things. I focus on our gut Health
Nutrition hormones toxins and I've got all these fancy Labs
that the regular doctors don't. If I could just pick one of my
tests to do for somebody, I didn't know anything about the
number one test that I would order for anybody as heavy metal
testing, and that is lead and Mercury or the two heavy metals
that I And the most frequently there is nothing in your history
that I need to hear. That tells me, I should test you
for heavy metals. LED is in the air.
It's in an airplane, exhaust. So you're exposed just by going
outside and breathing in the air.
They used to put lead in paint. They used to make pipes out of
lead. So you're drinking it, you're
breathing it, you're touching its in food.
Mercury is in fish. It's in Dental fillings.
It's in the exhaust from coal-burning plants.
So it settles in the crop. So it's in the Oil.
They are everywhere. And, and so, the craziest thing
about toxins is they've done studies on umbilical cord blood
right, which is where Mom transfers nutrients to the baby.
When the baby's growing in utero, they found over 100
different toxins in umbilical cord blood.
So that means before you're even born, you're being exposed.
So someone can be born with a bunch of lead and mercury and
not know it because Mom didn't know it.
So if I have a woman that comes to me for pregnancy planning,
the first thing I'm going to do is talk some testing.
If they're like, listen, I I want to have kids later this
year, you know, the six months or next year, first thing we're
going to do is detox because Mom can pass those toxins along to
the baby. So I would really recommend
heavy metal testing but hair analysis, in my opinion is a
terrible way of doing it. So a hair analysis is very
affected by what kind of products you're putting on your
hair. The gold standard for heavy.
Metal testing is what is called pre and post chelation testing.
This is a urine test. So like the way I describe detox
that detox is this process of making toxins water soluble so
you can pee poop and sweat them out.
That's why you're in. It is the best way to test for
toxins because that's where you're getting rid of them.
So eight pre and post chelation test is you wake up and you pee
in a cup and that's your pre test that measures your active
exposure. Is there something in your diet
or air or water or house that we need to identify and get rid of?
So, you're not being exposed anymore because the first step
in any kind of detox is to stop exposure.
But we what we really want to know, Is how much is built up in
your body? And for that, we use a
medication called dmsa. Dmsa is a chelating medicine, it
pulls things out of your body. So we give you a dose of dmsa
that's based on your weight. And after you take this
medication, you get this big orange jug and every time you
peed, you collect it for six hours.
And what's happening is, is the dmsa is pulling.
What is stored in your body out and then we're catching it in
this jug. And we compare the pre to the
post-test and the pre and post-test should look identical.
I very rarely see that. What I see is that frequently,
the post test the levels are way higher.
And so what that means is that the dmsa found a bunch of lead
and Mercury or arsenic or specia more thallium to pull out and
that's what it is stored in your body.
So if you got it, Bunch of that stored in your body.
That's what I'm going to recommend to detox you and that
is what I did for myself because my allowed levels were high but
not like I've seen in some of my patients, got you, okay.
So let's talk about details because that's something that
you hear a lot on the interwebs and a lot of times it's being
pushed by some snake oil salesman, the trying to sell
supplement. So I don't discredit detoxing at
all. But how is it done properly?
With testing. So we're on the same page, like
probably my most hated thing. And it is just the amount of
marketing that people are getting hit with, from
influencers selling detox products, right?
They'll they'll sell you one product that should detox you
from mold and parasites, and in and heavy metals and all this
stuff. And for me, I'm all about
testing and, and because I would detox somebody differently from
glyphosate than from mold than from lead and Mercury than from
other chemical. So, for me, it just gets down to
testing. So I would do pre and post
chelation for heavy metals. I would do a urine mycotoxin
test for mold. I would do your urn levels for
glyphosate. We can test other herbicides and
pesticides and Plastics through urine.
Testing. So I'm going to order that
testing and I'm going to see what what you have inside of you
and and frequently, I'm finding more than one toxin.
So then I'm going to give somebody a detox plan.
And, and in the book, I go through what my detox for heavy
metals, looks like for what it looks like for mold, what it
looks like for the other toxins, but I wouldn't jump into that if
you can't get the testing done. So if you know, for people
listening, you got to be real careful.
