Your cart is empty
Looks like you haven't made your choice yet
Are you stressed out? If you’re like most people these days, the answer is probably yes! But what do you know about stress, or how to beat it? Do you know about the different types of stress, stress and your gut health, or how to de-stress? In today’s episode, we are discussing useful tips to help destress, understanding different types of stress, fixing your gut, your body, and more!
–
We answer these questions:
– What are the different types of stress?
– How can chemical stress affect your gut?
– The best steps to take to avoid chemical stress?
– What does the D.R.E.S.S. protocol stand for?
– Can you influence your genetics with food?
– What is bio-stress and how can you avoid bio-stress?
– What is metabolic chaos?
– What can chronic stress do to you over time?
– And more!
Still want to learn more? Schedule with Dr. Barter today!
Supplements
Adrenal Energy Boost – https://drannmariebarter.com/product/adrenal-energy-boost/
Wired But Tired – https://drannmariebarter.com/product/wired-but-tired/
Stress Support Kit – https://drannmariebarter.com/product/stress-support-kit/
–
About Reed:
Reed Davis, Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner (HHP) and Certified Nutritional Therapist (CNT), is an expert in functional lab testing and holistic lifestyle medicine. He is the Founder of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® (FDN) and the FDN Certification Course with over 3000 graduates in 50 countries. Reed served as the Health Director at a Wellness Center in Southern California for over 10 years and with over 10,000 clients is known as one of the most experienced clinicians in the world. Reed serves on the Advisory Board of the American Natural Wellness Coaches Board and the American Association of Natural Wellness Coaches. He lives in the US and when not teaching the FDN Certification Course and helping his graduates build their private practices, he is usually found gardening or riding motorcycles.
–
Subscribe for more gut health content and share this podcast with a friend! Take a screenshot of this episode and tag Dr. Ann-Marie Barter:
http://instagram.com/drannmariebarter
–
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter is a Functional Medicine and Chiropractic Doctor at Alternative Family Medicine & Chiropractic. She is the clinic founder of Alternative Family Medicine & Chiropractic that has two offices: one in Longmont and one in Denver. They treat an array of health conditions overlooked or under-treated by conventional medicine, called the “grey zone”. https://altfammed.com/
Transcription:
Reed Davis [00:00:00] And your your body reacts to all stress the same way you know it agitates and it kicks in the fight flight, so your nervous system, you go into the fight flight there, you could be a little more on the sympathetic dominant side. And then, you know, cortisol and the whole thing, the breakdown of the hormone pathways affecting the gut and everything else in your body.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:00:26] Are you struggling with bloating, gas constipation and fatigue, but don’t know what’s causing these problems? The Gut Health Reset podcast with Dr. Ann-Marie Barter dives deep into the root causes behind these issues that start in the gut. This podcast will give you the knowledge you need to heal your gut and reset your health. Today, we have a very special episode on the Get Health Reset podcast, we are covering stress and gut health and the different types of stress, so not just mental emotional but also bio stress and as well as chemical stress. And this shows how your body can go into a state called metabolic chaos, and your hormones will go off the line and you will end up with things like leaky gut and you’ll end up with gut bugs. And our guest today gives us usable tips to be able to fix the body utilizing a very simple acronym called dress, which addresses your diet, your rest, exercise, stress reduction and supplementation. You don’t want to miss this episode because so many people are affected by stress, ultimately affecting how their gut functions. My name is Dr. Ann-Marie Barter, and I am so grateful to have all you guys here. So thank you so much for being here and supporting and listening. Please subscribe and say hello and let us know what you want to hear more of. And if you can give us a five star review so we can keep going and promoting and doing great episodes for you because we do this for you. So my special guest today is Reed Davis, who is a board certified holistic health practitioner and a certified nutritional therapist. He’s an expert in functional lab testing and holistic lifestyle medicine. He is the founder of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition and the FDA and Certification Course with over 3000 graduates in 50 countries. He also served as the health director at Wellness Center in Southern California for over 10 years, with over 10000 clinics, clients and known as one of the most experienced clinicians in the world. He also serves on the advisory board of the American Natural Wellness Coaches Board and the American Association of Natural Wellness Coaches. Hey, Reed, it is so great to have you back on the show, and I think we’re going to get a very different perspective today on some of the problems and gut health and maybe what contributes. And so, you know, there’s been a lot of basically a motto that says, got everything starts in the gut, but you have a little bit different perspective on that. So how does stress impact the gut?
