Inflammation: Dr Tom O'Bryan Explains How It Can Change Your Life (E12)

This episode is Alex's favourite to date! Join her as she interviews Dr. Tom O'Bryan, a leading expert in functional medicine specialising in gluten, autoimmune diseases, and inflammation. Dr O'Bryan explains how inflammation is a vital mechanism in our immune system but also how our toxic environment can unravel it.  He emphasises the critical role of inflammation in chronic illnesses and the importance of addressing root causes rather than just symptoms. He discusses the rise in autoimmune diseases, and the impact of diet and lifestyle on health, and offers practical advice on reducing inflammation to manage and reverse chronic conditions. This episode is packed with transformative information for anyone dealing with chronic illness.

About Dr Tom O'Bryan: https://thedr.com
Watch the Inflammation Equation NOW: https://theinflammationequation.com/alex/
Follow Dr Tom on Social Media:
Facebook: @theDr_com
Instagram: @thedrtomobryan
Twitter: @theDr_com

-

Get in touch with me: hello@chronicillnesscoach.co.uk
Check out my website: https://www.chronicillnesscoach.co.uk/
You can find me on:
Instagram: @thechronicillnesscoach_uk
TikTok: @thechronicillnesscoach
LinkedIn: @thechronicillnesscoach

Transcript

Alex: Hi, how are you? Thank you so much for joining me today. Today I have got such a treat for you. Today's guest is phenomenal. Today's guest is incredible. And today's guest could change your life as you know it. Doctor Tom O'Brien is a world renowned expert in functional medicine. He is a world renowned expert on gluten, autoimmune disease and inflammation. We discuss his brand new documentary, the inflammation equation and why inflammation is the key to sorting out chronic illness and disease. He talks about what we're doing wrong, the world renowned secret that we all should be thinking about, and what you can do to change your life. I am so excited to share this conversation with you. So settle in and get ready to have your life changed. Welcome to episode twelve of the chronic Illness Coach podcast. I'm Alex Morris and I believe that chronic illnesses can be put into remission. Join me as I work to engage, educate, and empower those living with a chronic illness to change their life for the better. Doctor Tom O'Brien. Thank you so much for joining me. It is a genuine pleasure. It is a conversation that I've been so looking forward to. Chronic illness and information are a huge part of my personal life, professional life, and a really important topic on the podcast. So to get started, I'd love it if you could just introduce yourself to our audience, who you are, what you do, how you've got to where you are today.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: I opened my practice on Valentine's Day in 1980. So I've been around for a little what I've discovered, and I travel the world and I'm on stage at medical conferences. It's a privilege to be teaching doctors a bigger picture. In November, I was in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In December, it was Rome. In January, it was New Delhi. And I'll be back, as I was mentioning, in London in a few weeks. And it's a privilege. Healthcare practitioners all over the world are trying to find the best tools they can to deal with the complaints that people come in with with the least amount of side effects. That's a primary goal for every practitioner. Good. Okay. But it follows in the same mold, if I may, use that categorization as pharmaceuticals, that when you go see a medical doctor trained in medicine, they try to give you a drug that gives you symptomatic relief with as few side effects as possible. Unfortunately, most of the pharmaceuticals have a number of side effects, and so you use them sparingly, but you do what you have to to help the patient feel better. And our holistic oriented doctors do the same line of thinking. They just use, in general, less toxic recommendations, but it's the same line of thinking. There's a problem with that line of thinking, as evidenced by the results that we're seeing. Every autoimmune disease is going up four to 9% a year every year. Every one of them. Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is arguably the largest health insurance company in the United States, a multibillion dollar company. They published a paper in March of 2020, February, February of 2020. No one paid attention to it because that's when the virus came out. But they. We've got a real problem here, and it's a huge problem. In the previous four year period, there was a 407% increase, not 10%, not 20%. 407% increase in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 30 to 44 year olds. 407% increase in the diagnosis of early Alzheimer's in 30 to 44 year olds. This is the pandemic, and we don't know what to do about that. And so we joke, oh, I'm too stressed, you know, I'm getting old. I don't remember the way I used to. Well, how old are you? I'm 38. No, that's not supposed to happen. It's the memory center of your brain. Yes. Stress aggravates it, makes it worse, but it's not a stress problem. It's inflammation killing off brain cells in the memory center of your brain. And when people hear that, they go, what? What? I mean, it's hard to even hold that kind of a statistic. But our children, the rate of autism is exponentially going up. Attention deficit. The number of kids that are on anti anxiety pills, medication, or antidepressant medication is going up exponentially. Something's wrong, and we're not paying attention to it. And what we're doing is looking for the least toxic to put the symptoms in remission. And that's a huge problem. The result is the underlying mechanisms are getting worse. The underlying mechanisms are causing more disease for more people. So you put your high blood pressure into remission by taking high blood pressure medication. But the high blood pressure is not as a result of a deficiency of the medication. High blood pressure is the result of something else. Well, we're not looking for what's the something else. We give them the medication, their blood pressure comes down a little bit, we think we're okay. But just google side effects of high blood pressure medication, and here come all the side effects. More heart attacks, more dementia, more diabetes. But your blood pressure is okay. So the approach there's nothing wrong with trying to get symptom relief, but we all have to think, we have to take a step back and look at a bigger picture. And the bigger picture is always this. I call it 101. And what I mean by that is when you go to university and you begin, you take the beginning classes in english or math. And in the US, anyway, they're categorized 101. Then the next class is 102, and then next year, if you learn more in that subject, it's 201 and 202. 101 is the basics. You got to start somewhere and that's the basics. So what's the 101 of health care? Look, one more statistic. And this is in Great Britain, actually, in the United Kingdom, that the gap between a healthy lifespan and a total lifespan is getting wider.

