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Predictive Health Clinic
The modern Healthcare Industry is an utter failure.
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If modern healthcare was about health, then Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Insurance and Big Government would embrace and promote healthy behaviors and healthy products.
Instead, they lie to us. And it’s not only the public victimized by this scam.
Healthcare practitioners who just want to help people heal are caught in the trap as well.
It is way past time to stop the madness.
This podcast gives voice to the courageous men and women fighting to restore health to healthcare. Each short episode focuses on a single healthcare problem and provides at least one specific step you, the audience, can take to get well and stay well.
Predictive Health Clinic
Dr. William Davis | SIBO and Gut Health: The Power of Homemade Yogurt
"If the solution is something that looks and smells like yogurt that you make in your kitchen, what's the problem, right?”
Dr. William Davis discusses the widespread issue of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and its impact on overall health. He introduces a simple, yet effective solution: homemade probiotic yogurt.
Dr. Davis explains how modern lifestyles have disrupted our gut microbiome, leading to various health issues. He emphasizes the importance of restoring beneficial bacteria through fermented foods and specific probiotic strains.
Learn how to make SIBO yogurt at home and potentially improve conditions like depression, anxiety, and even hormone levels. Dr. Davis also discusses the importance of avoiding grains and sugar while embracing healthy fats and real foods.
(Kismet: Interestingly, the bacteria in this yogurt may also increase empathy and social connectedness, potentially addressing rising narcissistic behavior in society.)
Guest: Dr. William Davis, author of "Super Gut”
Host: Jack Heald (https://wizardofads.org/partner/jack-heald)
For more information:
Dr. Davis' blog: https://www.wheatbellyblog.com/
Super Gut book: https://www.amazon.com/Super-Gut-Reprogram-Restore-Health/dp/0306846950
Sponsor Website: Wizard of Ads
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Well, I'm thrilled to welcome Dr William Davis to the Predictive Health Clinic today. I talked to Dr Davis a couple of years ago on Philip Ovedia's podcast and I took some information away from that that I have used ever since. I make my own yogurt now. Well, my wife and I make our own yogurt. So, Dr Davis, welcome. What specific health issue do you want to address today on the Predictive Health Clinic?
Speaker 2:only an exceptional person had this, but having rethought this and now tested hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, it's now become clear. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No problem.
Speaker 2:It's now become clear. It is everywhere. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is the biggest epidemic. I would go so far as to say it is the biggest epidemic, the biggest health crisis our species has ever faced.
Speaker 1:Small intestine bacterial overgrowth SIBO. I've heard the word before, but I'm not sure I actually knew what it was. Well, ordinarily at this point I'd ask what got you interested in this particular issue? But I think you just stated why you're interested, and ordinarily I wouldn't ask this question. But I think we need some help. This is not something that's commonly talked about. So what are the signs and symptoms?
Speaker 2:So I look for this because I was looking for any advantage we can to further people's health and youthfulness, and it's become clear that dysbiosis, that is, disruptions of the microbial populations in your colon, that is, the terminal four to five feet of the gastrointestinal tract, that disruption of those species is everywhere Because we've been wildly overexposed to antibiotics, to other things that disrupt microbes, like glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, used by millions of tons throughout the world. Now Preservatives that have antimicrobial properties in food, but also in you, the bowel prep that is often used before your cold. Whoa, whoa, whoa whoa whoa.
Speaker 1:Preservatives have antimicrobial? Of course they do. I hadn't even thought about the fact that when you're consuming food that has preservatives in it, you're basically shoving antibiotics down your gut. I hadn't even thought about that.
Speaker 2:For instance, the potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate or BHT, a long, long list of effect. They inhibit mostly molds, but they also have broader antimicrobial properties in the human GI tract. And then people are taking stomach acid blocking drugs, which takes away the protection that stomach acid provided against oral microbes and the ascent of fecal microbes. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, chlorinated drinking water, emulsifying agents in ice cream and salad dress Jack, on and on. We are battered by an onslaught of factors that have killed off, literally killed off or at least suppressed, hundreds of microbes, healthy microbes in the colon. Well, that allowed fecal microbes, very tough fecal microbes. These are microbes that many people would recognize, like E coli and salmonella and campylobacter. They recognize them because they're also common causes of food poisoning. So if you ingest, say, food prepared by some kid at a fast food restaurant who didn't wash his hands properly after going number two and contaminated your food, those fecal microbes are not well tolerated in the small intestine when you ingest it. Likewise, when fecal microbes ascend into the small intestine, it's not well tolerated you, but you'll experience it, because those microbes don't let live very. They live for a few hours. That's it. So. Trillions of microbes living and dying rapidly in the 24 feet of small intestine release some of their toxic components, a principle among which is something called lipopolysaccharide, endotoxin, or we say endotoxin.
