3: The 5 R's of Reversing Crohn's and Colitis

Doctors say that IBD is forever, genetic and permanent. But that's not true. There are 5 steps we need to take to begin reversing Crohn's and Colitis, and that's what we're talking about in this episode.


TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• The 5 R's (steps) to reversing IBD
• Where IBD comes from / common causes
• What your doctor never told you about how genetics really influence IBD (if at all)
• The autoimmune spectrum
• The 3 causes of IBD
• 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.

Now I do these live trainings in my Facebook group every single week and put the audios here for you to listen to. If you want to watch the video versions of these episodes, just click the link in the show notes to get access to our Facebook group and YouTube channel. And for weekly updates, information, tips and tricks, you can sign up for our email list by clicking the link in the show notes below.

Here’s the deal. Today we are talking about the five stages — one, two, three, four, five — of reversing IBD. Now, this is something that we know your doctor says is impossible. We know your doctor tells you nothing can be done. We know your doctor says it’s just genetic. And if you guys have been in the group long enough, you know that’s no longer true. That information is wrong. It’s misinformed. It’s — I want to say uneducated. They got a lot of great education, but a lot of it’s in the wrong place.

And so your doctor says it’s genetic, it’s unknown, it’s a mystery, and no one can figure out why we get these diseases. And so we’ve long since proven that’s wrong. Hundreds of clients over the last two years have come to see us, who we've reversed 93% successfully. And so today we’re showing you the five stages to reverse IBD. And these are the same five stages — or we call them the Five R’s — that I actually taught last week on international television in Texas, on a show called Know the Cause. Seventy different networks in like sixty-five different countries — it was very exciting. And so we were able to do that last week as well.

And so we’re going to show you what those are and how we do it. So here’s the preface: your doctor said it’s impossible. Hundreds of cases we’ve reversed — we’re proving that it’s wrong. We’re now teaching it to doctors and we’re teaching internationally. We did international TV last week talking about it, so the word is finally getting out. And today we’re going to talk about three things.

There’s three things you’re going to learn. The first one — we’re going to teach you the five stages of reversing IBD. I drew some fancy pictures here — hopefully they’re not too small to see on your screen. The second thing you’re going to learn — why what you’re doing isn’t working. And the third — I’m going to show you how easy this can actually be. Because really, truly, it is very, very simple when you distill it down to its finest parts.

Now that is to say, a lot of cases are very complex. They have a lot of layers. But once you get to them, there’s only a handful of things we look for 90–95% of the time. And that’s how we can reverse things so successfully. And so I’m going to show you that now.

So let’s talk about this — the Five R’s of reversing IBD. If you guys recall from my live — I think it was a week or two weeks — two weeks ago it would have been — we talked about my little Venn diagram. I showed you the three root causes. So I’m going to give you a quick recap on that.

There are three primary causes as to what causes IBD. Number one being toxins. Right? This is relevant here, because it talks about our first stage. So we have to understand toxins are a big one. Environmental pollutants, mold toxins, or “mot” toxins, or mold toxins. Mold and fungus are 80% of what we see. And so mold toxins are a big one. That’s huge.

The second one we’re going to see in here — the second root cause — is going to be microbial imbalances. Now this is going to be in your gut microbiome. This is going to be fungi, it’s going to be something else that’s caused imbalance in your biome — and that causes all kinds of other problems.

And the last big one is going to be nutrients. And I’m also going to side that with diet. So toxins — big ones — mold toxins, same same. It can be heavy metals, it can be environmental, it can be pesticides, it can be glyphosate — it can be all kinds of toxins.

Microbial imbalances — imbalances of good and bad. We need good bacteria, we need bad bacteria. It’s about harmony. And things that create disharmony — antibiotics, diet, stress, nutritional issues — all kinds — create inflammation.

And nutrients and diet — it’s — your body needs those. It’s like having water to put out a fire. Your body is the firefighting team. Nutrients are the water. Your body’s on fire — you are inflamed — it’s trying to put the fire out. It needs nutrients to do so. And most of us are deficient, or we’ve been inflamed for many years and have burned through our resources. We’re not replenishing. Because one: our food’s nutrient deficient. Two: we’re inflamed and having trouble bringing more in. And we’re going to — here — we’re providing steps on what to do about it.

Okay, so the first R — the first R of our Five R’s — is a big one. And you know what, I want to preface one more time. Cliffhanger! If you are inflamed, right — everybody understands — if you cut yourself, if you get sick, if you stub a toe or break a bone, your body inflames because it’s healing you.

We never stop to think — Western medicine and chronic inflammatory diseases or gut diseases never stop to think and ask: what is your body trying to heal you from? They go, “Oh, it’s autoimmune, it’s trying to fight itself.” Why? A healthy immune system will not attack itself randomly. Many of you going through this — probably 75% of what we see — a little bit of gut issues, within days, weeks, or months, popped off: “Now I’ve got blood in my stool, I don’t know what to do.” That’s probably 75% of who we see.

You had a healthy immune system. Something had to get in there to cause inflammation your body’s trying to heal you from.

So our first step is to remove the problem. That’s the first R in our Five R’s, okay? First step is remove. We have to remove the problem. Remove the thing that triggered the inflammatory response in the first place.