Like going into your traditional doctor and like going in and
being like, hey, test me for heavy metals, they're going to
tell you to get out of the office.
They're going to tell you, you're full of crap.
I was trained as a regular doctor and I went to functional
medicine and honestly, I was fine with nutrition.
I was fine with gut health, but I was a little nervous to get
into detox because I feel like they kind of poison my mind
during medical school and residency and kind of convinced
me that toxicity wasn't a real thing.
And and so if If you want to get tested for toxins you're going
to need to look out for somebody who is certified in functional
medicine. That's my advice.
So you can go to ifm dot organ, search for a practitioner who's
certified and then make sure that they're comfortable with
talks and testing, because not even all functional medicine,
doctors are comfortable with it. Your regular doctor definitely
is not going to be. And so, you know, a lot of times
will make my decision based on someone's history.
If you tell me that you've been getting water damage, In your
basement or attic or in your bathroom.
I'm going to test you for mold. I would test anybody for heavy
metals, if you've never been tested and so it does require I
think working with someone that's comfortable with it.
But I always like to talk about like, what are things that
people can do to detox on their own, right?
And if you don't have access to testing the best thing that you
can be doing is making sure that you're peeing pooping.
Sweating and sleeping, right? So drink half your body weight
in ounces in water. So if you're 180 pounds, drink
90 ounces of water, a day, when your PA if you're drinking that
much water, you're going to be peeing, most of the day and
you're going to be flushing toxins out.
If you're not pooping everyday, you're not ready to detox
because a major way that we could carry toxins and out is in
the stool. So like I just saw someone this
morning and she's only moving her bowels once a week, right?
So we're not I'm going to talk about detox until she's movement
or bowels every day, so we're going to unfuck her gut as I
said in my first book, before we go down the road of detox.
Oh, if you're not moving your bowels every day, that that's
going to be your overwhelming. First step in detox is.
You got to get your gut right, which always starts with your
nutrition sweating. We, you know, through exercise
is huge. One of my best tools for detox
is infrared sauna Infrared sauna has a two-fold Effect.
One is that it makes most people sweat but then the second one
is, is that those infrared waves can help kill off some of the
toxins. So, if I'm detoxing somebody
from mold or heavy metals, I'm going to want them exercising
and doing sauna every day but that's something that anybody
could do daily just to kind of help there detox and then sleep,
you know, and if you're not sleeping sleep is when we were
Store, right? And and so, from the time we
wake up from the time to go, we go to bed, we're under this
constant onslaught of all these different toxins and your body
should be regenerating and getting ready for the fight the
next day. It, if you're not sleeping or if
you're only sleeping, a few hours a night, you're also not
going to be able to detox. So before you go die typing in
and buying, you know, you're you know, someone's detox protocol,
focus on those things, right? Because it Those things are
going to get you healthy and in other ways, too, but just
drinking it up. Water pooping, everyday
sweating, sleeping. That's going to take you a long
way. Especially if you don't have
access to testing and you just want to do things every day that
are going to help your body detox.
What about all these popular juice cleanses and coffee?
Enemas? Is that it?
Is there any validity that is that just all smoke and mirrors?
Like for example, you know, juice cleanse, I mean that's not
going to detox you from from heavy, metals or toxins in my
opinion, like the LED and Mercury if they're in there,
drinking a bunch of cilantro juice.
I mean, you got to drink like, I don't know, I think gallons of
it for many years before that's going to help you.
Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong with fasting, right?
There's nothing wrong with doing, doing a juice cleanse, or
a water fast, just because that shuts down your gut.
Let's your gut, he little, if your gut is, Out there, you're
going to absorb less toxins, the coffee enema.
I mean I had a friend that was really into it.
I tried it, I definitely felt a little boost from it but I think
that's just because I got hit with a rush of caffeine.
They say that the caffeine can stimulate your liver to like
ramp up detox but the problem that it with that again is
that's going to help I think. But if again, if you've got a
bunch of lead and Mercury built up in your body, That speeding
up your livers ability to detox and I'm going to do that much.