Alex: Wow.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: What is that? Healthy lifespan means that you have no diagnosed disease and no limitations. The average male in the UK, the age. The average age, the total lifespan is about 7778, somewhere in there. But the average total lifespan is 63, 63 years. That means the last 15 years of the average man's life is with disabilities. They're immobilized with disabilities. For women, the total lifespan of women is 82 to 83. The total healthy lifespan is 63 to 64. So women have 20 years of disability. Do you want the last 20 years of your life to be with disabilities? If not, you want to shorten the gap between healthy lifespan and total lifespan. You want that gap to be very small. If we think about it, most of us would want to go to sleep one night and not wake up. So we don't have a stroke and we're triple for 14 years and we're in a wheelchair or we're in a nursing home because our brain's gone. We'd prefer to have that gap between total lifespan and healthy lifespan to be very small. That's the goal. And if you want to achieve that goal to where you're fully functional until the very, very end of your life, then you need to live your life by this 101 principle. And the 101 principle is that the center for Disease Control tells us that 14 of the 15 top causes of death are chronic laminate disease. It's always inflammation misses patient. If you pull at a chain, the chain always breaks at the weakest link. Is it one end, the middle, the other end? It's your heart, your brain, your liver, your joints, your kidneys, wherever your weak link is. And that's determined by your genetics and it's called antecedents, how you live your life. You eat tuna fish two or three times a week, you likely have mercury toxicity because almost all the tuna has mercury in it. That's an antecedent. So the antecedents and your genetics determine where the weak link is. And you pull at a chain, it always breaks at the weak of sling.

Alex: Yeah.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: Always in your body, it's always the weakest link. Well, you have to reduce the pull on the chain if you don't want that link to break. What's. What's the pull on the chain? The pull on the chain is inflammation for every disease.

Alex: Yeah.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: So when you start thinking that way, when you take a step back from what your symptoms may be right now and you ask the question, okay, I'm. I have. My son has seizures, okay. Or my daughter has asthma, okay. Or I've got rheumatoid arthritis, okay? So that's the weak link in my chain. And I want something to reduce the symptoms. Of course, of course, that's okay. But how am I pulling on the chain? Where is the inflammation coming from? The only way that we are successful in reversing all of the diseases that come in to see us, the only way we are successful is to teach the patient how to stop pulling on the chain so hard. Yeah, that's the basic 101. And if doctors think that way, they ask different questions. They look at lifestyle misses patient. When you wake up in the morning, do you feel refreshed? Are you ready to go? And if the answer is no, you've got to focus on their sleep habits. And you can't stay up at night watching the late night news of how many people are being killed or how many people died in a fire or in a bombing somewhere else in the world. And then turn off the television and go to bed and think you're going to get good sleep. You can't watch cop shows at night killing people and then turn it off and go to sleep thinking you're going to get good sleep. You have to develop the lifestyle habits for the two to 3 hours before you go to bed so that you're starting to calm down. And then you go to bed, you wake up in the morning and you're ready to go. And so you have to learn the lifestyle habits about sleeping because you only heal when you're in what's called a parasympathetic dominant state. That's the state of your immune system and your nervous system when everything calms down. Now you clean up all the garbage that your body got exposed to during the day. And now you build new cells and get rid of old cells. Is called autophagy. That only happens when you're in a restful state. So if you're not getting good rest, your healing capacity is dimmed down. The switch is dimmed way down. You can't heal. Why? Because you're not in a rejuvenative state when you're sleeping, so your body just can't heal. And so there's basic concepts like that, one on one concepts, and that's what I always start my talks with. It doesn't matter what the topic is, always start with. This is 101. Now let's talk about high blood pressure today, or let's talk about brain dysfunction today. But it comes from this 101 concept. Where is the inflammation coming from?

Alex: Absolutely. And what an introduction into your expertise and what you have dedicated your life's work to, which is just incredible. And let's dive into that 101 because that's what I really want our listeners to get such an incredible education from yourself today. I couldn't agree more than the foundation, the root, the principles, they have to be there and understood and educated about from both the practitioner and the patient side. So Doctor Tom, tell us, what is inflammation?

