4: What Supplements are Best for IBD (Crohn's and Colitis)?

Many people prefer natural supplements over steroids and biologics. So, what supplements can help with your IBD?

NOTE: supplements should always have an end goal/work to fix the root cause of your IBD (something they're accomplishing) rather than simply replacing medication.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• How to use supplements for IBD
• The biggest mistakes people make when using supplements
• Specific vitamins, minerals and supplements to support IBD and how they work
• Be careful of Amazon supplement fraud
• Q+A with the audience

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Transcript

Josh Dech:
Contrary to what your doctors told you, Crohn's and colitis are reversible.
Now, I've helped hundreds of people reverse their bowel disease, and I'm here to help you do it too. Because inflammation always has a root cause — we just have to find it.

This is the Reversing Crohn and Colitis Naturally Podcast.
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Well hi guys — it is Tuesday night. We're here talking about the best and worst supplements for IBD.

So here’s the deal — the most common question I get in the natural world of healing IBD and reversing it is: supplements.

• What supplements can I take?
• What supplements are the best?
• Which ones are going to hurt me, help me, harm me?

We want to know.

And so — supplements — they can be really nuanced, very hit and miss.
But we're going to answer:

• What supplements are best?
• What works?
• What doesn't?
• What's a scam, quite frankly?

And a common question we get is:
“Can I replace my medication with supplements?”
 Or:
“Can I come off supplements and go a natural route?”

And so we will be talking about that.
We’ll talk about the best, the worst, and everything in between.

So here’s the deal. When we’re talking about supplements, the first thing I want to cover is: Guys — watch out for the scams.

There are so many supplement scams.
I'll tell you what — NOW Foods — if you guys have seen them, they're lovely.
So the brand is called NOW Foods.

They recently done a study, and they actually sampled 43 different supplements across 15 of the most common, popular brands of supplements being sold in the U.S. on Amazon.
They took three bottles from each — right — one, two — a couple of them had two — but they took 43 different supplements.

Now, they had tested them against their quality.
If they say it contains 1,000 milligrams of this thing — they wanted to test:
“Does it contain what it says it contains?”

And here’s the harsh reality of it — and this is why supplements are a scam unless you know your quality, you know your supplier.

Out of this one — okay — they tested 43 supplements.
 Only — there was 36 that actually failed the potency test.
36 out of 43 failed. That’s like 80-some percent failed.
They did not contain what they said they were going to contain.

And so here’s the scary part —
 There was — what was — I got the numbers here —
 They tested 17 products — okay — so 17 of these products had less than 10% of what they said.
So 30% of the products on Amazon they tested had less than 10% of what was on the label — which is staggering.

And there were another 23 that contained somewhere between 2% and 30%.

So — we have a shocking amount of fraud going on through Amazon.
And they reached out to Amazon and said,
“Hey guys, just so you know…”
They reached out to the distributors and said,
“Hey, just so you know…”

And very little has actually been done about it, unfortunately.
 So — you do have to know your suppliers.

So here's the deal — we’re talking about supplements.
 So we know: Amazon — garbage place to get supplements.
A lot of fraud, a lot of trash.

This is why I’m very particular about where I get them.

But — what should you use? Or what could you be using for IBD?

So — we talk about supplementing.
 We always want to think — because people often go,
 “Well, I have to supplement like a medication. Medication suppresses symptoms, so I can replace my medication with supplements, but I have to be on supplements forever.”

That’s not the case.

When we use supplements, we have to keep in mind — if we're supplementing,
 I want you guys to keep in mind: supplements — they're going to have a purpose, okay?

They're going to have an end.
So supplements work you toward an end goal.

If you're just taking supplements instead of medication — you're keeping things at bay — you're taking Qing Dai, you're taking curcumin, you're taking anti-inflammatories instead of medication — awesome.
But now you're on plant-based medication, and you're supplement-dependent.

You shouldn't be supplement-dependent — because your body is dysfunctional.

So if we take supplements, we want to keep them in mind that we’re targeting them towards an end goal.
 Supplements need to have a purpose — so you can correct the dysfunction in your body, heal the thing that is causing you to be inflamed, right?

If you guys have been around long enough, you know:
 Inflammation is not random.
Inflammation is just here because your body is trying to heal you from something.

So — supplements need to have an end goal.
The end goal being: we’re going to have to remove the thing that’s causing you the problem.