I don't think so. For most people, I don't think
those things are harmful if unless they're done
inappropriately but I also don't think that they're the best
tools like I can, you know, I do everything objectively.
So Through a heavy metal test and I can tell you what, your
levels of lead and Mercury are. And then I'll give you a
treatment protocol for six or seven months.
And then we'll reach text, right?
So, I can show you, the levels are coming down and I heavy
metal detox. Is the only thing that I do.
That's 100% effective. It works because the medication
does its job and the supplements we use to do their job.
So it's pretty easy to do. Mold can be a little tougher,
but I always do Testing to make sure because people detox at
different rates. So I have no idea to how fast
it's going to work for you. But that's where we just rely on
a repeat testing to make sure. So I don't want to say that
those things definitely do not work, but I can tell you that.
Me, personally, I don't really use those tools.
I mean, not I believe very much in fasting for hormones and for
breaking down fat and for brain health, but for detox.
I don't think it is. I mean, I think it could help
but I There's better tools for depending on what talks and
you're exposed to. Yeah.
Totally, why do you think there's such a push back against
diving deeper into toxins amongst most western medicine
practitioners? I think it my answer always is
its pharmaceutical based and and I think there's something about
the preparation of the chelation meds where they're generic so I
don't I just don't think they're hitting any profits on the sand,
like mole detox or glyphosate detox or other, herbicides or
pesticides. I don't use any medications at
all right. I only use supplements.
The only one that I use a medication for is Heavy metals
but that's also like compounded medicine.
It's my general belief that everything that we're taught as
traditional doctors just is coming from the pharmaceutical
industry. The more I've gotten into this
in the more, you know, from the last few years and especially
I'm kind of convinced that medical school and residency are
almost kind of like a cult or a brainwashing from Big Pharma.
An example. I can give is the gut, right?
So we talked about the gut, we Talked about the microbiome.
We talked about sibo, we talked about all these conditions that
I treat that I see be completely life-changing.
Well, I went through residency in med school without even a
never talking about the microbiome, why?
Because if we talked about it, I wouldn't know what to do with
them. Like all were taught is to
diagnose things and then give a medication to fix that.
Well, there are no meds for the microbiome.
Although I think it's already like eight years ago,
apparently, visor and Merck. Massive companies have been
working on medications from the microbiome.
So as soon as you hear that there's medications for the gut
and the microbiome, all the doctors will be testing for it
but it because there's not traditional meds that are used
for detox. That's why I think were poisoned
to not think about it. That's my opinion.
I know my opinions can be different than other people
you've had on here or you know, and that's my experience.
But this, but it makes sense when I get that question all the
time. Like, why didn't my doctor talk
to me about estrogen dominance? Well, we use bioidentical
hormones, there's no money in Pharma for that.
Why didn't they talk to me about sibo?
Now, there's an antibiotic but it's still not very well.
Known, why didn't they talk to me about candid or dysbiosis?
The only way I can make sense of, with most of this stuff is
that they because the answer is not meds, and that's what we're
taught in my experience, is we're taught.
To prescribe meds. And so if we were to diagnose,
something that doesn't revolve meds, then as a regular doctor,
I would have no clue what to tell you like how to fix it.
Yeah. 100% man, that makes total sense to me.
So if someone's listening to this are trying to take
actionable steps, you know, they need to get their nutrition down
them, in the exercising, on a regular basis, sweating sleeping
on recovery, when it comes to all of the toxins, all of the
xenoestrogens, the phytoestrogens in the clothes,
you wear. Are the products we put on our
skin like the cleaning supplies like how does one tackle that
Monumental Beast of Burden right there like how did you go about
that you just like totally go through your house with a trash
can and throw everything away and start fresh.
I ew g dot org that's the environmental working group so
that's a non-profit. They've been around for a long
time. You can go on there and and and
test or not test but you can look up any product.
So A man or woman, could you could go down and look at every
one of your personal care products from your deodorant,
your mascara, to whatever, and it'll your toothpaste.
And I'll give you a toxicity rating, and it's free.
A lot of people have heard of The Dirty Dozen and the clean
fifteen when it comes to foods and The Dirty Dozen are like the
12, most the 12 fruits and vegetables that are the highest
and herbicides and pesticides. Most people don't know.