Dr Tom O'Bryan: Inflammation is produced by your immune system and misses patient. Your immune system is just the armed forces in your body. It's there to protect you. There's an army, a navy, an air force, a marines, coast guard. We call them Iga, Igg, Ige, IgM cytokines. They're just different branches of the immune system. When they get activated, it's a life saving mechanism to protect you. Always without question, always. That's why your immune system gets activated, is that it has recognized a threat. And when it sees that threat, it gets activated to protect you from that threat. Our ancestors, you have the same body as your ancestors thousands and thousands of years ago. The same kidneys, the same joints, the same immune system, the same brain. We use our brains more, so we've got housing and food production, but it's the same brain functions, exactly the same. So our ancestors before agriculture, they were nomads. They followed the herds, they walked around following the herds, so they always could find food. Their number one concern was food, then shelter, then safety. But it was food, and they bind something on the ground. And what would they do? First thing they do, they sniff it, then they nibble at it and then they would eat it. Okay. And if there was anything that they couldn't identify as a threat in the food, some bad bugs, a worm or something, they couldn't identify it and they ate it. There are centuries standing guard in your digestive tract. They're called toll like receptors. There's a geeky, terminal, but there's sentry standing guard. I think of the soldiers at Buckingham palace. You know, those guys with the big hats, they're just standing there with their rifles. They're as dormant as can be. They don't move. But don't mess with those guys. Do not mess with them. That's toe like receptors. And when you swallow food, it really can't get into your body. It's in the tube. It's in the digestive tract, which starts at the mouth and goes to the other end. It's one big, long tube. And it isn't until the food gets into the intestines that it can get into the body. So right there at the beginning of the intestines, right there are toll like receptor four, and they're watching everything that comes out of the stomach into the first part of the intestine. They're looking for bugs, and they're as dormant as can be, but they look for what I call an orange vest on the bug. What does that mean? Well, it's an amino acid structure. They look for particular protein pieces in that glob of food. If they see that amino acid structure, that's the shell of a bug, and they get activated right away. And they do two things. First, they increase the leaky gut. They stimulate the production of a protein that opens up the space between the cells, and you get this leaky gut. Why? Because water comes from the body, leaks into the tube of the intestines to wash out the bug with the boob. Leaky gut is not bad for you. It saves your life every day. Excessive leaky gut is really bad for you. So it does two things. First, it activates zomulin production for leaky gut. Second, it activates the major amplifier of inflammation that's called NF Kappa B. And that's the desk sergeant in the police station. You officers, you go over to that neighborhood today. You guys, you go over there. Hey, there's a riot over here. All of you guys go over there and take care of this. NF Kappa B is the director to tell your immune system where to go and what to do. So you increase leaky gut and you increase the director, dispersing the soldiers to go out and protect you. That happens within five minutes of toll like receptor seeing a bug coming out of the stomach into the small intestine. Okay? It's a beautiful system. And when you see the videos of this happening, Harvard's got some videos on this, when you see the videos, like, wow. Wow. And if you're a geek like me, you say, oh, that's really cool. Wow. Now I understand how that works. So it's great. Here's the problem. At Harvard, they identified in 1997 this whole thing about leaky gut and how it happens. A few years after that, they were really startled to identify that toll like receptor. Looks at something that comes out of the stomach that really looks like the amino acid structure of the shell of bacteria. Looks like a bug. It was wheat. It's gluten. The structure of gluten looks like the outer surface of a bug to your immune system. The amino acid structure, the orange best, it looks like the outer shell of a bug. So every time wheat comes out of the stomach into the first part of the intestine, your sentry standing guard go, oh, over there, there's a bug. And they activate this full inflammatory cascade. This occurs in every human. Maureen Leonard did a study where she reviewed over 60 articles on this topic, and she published it in the journal of the American Medical association. She's a very famous gastroenterologist at Harvard, and she reviewed all of these studies on this topic. And she said conclusively, lutein debates toll like receptor four and leaky gut in every human who consumes it. So if you're listening to this and if you're human now, sometimes your wife may not think that you are human, but if you are human, this means you. It happens to every human every time they eat wheat, without exception. It's a life saving mechanism. And for those people who say, well, I don't feel bad when I eat wheat, the science tells us for every one person that has gut symptoms from eating something that's not good for them, there are eight people who don't. The ratio is eight to one. Those people get brain symptoms or they get joint symptoms or they get skin symptoms. They don't get gut symptoms, so they eat the food and they think they're fine. But the next day, if their daughter ate the food, the next day their daughter has a seizure, or your dry skin gets worse or your psoriasis gets worse or your thyroid doesn't work right, only one out of eight get gut symptoms. So you can't determine is a food safe for me or not by how you feel when you eat that. If you use that as your determining factor, you get it right one out of eight times, and you get it wrong seven out of eight times. So those people that don't get gut symptoms, as an example, here when they eat wheat, they're pulling on the chain, creating more inflammation every day. But they go to their doctor with memory problems or they've got thyroid problems. We know that 87% of hashimoto's thyroid patients get better on a gluten free diet. 87%. It's unbelievable. 64% of psoriasis patients get better on a gluten free diet. I'm just using the example of wheat because it's easy. The science is really clear. You cannot argue with the science. And anyone, any doctors have, well, there's no evidence that wheat's a problem. They just haven't read any of the articles. They're too busy in their world doing what they're doing. They haven't had a chance to read the science. And just, but I use that one as an example because it's pulling on the chain every day. And you get more inflammation because your immune system is trying to protect you from what it identifies as a bug. Or if you have mold in your house, well, you know, if I go on vacation for a week or two when he misses patient, when you come home from a holiday, do you have to open the windows and air the house out? That's mold. And so you're breathing mold 24/7 every day when you're in the house. And that goes right up to the memory center of your brain through your sense of smell. The only nerves in the body that go right into the brain with no screen, no filter, no pores that they have to go through are the nerves of smell. It's a life saving mechanism from our ancestors. And so whatever you breathe in is going right to the memory center of your brain, creating inflammation, killing off brain cells. Killing off brain cells. Killing off brain cells. And so I'll pause now.