That’s the biggest one.
 Are the supplements helping you remove the thing that your body is inflamed to?

If you’ve got parasites — are they antiparasitic?
 If you’ve got fungal issues — are they antifungal?
 If you’ve got bacterial issues — are they antimicrobial or microbial balancing?

This is the purpose of supplements.
They only bridge the gap from dysfunction to function — so you no longer have sickness, illness, disease.
You no longer need medication.
You no longer need supplements.

That is what the goal of supplements needs to be.

Not simply to replace medication.
 Not simply to Band-Aid things.

We have to have an end goal in mind.

And so that being said — what is the end goal, or how do we get there?
 That's a whole other topic of discussion.

But that’s what we talk about with you guys through programming.

So — let’s talk about supplements in general.
 Because I don’t know any of you guys, where you’re at — we have to go through extensive symptomatology to figure out what supplements are best for you as an individual.

So today — the information I’m going to give you is:
 What supplements generally are very well accepted and needed in IBD, to bridge some of the gaps of dysfunction.

Next up in Part 3: Common supplements like Qing Dai, curcumin, and how inflammation is modulated. Let me know if you'd like a running document link for everything when we're done!

Josh Dech:

So the first one we’re going to talk about — we’ll go through some common ones.
So very common one is Qing Dai.
I’m actually going to pair this with curcumin.

Both of these have very great anti-inflammatory properties.
Specifically — Qing Dai has immunomodulating properties.

So — what does that mean?

Well — you got inflammation, right?
It’s up here. It should be down here.
It brings it down — makes it a bit more manageable.
Which can be really nice.
It makes you — you’re less prone to going into flares, you have less discomfort. That’s awesome.

But immunomodulation, like this guy does — your immune system should be even-keel.
But right now it’s not — because you’ve got some kind of inflammatory condition.
So you’re all over the map.

Immunomodulating just brings these a little bit closer together — so your imbalances are not highs and lows.
It just helps sort of bridge that gap a little bit.

And so that’s immunomodulation.
 It modulates or rebalances that immune system.

So some of these can be very useful.
 But that’s what Qing Dai effectively does.
Your immune system is ramped up.
You’re inflamed — so it’s sent in the cavalry.
These cells create inflammation in an attempt to heal you.

They simply modulate those signals to reduce the amount of cavalry — therefore the inflammation.

But again — you stop taking it?
 You go right back.

And so we want to talk about some other things.

What else is anti-inflammatory?

Well — of course — you have your omegas, and your Omega-3s.

Specifically — something called PRMs, or pro-resolving mediators, which are like a concentrated form from omegas.
Also have great anti-inflammatory properties to help manage the level of inflammation you’re feeling.

Again — they’re like medication where it manages inflammation.
 This can help with that immensely.

Omegas — you have to watch your source, again, because they’re often very rancid, they’re old — the refining process — you may as well be taking canola oil a lot of the time.
And PRMs can be very expensive.

But these are some good anti-inflammatory options:

• Your Qing Dai,
• Your curcumin,
• Your PRMs,
• And your omegas.

They can be really nice anti-inflammatories for you guys — to kind of help bridge that gap.
 But again — if you don’t want to break the bank, you have to do it with some structure.

On the other hand, your body — right?

 Think about it this way:
 Your body is the factory.
This is going to be you guys — you’re all gingerbread men with gigantic arms and heads — like if we turned Shrek into a gingerbread man.

But here’s the body, okay?

Right now, there is inflammation all over inside the body.
Well, this is the factory. Things are moving.
Now you have factory workers.
These are your immune cells.

Let’s put IC — that’s your immune cell.
So all the immune cells, the factory workers, come in and go,
“Well, there’s a fire in the warehouse. Let’s get in there and start cleaning that mess up.”

Well, they can’t do it with their bare hands, so they need tools.
 What are they going to use for tools?
 Vitamins and minerals.

This is like your firefighting team.
They need water to put out the fire.
You’ve got inflammation, your immune cells need to come in, your body needs to do its job — it needs tools (vitamins and minerals) to do so.

And so, when you’re actively inflamed, chronically inflamed, not only are you:

1. Burning through resources at an increased rate,
2. You’re not digesting, breaking down, and absorbing nutrients into your system to replenish the water — to replenish the tools your cells need to put the fire out.

And so we can supplement some of these things.