Now how does autoimmunity develop? Well, one — genetics are a part of that. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get autoimmunity. People fight me on this all the time — I’m gonna win. Munching that, okay?

Genetics make you prone. There are common genes that contribute to autoimmune disease or Crohn’s or colitis. Common genes we see are things like NOD2 — you can get tested for that. We have the IL-23R. We have the IRGM genes. These genes make you prone. What do — these are the most common ones, so that’s why I talk about them.

They change how your body uses autophagy, or turns over cells. They change how your immune system balances inside the gut. They change how you might regulate bacteria. But in a healthy system, it’s already regulated. This is a volume knob turned down.

The genes are down. If we have toxins, inflammatory things creating inflammation that your body’s reacting to, it turns the volume knob up — expressing your genes more so. Okay?

We explained that in our 8-minute YouTube video. And so genes are part of it. They’re not a guarantee. They’re not a cause. They are just a simple piece of the puzzle. So we know genes are a small part of it.

Moving on. We have to remove the problem. Remove the thing that turned the genes up. Remove the thing that turned up inflammation, because your body’s reacting to something. We have to get rid of the problem.

The most common things that I’m seeing right now in our practice — over the last probably 100, 150 people — is we’re seeing a lot of fungal issues. A lot of mold issues. We’re seeing a lot of parasites. Clostridia overgrowth — even though you may not have C. diff anymore, clostridia overgrowth on a smaller scale, we can see — we can test for that through urine.

We’re seeing a fair bit of — oh, post-COVID has been really bad for people. A little bit of Lyme disease, especially on the East Coast of the USA. I’ve seen a fair bit of Lyme disease as well. Bart’s and Bab’s and all that stuff.

So those are our common causes. We have to figure out where they’re coming from, what they’re doing, and how many layers there are — and start removing. It’s a careful process, like taking down a Jenga tower. If you pull the wrong one, it crashes — you get sick. And so we have to remove pieces very carefully, very systematically.

But removal is number one.

The second one we want to look at, okay, is — like we talked about — water for firefighters.
Replenish.

We have to replenish the nutrients. Your body is deficient. It’s running out of tools. Your body has been trying to heal you for a long time. Our food is void of nutrients. 80% of the American diet is processed anyway. Most of you are eating well, but even the food we farm — there was a study from the University of Texas back in about 2004, I believe — that suggested you would need, in ’04, eight oranges in order to get the same nutrients your great-grandmother would have had in one.

Today, the estimates are up to twenty.
So we’re not getting enough nutrients. We are devoid. We are depleted. Our nutrients are down. So your body doesn’t have the tools or resources to heal itself. The firemen do not have water to put out the fire. We have to replenish these in surplus.

And I tell you now, if you are taking vitamins — a multivitamin for example — or magnesium, it says “take one a day” — that’s enough to get into your system, but not enough to do anything. I take typically anywhere from four to seven times the amount. Because we have to replenish what your body’s lost. What we have to do is take you out of the red — right — back into the black, and give you enough to spare to be able to heal yourself appropriately.

Now, this is simplifying — but you get the idea.
 So you have to replenish.

If you guys have any questions, I do have this here — feel free to ask in the chat. I can see all of you tuning in. I see a lot of you want that YouTube video — we got you covered. We’ll do that for you.

Okay, so here’s what we got so far.

We’ve removed the problem — the thing that caused inflammation, right? That is the thing that stimulated your immune system. You’re inflamed because it’s trying to heal you. We remove that — whatever it might be. That toxin, that microbe imbalance, that nutrient deficiency — whatever it is.

And we replenish — or the things, rather, that are taking your nutrients down — we replenish those nutrients. The vitamins, the minerals, the waters, the oxygenation, the resources your body needs to heal you.

The next one we’re going to look at — and very important — is rebuilding.

Well, rebuilding what?
 Well — rebuilding your microbiome.

In an inflamed environment, microbes — the bad guys, right, the ones we don’t want to be too high — they love inflammation. Cancer is a byproduct of inflammation. Microbe overgrowth is typically a byproduct of inflammation. Even fungus can come from inflammation and other toxins or other root causes — poor diet, which — it can be inflammatory foods and sugars — mold toxins, they create inflammation.

And what that does is it dismantles the structure of your microbiome.

And your microbiome is 100 trillion bacteria.
 I’ll tell you guys a fun fact — you are born 99% human cells, 1% microbes, right? The ones you get in utero — as a fetus, growing in development in the womb — 1% of what comes out of there is going to be microbes. Coming through the birth canal, right, you’re covered in this vaginal fluid, which is actually microbes — for your skin microbiome. And this is how you’re born.

And then you start breastfeeding, and it seeds and inoculates. These start to grow like grass growing in a meadow, until it becomes a rainforest. By the time you turn — well, you die — as an adult, right, or of old age, you are 90% microbes, 10% human.
They literally outnumber you ten to one.

And so we have to rebuild this very careful, delicate ecosystem.

You’re born 99% human. You die 90% microbes. We have to rebuild this and take care of the integrity of it — or the structural integrity, the balance. Because these are out of whack now.

Never once have I seen a medical doctor in a hospital do a stool test beyond calprotectin and basic pathogens — C. diff, E. coli, etc. What they check for is: do you have infectious bacteria?
 There’s 100 trillion bacteria and they check for five.