Alex: It is, it is impossible to listen to you talk and listen to all the studies coming from Harvard and Ebert, other areas of the history is impossible to listen to all of that and to not just feel awakened almost with the amount of information and expertise coming from what you're talking about. And just, you've started to talk about it already and almost answer the question. But my next question, question was going to be, why is inflammation the root of disease? And you've almost started to answer it, really. And you're in, your explanation of what information is in itself, and it's is.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: A life saving mechanism. It's there to protect you. Your immune system is dormant. Like the soldiers at Buckingham palace, it's dormant unless it's activated to protect you. So when it gets activated. You don't shut down the immune system. Sometimes you need a little bit of support to reduce your symptoms so you can function, but you have to explore what is my immune system trying to protect me from. And when you explore that, and the way you explore, there's only one way that I know of, and the rule is test, don't guess, test. And so when patients want to see me, and I only see the worst of the worst, you know, I do Zoom calls with people, I'll review five years worth of tests that they've had done, and then I'll make some recommendations for tests to do. And I'm not even going to talk to them until they do these tests, because obviously you're suffering. I'm sorry, but if I'm going to help you, I need to know what's pulling on the chain and why is your immune system activated. So we test for food sensitivities, we test for toxic air, we test for mold, we look at emotional stability, because emotional stability, I've done this event and that's why we're talking today. It's called the inflammation equation and we'll talk about it. But one of the gals that I interviewed, lovely woman from, I think from Bristol, actually, and she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And she was in a wheelchair, couldn't walk, and was kind of half doing the holistic approach. Not quite. Then her 60 year old son was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That stopped her that day. She decided she's going to look for the best holistic doctor who said that they could help and she was going to do whatever they said, because this is now her son. And so she would do their recommendations herself and if it helped her, then she would use them for her son. So she saw a friend of mine in London and completely reverse her Ms. Two years later, and we show pictures of her. She's in a wheelchair, she can't walk, she's got eight lesions on her brain. Two years later, she has no symptoms whatsoever, and only two lesions left on her brain. Neurologists say that's impossible. No, it's not. I've got many articles reversing the lesions on the brain when you stop pulling on the chain. So I interviewed her and I said, what was the most difficult, challenging thing for you to do? Everything that you did to change your life, because obviously, the way you live your life caused the problems that you've got right now. What was the most difficult thing to do? She didn't hesitate. She said toxic relationships, she explained I'm a classic ace child. A stands for adverse childhood events. And she said her mother died when she was three, her father remarried, her father died when she was nine, her stepmother died when she was eleven, and now she was alone. Bounced around in foster homes for many years. Very, very traumatic. No security, nothing. Couldn't count on anyone. And she said, my husband is not a toxic person, but we had a very toxic relationship. He was a traveling salesperson, and I couldn't, I didn't know whenever, when he was going to come home. And, you know, you didn't make a really good living. And so we were always struggling. There was no security. And I realized when I started dealing with my multiple sclerosis for my son, and I'd start to feel a little bit better every time he came home. I felt bad again. I got worse. And I realized this is a toxic relationship. She said, we're now best friends, but we're not married anymore. And we're best friends. We talk a couple times a week, but we're not married. It was a toxic relationship. And so she had to have the courage to really look and see what's pulling on the chain. And that's why we started off here today with sleep. No one would think that your rheumatoid arthritis is primarily being fueled by not getting regenerative sleep. But it is. You don't heal unless you're getting good sleep. So we have to learn a different lifestyle if you want a different result.

Alex: That is a phenomenally phenomenal and inspiring story, and I'm sure not the only one that you have. Obviously, we will talk further about the inflammation equation in a moment, because it is an incredible program and documentary that you've put together. But whilst we're still on inflammation, I'd like to move on to relationship between the gut and leaky gut in a moment. But while we're still on inflammation specifically, could you give our audience some examples of what can increase and decrease inflammation in the body?

Dr Tom O'Bryan: The most common source of the triggers of inflammation is what's on the end of your fork that's most common? Most common, and there are others, but that's the most common one. I'll give you an example. And this is a very sensitive tissue, arguably, and this is. I don't have any science for what I'm about to tell you. This. One thing I'm going to tell you, but I believe that the most sensitive tissue in the human body is the fertilized egg. It has no immune system. It's got nothing to protect itself. It's completely dependent on mom's environment. So they published an article in the Journal of the American Medical association from Harvard, and the editors of the journal said, this is an elegant study, using sophisticated biomarkers to demonstrate their point. Now, the editors of the journal, the American Medical association, don't say that very often. So this was like, what? What? Okay, okay. I won't argue with this study. Okay? There's lots of statistics in this study, and I'm not a statistician. You know, I have to trust at some point. And given that the editors put a stamp of approval, I said, okay, whatever they're talking about, I'll believe it's accurate. They looked at couples going to assisted fertility centers, and they ruled out all of the known triggers of failure. They ruled out cigarette smoking. They ruled out alcohol consumption, exercise, no exercise, socioeconomic class, race. They ruled all of that out. And they looked at one thing. How many servings of fruits and vegetables is the woman eating a day when she's going through the implantation process? Well, we all know fruits and vegetables are critically important. No, no. The results were shocking.