So — what we’re going to talk about here are the vitamins and minerals that your body typically needs or will utilize to help put out some of these fires.
That’s what we’re talking about here, okay?

Next up in Part 5: The importance of vitamins like Vitamin D3, Magnesium, and how to get your nutrients back up to speed! Stay tuned for more!

 So we’re going to talk about replenishing some of those stores — how do we get that?

The first thing we’re going to talk about — there’s some really good ones out there.
 One of the most underrated, basic supplements, guys:
Vitamin D3 — always best paired with some Vitamin K2.

You’ll typically see this maybe 5,000 IU — give or take 80 to 100 micrograms of K2.
That’s typically okay. But 100 mics a day and 5,000 to 10,000 IU of Vitamin D3 is typically fine when supplemented.

Vitamin D3 is actually hormone-like. It regulates over 2,000 genes in the body.
That’s about 10% of your entire genetic code that is regulated with Vitamin D.

So think about it:
 An autoimmune inflammatory condition — that we’re told is genetic.
 Well — we know genetics don’t just cause the problem.
 You can’t just genetically have a disease.

Your genetics dictate how you express inflammation.
And when you have microbes or nutrient deficiencies, those genes will turn up and turn down.
It’s something called nutrigenomics — how nutrients actually influence your genes.

And so that turns up and turns down.
Well — if you want to influence your genes better, give them the tools to help themselves, right?
And so Vitamin D3 is a really important one.

Now, you can go out and get it in the sun.
If I go out — I’m pretty pale, minus my tattoos, and you guys can see my belly, I’m like pasty white, right?
And so if I go out into the sunshine for half an hour, I’ll probably produce 20 to 30,000 IUs of Vitamin D. It comes right through my skin.

But if one of my Black friends goes out in the same light — like straight from Nigeria, very dark skin — they might produce 5,000 IUs or 10,000 in the same amount of time.

So skin color and sun absorption does matter.
And so the idea being, we want to supplement accordingly if we’re not getting enough.

Now, there is a difference from IV to like, you know — oral ingestion — but let’s not worry about that for now.

So — Vitamin D3 with K2 is phenomenal.

Something else we have to look at is called magnesium.
We’ve all heard of magnesium. There are a zillion different forms.
A really good one during the day can be magnesium threonate.
One more midday toward evening, magnesium glycinate or a bisglycinate can be really nice and a bit more relaxing for some people.
I take 1,200 milligrams a day. I feel fine.

But magnesium also works in three ways — it’s a catalyst for over 300 different enzymes and chemical reactions in the body.
These are your top dogs.

Most of us are vitamin D deficient — we get a hundred times less light during the day than we should.
A hundred times more light at night — like fake lights from bright lights and blue lights and cell phones at night time.

So we’re not getting our Vitamin D from the sun naturally.
And magnesium is so depleted — most of us burn through it like crazy.

So these are the first two supplements I recommend people take for all kinds of reasons — to influence your genes, to influence your immune system, to give your body the tools it needs to be as healthy as it can be.

Vitamin D3 with K2, and magnesium — those are a great place to start. Those are basic basics.

Next up in Part 6: Detoxing, the liver’s role in clearing out toxins, and more supplements to consider for gut repair and inflammation.

Now, let’s talk about something else — your body.
One of the biggest things we need to do when dealing with the body is detoxing, right?

We talk about — what’s a detox?
 Is it a water cleanse?
 Is it lemon juice?
 Is it a juice fast?

It’s not what detoxing is.

Your body actually goes through processes.
So think of this:
You’ve got your liver, right?
That has what we call your Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 liver detox pathways.
That’s just some fancy stuff we’re going to skim over, but you have different detox pathways.

This is collecting the trash.
This is organizing it.
This is taking the trash out.

Your body will recognize and pull in all this garbage.
 Your liver filters 4 liters of blood per minute.
Right? These are the factory workers.

You have all these cells in the liver. These are your factory workers who need vitamins and minerals as tools to do their job.
They need these tools to collect the garbage — toxins in the body being produced by your gut, excess inflammation, all the junk coming in.

They need to package it and ship it out.
They need tools — vitamins and minerals — to do that.

So what do we need for your body — for your liver to do this?

There’s a great product I use — Detox Phase 1 and 2.
And that’s actually something I’ll talk about where you guys can get some of those later.

But these products — or these vitamins — can be really great.