Speaker 2:Endotoxin enters the bloodstream. How does someone experience it? Toxin Endotoxin enters the bloodstream. How does someone experience it? As depression, as anxiety, as suicidal thoughts, as dementia, cognitive impairment, or as muscle pains like fibromyalgia, or joint pains like rheumatoid arthritis, or metabolic disease like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver and heart disease, coronaryary disease or atrial fibrillation. So virtually all human disease outside of infection, conventional infection like pneumococcal pneumonia, uh, outside of injury. But all those conditions we're all familiar with gout, calcium oxalate, kidney stones, heart attack all these things have a major role played by the gastrointestinal microbiome. So the doctor who's who ignorantly prescribes, for instance, lipitor to reduce cholesterol, reduce cardiovascular risk, or ibuprofen or naproxen for your arthritis pain, or an SSRI for your depression? They ignorantly ignore the dramatic contribution of the microbiome via endotoxemia. So hundreds of health conditions, jack, have to be re-examined in light of this process.
Speaker 1:Well, that's interesting, because the question that comes next is what's the biggest popular misconception about this issue? And it sounds like the answer is an awful lot of diverse diseases and health dysfunctions that we attribute to unique causes share at least a common factor in this endotoxemia. Is that fair to summarize it? Endotoxemia Is that fair to summarize it?
Speaker 2:Absolutely right. The turning point for me, jack, was the invention of this device called the AIR device A-I-R-E. This is the original from a few years ago. This is the more recent one. It's now black A-I-R-E, invented by an Irish PhD engineer who wanted to assess gas production in the breath. Because we've known even before the invention of the air device that when you have microbes in your GI tract, they produce hydrogen gas. We don't Humans don't produce hydrogen gas. We produce other gases. We don't produce hydrogen gas, microbes do.
Speaker 2:And these devices can be used as a mapping device to tell you where microbes are living. You're supposed to have microbes in the colon producing hydrogen gas, but you don't. You should not have them in the small intestine, in the esophagus, stomach, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, and you can use this device to map where microbes are. So I started doing this in hundreds, now thousands, of people and to my great surprise, it was the rare person who tested negative. Now you might say, well, maybe the device, maybe the concept is flawed, but we'd have an abnormal reading. It's a 0 to 10 reading. Talk to your smartphone. Someone would have an abnormal reading. Take steps to normalize the situation, push back fecal microbes in the small intestine. And then good things happen. Their weight loss plateau finally broke, their hemoglobin A1C finally dropped to below 5%, their arthritis pain finally disappeared completely, their skin rashes went away, their depression lifted. In other words, we saw dramatic health benefits by pushing back the presence of fecal microbes in the small intestine.
Speaker 1:Okay. Would it be fair to postulate that if you're dealing with a stubborn health issue, consider the possibility that endotoxemia yes, that's correct, endotoxemia, toxicity that originates inside yourself is at least playing a part in the in the whatever ill health you're experiencing?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Now here's the problem. What if I said, jack, the solution for your SIBO and endotoxin is to remove your small intestine surgically? You'd say, well, hit the road bus. That's stupid. You better be damn confident that this is necessary. But what if the solution is something that looks and smells like yogurt? So I invented a formulation that I call SIBO yogurt, and it's just three microbes it's lactobacillus roteri that you're familiar with, it's lactobacillus gasseri and bacillus coagulans.
Speaker 2:I chose those three microbes for two reasons. One, they colonize the small intestine where SIBO occurs and they produce bacteriocins, natural antibiotics that kill fecal microbes. So so far, of the 50 people who've done this, 90% have normalized their H2 breath testing. Now you don't need that device. The device is great, it's very clever and it can be very helpful, but you don't need the device to prove it. If you have, for instance, food intolerances, an extremely common expression of SIBO or if you have conditions that are virtually synonymous with SIBO irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, obesity, type 2 diabetes, a neurodegenerative disorder, an autoimmune condition you can be assured you have SIBO or, at the very least, colonic dysbiosis based colonic dysbiosis. We reintroduced these three microbes lost by nearly everybody and so far it has exceeded far beyond my expectation. I I formulated that combination in the hopes that people experience some reduction in bloating and diarrhea.