Alex: I need 30 seconds of your time. If you are enjoying the chronic illness coach podcast, then please subscribe and leave a review. Also, in order to get this podcast to the people who need it the most, is there someone you can share this episode with today? Pause the episode quickly and share it with them.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: They divided the women into four different groups, the lowest number of servings per day. The next, the third and the highest number of servings a day of fruits and vegetables. The women in the highest category of fruit and vegetable consumption per day compared to the ones in the lowest category. The women in the highest category of eating fruits and vegetables had an 18% less likelihood of successful implantation. What? Yeah. Less like, and you can't argue in the study. And if they did successfully implant and tested positive for pregnancy, they had a 26% less likelihood of a live birth, more miscarriages and stillbirths. Wait, what? What? The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the worse the outcome. Yes. Wow. I mean, it's just. It turns your mind around. It's like, what?

Alex: It goes against so many messages we hear, doesn't it? It goes.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: That's right. That's right. There was a group of women in the study who were eating organic, and in that category, the results were the exact opposite. The more fruits and vegetables you ate, the better the outcome. And here's the good news. Women who were eating three servings a week of organic fruits and vegetables not three servings a day, but three servings a week were put in the category of organic consumers, and the results were the exact opposite, much better results. If they had two servings a week, that wasn't enough. But at three servings a week, and the researchers didn't address that topic, why only three servings a week? But I think it's because if you're eating organic whenever you can, you've likely got organic shampoo in your shower and organic soap at the kitchen sink, that you're doing the little things when you can to be a little healthier. You're working on it. You're really working it. That's the really good news, because it's all the little things you do that accumulatively give you the result that you want. So I started off this topic of this study by saying the most sensitive tissue in the human body is the fertilized egg, right? So you eat lots of fruits. And if you're high in toxins in your body, so you're already highly inflamed and you don't know it because you can't feel it. And you may not have any symptoms, but just a little stress, you know? But you're working hard in life, and you're 30 years old and you're working hard. You want to get pregnant, and you're working all day, and you go out and have a, a glass of wine at night or so you just, but you're working hard all day. You're all kind of keyed up, and you're trying to get pregnant. You can't. And so you go, this is a fertility center. You're spending thousands and thousands of pounds to try to have a successful pregnancy. But if you're highly toxic and you're over the edge with inflammation already, now you're eating fruits and vegetables full of insecticides, pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, glyphosates, antibiotics, and you can't tell. It looks like a tomato, it tastes like a tomato, but it's a toxic tomato because of all of the chemicals on it, the cucumbers, the lettuce, the raspberries, the strawberries, the apples, they're toxic. And if you've been accumulating these toxins over the years and they build up in your body, so you've got this low grade inflammation all the time. You don't have a diagnosis, you don't have any symptoms, but you can't get bright men. And so you go to the assisted fertility center. The more fruits and vegetables you eat conventional fruits and vegetables. The more inflammation you get, the lower your success rate. It's like, wake up. Wake up and say, well, it looks like a tomato, tastes like a tomato, tastes really good. Or most tomatoes don't have much taste anymore, and when you get an heirloom, it tastes really good. Wow, that really tastes good. That's a tomato. It's not a copy of a tomato. But our world is so toxic today, the triggers that are setting off inflammation in our body, pulling at the chain. You just have to begin learning what is it in my lifestyle that are the major triggers of inflammation? Usually it's foods that don't make you sick when you eat them. That's the most common source. So what's on the end of your fork that's most common? And that's why in the inflammation equation, I spend a year, literally a year. My first interview was in March of 2023, and we've interviewed 60. I think it is world leaders on this topic. And it's 45 minutes a day, about 45 minutes a day for nine days, and it's all free. And what you hear is like, what? What? Well, that. Okay, I understand how that would work. I didn't know that. Really? I didn't know that. And you hear that again and again and again in your head. Wow. I didn't know that. Wow. When I interviewed Fran Drescher, the nanny, if you've ever seen the television show the nanny.