So the first one — Vitamin B9. That’s known as folate.
Now, this is different than folic acid.
Folic acid is the artificial form, which in fact, statistically speaking, 44% of the population has a certain gene.
You guys might know this as MTHFR.

If you’ve heard of this one, MTHFR — this gene will not be able to use folate or folic acid.
It has to be a folate or what we call an L5 methyl folate — that’s going to be a methylated version.

This Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3 — we talked about this as part of this process of methylation or extracting raw materials.
And if you have this gene — 44% of the population does — you can’t use folic acid. So it needs to be a proper Vitamin B9.

Some other ones we can look at that really help with this — of course, are other B vitamins and something called MBUM.
I hope I’m spelling that right — MALUM can help with that. Manganese, magnesium — these are great things that help with your liver detoxifying and actually pulling stuff out of your body.

Well, why do we need to detoxify?

Well, when you have toxins, right — it’s like — picture this analogy I use all the time:

If you have something puncturing your hand — well, that causes inflammation, right?
Your body brings in immune cells and uses excess resources, vitamins, and minerals to try to get that thing out — to try to heal you.

When you have toxins in your body, your immune system is working overtime.
It’s got invaders — so your security team is like,
“Man, we got to fix this! We got to get this out!”

They’re working overtime as these toxins settle in to other places.
 It’s like squatters squatting in houses.

Well, you’ve got a problem.
 You need more police, right?

And this is what your vitamins and minerals will do — is be the tools to get those junk out.

So — we need to supply them.

These are some really great things to help your liver detoxify, taking the burden down on your immune system, so your body doesn’t have to work so hard, and your immune system won’t be so inflamed.

Some other great ones that we can use — and you guys — there’s another product I’ll use — actually, I’ll show you about it called Methyl Complete.
It helps with that methylation. It’s got all the things you need in that.
But another one that we can look at here is going to be zinc, specifically something called zinc carnosine.

Good for the immune system, and it happens to be very good for the gut lining to help repair some of that.

Now, remember this:
 When we’re looking to repair the gut lining — you’re inflamed. Yes, there’s fire in the house. It is burning down.

Like — what water can I put on it?

Zinc, DGL, slippery elm, aloe — all of these are great things to put water on the fire.

But again — we’re putting water on the fire while gasoline is still being poured on the fire.

It may help manage or bring the flame down — but it’s still burning.
 So I want to reiterate — these are not fixes for your inflammation.
They’re just an option that may help mitigate the need for medication to help manage some of your symptoms.

That’s the idea.

Supplements will not fix you unless you have a specific protocol to use them for a specific root cause and a specific end goal.

And that’s a big bummer. Some people might turn this off and go, “That’s not what I want to hear.”

Well, it may not be what you want to hear — but it sure as hell is what you need to hear because that’s the truth.

And this is why so many people stay sick.
 They’re not willing to look in the mirror and go,
“Maybe I’ve got to do some hard work and really figure this out.”

We’re nearing the finish line! Stay tuned for Part 8, where we dive into magnesium dosing, the MTHFR gene, and why supplements can’t be your permanent solution.

So that’s the idea. So these are the basics of some of the things that we can utilize to try to heal ourselves or give our body a better chance of managing inflammation.

So — on to the rest of the questions.

Ann Marie was asking — let me see —
How much magnesium?

Magnesium is very different for everyone.
So, fun story — I almost killed my mom one time by giving her too much.
So for me, I take 400 milligrams of magnesium bisglycinate — I take that three times per day.
Sometimes I take 400 twice a day.
But ultimately, I’m anywhere from 800 to 1,200 milligrams per day.

I cannot give you guys medication supplementation dosing specifics.
You have to go with what’s on the bottle — that’s what I have to tell you.

What I can say is, often times, the bottles are enough to get some in your system, but not enough to do anything.
Your bank account is in debt — right? This is neutral.
Most of us are so inflamed or burning through resources, we’re way down here.
We don’t have anything in the tank.

So we add a little bit of nutrients, which brings it here.
 Well, you’re still in the red, right?
We need a surplus to bring us up.
So that when we take them, we’re just keeping our levels normal.

And that’s often times what happens with supplements.

So, I can’t specifically say how much.
 What I can say is, I’ve seen that range go well with 400 to 800 milligrams depending on activity, inflammation, injury levels, etc.
But again — magnesium won’t fix the problem, but it can help mitigate some of the damage and the issues.

 And another question that Amar asks is:
How do you know if you have the MTHFR gene?