Reed Davis [00:03:45] Yeah, thanks for asking. You know, that is a very common expression, I think it’s even in the Koran. I’ve heard it’s another great old text, you know, it’s all starts in the gut. And I’d say no. Most studies in my 22 years in the business, having run thousands of labs on thousands of people, not necessarily. It’s certainly circles back to the gut. It circles around to the gut at some point. But what I found is it was stress. I mean, it doesn’t matter what kind of stress it could be mental, emotional stress, physical stress, pain and injuries in these kind of things that that last well. It could be chemical stress and biochemical stressors. There’s all forms of stress, but it typically raises cortisol, your stress hormone. And what’s funny about cortisol is your body goes into fight flight and what that shut down digestion, and it can even go deeper than that and shut down, you know, because digestion, the stomach, the gut, it’s 80 percent of your immune system. So the immune system starts to go down when you’re under stress. And I think that’s what creates a weakness. You know, I subscribe mostly to that. It’s not the bugs so much that might be in your gut, but the host. It’s like, Well, why do those bugs have a place to thrive? Why are they thriving so well in your gut, causing all this gut dysfunction, which then downward sprouts to leaky gut? We can talk about any of those things you want. But no, I think stress is the number one contributor to ill health, and it does matter what the stress is and we get talk about those hormones or anything you want. But yeah, it begins with stress.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:05:25] So when we’re looking at stress, you know, there’s there’s you named a lot of different types of stress. I think that most people think of stress like, Oh my goodness, I’m so upset. My job is stressful, but they don’t think about the the basically the environmental chemicals that you spoke of. So let’s go ahead. And just for starters, how long do you need to be under stress to suppress your immune system? Is this one day? Is this one year like what’s kind of generalities that you’ve seen?
Reed Davis [00:05:57] Oh, I’ve seen everything from just constant stress had a schoolteacher, for instance, that I was showing her the stress of how your cortisol will go up. And then after some period of time, you know your body just can’t maintain it anymore. So it goes down. And that’s when you start having symptoms. And she said, Oh yeah, that stress period for me was twenty two years of school teaching those little brats, you know? And she lost her son, you know, just she never had another period after that. So stress can be a long term chronic thing that will lead to long term chronic problem, or it can cause sort of instant issues for a person just overnight. Basically, it depends and you probably know about people with fibromyalgia, but they usually have something in the past that was an accident or trauma or something. So I just I don’t want to beg off the question. I’d love to explore it with you, but it’s really hard to say it’s your quote. How long does it take? It depends on the person and the type of stress.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:07:08] Mm hmm. And so you mentioned with your patient that is a schoolteacher. You mentioned basically a pretty, pretty big trauma on top of chronic stress with her job. So, you know, you mentioned kind of two different types of stress that maybe put her into what we call the exhaustion stage of stress, right? So would you say you also mentioned a couple other types of stress? You mentioned chemical stress. So what will we see with with a chemical type of stress that would really affect the gut?
Reed Davis [00:07:47] Yeah, well, back in the 90s, I was saving the planet, I was an environmentalist and a conservationist, and it can be really bad this year, 80000 plus chemicals in the environment. That’s something like 250 barrels of chemicals per person, where chemicals in our food are chemicals in not just the air and water and things like that, but in our household care products, in our personal care products, in our furniture clothing. It’s so full of fire retardants, I consider it to be an adverse environmental hazard for four children. And so obviously, that’s a form of stress and you’re your body reacts to all stress the same way you know it agitates and it kicks in the fight flight. So your nervous system, you go into the fight flight there, you could be a little more on the sympathetic dominant side. And then, you know, cortisol and the whole thing, the breakdown of the hormone pathways affecting the gut and everything else in your body. Your body makes its own chemicals, and when they’re out of balance, they can be stressful.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:08:57] OK, so when you know, I think that sorry, I think that one of the biggest things that concerns folks is, Oh my gosh, there’s chemicals everywhere. I can’t live. I don’t know what the first step to take is. This feels very, very overwhelming for me. And so when we’re looking at, you know, chemicals in the environment, chemicals in our food. What do you think the first couple best steps to take are to maybe reduce the chemical exposure to maybe not kick off the stress response in our body?