That ewg are the ones the environmental working group or
the ones. Putting that out but they're
also you can look at sunscreens and everything on there.
I think it's the best resource. So the last chapter in my book
talks about, you know how to replace cooking supplies and
what to drink out of and what to eat from and and all this stuff.
But at the end of the day, I mean, you know, for me, I moved
from downtown Chicago, to Montana, to kind of just get
away from everything. That's not an option for a lot
of people. So I think you have to Your
best. And at the end of the day, I
still believe that that what what's more important than any
of this is your mental emotional, spiritual health.
So the one thing I don't want to hear and I hate seeing it.
Is that people that dive so deep down these rabbit holes of
toxicity, that then they're scared to eat drink or touch
anything, right? That's also not going to help
you. And so it's a balance where
like, you know, for example, if you're eating the, you know, if
you're deciding what to buy organic, Organic.
And what to buy? Not, then use the dirty dozen as
your guide and so if a food is on the dirty dozen, try to buy
it organic, if it's not, then you could probably get away with
saving some money and buying it, non-organic and then, yeah, you
know, you can start picking things, whether it's your
laundry detergent, or your personal care products.
And the good thing is, is it's way easier to find now, like
organic and cleaner products because people are aware around
it. So, I mean, I think my book is a
good resource and Ori. Ug dot-org.
But just you know I mean I've been to many environmental
medicine conferences which are all about the environment and
you kind of walk out of there like terrified to go anywhere or
touched anything or eat or drink anything and again that's not
healthy. So that that's where I say like
you know if you can just do the basics of eating pooping eating
well pooping everyday, drinking water sleeping, then that's
going to take you a pretty far away and then if you couldn't
Manage stress. That's also because the the
sympathetic nervous system just like we talked about it, shuts
down your gut, it's also going to shut down your ability to
detox which is the last thing that you want.
So it to me, it's finding a balance.
So if somebody asked me like what's more important like
meditating and exercising and spending time in silence and in
the present moment or making sure that your or your
vegetables are organic and your water Has been reversed osmosis
filtered in. You have nothing, but organic
care products and close. I would choose the mental stuff.
First, I think that that's way more important.
The detox is doable. You know, it takes time, it's
not an overnight process, it's a struggle, but you can get there
as long as you don't stress yourself out too much.
What have you found to be like the most effective way of
relaxing and kind of allowing Self to spend more time in that
parasympathetic state. For me, I would say it's
meditation. It's my connection with God.
So, you know, whatever spiritual connection and in some people,
you know, they think of religion and spirituality at the same
thing in a lot of people are turned off by religion, which I
get. But spirituality to me is just
the connection with the present moment.
And so the, there's this Chinese philosopher that described
anxiety is worrying about the future.
Depression is worrying about the past.
So, what's the treatment? The present moment, it's very
difficult to do. But, you know, the greatest tool
with the most evidence is meditation in amazing tool that
people can try is called HRV, heart rate variability, which is
basically, you can buy a little monitor that connects to your
phone or computer and it connects to your ear or finger
and it measures the variations in your heart.
And if you're not having good variations, they'll teach you
breathing exercises to kind of learn, Learn how to see yourself
go into that parasympathetic response.
I think everybody should be working with the therapist and
to dig into you know usually childhood trauma and things like
that it looks differently. The hard part is is it looks
differently for all of us but I would say like my top tools
would be meditation prayer. A gratitude list.
So find either your spouse partner friend group of friends
and Share three to five things you're grateful for every day.
It could be as simple as, like, having a hot shower, having a
roof over your head, having a meal to eat for breakfast and,
you know, that can kind of reset things.
I love the app calm for meditation.
So of knowing somebody's never tried meditation.
Calm is an app. You can try for a week or for a
week for free and there's thousands of guided meditations
on there. So, I would say my favorite book
besides my own books would be The Four Agreements by Don
Miguel Ruiz. I think it's one of the best
books written. It's all about spirituality and
and letting go of control if people that are listening or
like, me and you constantly want to be in control and getting
things done that. That's not healthy for your
mental health. So just I have reminders on my
phone that remind me to let go of control, it's a daily
process. That's what I've learned.