You don’t really.
 I mean, there’s a couple of factors.
 You can see if folate maybe makes you feel groggy, grumpy, and tired.
There are certain foods you might look for. You can get genetic testing.

High blood pressure definitely can be a thing.
One of the reasons being: we need Vitamin B9 or folate to regulate certain amino acids.
But the challenge is, if you don’t have those regulated, it actually drives up something called homocysteine.

So you can actually go to the doctor — they can test your homocysteine levels.
If those are elevated, you probably have this MTHFR gene.

This will also drive up blood pressure in some people — which we can see typically in older adults.
High blood pressure can be a cause of liver problems, not your blood pressure.

But that’s something else to consider.

But here’s the thing, guys — getting to the roots, dealing with inflammation, and actually getting you fixed is a whole thing by itself, right?

Supplementation — this is, again, I want to reiterate this so carefully:
Supplementation — no one wants to hear that supplements won’t fix them.

It’s very rare they go,
 “Okay, well, what can I take?”

I’ve literally had this whole conversation with somebody before, multiple times over the last 10 years.
 I’ve said,
 “Well, here are the things that can help. They won’t fix you.”

Okay, but what can I take?

I said,
 “What do you want to take?”

Then they go,
 “Well, I want to get rid of inflammation.”

But you do realize, this might help you — but you’ll be dependent, right?

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. But what can I take?”

So — right back to,
 “How can I be dependent?”

IBD is reversible, entirely reversible.
We have nobody who can’t be fixed.
Some people are weeks. Some people are months. Some people are many years.

Everyone can get better.
 It’s just a matter of time.

And so the idea is, if you want to give yourself supplements, supplements must meet an end goal.
Otherwise, you are supplement- or plant-based medication-dependent.

This isn’t the way we want to be.
 It’s a money pit.

If you don’t want to be reliant on these things forever, constantly doing a balancing and juggling act, constantly trying to figure out,
 “If I stop taking this, am I going to be out of this? This is out of order. What am I going to do if I flare?”

You want to actually get better.
We need to have an end goal.
We need to know:
What is causing my inflammation?
And how can I get rid of it and restore the systems in my body so it can heal itself, regulate itself, and not be supplement-dependent?

If this makes sense, give me a thumbs up. Let me know, guys, because this is very important stuff.
This is the kind of information that I wish doctors talked to their patients about.
I wish doctors talked to you guys about this.

You’re inflamed.
 It’s not random.
It’s not genetic.
It’s not unknown.
There’s always a root.
And supplements should be targeted toward that end goal.

And so, while more questions are coming in, here’s what I want to tell you guys:
You know the drill — if you’ve been around long enough and you’re like,
“Man, this makes a lot of sense. I’ve been dealing with this for a long time. I just want to get better. I’m sick of, like, fiddling around. I’m sick of just trying different things.”

I know people who spend $10,000 a year on colonoscopies and medication — it’s crazy.
Don’t bother. Don’t wait.
Now, see what we got for questions.

Ann Marie says:
“My IBD doctor knows nothing about supplements.”
Happy to add folic acid?

Again, I want to go back to that one, Ann Marie — not folic acid, methylfolate.

Okay?
 L5 methylfolate.

There is — if you’re already on nutrient, again, if you comment DIY, I can get you that information about getting those big discounts on those supplements — lifetime membership.

But they have a product called Methyl Complete.
And I think it’s Methyl Assist.
If I’m not mistaken, it’s just methylfolate, and Methyl Complete is all the methylation vitamins that are available that someone might lack to help their body clean stuff out.

Again — not a fix, but a damn good solution to help in the meantime, help your body get stuff out.

Yeah — they told her to take folic acid. Unfortunately, that’s it, right?
Doctors will learn that there are nutrient deficiencies that can cause problems, and then that’s it.
They skip over it. They don’t talk about nutrition at all.
They go,
“Oh yeah, if you’re deficient, here’s a symptom you get. Here’s a medication to fix that symptom.”

Kid you not — if you’re deficient in this vitamin or mineral, it causes this symptom — here’s the medication to mask the symptom.
They don’t go,
“Here’s the supplement or the vitamin you need to fix that dysfunction.”

They don’t even talk about that.
 It’s crazy.
 Medical school is a freaking joke.

Anyway, on that note, guys — have an amazing night, and we’ll see you next week!

Thanks for listening!
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