We want to check for as many as we can to see what’s imbalanced, so we can figure out how to help your body heal your microbes. They’re connected to everything. Your microbiome — I argue — might be more important than your DNA. Your microbiome is responsible for how good of a mood you’re in, how social you feel like being, what diseases you may or may not get.

We’ve linked the microbiome to 93% of the leading causes of death in the USA. That’s going to be heart disease, strokes, liver, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, diabetes, Alzheimer’s — you name it. That’s 14 out of 15, as per the CDC. The 15th cause is self-harm — accidents, injuries, suicide — that type of stuff.

And so what we know is that every leading cause of death that we are seeing, as per the CDC, is a long-term chronic inflammatory condition connected to your gut — nutrients, gut biome, or inflammation in the gut. We know this based on the functional medicine data we have.

So these normal diseases don’t have to be. They don’t have to be normal. There’s nothing normal about dying of a heart attack — it’s just common, because we’re all sick and we all have gut issues.

 70 plus percent of Americans complain of having gut issues once a week — mild, like cramping, gas, bloat, pain, constipation, acid reflux — but that’s a slippery slope towards things getting worse.

If you’ve heard me talk about that heel rubbing in a shoe — where it gets red, irritated, blisters and bleeds — that’s bloat and constipation now, until it blisters and bleeds to ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease later.

Okay, so, so far here’s what we got.

We have to remove the thing causing inflammation. Your body is not randomly inflamed. Something had to cause it to inflame. It’s trying to heal you. Inflammation is a healing response. What is it healing you from? That’s number one.

Number two, we have to replenish all the nutrients that have been lost. The fire team needs water to put out the fire. We need nutrients.

The third piece — we have to rebuild the microbiome. Because inflammation has destroyed it. Antibiotics and treatment have destroyed it. All these things that we’ve gone through in our lifetime have destroyed the microbiome.

In fact, there was a really cool study that actually compared microbiomes — or gut bacteria balance — in three communities. So they took one community all the way over. They had two urban countries or two urban places. One was in the USA and the other — if you can see this here — was in Nigeria. And they also took a rural Nigeria sample.

And they tested the microbiomes of infants and adults in the USA and Nigeria — and again in rural Nigeria. So, urban centers and rural.

What they found — in the USA, babies’ microbiomes had a whole lot of stuff in it. Whole lot of things that adults didn’t have. So that the gap between similarities of babies and adults actually grew. You wonder why adults are very sick and babies typically aren’t. They haven’t had time to get these diseases or destroy themselves.

And so the infant microbiomes were much lower — had a big difference in the gap in the bacteria. The adults in the rural — or sorry — the urban USA centers, they had less diversity than even the babies did.

But in rural Nigeria — so they’re living on farms, farmers, eating off the land, no pesticides, engaging with animals, getting outside, getting sun, touching the dirt — they found that babies and adults had more similar microbiomes. Indicating that adults in America, living in cities, going to work, eating these foods — destroy their bacteria, contributing to inflammation.

And now the — the diffic— or the um — importance of this urban Nigerian population was the middle ground. Urban centers — they had less diversity, but they had more than Americans in big city centers. Because they’re still eating more local food and have less garbage.

And so what we know from this is that our microbiomes are a huge part of our health. Because again, USA is a disease capital of the world. It’s 5% of the global population, but they have 50% of the IBD cases in the world. So you can’t tell me it’s unknown. We know exactly what’s doing it.

Okay, so we’ve removed the problem. We’ve replenished the nutrients. We’re rebuilding the microbiome.

This next one’s also very important, guys.
 We have to — of course, we talked about inflammation — we have to repair the tissues.

That is a piss-poor repair, but you guys can read that — that’s all right.

So we have to repair the tissues.

Again — why? Well, that heel is worn out. It’s rubbed raw. It’s blistered. It’s bled. So now we’ve taken care of the problem with the shoe. We’ve replenished the nutrients. The tissues can start repairing. The immune system can balance. We’ve rebuilt the microbiome, so your body is no longer contributing to inflammation. It’s giving the signals it needs. It’s balancing the immune system. Now we can repair the damaged tissues.

You’re inflamed. You have ulcers. You have blood. It is worn out. Those tissues need repairing. And so we are in the midst now of repairing those tissues — so those can seal back up like an open wound. Just like a blister on your heel — it’s a blister inside the intestines. These ulcerations are open wounds. We have to repair them, of course.

And there’s a lot of steps and processes in between.
 But the last one — and this is probably the most important one that I think a lot of people miss — and this is not to boost, but to...

Rejuvenate the immune system.

We often think about boosting the immune system. What is autoimmunity? Autoimmunity is an imbalanced immune system. You have all these immune pathways that work together — keeping things balanced, like they’re juggling. And what happens is they become imbalanced.

Now you’ve caused — you have something causing a problem. You have low levels of nutrients. Your microbiome’s destroyed. The tissues — all imbalanced. So your body is super inflamed.

So let’s repair you.
Well, different pathways of your immune system — call them TH1, TH17, TH2 — we call them different things. But these pathways should work together. But because there’s so much demand imbalance — where one’s up here and one’s down here — and this, this precipitates toward autoimmunity.