I'm very much a A checklist person.
So I made a goal 12 years ago of getting my mental health, right?
I did everything I needed to, and then I cross that off and I
can stop doing the things that were working for median.
In my mental health fell apart again.
So for me, I have to make a decision at every day to wake up
and focus on it and do those kind of things that I mentioned.
I would imagine the shift from downtown Chicago, to Montana's,
quite the, the changes. Well yeah, yeah, nature and
peace and quiet are Huge for my own mental health.
For sure. Do you do Journal at all?
I don't personally. I mean a lot of people have
recommended my therapist have recommended me to do it.
I've definitely tried it. It hasn't stuck for me but
that's again where like, you know, it's finding what works
for you. So I know lots of patients and
friends were journaling, is their number one tool and also,
like, what works for you today? Might not be the same, right?
So maybe And didn't work before but you try it again and it
helps. So I do think journaling is an
amazing tool. Yeah I'm kind of saying when
they have started so many journals to just not continue
them. But I'm going to try and
actually commit to that because I feel like whenever I'm reading
a journal entry that I've written years, prior just that
we've been able to have that perspective.
Now, from what I was going through then like that, that's
been beneficial. So I need to kind of figure out
how to make a habit of it, but it's powerful right for sure.
But it just simply Getting into a habitual, you know, routine
with it all, as is true with everything, exactly.
It's that's like with meditation, right?
Like I mean, people are like, oh, I tried it once and my mind
was all over the place. So same thing.
If I go to the gym just one time and I mean, I could barely lift
one barbell or something. Where if I go every day that's
going to change, right? So it's the same thing with
mental health, it's a practice, it that's it really is a daily
routine. Just just like you know with
exercise if you stop exercising You're sizing your physical
well-being is going to fall apart.
If you stop doing stuff for your mental health, every day, the
same thing, it's going to eventually catch up with you.
I and I know that from my own experience.
Yeah, totally. Now when it comes to diet
nutrition and gut health gut microbiome Health, like when you
drastically change your diet, you're going to also change the
microbiome in your digestive tract.
Like a lot of people are doing Carnival right now with 0,
vegetation whatsoever. Once yeah, they've done that for
usually, I guess about two weeks for the microbiome to more or
less equalize. Have you have you seen and
they're not running a long-term studies on that.
But have you seen any adverse response to that and people
you've worked with I know, honestly, when I first heard
about the carnivore diet, I thought it was a patient that
told me about it and I didn't, I didn't think it was real.
I didn't think that that people were doing and then I've heard a
lot of people doing it and loving it.
And when it comes to diet, you know, I can see five patients in
a day and the first patient might be a raw vegan, right?
And the second patient might be a carnivore, which you can't
really pick two more extreme diets and Yet both people are
telling me it's the best they've ever felt, right?
Yeah. And so at the end of the day I
always believed in like what is working for you.
Right? If you tell me, raw vegan is
working for you, or if you tell me carnivores working for you, I
kind of don't really care what it's doing to your microbiome.
I mean, at the end of the day, what matters the most is that
you're feeling the best, right? And, and so, I have a number of
patients that are carnivores. I haven't seen out stielike
memorable differences and their microbiomes for a good or bad
way. You know, the microbiome can
change pretty frequently. So for me I always just look at
you know, I want to hear how someone's feeling, right?
Like if you tried it and you feel like shit that I'm going to
tell you, okay? Well, that's obviously not the
right diet for you, you know? So I I would love and maybe, you
know, unfortunately, I don't have the resources to do studies
but I would love to take 100 people do a stool analysis on
them, have them, you know, stick to a carnivore diet, maybe half
of them stick to carnivore. Half of them stick to a vegan
diet and then repeat a stool test after 3 months or 6 months.
I mean as a science nerd that would be like you know that
would be amazing for me. But you know, unfortunately that
gut testing is expensive. People don't want to pay for it.
It I do. I'm not funded by some big
Research Institute one day though.