Speaker 2:No, it got rid of sebo. Now we'll do a formal clinical trial to prove it. I'm trying to develop the funding. That's the problem. Outside of pharma. You know farmers loaded with billions and billions of dollars to fund their BS research. We don't, right. We don't have billions. I have hundreds of thousands of dollars. I blew my last $150,000 on a small mouse trial, a human clinical trial. We're accumulating our funding and we will do a clinical trial to prove this. This works, but I can tell you it's. If the solution check is something that looks and smells like yogurt that you make in your kitchen, what's the problem, right?
Speaker 1:Okay, I love the way, I love how you're communicating here, because you're anticipating most of the questions that I'm going to ask before I get there. One of the questions that I think the next question is what's the likely outcome if people don't take action? And I think you've laid that out pretty clearly, that out pretty clearly, and then so let's go ahead and go. What specific actions should people take if they recognize themselves here? Sounds like it might be the yogurt, but you probably should go into more detail.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the yogurt is very helpful, very effective, far beyond my expectations. But there's other things people should do. So, jack, I liken an effort to cultivate a healthy gastrointestinal microbiome to having a backyard vegetable garden. So let's say it's springtime, you lay out a 10 by 10 plot, you pick out the twigs and the stones, you then plant seeds and then you water and fertilize it. Well, the gastrointestinal microbiome is very similar. So you prepare the soil by getting rid of things that disrupt it. So there's no deer or stones here, but there's things like chlorinated drinking water, stomach acid, blocking drugs, antibiotic exposure. Take antibiotics if you must, but only an absolute minimum when it's truly, truly necessary. Preservatives, as you know, in most clang ages. There's a whole long list of things you can do. It's all in my Super Gut book. It's all in my blog, william Davis MD blog.
Speaker 2:So, clean up your life, prepare the soil, plant the seeds. The seeds, the primary seed, are fermented foods. These are things like kimchi and kefir and yogurts real yogurt, not the junk sold in grocery stores. Sauerkraut, veggies you ferment on your kitchen counter. It should be easy and virtually free, except for the cost of your veggies. Easy to do you can find basic fermentation strategies all around the internet, like my friend Donna Schwank, s-e-h-w-e-n-k, or my websites and books, you can find basic ways to ferment foods.
Speaker 2:The interesting thing about fermented foods, jack, is the species of, say, sauerkraut or kimchi don't actually themselves take up residence in the GI tract. So species like Luganostoc or Pediococcus don't take up residence, they just pass through. But in the passage through the 30 feet of gastrointestinal tract they cultivate very powerfully healthy species that are beneficial to you. These are species like Fecalobacterium acromantia, lagnospiration, many others. So fermented foods are the way to begin the seeding process of your gastrointestinal tract. Then we restore lost microbes like the ones I mentioned lactobacillus roteri, lactobacillus gastri and bacillus coagulans. And bacillus subtilis is another really important one. We restore those microbes. You can do it as yogurt, you can do it as a sparkling juice. So some of these microbes like bacillus subtilis and Bacillus coagulans and some other beneficial species like the fungal species, saccharomyces boulardii, make delicious sparkling juices. So I have some mango passion fruit sparkling juice in my kitchen. It tastes like mango soda. It's delicious. So that re-implants these beneficial species All the recipes, by the way, in the Super Gut book and my blog and then we feed them, we water and fertilize them.
Speaker 2:We don't have to water them, of course, but we fertilize them with fibers. These are fibers from plant matter for the most part. That is, from legumes like black beans, white beans, chickpeas, hummus, onions, garlic, shallots, other root vegetables, and you feed them and they proliferate. So it's a very simple process.
Speaker 2:It is outside of the mainstream experience because, as you know, most of my colleagues are completely ignorant on real issues of health, nutrition, nutritional supplements and the microbiome. It's wrong. They should be experts in health but they're not. They're experts in the business of healthcare how to generate revenue from pharmaceuticals and procedures and they're not experts in health. So, sadly, and you know this, except for nice people like Dr Philip Ovadia, who is an expert in health, most of our colleagues are not.
Speaker 2:And so the last if you went to your doctor and said, hey, doc, I think I have SIBO because I have diarrhea and bloating and I'm intolerant to nuts and eggplant and tomatoes and eggs and about 35 other foods that give me joint pains, asthma and skin rashes, the doctor says, oh, it's in your head. Or don't waste my time, or did you consult Dr Google again, jack? Or some other bullshit answer. And yet they don't even begin to address the real cause. But the great thing about this, if the solution is so easy, so safe.
Speaker 2:So if someone made that SIBO yogurt, for instance, and got rid of fibromyalgia, joint pain or irritable bowel syndrome or depression or anxiety or suicidal tendencies or low testosterone or vaginal dryness, I mean the range of benefits is astounding. So you take this yogurt. The only side effect is that you might have an amplification of such things as depression, anxiety in the first few days when those microbes you've restored are busy killing microbes and there's a surge in that endotoxin. Get beyond that and what kinds of other things happen. Well, smoother skin, acceleration of healing. Older guys get a 50% rise in testosterone. Older ladies have restoration Whoa, whoa whoa whoa.