And so rejuvenation isn’t about boosting. If we boost it — we boost the imbalance. We contribute to the problem. Instead, we want to rejuvenate it and bring it back to balance.

So here are your Five R’s — the five steps of reversing IBD.

Now again, if you guys haven’t seen our YouTube video — we just put one out or we’re just putting it out — it’s an 8-minute video on the root causes — the three causes of IBD — and the three reasons why it becomes autoimmune.

Okay, the five stages — the next step here:

Removing the problem,
Replenish the nutrients,
Rebuild the microbiome,
Repair the tissues,
and Rejuvenate the immune system, so it’s no longer imbalanced.

And these are the five steps that we use. Now it’s a very complex process. It’s taken me ten years to get here. But the idea is — I want to break this down in a way that makes sense.

And so if you’re here right now on the call, and you’re going “Man, this makes sense to me. My doctor’s never tested for this stuff. My doctor’s never asked. I’m seven minutes in, I get a new medication, a new update, a new diagnosis, a new something where they classify me in a box.” And you’re like, “I actually want to reverse this disease.”

“I recognize there’s something that causes inflammation — it’s not random.”
 “I recognize that nutrient deficiency is a possible cause.”
 “I recognize my microbiome is probably out of whack — I’m gassy, I have smelly gas, I have some foods that really irritate me more than others — they’re feeding bacteria.”

If you go, “Yeah, I also want to repair my tissues and rejuvenate my immune system to reverse what could be autoimmune.”
 And it may not even be autoimmune yet — that’s in that YouTube video.

If you go, “Yep, this sounds like me,”
 comment solution below. Just comment “solution” in the comments here, and we’ll give you some information about the Gut Health Solution — so you can see if it’s a good fit for you.

Now if you haven’t seen our YouTube video on the three causes — don’t miss that chance. Comment “YouTube” in the chats here.

So I’m going to move on to something else here. I’m going to give you guys a quick overview of those three main causes of IBD — so you guys can get a glimpse into that one.

And in the meantime, I’m going to go through some questions really quick.

Ann Marie asked:
So if a doctor tests for NOD2 — these were the genes, guys, I’ll put them on the board — this is a question from Ann Marie: if doctors test for the NOD2, the IL-23R, or the IRGMs — that’s what she’s asking — and these come up negative, that means not autoimmune?

Josh:
Not necessarily. This is actually a great segue to our three causes.

Genetics are just one factor of autoimmunity. Autoimmunity is a severity spectrum — or an inflammatory severity spectrum. And so — coined by Dr. Amy Myers — she calls it the Autoimmune Spectrum.

Okay, so we’re here. This is going to be autoimmune. This is going to be — we’ll call it low-grade inflammation. Okay? And over here, we’re going to put IBS. And here is IBD.

Now, this makes sense when you understand — we talk about that wear and tear, right?

Someone comes in — low-grade inflammation or irritation — they’re bloated, they’re gassy, they’re whatever — they’re at a very low risk for developing autoimmunity.
 It can still happen.

The more severe your gut gets — IBS — five, eight bowel movements a day, sensitivity, really smelly gas, maybe you have psoriasis or acne or some other inflammatory condition — it pushes you up toward the autoimmune spectrum.

If you have nutrient deficiencies — whatever it is —
 If you have now IBD — you’re closer to the autoimmune risk.
 It does not guarantee you’re autoimmune.
 Nor do genetics guarantee you’re autoimmune.

As a quick overview — like we talked about —
 Our root causes:
 Toxins,
Microbial imbalances,
and Nutrient deficiencies —
These are big ones.

And on the inside here are what makes things turn autoimmune. As a quick overview:
 The first is going to be a trigger — microbes, toxins — can be a trigger.
Antibiotics can be a trigger.
Stress, pregnancy, travel, death of a loved one — these can all be types of triggers.
Long-term stress.
Bad relationships.
Going to medical school — I’ve talked to doctors with IBD — that was their trigger.

Okay, the next one we’re going to see is — what we were just talking about here with Ann Marie’s question — is genetics. They make you more prone.

Toxins can turn those genetics up.
 Nutrients — we call it “nutrigenomics” — the study of nutrients and genes.
 If you’re lacking nutrients or imbalanced in nutrients, it can change the dial — the up and down volume on your genes.

And now, if we take microbes and nutrients together, it creates something that we all know now called leaky gut.

And leaky gut is a lead to autoimmune disease.
And that — in the middle here — is where we get your IBD.

Okay, and so — three main causes:
 Toxins,
Microbial imbalances,
Nutrients —
with three main roots of autoimmune disease being:
a trigger,
genetics,
and leaky gut.

This is where we get autoimmune IBD.
 If you have all six — you’re super prone.
 If you have a couple — you’re less prone.
 All of it can be reversed.

Even those who have a bad hand — you’re dealt a raw deal and it is genetic autoimmunity that just happened from birth — we know through the science and evidence of functional medicine — you can control 75% of that.

Only 25% is left to genetics.
 The other 75% we can control.

So even if you’re severe on the spectrum — we can turn that down. And that was the three I was going to go to — that Venn diagram. That was a great segue, Ann Marie. I’m glad you asked that.

So, Shayene Marie asked:
What if you’re on a biologic now that’s reducing inflammation — how would you still get to the root?

Josh:
Very easy, Shayene.