Reed Davis [00:09:32] It’s really a good question, you know, so I always take the broadest view possible first and try to dial into where you’re going with. And so you have your body, you have your genes, your genetic potential. You can’t change who your parents were. We kind of have to play. The cards were dealt there. So you’re getting signaling all kinds of signals and it will change. You know, it can change you for the good. If you’re always there in the fresh air and sunshine and your life is happy and things, you know, you have your genetics, your genes have a chance to express themselves in a very positive way. But if it’s the opposite, every day’s rainy and cloudy and full of pollution and smoke and these things that are in the environment, not to mention the mental emotional stressors and then the things you do to your body physically. You know, personally, I’ve had quite a few injuries from sports and motorcycle riding and things like that. So you take some abuse and depending on your genetic potential, you are able to survive and thrive. And even, you know, depending on how well you watch things so much attention you pay. I like to say it takes a certain level of self-awareness. And so so that’s the first thing. I guess it’s your point of view. You know, you have to get up and say, I’m going to be in control of my own body and I’m not going to put control of my health into someone else’s hands. Now you’re a good doctor, Dr. Barter. And you know, people come to you for care, and that’s OK. You know, there’s some things specific, but otherwise, you know, it’s your own responsibility. And that’s where I start with. Everybody is like, you OK? Obviously, they have their history and their problems and all the things that they’d like to resolve. Well, whose job is this going to be, you know? And. And so start a point of view, maybe even just getting up every morning and saying a little thankfulness, you know, prayer or something like that, you know? And I know that’s probably not the answer you’re looking for, but I really think it begins with one’s attitude. Then with that attitude, you can start to dissect now. I have subversive epigenetic influences. Again, remember, it’s us, it’s our genes and genetic potential. Like me personally, I will never be an NBA star. I don’t have the genetic potential for that, right? But, but you know, there’s a lot of good in the world that can do. But so I’m meeting up with these influence. I moved out of the city, I live up in the hills east of San Diego, in the mountains, basically. It’s a little cleaner, you know, not as subject to all the noise and things like that. It’s perfectly quiet and beautiful. So I create my own personal environment. And you could break that down to just what is your sleep environment like? You know, are you getting a good night’s sleep is a dark and quiet and you know, the right temperature and all these different ways to sort of create sleep hygiene. So we need to look at our sleep so good with diet. Obviously, the next thing I have order a lot of food, fresh organic things. My wife and I will drive into town from time to time for stuff, but we pretty much both work out of the house here. And it’s a good environment to see good as it gets, I think. But so you’ve got your environment, diets, the next thing you know what an epigenetic influence that could be, you know, in is on a daily basis. You’re you’re made of food. Your whole body is just an accumulation of everything you’ve ever put into it. And so when you start again, having this self-awareness point of view that you’re in control, you can make some pretty good decisions about where you live, about the air you breathe and the noise and sort of other types of pollution that around you. And then then it’s down to daily habits, lifestyle, it’s down to you, and I have a five letter acronym that might be helpful. It’s called dress decreases stress for health success and the distance for diet. Obviously, we use metabolic typing. It’s it’s a genetically designed diet. Then rest and I mean sleep, plus other forms of rest resting your brain, your emotions and things like that. But rest and sleep are very, very important. So that’s the D.R. The key, obviously, would be exercise in physical therapy, you know, exercise and we’ve all suffered tumbles in our bodies lose sort of connection, but we overcome it by just recruiting other muscles. But it’s not a totally natural way of abusing our body. So we want to do some structural integration and things. But you know, that goes in the line of exercise taking too much. So diary diet restrictions and the two s’s are stress reduction and supplementation. The stress is ubiquitous. We’ve already talked about three different kinds. You know, the mental emotional, the physical trauma and pain, types of stress and then the chemical stress. So there’s lots of ways to sort that out. That includes that’s where my lab work comes in very, very handy. Dr. Barter, we do a lot of testing for hidden internal stressors. And then, of course, the supplementation, the remaining wine or anything like that have been told, Hey, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. Well, that’s OK. You know, I just like to know about supplements that I teach about them, and they’re very, very helpful. There’s basically the three or four s’s of supplementation substituting for most not near food because food is it’s not what it used to be. We clean as we can, organic, you know, less pesticides and herbicides. But as for nutrition, you probably are going to need to to supplement, you know, or substitute with these things you can buy for what’s not. And then, of course, super supplements can support ongoing weaknesses or deficiencies and things like that. You might want to support your adrenal glands, for instance, or your ovaries. Another stimulation. And that would be for if you’re going on a trip, you want to stimulate your immune system. You’re going to come up against some germs and things. People don’t want to take drugs anymore. Hardly. And there’s ways you could sort of self like if you had some mild, you know, parasite or fungus bacteria. You can generally use age old botanical products for that kind of herbal things that are very potent, very strong and less toxic than drugs. So I lean that way. So that’s the Diocese of Zell success.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:16:37] So many people struggle with bloating, bowel issues, brain fog, fatigue. You might not even have any gut issues, but did you know the cause of it could be food sensitivities or gut infections? What I have done is I have brought a talented functional nutritionist into my practice. We have very similar training in the nutritional world. And her name is Alexis Appleby. She is awesome. So you can head on over to our website. &Lt. Alti Fam Fam Med Med and have a consultation with her and schedule so that she can help you get to the root cause of your problems. Awesome. I think that really sums it up, I have a couple of questions like to from spinning this off because I was a really great way to to summarize, so you talk about epigenetics and genetics, and I think there is a common thought process. Well, these are just my genetics. I can’t influence my genetics. This is just the hand that I was dealt. But everybody in my family has high blood pressure. Therefore, I’m going to have high blood pressure, blah blah blah blah. What’s your comment to that? Because you very clearly said that you could influence your genetics by food, so I just wanted to get your take on on that piece.