I I'll get there and I would love to do those studies and be
able to show you the science behind what happens when when
someone sticks to that diet long-term like you said, I mean
it's a pretty new diet, right? And so in general, I personally
think we need 40 Years of research on new things and
medicine to really understand how they affect people
long-term. And so You know, you could start
getting ideas sooner than that. But if you really want to True
answer, I think there needs to be quite a bit of time to really
get research on it. So for right now, I can't answer
you whether or not, you know, in theory, you would think that the
microbiome would get worse, right?
If you're not eating pre and probiotics, then you're my cure
bacterial, don't have anything to eat off of.
They're not eating off the meat, so you would think they would
start dying off and that could be a problem down the road, but,
and and the hard part is is so, you know, you could develop Bab
dysbiosis, which is an imbalance microbiome, you know, a month
after going after changing your diet.
And that dysbiosis might not turn into disease for 5 years,
10 years, or 30 years because unfortunately, something like
dysbiosis doesn't cause symptoms.
So if your gut microbiome starts changing negatively, it's not
like you're guaranteed that, you're going to start getting
bloating or gas like it. You might not know it until it's
too late. And that's Where again the value
of testing is is I would recommend anybody that can
access a functional medicine, doctors to start doing this
testing when you're feeling good, right?
When you're feeling, alright? Because 99% of my practice,
people are coming to me. And they're like, you know, I've
been diagnosed with Hashimoto's or rheumatoid arthritis and
like, you know, fix me, whereas I would love to see people and
there and they'll be like, well, for two years I was vegan.
And then for two years, I did. And then two years I was
intermittent fasting and I don't know where things went wrong and
I don't either because I don't have any Baseline tests to see,
you know, where this stuff went wrong.
So, I know sometimes it could be hard to access that testing, but
if someone can, that that's the way to go in my opinion, what's
the best way for people to find a qualified local functional
medicine practitioner? I FM dot-org The Institute of
functional medicine. Dot-org ifm dot-org is the
basically like the certification program, the training program
for functional medicine and right at the top of the website
is a tab that says search for a practitioner and you could type
in your zip code and you can search within 10 miles or you
could search within 250 miles and on that search though.
There's a Check mark that you can check off.
That says only search for certified.
Functional medicine practitioners and I would highly
advise only searching for somebody that's certified
because someone could get listed on there.
If they've been to one course, but no offense, if you've only
been to one course you probably have no clue what you're doing
with functional medicine yet. So you want to search for people
that have gone through the fruitful certification taken the
exams and then I would reach out and and Make sure that they're
comfortable with the gut or comfortable with detox because
you might email or call one person and they don't do detox
at all or they don't do gut health at all.
So it I would use ifm dot-org and then reach out to the
practitioners that pop up and find out who's a good fit for?
What? You're trying to work on catch
because there seems to be like a lot of functional medicine
practitioners popping up, but I don't know.
Like a lot of them, I think they've got, you know,
functional Medicine or F and T P in their Instagram bio but it's
like I have no idea what what course content.
They went through. What their schooling and
education systems looking like like it, like, is there like a
pretty low barrier to entry for some of these quote-unquote F +
TP certifications? Or is it pretty extensive.
It's a disaster. What go, what's going on out
there? Like my practice right now. 100%
of my patients, that come to see me have already seen someone
that told them that they were on a functional medicine
practitioner Tichenor and then I go through what they've done or
been through and it's like, you didn't do functional medicine at
all. So basically, anybody that
thinks that they're practicing like any type of alternative
medicine are advertising, that they are a functional medicine
doctor because functional medicine is very trendy right
now, and people, it has a good reputation for the most part,
besides a lot of the crap that I see going on, but it's a way
that people are able to The charge more and get more
patients through the door. I'm seeing them up charging
tests and people getting ripped off, and it drives me nuts.
I'm very passionate about it, because I got very lucky.
Like, I trained at dr. Mark, Hyman's Clinic, dr.
Chopra is Clinic, dr. Susan blum's Clinic long time
ago. So I got to see how it's really
done and then I've gotten to see over the years, all these people
popping up that just have no clue what they're doing and so
it sucks. I I have heard feedback since
putting out my first book and now the second one there are
great resources. So you almost be able to weed
out, who knows what they're talking about, who doesn't just
by you're getting through my books.