So here’s what we look at. Again, we have a spectrum of inflammation.
 If someone comes in and they are medicated — the inflammation here is a 10 out of 10 before they take drugs. You’re one out of ten here. You take medication — most of you that we see, we see people here at like a 3, 5 — they’re medicated, they’re somewhere in here. They’re still experiencing inflammation.

I know people taking medications and biologics — they’re doing nothing. They’re still super inflamed.
 And so the fact that you have symptoms is actually very helpful for us.

But even if you don’t have symptoms — our symptomatology questionnaires, our history taking — here’s the thing: when you go to your doctor — seven to ten minutes — they go,
 “Oh yep, here’s your symptoms, here’s your diagnosis, here’s your drug. See you later. Hey, we’re gonna refer you out for more tests.”

They do a colonoscopy, go, “Yep, you’re inflamed.”
 Calprotectin? “Yep, you’re inflamed.”
 Here are your symptoms? “Yeah, it’s ulcerative colitis. Automatically.”

No questions. It’s boxes.
 Autoimmune. Genetic. Unknown.
 Whatever it is — it’s not true.

And so they’re not even looking for this stuff.
 We do a thorough history.
We’ll sit down for 30 minutes to an hour for the first history.

We go back all the way back in time to when this first started.
Was it rapid onset?
Did you have gut issues your entire life?
Did you start a new job and mysteriously within a couple of weeks or months you started having gut issues?
Over a few more months, there’s blood, you go to the doctor, you got a diagnosis?

Are you somebody who’s come in who used to have a lot of bloat, gas and pain and smelly gas, then one day you had blood, freaked out, went to the doctor, got a diagnosis — they go,
 “Oh, it’s been ulcerative colitis the whole time.”
 No. It’s wear and tear.

That’s that heel rubbing raw.
 And so this is what’s happening.

And so no matter where you are on the spectrum, the history tells us before your doctor.
Right? They’re going here — they want to know:

• What are your current symptoms?
• Okay, what’s working?
• What’s not working?
• What’s the next step we can take?

This is what your doctors focus on — in your health timeline.

We care about all of this on the back side.
Because I already know you’re inflamed.
I don’t need a colonoscopy to tell me.

You can tell me.
You can tell me where it hurts.
How it hurts.
How much it hurts.
How much blood.
How much mucus.
I know you’re inflamed.

I don’t care about what drugs you’re taking, what’s working, what’s not.
 I care about when and how this all started — so we can go back to the root and find that root cause and remove the problem — the first R of the Five R’s.

That’s what we want. That’s what we do in the Gut Health Solution — is give you solutions to those problems.

And if you’re asymptomatic — doesn’t matter.
We have testing we can do. Organic acids and GI mapping and all kinds — to go,
“Yep — that is your problem.”
And that’s what we’re looking at.

So I hope that helps there, Shayene.

Tamani asked:
Can SIBO also be reversed with the solution?

Josh:
100%, Tamani. I’m so glad you asked. Thank you, guys.

Condition called SIBO — Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth.
This one — we’ve heard a lot about — it’s made some mainstream media attention.
It’s when your small intestine has an overgrowth of bacteria.

Now another one we don’t talk about often is actually called SIFO — Small Intestinal Fungal Overgrowth.
Oftentimes attributed to candidiasis or other types of candida — there’s like a hundred strains of candida.

And so these fungal issues — small intestine — the trickle-down effect.
 Look at your intestines, right? Effectively you go from:
 Mouth → stomach → small intestine → large intestine → and out the back door.

This trickle-down is like a waterfall.
If you have inflammation in the stomach or small intestine, it ends up down here.
We have a trickle-down that causes a problem.

I’ve seen many people come in with IBD — it’s 80% of what we do is mold and fungus, and it’s typically in the lower upper GI, and the trickle-down effect is the ulcerative colitis — that’s what they’re experiencing as a symptom.

A diagnosis is just symptoms. It means nothing.

We often wait for a diagnosis to go,
 “Oh well, I have a word for it, so like it kind of makes sense, right? It’s explained — at least I have an answer.”
 It’s not an answer.

In functional medicine, a diagnosis is just a term we use — that’s one word — to identify your symptoms.

You tell me “I have ulcerative colitis.”
 Great. Ulcers. Bleeding. Colon pain. Blah blah blah.
 I know what’s going on — in one word.
 It does not tell me why it’s happening, what’s going on, where it all started — none of that.

And so we have to look at the trickle-down effect.

Oral microbiome — right — your mouth is the start of your gut.
 In fact, your gums, those tissues — are the same tissues — that’s what your intestines feel like.
It’s the same cells, the same tissues.

And so in the stomach, very similar.
 The trickle-down matters. Absolutely.

We fix SIBO or SIFO conditions with this — and they absolutely can be the root cause of your gut issues.

And so if you’re asking here, Tamani — you said you’re asking:
 Can SIBO be fixed with this solution?

Hell yeah, it can. Absolutely.

Monica says:
Oh, Monica! Monica was in our program. She did awesome.
“The program gave me my life back. Then I started eating like 💩 again because I have an issue with food and self-control.”

Josh:
I get you.
I’m a storm eater.
If I open a package of something, I eat the entire bag.