Alex: I have. Yes, I have.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: Fran was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She's a 24 year survivor. And she said, I asked my oncologist why I got cancer. She said, we don't know. It just happens. And Fran didn't believe that. So she said, I decided to devote my fame not to raising money for cancer research, but rather to raise awareness of where cancer comes from. And she founded cancer Schmancler, and it's all about the environment. And I started laughing at one point, I said, fran, you're the only person I know other than me. And she starts laugh. I said, when we rang the doorbell at your house, your staff greeted us and welcomed us in. I couldn't come into your house until I put those little hospital blue booties over my shoes. And she started laughing. Yes, yes. You leave the toxic world outside because my neighbor has a beautiful lawn, but they spray the lawn every two weeks with weed killer now. And they have a sprinkler system, so sometimes the water goes onto the sidewalk. You walk on the sidewalk now, weed killers on your shoes. You walk in my house now, weed killers on my carpet. And my little doggies walk around with their paws and they get weed killer on their paws and they get cancer. You are not coming in my house with the toxic world from outside. And then she laughs and she looks in the camera and says, go to your medicine cabinet and get out the toothpaste. Read the label of the toothpaste. If it says, warning, do not swallow if swallowed. Toxic, call the National Toxic Poison Control center. And everybody needs to go look at their toothpaste. That's what it says for most commercial toothpaste. Don't put it in your mouth. But it's okay to give it to your kids to brush their teeth? I don't think so. I don't think so. So we talk about what are healthy toothpaste? What about mouthwashes? What's healthy? Cosmetics. The average woman puts over 120 some chemicals on her skin before she leaves the house in the morning. You think they're not toxic? The companies don't. Even the cosmetic companies have lobbied. They don't even have to list what's in it. They can just say fragrances. They don't have to tell you what's in it, what petroleum products or what chemicals are in it, because when you google those chemicals, you see they cause cancer. But there's no evidence. There's no evidence that the amount of chemical that you're exposed to when you apply Rouge on your face is toxic to humans. And that's correct. There is no evidence because the laws were passed. You have to show that the amount of chemical that you're exposed to in a 24 hours period is toxic to humans. It's not. It's not. Those poison chemicals in your lipstick at the dose that you're getting are not toxic to humans, but they accumulate in your body over a lifetime. Now you take a little bit more and now you're going to an assisted fertility center because you're wanting to get pregnant. But you're so toxic with these accumulated chemicals over a lifetime, it takes you, it's the straw that broke the camel's back, right? And now you've got so much inflammation, you can't get pregnant. Implantation, the body says, no, this is too stressful environment. No, animals get pregnant when they're stressed. Nature won't allow it. When they have high stress levels, it won't allow. Nature won't allow it. The mother would not survive. And survival is always the top priority. So the levels of inflammation in your body are the reason why you have the symptoms you have now. It certainly could be because you're eating too much gluten and you're sensitive to gluten. That's the petrol on the fire for you. That's one of the petrols on the fire. So when you change the way you look at life and that's the goal of the inflammation equation, is that you're driving down the road three weeks after you've watched this thing and all of a sudden, wow, I wonder if that I use in the house could actually be toxic, causing our daughter's asthma. Wow, I never thought, I'm going to go check that out. And it's furniture polish. And after you put the furniture polish on your dining room table the next few days, or the week later, you, daughter has another asthma attack. And she's been fine for a while, but now she's not well. Now you start playing detective. What's different? What took her over the edge? Her foods were all the same. Anything at school? Did she eat anything? So no, all that's my gut. I used the polish on the furniture. Could that have triggered it? Then you go read the label on the polish, you go, oh my God, and you throw it out that day, right? But if you don't know, you don't check. So you have to learn about your environment and how you're throwing petrol on the fire inside your body, activating your immune system, trying to protect you, just trying to protect you from what you're being exposed to.

Alex: An incredible summary, and what a story. I know a few people personally over the years that have very sadly had breast cancer. And it's a story that has always just staggered me and it happens again and again and again. And I had a few friends to me and say, do you know what the first thing was that they said to me when I got diagnosed? Get rid of your deodorant. Get rid of your high street standard deodorant, because the chemicals in that deodorant, we can't have them anywhere near you during your treatment because of whatever stage you're at. And I remember having these conversations with my friends and saying, well, hold on, why is it okay to use them for years and years and years, like you say, when you supposedly got no symptom, but then when you have that diagnosis is, oh, hold on, we can't have this. You get rid of it. That is the epitome of the problem. As you say, our world is too toxic. We are allowing companies, individuals, products, all sorts of different elements to continue the toxic production and to continue and worsen this problem and like you say, the inflammation equation is an incredible program. I'm so excited to watch it. I can't, I'm kind of getting all the emails for the buildup. It looks incredible. But it sounds like this is all about giving that empowerment, giving that information and power back to the individual. To, like you say, be the detective in your own life and go, hold on, I'm actually going to open my eyes here. I'm going to look around at what am I using and bringing into my own life that is constantly increasing that information.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: That's exactly right. That's a great summary. You hit the nail on the head. That's exactly right. We don't tell you what to do. We tell you the categories to take a look. And the rule is test, don't guess, just take a look. But learn how to look properly. Right. And find the practitioners that can work with you on this. It's excellent. It's just, we're so proud of it because people are, their jaw drops. I never knew this. Wow, this is really helpful. And people stop me and they say, you saved my daughter's life. You know, I'm stopped in airports quite regularly. I think it's because of my white hair. You know, I probably stand out a little bit. I say, you're Doctor Tarham. And I say yes. Sometimes they start crying. They say, you saved our daughter's life. Now say, really? Tell me, tell me about this. She had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and she's been on steroids since she was three years old and she was twelve and she was not growing and missing so many days of school and blah blah. And we saw your event and we started looking and we found out she was allergic to gluten and dairy and soy. And we got the mold out of our house and it didn't take more than four months before she didn't eat steroids anymore. And she's grown so much in the last year now and you know, so the stories go on and on like that. And the inflammation equation is our most comprehensive overview of this topic, presented with the world experts. Doctor Dale Bredesen, who wrote the book the end of Alzheimer's and he's reversed hundreds of Alzheimer's patients and gotten them back to normal and back to work. Doctor David Fuhrman at Stanford and at the Buck Institute, who has a contract with NASA to identify why are the astronauts aging so quickly in space? And as a result of all that, NASA financed the studies on house plants and two six inch houseplants in a ten by ten room absorb 74% of the toxins in the air. And so you go to my website, thedr.com forward slash plant, and you download the handout on the house plants, and you get houseplants in every room. Well, my rooms are safe. Really? Really. The nightstand next to your bed, or your kitchen cabinets, or your bathroom cabinets, if they're not solid wood, they're pressboard. Pressboard is soaked in formaldehyde that outgasses into the air for years. The sheets that you sleep under and the blankets that you sleep under are soaked in flame retardant chemicals that outgas into the air when you're sleeping. Even after they're washed 50 times, they still outgas minute amounts of these chemicals that accumulate in your body. So you just start learning about all these little things, and one thing at a time, you deal with it this week, you deal with this one next week, you deal with this one next week, you deal with this one just a little bit at a time, and we guide you on how to do it. That's the inflammation equation.