Speaker 1:Are you saying that at least partly to blame for decreasing testosterone in older men is endotoxemia?
Speaker 2:The mechanism is not quite clear. It's probably a combination of inducing endotoxemia and the boost in oxytocin.
Speaker 1:Okay but you see a rise as a result of it. We don't know the mechanism of of why it works, but we do see a connection, okay didn't mean to interrupt you there but that was personally interesting to me.
Speaker 2:In mice the rise in testosterone is 300% in males, in older males, probably over about 50. There's about a 50% rise, not as spectacular as in mice, as is often true right when we translate things to humans, but a 50% rise. So a guy who starts with, say, 350 can easily get to 500. So a much, much more healthy rise and doesn't have just implications for sexual health, it also has implications for mood. One of the most common symptoms of low testosterone is depression and a feeling of powerlessness. And having a rise in testosterone, yeah, yeah, so you get maybe better erections and more sexual drive, but the real effect is lifting of mood and a feeling that you're back in control of your life. So so that's part of the effect of doing this specifically, specifically restoring lactobacillus roteri. There's also an amplification of the immune response.
Speaker 2:Ladies get a return of vaginal moisture and libido, there's preservation of bone density. There's all the effects of oxytocin and intensification of the feelings of love and empathy for other people, increased feelings of generosity and, my favorite, the increased acceptance of other people's opinions. Think about that, jackie. So we're talking about a restoration of a lost microbe that was responsible for provoking oxytocin, the hormonal glove and empathy, at a time when almost everybody's lost this microbe and there's record-setting social isolation, suicide and the rise of narcissistic behavior. That's a fact. By the way, the psychological community has been tabulating formally measures of narcissistic behavior since 1963. And the curve is a sharp 45 degree incline since 1963. And so do we now have a way not only to turn back SIBO and thereby have powerful consequences for reducing numerous diseases, or at least reducing their, their severity? We may also have a way to restore social connectedness and sociability and political behavior like behavior, wow part of the reason we've got a sick culture is because we have sick people.
Speaker 2:You know, humans have been bad to humans all throughout human history.
Speaker 1:It's not news.
Speaker 2:But has it gotten worse? I think it has. Not the level of tyrants or dictators, but at the street level. People are worse to each other, and I think we've stumbled on a way to restore better behavior to humans, as well as turn back the clock 10 or 20 years.
Speaker 1:Well, nobody doesn't want to feel better, so that I love that. That makes a lot of sense. This is one of those that I would love to just talk and talk and talk, but we try to keep this tight. Let's go to question number seven. What's one of the more common compliments that you get in your work?
Speaker 2:I think it's that I say things because I believe them. I don't say them. People say, oh, you're saying that to get attention. What Really? No, no, in fact. You know I was on Dr Oz four times and every time I was in the prep area I'm thinking to myself I'd rather be walking my dog. I don't really care for the public attention.
Speaker 2:But you know what? There's so much wrong, jack, there is so, and you know this. Dr Phil Wavadi knows this. Dr Phil Wavadi knows this. There's so much wrong with modern, especially American, healthcare because of the profit motive. There's so much bad in modern healthcare that it takes people like you and me and Dr Phil to help fix this. To tell people what your doctor is telling you is flat bullshit, it's nonsense. You do not need a GLP-1 agonist to lose weight. It destroys your health. You don't need a biologic to reduce the pain of rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis. You don't need diabetes drugs to reduce your blood sugar. It's a simple formula of restoring things the way they used to be, and all these conditions not all, but most conditions, most modern conditions we're familiar with go away.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, let's go the other direction. What's one of the more common complaints that you get in your practice?
Speaker 2:I think it's a little bit too complicated, especially since I added the microbiome components. But you know we've screwed up our microbiomes dramatically for a variety of reasons, at least, at the very least overexposure to antibiotics, but there's probably many other factors like the ones I listed earlier. Overexposure antibiotics, but there's probably many other factors like the ones I listed earlier. So rebuilding it is not just take a pill, it's certainly not. And of course my colleagues say stupid things like oh, probiotics don't work, or take a probiotic.
Speaker 1:What is that? I'm just going to parenthetically insert here. If antibiotics do work, then it's. If antibiotics do work, then it's illogical to say that probiotics don't. That just makes no sense. And if you say probiotics don't work, then neither do antibiotics. That's just okay. Sorry, I'm supposed to be the interviewer here rather than the expert but that's one of those things that just drives.