“And I ended up almost back to where I started before the program. Getting myself well for the second time before going through the program again — it’s so amazing how quick it can happen.”

It was amazing.

Monica’s doctor — I actually attribute my career to this man, who’s been really great — is Dr. JP Sivea, Carolina Holistic Medicine.
 He’s a functional medicine speaker — er, doctor, international lecturer, speaker.

He was working with her for about three years. And they did okay — two years, three years.
 We had her for three months.
 She came out of the Gut Health Solution, and she was feeling like 80–90% better after three months alone.

And so Dr. Sivea calls me — he’s like,
 “What are you doing?! Let’s get you involved!”

And since then, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with some of the most famous doctors in the world — Dr. Steven Gundry, Dr. William Li.
 I met Lisa Bilyeu from Impact Theory, Women of Impact — it’s been amazing.

We’re now on international TV talking about it — because of Dr. Sivea making these connections.
 And that’s the difference, guys. It just takes one doctor to recognize what we’re doing.
It’s really cool stuff.

Tamani asked:
Do you need a colonoscopy to work alongside you?

Josh:
Nope. Now — what I can’t say is:
“Do not get a colonoscopy.”
That’s not what I’m going to tell you, because legally, that’s a big thing.

What I can tell you — and this is a question for you guys tuning in —
The question is:
Colonoscopies — do we need them?

The answer is: Absolutely not.

A colonoscopy is a visualization of what you can tell me through symptoms.

“Hey, it hurts when I press here.”
 “Hey, I feel this burning here.”
 “I get urgency here.”
 “I have blockage here.”
 “I have pain here.”
 You can tell me that.
 X amount of blood. X amount of mucus.

I can have a good guess — with 90% accuracy — what your colonoscopy is going to show.
Where it’s going to be.

The challenge with colonoscopy is:
 They wipe out your gut.
Wipe out your bacteria.
They’re invasive.
They cause inflammation.

Most of you have probably had a colonoscopy by now — probably 99% of you in this group have had a colonoscopy.
 You know how much they suck.
How painful it can be — for days after.

I do not need a colonoscopy — because symptoms trump tests.

When our symptomatology and our history is on point, we do not need to do testing or invasive maneuvers to see.

The reason medicine goes in — they want to know:
 Number one — what are your symptoms? That’s what they care about.
Number two — they need to have a test. So that’s what they’ll do:

• Stool,
• Visualization,
• They might do some labs, like blood.

That’s what they want to know.
 And then they confirm — “This is your diagnosis.”

That diagnosis then goes into a medication — to give you a prescription.
That’s what it is.

“Give me your symptoms.”
 Let’s confirm with visualization.
 They’re looking for disease.

Colonoscopies are simply looking for sources or — uh, they’re looking for proof of disease.

Well — we know in our timeline of severity, you’re already diseased.
You have inflammation.
You’re bleeding from the colon.
So you’re already diseased.

This means nothing to me.

What we want to go is — before all of this.
Let’s go backward.

Colonoscopies — I have people all the time say,
 “I’ll wait for my colonoscopy.”
 Guys — I promise — if you’re waiting for a colonoscopy, it’s for your benefit, not ours.

All we need is symptoms, and we can reverse this whole process.

It’s just reading somebody’s body more carefully than Western medicine has the time to.
They’re in and out in seven minutes.

How can they possibly sit with you for two hours?

In fact, I talked to a fellow on my podcast — Dr. Joel Warsh — you guys might know him on Instagram as Dr. Gator — Dr. Gator Warsh — he’s a pediatrician.

We talked about this, and he was saying that unfortunately, the medical system is set up where — insurance reimbursement — you might make $20 to see a patient for seven minutes.

If you want to get paid enough money to pay your staff and keep the lights on, you have to cycle through like cattle.

You can’t sit for two hours with somebody for $25 — just doesn’t make sense.

And so they just don’t have the time allotted through the processes we have in order to actually get you better and assess what they need to.

Michelle Sooan asks:
Is it possible to come off meds completely?

Josh:
Hell yes, it is.

Again — 93% — when I say 93%, we mean:
Feeling better, symptoms reversed, and off meds.

Because here’s the thing — remember, you have this spectrum of severity and inflammation.
 You’re on medication because you’ve reached this level, right?
You’ve reached this level of inflammation.

So in order to control it — to give you your quality of life back — you need medication.

Well, the more we bring back and reverse the clock on your inflammation, the less medication you need.

Great example I’ve been using a lot lately — because he’s a recent graduate and it’s a crazy good example:

“F” came in to see me.
22-year-old male.
Diagnosed recently with ulcerative colitis.
His doctor said,
“Yeah, it’s because you’re Jewish. Jewish people get it more. That’s just the way it is.”

Like — that’s a stupid answer.

Because we sat down for 15 minutes — we did a history with him — it only took 15.
 When did it start?

He started a new job.
Two months into his new job, he had random gut issues.
Diagnosed with IBS.

By the time he was done — six months after that — now eight months on the job, he had IBD.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
So he had ulcerative colitis, proctitis.

Took us 15 minutes to go back and figure it out.

And so — what’d we do?

We found out he had something called Ochratoxin A — that’s OTA.
It’s a very toxic mold substance or mold toxin — known to cause:

• Colitis,
• Liver disease,
• Kidney disease,
• Asthma,
• and other skin issues.