Alex: And it is without a doubt something that everyone needs to watch, because it will be transformative. As you've mentioned, the people in the program that you've used as examples so far today have had incredible transformations and sometimes life saving transformations, which just phenomenal. So, Doctor Tom, I'd like to ask you a question that is probably a little bit controversial, but you are so honest, and it's so refreshing that I think this would be something really interesting to ask. This is only a personal anecdotal opinion that I have, but it's something that I'd like to touch on. And it's about our healthcare system. And it very much feels like very, anyway, from a patient point of view sometimes that we have a reactive system rather than a preventative system. And you spoke earlier on in the podcast about the role of pharmaceutical companies and using drugs to relieve symptoms, which is obviously very important, as well as kind of identify the root cause. And so I'd love to know your view on our healthcare system. Can we improve the current healthcare system that we have with the huge role that pharmaceutical companies currently play? Or do we need a new system, or is there a hybrid of the two?

Dr Tom O'Bryan: Every doctor, I believe almost every doctor, makes a declaration one day, I want to be a doctor because they want to help people and they really want to reduce suffering. There are a few that probably want the prestige and the money they think they're going to get and all of that, but almost all of them, I believe, really have humanitarian visions in mind. But the educational system that doctors are put through beats them down and beats them down so that they raise the line of thinking that they're told. And if anyone resists that, they get beaten down further and further and further, emotionally and intellectually. The system is based addressing symptoms with pharmaceuticals. The system is based on supporting a multi billion dollar profit industry. It's not based on identifying. Why are you inflamed? What's. What's going on here? So doctors, when they get so fed up with the system, they start looking elsewhere and they might read an article or two, they might read one of my books, something like that, and they say, well, this just makes sense. And then they try to start modifying their approach, but they don't really know how to do it. Doctors aren't given nutrition courses. It's very rare that a medical school will have courses on nutrition as part of the curriculum that are mandatory. It's very rare. It's just so funny. Every time a gastroenterologist says that your gut symptoms have nothing to do with what you're eating, you can laugh at the ridiculousness of such a statement. Of course what you put in the tube is going to affect how the tube functions. Of course it is. So it's not doctors faults the system, but when they're exposed to patient after patient that says, you know, I saw this health coach or this nutritionist and I changed my diet and I changed my lifestyle and my thyroid disease is all gone. Well, it's not possible. No, no, please test me. Look, the tests are normal. Well, it's just a coincidence. You know, there's no science to that. No, there's plenty of science. You just haven't read the science. So when you get somebody who's trying to protect their turf so they don't look so bad, time for a new doctor. You just have to recognize there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of articles at the institute for functional medicine. We always give scholarships to the deans of different medical schools to come take our five day course because that's when we set the paradigm for doctors and explain what all this is. Takes five days. And the deans always say the same thing. Everyone doesn't matter if they're medical school, osteopathic school, acupuncture school, chiropractic school, naturopathic school. They all say the same thing, some of them more than others. Medical schools are the worst for this. They say what you're doing is exactly what medicine is supposed to be. And this is really health care and not crisis care. The problem is it's going to take ten years before we can implement it in the medical education. And we used to say, what? Why? But now we know because the dean of medicine has to go back to their medical school and talk to the dean of gastroenterology, who is the top dog at that medical school in gastroenterology, and no one's going to tell him how we're supposed to think about gastroenterology. There is a philosopher, Max Planck was quoted as saying, you don't change the medical system by educating the leaders. They eventually die off. And the younger people coming up learn the new system. So that's what we're up against. The reason I did the inflammation equation is so people are empowered to ask questions that make sense to them as to why this has happened. And how do I stop pulling on the chain so hard? That's when you heal, is when you stop pulling on the chain so hard, you don't have to be a medical doctor and understand all the geeky stuff. We make sure it's in everyday language and it's all free. Everything's free. Breed a watch. So you go to theinflammationequation.com alex. Alex. And you register. And when you register, we give you a gift right away. And that's the full 1 hour interview with Fran Drescher. And so you can watch that right away. And you're laughing at times so hard your belly hurts because you're laughing so hard. And sometimes you have tears in your eyes, you know, as you're listening to Fran tell her story. And then she looks in the camera and she looks directly at you and she says, what you put on your body, I'm sorry, what you put in your body, what you put on your body and what you put around your body, that's where you start. And she breaks it down for you in a way that you can't argue with this. It just makes sense, right? It makes sense. So the inflammationequation.com alex amazing.

Alex: And all those details for our listeners will be on the description of the podcast, and they'll be able to access all of that when they're listening to this episode. And it's an incredible, it's incredible to hear you speak, talking about what you're empowering every individual to do in the UK, in America, around the world, because it can happen to anyone and it is doable for everyone, isn't it? You don't have to have a chronic illness or a specific diagnosis. You can be anyone at any age, right?