Reed Davis [00:18:03] Perfect. What a great question. You know, just because your mom had it and your dad had it, they call it familial. So you have familial hypertension, high blood pressure, these kind of things. And it just means that you’re predisposed genetically. It doesn’t mean you have to have it. So you have to do the things that are going to keep those genes from switching on, keep them switched off. A perfect example is my cousin. He’s a priest up in care, is an Anglican priest, and you and something wrong because they shipped him way up north to where it’s almost Eskimo land. I see. What transgression did you commit against the church? You know that they sit you way there. You know, I’ve been to nowhere. So anyway, so he’s got these two Cree Indian villages that’s almost Eskimo. And I call them, this is 20 years ago, but I said, Hey, Chris, Chris Davis, I said, you, Chris. When the people in your villages, you know, need it, do they go to a medicine man or your medicine woman? You know, what do they do? He goes, Well, I’m their medicine man. You know, I’m the priest. I go, No, no, not spiritual. I go, just if they get sick. And he said, Oh my God. He goes, They’re all sick. They’re all sick because they quit trapping and hunting and fishing. And what they do is they eat crap that comes up on trucks. You know, there’s a lot of mining towns around there, so they eat convenience food and they’re all sick. It’s so wrong for their genetics that they’re there. They’re like 80 percent of them have diabetes. They’re obese, they’re suicidal, they’re depressed, especially the women. Things like that. Infant mortality might be better than it used to be, but still a bunch of depressed, suicidal, alcoholic obese diabetics. You know, I said, okay, I guess, you know, they’re all going to the government clinic and getting their insulin, and that’s exactly what’s going on. Why is it because it’s bred in the bone, what they should be eating and what they’re genetically, what their genetic requirements are for diet? So when you go against what’s bred in your bone, you’re going to pay the piper. And so these, you know, 80 percent of all doctor’s visits are for chronic degenerative diseases. They’re not for trauma, things like that. It’s for ongoing stuff. And they’re being told these poor patients that it’s your genetics, that, oh, it’s just your genes. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s, you know, and that’s a load of crap. Pardon my French, French, Canadian.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:20:33] So I agree. I think it’s a whole load of French Canadian crap. Mm hmm. Yeah, I do. And so, you know, I think the other stress you mentioned was bio stress. What it what is bio stress and how do we avoid some of that type of stress?
Reed Davis [00:20:54] Yeah, probably. I’m referring to the interior stress. The things like we do get parasites, bacteria, fungus viruses, and I just call all of these negative influences, whether it’s that or whether it’s the electromagnetic frequency or radiation or whatever it is, some of it’s just invisible. Some of it’s in our food and we can do something about some of it. But I call the effects metabolic chaos. That’s a phrase that I coined because, you know, I’m not into diagnosing and treating specific diseases. That’s what doctors do. And that’s great if you got it. But you know, when you sit as you diagnose and start treating one specific thing, let’s say hyperthyroidism, you’re leaving all the other healing opportunities off the table. I mean, what about all the other things going on with the person? And then, of course, we use to apply the general principles of health building that are found in the dress for health success. So rather than diagnosing and treating specifics where they come from, that bias, that’s just one of those stresses, one factor in the milieu that makes up metabolic chaos. You have hormonal issues, you have immune system issues, you have digestion issues, you have detoxification issues, you have energy production issues on a cellular level, nervous system imbalances between sympathetic. So. The lot going on. Why pick one thing to work on? Why not work on all of it simultaneously and with the holistic program like? You actually are addressing every single cell, all the tissue, all the organs, all the systems, the entire organism. You’re having a truly supportive, nurturing, holistic epigenetic program. You live this way. You get these results. Most likely. You know, we don’t guarantee a lot of things because we’re not really in control. Eat this and go back to where we started controls in your hands and not mine or anyone else’s, really?