And so we found that in his system.
 Ten weeks — in and out.
No more disease.

And he’s still the same amount of Jewish.
It didn’t make a difference.

And so it’s not to do with genetics.

So we reversed that.
 He’s not in pain.
 No more inflammation.
 The problem is gone.

And so — he no longer needs medication, because there’s nothing to medicate.

Wasan asked:
I heard beets are good for IBD?

Host:
It depends.

I talk about different diets and foods — what some can indicate, why they’re good, why they’re bad.

If you’re someone who’s eating a lot of calcium — like even collagen — you take a collagen supplement because it’s good for your gut — you take it and you bleed?
 It’s probably clostridia.

If you’re eating carbs, starches, fibers, sugars — and you either feel really bad or substantially better — it could be fungus.

If it seems to be random, it could be a mold toxin.

If it’s like something that comes in cycles — either with your period or like every couple of weeks — it could be parasites, because they have a life cycle.

There’s all kinds of things we have to figure out.
 Different foods cause different problems — for different reasons — and they tell us what’s going on as well.

Ann Marie asked:
What about polyps that can’t be seen or felt, but can be seen on a colonoscopy?

Josh:
Polyps, hemorrhoids, all those things — they are simply byproducts of inflammation.

It’s like looking at a blister.
 A blister is a byproduct of, right — you’re inflaming, you’re irritating the tissue.

That’s all it is.

And so — there are certain points where hemorrhoids can get so big, you might need medical intervention.
But a colonoscopy — we can get them a lot of the time reversed or reverted by dealing with the inflammation.

Last one here, Tamani says:
If we’ve done a GI map already, are we able to send it to you during the program?

Josh:
Send it to me before.

If you guys come in — if you guys want to see the Gut Health Solution, comment “solution” — and then send me a message right away.

Anything you’ve done previously — colonoscopies, if you have them — I’ll look at the report.
 But it’s like the lowest end of the totem pole.

If you have GI maps — send it over.
 I want to see it.

Blood work — we want to see it.
Anything you’ve had done in the last 6 to 12 months is relevant.

So what we do — I’ll give you a rundown:

First one — we have to sit down.
 It’s for 30 to 60 minutes.
 I want to go through a history.
Learn more about you.
When did this start?
What’s going on?
What are your symptoms?
Etc.

After that — right — you’re like,
 “Yeah man, I’m all in. Let’s get into this program.”

What we do is — I then send you a whole bunch of intake documents.
And it’s got about 250 different questions — all about symptoms.
What’s going on, what’s not.
Tell me about your life, your history, your family, your food — likes, dislikes, sensitivities — the works.

Because these — excuse me — they matter.

What sort of allergies do you have?
 Because different types of allergies, for different reasons, tell us different things.

We need to assess a full history.

After that, we sit down with you for another 30 to 60 minutes.

So now we’re already two hours in.
250 questions in — on top of questions in the interviews.

We go back again, and then we come out with the prognosis, and we say,
“Yep. Confirm — this is what’s going on.”

Sometimes we can do this in 15 minutes — depends on the individual.
 Like that fella — who’s still the same amount of Jewish with no more ulcerative colitis — we were able, in 15 minutes, to figure it out.

Made the protocol.
 Done.
Ten weeks.
Free and clear.
No symptoms.
No pain.
No inflammation.
No drugs needed.

 And so — we go through this:

• Intake interview one,
• Questionnaires,
• Diagnostic questions,

Then we go through another interview, and then we come out and we have a program.

And then  what we do is we meet with you every single week for 16 weeks.
We do not let you slide.

People come in, they often just like —
 “Oh just write me a program.”

I will not do that.

Most people are used to just being given something by a doctor:
 “Here’s a drug. Come back in three months. See how you’re doing.”
 “Try the supplement. Come back in three months.”

Every. Single. Week.
 We micromanage this process — the entire time — to make sure you’re getting better.

If something gets worse — we want to know right away.

We meet with you every single week for 16 straight weeks.
It’s an extraordinarily thorough process.
But this is why we’re so successful — because we take the time that other doctors don’t.

Wasan says:
“I’ve been taking collagen on an empty stomach in the morning and magnesium glycinate at night — plus I’m making bone broth with zucchini and turmeric. Feeling much better.”

Josh:
Great.
So for you — it’s probably not a clostridia issue.
It’s going to be something else.

Shayene asks:
What about long-term remission? I guess this program is new. Like Monica — if she didn’t stick to the plan exactly, was she flaring again?
The disease is confusing.

Josh:
Great question.

So — the question here, as a summary is —
 Can we stay reversed long-term?

Yes.
But here’s the thing:
I recommend one to two months of carefully dialed-in programming for every year you’ve had a problem.

So — Monica has had hers for many, many months.
 She was in a 90-day program. She was in it three months. She was okay.

We’re 16 weeks now, because it reduces our relapse or flare rates.

But — staying in remission is easy, but there’s many different layers to it.

Right?

So someone comes in — the first layer, say it’s a mold issue, like our fellow 22-year-old male.
We got mold — now mold’s out — that’s great.

He’s feeling 99.9% better.
He’s — we just have to confirm with his doctor now — but he’s got:

• No symptoms
• No gas
• No bloat
• No pain
• No nothing
• No blood
• He’s great.