And because I talk about what testing should be ordered how to
interpret that testing. So some people that are you
know, not doctors can know more about functional medicine just
for my two books than some of these practitioners out there
who are saying that they understand For now, for a
baseline, like I said, I would use ifm dot-org and only search
for people that are certified because then they've gone
through the exams and, and, and they've proven that they have
some knowledge around real functional medicine.
But basically most alternative medicine, whether its medical
doctors acupuncture is chiropractors nurses?
Whatever are saying that they're functional medicine and and
they're not. So for someone lien doesn't
going through the like the legit.
Course and they're doing everything by the book and
they're going through all the testing, like, how long does
that process didn't like take? I they used to take seven years.
It's faster now because most stuff is offered online which
also kind of scares me that like right now a lot of it is just
being taught online because of what happened the last couple of
years. So Yeah, it's it took me three
years to get through everything. And then it took me a number of
years of being out in practice to really start understanding it
and I don't know exactly how long it took.
I've been doing this for 10 years, I started on my own I
started studying a functional medicine in 2011 so it's been a
while for me. But I mean the way I practice
today is so different than when I first, you know, open my
doors. I've learned so much from my
Benson in from just being in this world but yeah, so people
are getting it done within a matter of I think within two
years now but I think that that it just takes it's just like
regular doctors. I mean most when you're a
regular doctor, you go through medical school and then you go
through three years of residency and then you typically join a
doctor who has been practicing for a while to help.
Teach you. Your kind of always learning and
so It's hard to say. I mean, we're all different, but
I mean, it's not easy. And especially if you go into
it, like, I did, as a traditional doctor, it can be
tough to transition over. So someone like goes into their
bedroom, locks the door and sits firmly computer for two months
then comes out wave and a certificate.
The probably a legit. Yeah.
And then they start ordering tests and then they have no clue
what to do it got you. But that's my mission in life
and I might be Things sooner than later, where you know
developing a basically like a functional medicine, almost like
a Residency program, where people can come in and learn how
to practice like how to order this testing, how to interpret
it, how to treat these different conditions.
And that's all even after you've passed all the exams.
Because passing the exams is one thing.
But then once you have a patient sitting in front of you and
trying to figure out how to apply it because everybody's
different, right? So, The hard part is is that
nobody know patient works out exactly like the books tells you
they're going to. Yeah, it'd be easy if it was
that way but it's not in a residency like that would
probably not be a cultish. Pharmaceutical based entity.
Imagine that would be good, not at all.
Yeah, well awesome. At what people go to find out
more about you and get the books.
Yeah. Doc Dash.
Cos.com d.o.c. Dashcam.
AO z.com, that's my website. There's a links to both of my
books. I have an Instagram doc
underscore cause that's my Instagram.
I'm not overly active on there, but I definitely share anything
that I'm doing and then just, you know, I try to do my best on
there, while still be practicing medicine, and My books are on
Amazon Barnes & Noble. If you want to support your
local bookstore, they can get it for you.
They probably don't have it in stock, but they can order it
within two days and it's unfunctional your gut, spelled
with a c. So UNF UNC on Funk your gut,
that's my gut health book and this new one is called get the
funk out and that's Funk with a see as well.
And so those are all over the place online or on my website.
I love it. Love it.
You have a plan. As for a third book in the
pipeline review, not sort of diving into that yet.
Now, ya know, take a little breather after the number.
Yeah, I think so. Yeah but I said that last time
too and we'll just hit me one day that I started writing.
So right now no nothing is in the works at all and nothing's
in the plan right now. The next thing is figuring out
you know how to just help train more practitioners how to do
this the right way. Well that is quite a task ahead
of you there so I get to no doubt that you were Up for the
challenge, though. Definitely awesome.
I certainly appreciate the time dr.
Kozlowski, I enjoy. The conversation is always learn
something. Every time I talk with him and
you're always, welcome on the podcast, man.
So let me know that everything I can do for you, ma'am.
I love it. I did.
Thank you for giving me a platform to share this and and
and talking about it that extremely grateful.
You bet you bet we'll keep in touch and we'll talk soon.
Likewise, thank you very much.