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:23:08] Mm hmm. Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. One of the biggest things that I see in practice is, you know, people are almost addicted to their stress. They’re almost addicted to to maybe the chaos associated with, my gosh, I am so needed at my job. And I think that that gives people purpose. But it kind of goes to almost a perfectionistic tendency or, you know, something’s bad in my marriage or I don’t have anything to be grateful for or happy about, like why would I feel that way? And it’s interesting to see kind of that stuckness when somebody doesn’t feel good. I almost feel like those two systems perpetuate each other. I don’t feel good. I feel bloated, I feel gross. I can’t poop. And my marriage is on the rocks, and I just am needed too much at work. And how could I change my dad and how could I do these things? So what’s kind of your what’s your advice to folks in that type of a situation kind of kind of chasing your tail?
Reed Davis [00:24:15] Yeah, well, I hope it doesn’t get weird but weird here, but, you know, people do that exactly what you just said all over the place. It’s this is who I am. This is what I do. I remember years ago, I pulled into one of those drive thru a little coffee, things that were in parking lots and it was a two sided one and I pulled up and ordered a small coffee. The guy on the other side ordered. He ordered a large coffee with four sugars and four extra shots of coffee in it. Now he was self-medicating because he was one of those guys. You toma. This is who I am. This is what I do now. It’s forwarder. I got out of there first, so he was driving a BMW, you know, and this is a guy who’s doing really well. You know, he’s successful, but he’s completely stressed out that he, you know, in the afternoon, he’s drinking four shots of coffee. You know, that’s that’s a form of medication. And so people, I think they just don’t examine their lives. And someone said somewhere the only a tragedy, the tragedy of the unexamined life. And people do get addicted. You just get hooked on it. And that’s what this is, who I am and this is what I do. So there’s a time every day when you pause and reflect and you separate yourself from what you think you are and what you do. You write what you do. You’re not your body. You know, if I cut off your arms and legs, you’d still be there, right? You would still be there. Now if we removed a lot of the thoughts and memories and things that you’ve accumulated, would you still be there? Yeah, you’d still be there. So these accumulated thoughts and impressions and emotions, you know, emotions are just juicy thoughts. I’ve been told that isn’t you either. So you’re not just a collection of thoughts and impressions and emotions and memories, and you’re not your body either. No, I don’t say what you are, but I’ll say that you’re not that. In examining that fact is a really good thing to do. That would, I think, saved people a lot of a lot of bad feelings, a lot of mis emotions and anxiety.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:26:42] So. Let’s say somebody isn’t ready yet to take the step to to change the stress, to change their outlook on on stress, and the stress is going to perpetuate for years and years and years, you know, in the example of the teacher you gave twenty twenty five years. What is going to happen to our body, to our hormones and to our gut? What are we going to see with these types of chronic stress?