So that was mold.

But I’ve had some people come in — and we got the mold — eight weeks —
They’re like,
“Dude, I’m 50% better. I haven’t been this good in 15 years.”

Great.
 But you’re only 50% better.

What else is going on?

Maybe we have to dive in now and do another test.
 You might look at an organic acid test, because there’s always layers.

And it depends — everybody’s body — one to two months is the average per year you’ve had the disease.

But everyone’s body will move through the Five R’s differently.

Right?

They will remove their toxin depending on what the toxin is — it might take weeks or months to get rid of.
Replenishing nutrients could take a little bit longer for some.
Rebuilding the biome — depending on the severity of the damage — can take time.
Tissue repair — it’s typically about the same for everyone.
And rejuvenating the immune system — can take time.

So our Five R’s — your recovery and how well you can actually stay in full-blown remission is up to:

• How quickly you get through the Five R’s,
• How much you stick to it,
• And continue on.

There are some people who feel better coming out of the program and it’s like:
 “Well I feel better, so I forget about it.”
 And they slip back to old habits.

This is a lifelong thing.

It’s not because you guys have IBD you’ll be stuck with this forever.

But — there are people, for example, who can go from a very healthy gut, no genes, no anything — who can treat their bodies poor enough and develop IBD, because they’ve had so much wear and tear.

This is what we do in the Gut Health Solution — we have to figure all your roots, all your causes, reverse every layer, no stone left unturned.

But even then — the healthiest gut can still become unhealthy and bleed — through poor diet, lifestyle, nutrition, toxins.

So if you go back to the thing that caused the problem — if maybe it’s mold — you go to visit Grandma once a year and you have ulcerative colitis and she’s got an old home full of mold —
You go back at the end of the year — you re-inoculate the mold, you start undoing all the things we just worked on fixing.

And so — we have to stop that from the root, repair the damage, and keep those roots out — that caused the problem in the first place.

Ann Marie asks:
Does the Crohn’s label still stick even though you’re through the program and in remission?

Josh:
Depends on who you ask.

So — Dr. Jill Carnahan — she’s actually a medical doctor. I’ve had her on my podcast recently. She’s a mold expert.
She had Crohn’s disease when she was in her teens.

Because — if you go back to the three roots, right?
 We talked about:

• Toxins,
• Microbes,
• Diet/Nutrients,

Right on top of the things that make it autoimmune, which are:

• Genetics,
• Leaky gut,
• and we also have your trigger, right?

Well — guess what?

Jill — full of toxins.
 Grew up on a farm full of pesticides.
Ate medium to poor.
Plus, pesticides cause microbe imbalances.
She also had a parasite at the time.
Diet was medium.
Genetics — she had the NOD2 gene.
She went to medical school for six, seven years — really high stress — trigger.
And that leaky gut.

So she developed autoimmune Crohn’s disease.

But — she’s 23 years now, completely reversed.
No signs and symptoms.
No... full remission.
I can’t use the word “cure”.
She’s like,
“I cured it, dude. It’s gone. Because there’s nothing else contributing to disease.”

Disease isn’t random.

On the other hand — we had a testimonial from Ashley, one of our clients.
If you guys saw that a few weeks ago — she was here in the group.
And she had Crohn’s disease.

She had Crohn’s disease for — how many years it was — but she...
 90 days after starting the program.
90 days — that was it.
She went back to her doctor.
They did what’s called a CT Enterography.

And the CT Enterography — it’s kind of like a visualization. They sort of scan the body.
 They did this CT — and her doctor went:
 “Uhhh... the disease is all gone. Like there’s no inflammation. No blood. No ulcers. No nothing.”

Disease — Crohn’s — gone after 90 days.

And her doctor goes,
 “But I’d really like you on Entyvio.”

She’s like,
 “Why?”

“Well... because you have Crohn’s disease.”

She’s like,
 “No I don’t. You just scanned me.”

Like — if you weren’t looking at her previous chart, you would never know she had any kind of bowel disease.
And her doctor’s looking at the chart going,
“Well you have Crohn’s. Get on the Entyvio.”

She’s like,
 “Why would I suppress my immune system when I’ve:

• Removed the problem,
• Replenished my nutrients,
• Rebuilt,
• Repaired,
• And rejuvenated my immune system?”

There’s no disease.

This doctor is trying to give a perfectly healthy person an immunosuppressant — because the chart says so.

And that’s the problem I have with Western medicine.

And so, Ann Marie — to answer your question:
 Depends on who you ask.

Host (closing):
On that note, guys — thank you so much for coming.
It’s always a pleasure when you’re here, you’re engaging, you’re asking questions, you’re commenting — I love that.
It makes this so much better.
And it’s a better experience for everybody else too.

So thank you for paying it forward.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for letting us know if you’re live or replay, and asking your questions.

We’ll see you next week.

Thanks for listening.

Now, if you want help reversing your IBD, I’d like to invite you to join our Reversing Crohn’s and Colitis Naturally Community, where we give you the tools you need to actually reverse your IBD.

We’ve got:

• Courses,
• Live Q&As,
• Coaching calls,
• Done-for-you meal plans,
• Programs,
• And huge discounts on supplements from some of the top suppliers.

Just click the link in the show notes to learn more.