Dr Tom O'Bryan: Yes. Unfortunately, the gap between healthy lifespan and total lifespan is getting bigger for most everyone. It's getting bigger so you don't have to be diagnosed with a disease. What we want. When you're educated, you make that gap much smaller, so your healthy lifespan gets longer with no diagnosed disease. You know, if you back out of a driveway and the car is moving, we say, what's wrong with this car? I'm giving you a gas. But it's not moving. The emergency brake. And you let go of the emergency brake and then you back up just fine. You have some emergency brakes. There are some emergency brakes you've not identified yet. I can guarantee you that's there. So the rule is test, don't guess. And what will happen as you watch the inflammation equation, there'll be some ideas that will come up for you. You say, I'm wondering, well, I've never checked that. Maybe I'll check that. And boom, there it is. A sky high level of heavy metals or toxic chemicals, petrol chemicals, because you live two blocks from a manufacturing facility when you were growing up. I'll give you an example. When I was 44, I was diagnosed with an asymmetrical cataract, which meant only in one eye. And I was a very healthy 44 year old doing triathlons. And it's extremely unusual to get a cataract in one eye and the other eyes perfectly fine, but in a healthy young man, that's extremely unusual. So I asked the ophthalmologist, three different ophthalmologists, why did this happen? Well, we don't know. It just does. No, it doesn't. There has to be a reason. So I did my own research and I found that lead poisoning could be a contributor to a cataract. And, well, I don't have any poisoning. I live in a good area. Maybe I should check. I had the highest level of lead of anyone I've ever tested, and I had done hundreds and hundreds of heavy metal tests, but mine was off the charts, the worst ever. What? And then I realized, until I was eight years old, I grew up. I grew up in Detroit. Until I was eight, we lived one block off of the river. Across the river was the rouge assembly line, Henry Ford's largest assembly line. This was 1952, and there's no filtration on the smokestacks. And I'm a little kid from birth to eight years old, riding my bicycle around the neighborhood. And all of that breathing lead from the air, it stayed in my body for 40 years. And manifest a cataract. And I never would have checked if I hadn't found the research article that said, sometimes lead accumulation will cause cataracts. Whoa. So in your case, there's some emergency breaks and you just need to find the emergency brakes.

Alex: Absolutely. And what really comes to mind when I hear you talk as well is that the idea that we need to challenge the concept and the rule that I think a lot of patients, and we're kind of accept, we're kind of told and accepted as a society, the idea that once you have a chronic illness, once you've this disease or this situation that you're in, that is it. You'll always have it. There's no going back, there's no reverse. You're stuck. You need to deal with your situation as best you can. And they're the cards that have been dealt. And everything you are doing and everything you're talking about is the ultimate challenge to that which is so empowering and so inspiring.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: We don't say you get rid of your disease. What we say is that you reduce and you can put into remission. Although some of the papers coming out of Harvard talk about arresting and reversing chronic inflammatory diseases. Reversing them, yes.

Alex: Wow.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: You arrest them, you put them into full remission, they don't get worse, and you reverse. Just read the science.

Alex: Phenomenal. And there's so much of the science out there. It's all available. It's all readable. You can access it. Individuals like yourself have taken all of that incredible research and real life story and put it into something like the inflammation equation, which will be the ultimate education about inflammation for anyone that wants to go and watch it. So like I say, all the details will be down below. So, doctor Tom, to wrap up, there are three things that I normally ask my guests, and if you'd be willing to, I'd love to try and put them past you. Okay, perfect. So there is a huge amount of information, there's a huge amount for our listeners to think about and take away from today, and obviously, then go and watch the inflammation equation. But if you had to pinpoint something, what could be one thing that our listeners could reflect on when walking away from this episode?

Dr Tom O'Bryan: One thing is that it's always inflammation. Always. Except for unintentional injuries, every other condition is a chronic inflammatory disease. Every single one of them.

Alex: Perfect. Love that answer. Secondly, what is one thing our listeners could practice? Whether it is a current habit, a new habit, what is something they could practice?

Dr Tom O'Bryan: When you wake up in the morning, most people first go to the bathroom. After that, the very next thing you do, go out into the kitchen and drink two big glasses of water right away. First thing. The result will be within a couple days. Your bowel movements are different. Your energies is, you know, in the old days, not so much today, but in the old days when you're going to go on a trip, you check the gas tank, the petrol tank to make sure it's full. You check the oil, you check the water and the radiator, and you check the water in the batteries. Sometimes you have to put more water in the battery to hold the charge. Not so much today with new, more upgraded batteries. But that's your body, your energy, your electrical vitality is determined by how well hydrated you are. Everyone should pinch the back of their skin and let go. It should go flat immediately. Without exception, it should go flat immediately. If not, if you see a little ridge and then it goes down, you're dehydrated and you need more water. But everyone should drink two big glasses of water when they first wake up in the morning.

Alex: So practical and easy to do. Thank you. That's exactly what I was looking for. Okay. And then thirdly, one thing our listeners could change, whether it's a. I mean, there's probably a huge amount we can change, obviously, for what you've discussed, but is there any small, immediate thing our listeners could change?

Dr Tom O'Bryan: Yeah. Watch the inflammation equation. And when you do, you start realizing, how am I throwing petrol on the fire? And you start investigating. For you and your family, you want a healthy lifespan. Extended healthy lifespan. This is the way to do it.

Alex: Well, you've heard it here first. Doctor Tom, thank you so much for your time. Your stories are inspiring, your research is incredible. You are pushing the boundaries of what many people thought was possible. Thank you for your work and thank you for your time. It has been an incredible conversation with you.

Dr Tom O'Bryan: Thank you. Alexandra.

Alex: Thank you so much for joining me on this week's episode. I hope you've enjoyed listening, I hope you've learned something and I hope you feel inspired to make one small change. Thank you, as always, and see you next week.