Reed Davis [00:27:15] You know, that’s another really interesting thing because the idea of accumulated contributors to metabolic chaos. So you have all these contribute and they accumulate. But we’re so metabolically or biologically individual, the manifestation, the symptoms that come out could be almost anything and giving it another example. So had this happen to me so many times, I can’t even tell you it, just just dozens and dozens of times, whether you want to take migraine headaches or kids with asthma or any of these sort of serious problems. I’ve run labs and then change that person’s environment and lifestyle. The signal, so to speak, give them a really good holistic dress for health sciences program and miracles occur miracles. People who were at a lady who five days a week was in a dark room with the pillow over her head with migraines. And within just a few weeks was just out and about and doing things and shopping and stuff. She still got the occasional what she called ordinary headache, which I still don’t think is normal. But what a miracle. You know, I had a kid with asthma. He couldn’t shop the football practice. I coach football for youth football for 15 years. He can’t come to practice. Is seven an asthma attack, but can he still play on Saturday? I said, no, he can’t play and say, you have to. So we did Ransome Labs and got the kids lifestyle change a lot of inches around diet, and he was back to pray every day and became this great athlete. So I go on and on and on with these stories that the input is this. It’s the environment and lifestyle factors. It’s all the pollution, all the crap in our foods, all the crap on TV, mental, emotional, physical trauma and chemical stress. But the manifestation where it shows up in a person depends on the person. The variable is the person and that you could just dial it down to just dial the same diet that feeds one person will poison another over time. And so we’re that individual. So I think I’m trying to answer the question in a broad sense that. There is a way to look upstream for what are those contributors to metabolic chaos and to remove them because the answer your question what happens to the hormones, worms, to the gut and so on. It just depends on the person. But so that’s why I don’t work based on symptoms or even, you know, sort of what you might think is the immediate cause. I could name a cluster of symptoms and you could see, well, that sounds like thyroid. And you know, you could test the thyroid for it. Yeah, it’s it’s under producing or there’s not enough thyroid hormone and you could stop there and say, Well, here’s your thyroid replacement hormone and everyone’s happy, right? Well, no, because all the contributors to the hypothyroidism are still there. So that’s where we go, and that’s the broad view we take. And I’m not sure how else. I know that’s not satisfactory to some people, but it depends on the person.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:30:28] It definitely depends on the person. Would you say that a lot of times the chronic stress of lifestyle of environmental chemicals of diet will lead to leaky gut?
Reed Davis [00:30:43] Absolutely. So there’s a downward spiral. And the beauty of our work is that as long as there’s time to investigate and collect some data and then apply some general principles of health building, it works like 100 percent of the time. When people come to us, we’ll run some laps and then give them things to do for three months as opposed to what’s done is standard medicine. As you go in, they might run a lab and then give you something to take for three months and come back. And so we’re much more concerned with what happens between visits than on the visits, you know? And so you just have to follow the program and you know, the stress is the key. We always want to look as far upstream as we can figure out what the stresses are removed them and the healing is always done by the body itself. Look, I’ve never cured anything. I’ve never healed anything, just gotten stuff out of the way. So the body could heal itself and then support that healing with nurturing again, the right diet. A good amount of sleep and rest. Good amount of exercise. Right? For a person again to keep pulling away the stressors and then supplementation is important. So I think I answer your question. Sometimes I get lost in the excitement of being able to do this stuff. You know, we run labs to figure that up.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:32:13] And you said something else that I think is really important to circle back to. You said, you know, somebody on chronic stress may miss a period. Their cycles, their hormones go down. So what have you seen with chronic stress and in theory, in relation to hormones?
Reed Davis [00:32:35] You know, it’s funny because that will actually lead right into the gut question that you asked me. Because again, with so with when you have stress, your hormones go where most most. Women know that men, men seem to know to, but but you know, you know that you get your cycle gets disturbed and it’s happening earlier and earlier. People are going into menopause at like 42 instead of 52 like it should be. You’ve seen perimenopause start very early, right? In your practice, I’m sure. So it’s stress stress. Raises your cortisol, and it tends to reduce your DHEA, you have these anabolic and catabolic hormones that are really important to keep in balance, your cortisol is catabolic and your DHEA is very anabolic. And by the way, when you think of catabolism. And anabolic activity, you’re really talking about metabolism, metabolism, which is all like forces happening at one time, can be divided in between those that build you up and those that break you down purposefully, you know, so you can replace old cells. So you have these metabolic and antibiotic activities, which in that balance can be measured to cortisol on one side and DHEA another. Well, DHEA, if it’s lower because of the amount of stress, cortisol is going up details where your sex hormones are made from. It’s the parents of your testosterone and your estrogen. So it’s very, very interesting. They have another branch that we’re progesterone comes in, but they get out of balance. We find women who are estrogen dominant all the time. And