Speaker 2:Of course they work. Now we do need better science behind probiotics. So the majority of current probiotics Sorry, I don't know what this is about the current crop of this is not live so. We do a whole editing. Commercial probiotics are crafted haphazardly, so whoever formulated a product says something like this oh, there's some science to tell us that bifidobacterium longum is good for people. Let's throw that in. Oh, here's some observation that tells us that lactobacillus brevis is good for people.
Speaker 2:Let's throw that in too. And how about lactobacillus acidophilus? They're haphazard collections and often at low numbers because it's very costly. I talk to manufacturers and I'll say, for instance, hey, I'd like some of your strain of lactobacillus crispatus because it's incredibly effective for vaginal health and females reproductive age and onwards. And they say well, you can have it for $1,500 a kilo and our minimum order is a hundred is a hundred kilos.
Speaker 2:So very, very few retailers can afford to do that, and so what they do is they put teensy quantities in the probiotic. So that's why one of the reasons why this idea of yogurt it's not yogurt, right, it looks and smells like yogurt, but that's why the yogurt has such powerful effects because we're increasing the counts, typically a thousand fold. We perform something called flow cytometry. It's a laser assisted means of counting microbes and we get around 300 billion. Billion would be per half cup serving. So when you buy a probiotic, it's typical to have a billion or maybe even 10 billion. We're going to increase it dramatically because the larger the numbers you have, the more likely you're likely to have a very beneficial effect.
Speaker 1:Okay, I know people are listening to this, thinking no wait, I can make this yogurt myself. So I want to speak to our listeners real quick. All the contact information for Dr Davis will be available in the show notes. Check there. And let's move now to my favorite question in this show. If you could deliver just one message about health and you only had eight words to deliver it, what would those eight words be?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, I still think, even though you and I have been talking about microbes, the power of restoring lost microbes, the diet you follow is still by far an overwhelmingly powerful thing. And, ironically, the diet advocated by most agencies, that is, cut your fat and cholesterol, eat more healthy whole grains, causes hundreds of health conditions, including coronary disease, hundreds of health conditions, including coronary disease. So not cutting your fat and cholesterol, never eating healthy whole grains, is still hugely powerful. Now you can go further, of course, including restoring lost microbes, but the diet still matters. And, by the way, when you do things like restore lactobacillus roteri or eradicate SIBO, do all those things, get our fermented juices, do all those things in the context of a better diet.
Speaker 2:Never cut fat, never cut cholesterol, never limit calories, never eat whole grains or grains in any form. Don't eat sugar, eat real food. People say, oh, what's left? It's evidence of just how brainwashed people have been. Eat meat, eat the fat, eat some liver, eat vegetables, eat root vegetables, eat avocados, use olive, real foods, just like great grandma did. If you're, if you're tough enough, add back some tripe, add back some tongue, all the things that provided, for instance, collagen, hyaluronic acid. So the diet still matters a lot and your. The benefits of adding all those other things on will be even greater that was way more than eight words.
Speaker 1:So I I'm trying to think, because what I like to, I want to use those eight words as a, as a, a, a title for the show. Diet stills still matters, that'd be three. Never cut fat, that's six.
Speaker 2:How about no grains, no sugar?
Speaker 1:no grains, comma sugar. We'll work it out. We'll make it work. Dr William Davis, the uh, the. Your most recent book is super gut. Most recent book is super gut. I can personally attest. Uh, the yogurt aside from the fact that I just like knowing what's in my yogurt is delicious and I'm going to we're going to have a PS here on this show just because I'm personally interested. One of the things we've noticed we started making the yogurt based on your recipe a couple of years ago and it seems like each you take some some yogurt from one batch to start the next batch and what we've noticed is that over time, the yogurt itself gets thicker and more like cottage cheese. The texture changes. Is that common?
Speaker 2:It is. You know, it takes humans eons to evolve. It takes microbes hours to days to evolve. So as you cultivate this microbe, it probably undergoes some changes. Now one of the things to bear in mind is it helps if you have some effect of the yogurt. So for me, I'm a chronic insomniac and if I get the yogurt I'll sleep like a baby. But if there's a change in the yogurt sorry such that my sleep is now bad again, I'll know to start from scratch, from the micro, uh, from a starter again. Oh, that's good if you can. I personally like that.
Speaker 1:I like the thicker stuff and my wife doesn't, and so we've started over a couple of times. All right, this has been the Predictive Health Clinic. Dr William Davis has been our guest. Check the show notes for the details. Thanks for joining us and we will talk to you all next time.