that leads to anything right up to cancer. I mean, it could be just that you feel crappy or you have tender breasts or you have, you know, missing periods or shorter periods or longer periods. And and then and then eventually just even worse, much worse things. So stress can do all that to you now. At the same time, it’s affecting your gut. Again, it’s shutting down the signatory. One of your main defense mechanisms, it shuts that down and then you get bugs, the normal bacteria that should, you know, because we eat germs and we should be able to just poop those right out, you know? Well, they start to be able to hang around and they cause more imbalance in the micro biome, you know, so you get this dysbiosis, well, then it just circles down to your other question, which is about leaky gut. And we’re going all that to. I mean, the science is amazing. I don’t think it’s how deep you go sometimes I think it’s how you go deep that matters. So we have to be able to apply all this to a person. I could rattle off a bunch of scientific stuff that would just put people to sleep. You know, you need to know that it’s simple. You have your genetics. You have the environment. You have your lifestyle. And if you are self-aware and pay attention, you can start to dial it in. So if there’s enough time, then we can help you. If you’re if you just got off the plane from West Africa and your temperature is 105 and you’re bleeding from your eyeballs. You’re not going to call your nutritionist, you know, holistic lifestyle coach. You’re going to go get an urgent and emergent care. That’s what you need to do. So that’s when there’s no time that the downward spiral is so contracted that the observations I would make can’t be capitalized on. There’s no time to let lifestyle medicine. Handle that, so you get your emergent care, then you get into the lifestyle medicine.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:36:19] I think that’s great, you know, I think they’re at the I love that you brought that point up because I think there’s a time and a place for everything, and it seems to me that people feel like they need to pick one. A lot of times I get that question a lot. You work with my M.D. when you work with my immunologist. Yeah, I mean, why? Why wouldn’t I do that? You know, we all have a different role and we can all play in the sandbox together. But for certain things, I’m not super qualified to work on X, but they are. Or I would send you to the emergency room for Y, you know, I think that that’s a really good point. I think that there’s a time and a place for everything. So I really like that. You brought that up. A good, good thing. And you know, I I get the the question a lot. A folks are like, OK, well, that was all really good information. But I have a family with five kids and I’m so overwhelmed and I want to take the first best step for my family and for the people that I love in my life, et cetera of like the dress for success. What would be the first step that you think is most important to take for people that are just starting this journey?
Reed Davis [00:37:37] You know, other than the self-awareness and appreciation, the point of view that it takes, sometimes you have to change your your paradigms a little bit, you know? I mean, is the cup half full or is it half empty? Stuff like that actually matters. And so if you start there with that, we can do something about this. We’re going to take back control of our own health. We’re not going to put it hands of others. We’re not going to believe all the stuff we see on TV. You know, so I would start with the the dress program, look at says and see which ones your weakest area. So if it’s your diet here, we just eat like crap. You know, we go to bed on time. Some people agree regiment. I mean, and they’re actually sleeping pretty well. Well, you don’t need to start there, but you do need to make sure you keep it in. You know that you are going to bed, you kids are going to bed. They got their homework done. You know, they’re going to get up early, go to school, go whole, you know, like the dad continues. But you get the point. So Daria says, is the beginning and the end. And you would pick your weakest area. We found people need to change their diet a lot.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:38:47] Awesome.
Reed Davis [00:38:48] And they need to work on stress reduction and the rest of fall in place usually.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:38:55] Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. So I read, where can people find you if they want to get more information about what you do and all of that jazz?
Reed Davis [00:39:07] Yeah, I would go to F.D.N thrive. So if the end is what I practice, I created, I’m the founder of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. Now we have a website for practitioners called Functional Diagnostic Nutrition.com, but our public facing program is if the and thrive dot com and it’s it’s just a place you can go and get information. No one will be sold. Anything you know, you’ll be taught. You can talk to a counselor, talk to someone and see where you might start your journey. You know, I always say we don’t sell solutions. We sell a pathway. It’s a pathway, and it’s sometimes it’s a little narrower than we’d like for a little while, but but that’s good for our son.
Dr. Ann-Marie Barter [00:39:57] Yeah, totally. We’ll put those links down below. OK, and thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and information on this topic. That is huge. And we just tried to titrate it down in a pretty quick amount of time. Huge, huge topics. Thanks for trying to make that easy for the listeners here today. And thank you everybody for listening. We really love and appreciate your support if you love what we’re doing. Please hit subscribe. Say hello. Let us know what you want to hear more of. We always look forward to hearing from you and take care. Thank you for listening to the Gut Health Reset podcast. Please make sure you subscribe, leave a rating and a review so more people can hear about the podcast and hey, take a screenshot of this episode and tag Dr. Ann-Marie on Instagram or Facebook at Dr. Anne Marie Barter. And for more resources, just visit Dr. Ann-Marie Barter.com.
Please follow and like us:
