13: The Biggest Lies about IBD debunked

Medications aren't the only way to get relief from your IBD. I'm giving 4 things to do right now that can help give you relief from your IBD immediately.


TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• Why IBD isn't random, autoimmune or genetic
• Why diets do or do not help with IBD
• Why supplements/holistic approaches do or do not help
• How to use supplements properly
• The importance of the gut brain axis
• The roles of happiness, stress and purpose in your life

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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’s 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.

If you've ever followed an influencer, a specialist, a health personality, or anybody else, odds are you've been fed lies — of some kind or another — either knowingly or unknowingly, about your health, and particularly your gut health. And so, I may have told some accidental lies in my past. And so today, we're here to right that ship by talking about the biggest lies in gut health that we see today trending around the internet — to make sure you're not falling into that trap, making that same mistake.

In this episode, we're going to be talking about the lies surrounding the topics of things like IBD and its roots or possibilities, we're going to talk about diets and their purpose overall, and how we sort of assign diets to different conditions — either willingly or unwillingly being lies. We're going to talk about supplements, and fiber in your gut, as well as symptoms, and the Western versus functional medicine approach to management versus fixing. As well as, of course, the gut-brain connection.

Now if you're new here, my name is Josh Dech. I'm a holistic nutritionist, gut specialist, IBD specialist in particular, as well as a medical lecturer and physician’s consultant for Crohn's, colitis, and severe IBS. We have helped hundreds of people now fully reverse their symptoms — so much so they’ve forgotten they ever had IBD — and I am ultimately here to tell you that there is hope to actually fix this thing. It's not just a "live for the rest of your life" situation.

First things first, we're going to talk about the biggest lies — obviously, for you guys — around IBD.

Now, for those of you who are regulars, you may have heard some of these things before. Does not matter. You need to hear it again. Because we need to have this hammered in so hard that we never, ever forget how important this message is.

The first things first: there are three big things that we're told about IBD that I want to break right now, okay?

The first thing is that it's random. That it happens to you for no reason.

We know everything in the body is cause and effect. We just talked about this last week. My arm bending is cause and effect. It's contracted and relaxed muscles. On a micro level, it's electrolytes moving in and out of the channels in the muscle to allow a contraction to occur.

The same with your inflammation. If you cut yourself, you become inflamed or infected — it’s because there’s bacteria in there. Your body's healing you from that.

If you have inflammation in your gut, just like your hand, it's because there’s something in there it’s healing you from. So it's not just a random condition. There is always, always a root cause.

Unfortunately, in the Western world they go, “We don't know the root cause — therefore one does not exist.”
 Rather than going:
 “We don’t know the root — let’s address some other facets of medicine that maybe we’re not trained in, proficient in, or even aware exist. Let’s look outside of our own bubble to try to find something.”

Hundreds of cases being reversed. There are lots of other practitioners doing similar types of work who are helping people reverse it by getting to the root cause.

That’s number one.
The second lie is that it is always an autoimmune condition.

The reality is: you need to have antibodies in order for it to be autoimmune, okay? Your body has antibodies so it’s attacking you. This classifies an autoimmune condition.

But did you know that only 40 to 60% of all cases of inflammatory bowel disease actually have antibodies present?

Now number one, that's 40 to 60% have antibodies present. But does that mean it's attacking you and your intestines? To be determined.

Let’s talk about this.

Did you know that antibodies can be produced by the prescription medication that they use to treat inflammatory bowel disease?
So your Stelara, your Humira, your Entyvio — all these drugs that they commonly use — your Xeljanz... they can produce these same antibodies.

So what they don’t do most of the time is go and check for antibodies — number one.
 They just classify you and say, “It’s autoimmune.”

Then they give you the drugs. And if they do test antibodies — well, you’re probably going to have them now… because you’re taking the drugs that cause them!

Even NSAIDs like ibuprofen can cause these same antibodies that you get in an autoimmune condition.

So we have to be aware that not all cases are actually autoimmune.
And even if it is autoimmune — the Western world looks at this as a black and white: it’s either autoimmune or it’s not.

In reality, what we have to look at is: this is more of a spectrum.

You can have a low-grade autoimmune condition, or a high-grade, very severe autoimmune — which can also translate to more autoimmune conditions down the road. This is why people often end up getting several of them.

So not only do most cases not have — or at least half the cases — not have antibodies... cases of antibodies can be produced by the medications or even benign things.

And even those who truly are autoimmune — it is a spectrum that can be turned up or down.

Western medicine goes: “It’s black or white. You have it or you don’t.” And that’s simply not true.

We can take this yet one step further.

We have only some of us with antibodies, okay?
They can be caused by the medications.
They can be caused by benign things like NSAIDs.

Autoimmunity is a spectrum of severity.

But I want you to consider this:
 Are your autoimmune... your antibodies actually attacking your gut, your tissues, your intestines, your large or your small intestine, whatever tissue they're attacking —
or is it attacking the root cause?

Are your antibodies attacking something in your microbiome?

See, over the last... since the beginning of time, human beings have had this contract — this agreement — with our microbiomes, right?

Your parasites, your fungi, your mold, your bacterium, and protozoa, and amoeba, and viruses, and the hundred trillion microbes that live inside of your body.

We’ve had an agreement:
 “You live inside of me. I provide you a home. I nourish you. I give you food. I give you exercise. I give you all the things you need to have a healthy environment to grow in the way you need to grow.

And in return, all I ask is —
 You detoxify my body. You balance my hormones. You give me certain vitamins.”
 They actually produce B vitamins, vitamin K.
“You do all these things for me.”
It’s a symbiotic relationship.

This has been an agreement we’ve had since humans walked the Earth.

Unfortunately — in the last hundred years or so — we have broken that agreement.

Human beings have come in with artificial foods, heavy, heavy levels of sugars, all kinds of pesticides — 20,000+ pesticides used for use in the USA.

We have all kinds of heavy metals — it's in the air, it's in the water.
Pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, alcohol —
Some of these things have existed, yes —
But the detriment of the collective whole of artificial foods and processed foods and foods that never existed 100 years ago?
We suddenly have now.

And what have we seen since about the 1950s, when a lot of this stuff has really started to enter our systems?

We’ve seen obesity and autoimmune disease do this —
damn near straight up, 45-degree whoop.
It’s increased dramatically.

I talked about this on a previous live — it might’ve been a previous podcast, the Reversible podcast or something else — but back in 1950, the U.S.A. spent about $2.7 billion on prescription medication per year. That’s it. $2.7 billion.

Today? It’s over $600 billion.

Now in case you’re wondering, the population was about 150 million at the time.
Today, it’s about 375 million.
So we’ve just more than doubled the population…
But we’ve gone up 222 times in medication spending.

Tell me it’s just genetic.
Tell me it’s just autoimmune.
Tell me it’s just random, and there’s no root cause.

Look at the trends.

We have to consider more than what the Western world is willing to look at.
We’re even still… look at the food in the hospitals.

The food they give you in the hospital is enough to cause this bloody disease in the first place.

We got fast food, fried foods, McDonald’s, Burger King, Coca-Cola, junk food, processed foods — which are highly inflammatory.
They break the agreement with the microbiome.

And so again —
 Is it autoimmune?
 Or is your body attacking the microbes it no longer wants living inside?

Is this an eviction notice from your body — rather than your body trying to evict your organs?
Is it trying to evict the tenants in the building?

And this is what we have to consider.

So the first one:
 It’s not random,
Not just autoimmune,
Not just a genetic condition.

Now, some people go, “Yeah, well my family has it. It runs in the family.”

Great.
 Picture this:
 You have a chain. That chain is your genetics. It’s about 23,000 genes in the human genome. Something’s going to be a little weaker or stronger, right? It just happens.

When you pull that chain — what breaks?
 The one you’re predisposed to.

So rather than say, “It’s genetic. It’s inevitable,” how about:
 What pulled the chain?
What is my body fighting against?
What disagreements have I made with my microbes and other factors to toxify the body, to cause my immune system to go “?”

What things am I causing to break this agreement that have led to that weak link being broken?

And again, genetics turn up and turn down like a volume knob.
So it’s not just this done, “nothing-you-can-do-about-it” situation.

So that’s the first biggest lie — IBD being random, autoimmune, just genetic.
The next lie we’re going to talk about is going to be diets.

So the lie that we want to address is that all diets are good for everyone always.
“Everyone should do carnivore.”
I’m not sold.

I’ve met with some amazing carnivore doctors.
 I’ve talked on Shawn Baker’s podcast.
I’ve met with Dr. Anthony Chaffee.
We met with some world-renowned carnivore specialists.

And even then — I’m not entirely convinced that, say, fruit is bad.

Personally?
 I don’t eat a lot of vegetables.
 I don’t really eat them ever — unless they’re being served to me at, you know, a family dinner or something.

But I eat a lot of red meat.
I eat some seeds and nuts.
And I eat fruit.
That’s basically my diet.
Honey, salt, basic spices — that’s just a personal choice.
And that’s how I feel really good.

But other people who are full vegan still thrive.

Does that mean that vegan is always good? No.
It means that they probably have the microbes to break down the fibers more so than someone on a carnivore diet who’s thriving.

But then look at the lion diet —
Mikhaila Peterson, others like this who are pushing this lion, salt, meat, water.

People curing psoriasis.

Well — one of the number one causes of parasites is psoriasis and eczema.
What do parasites love? Fiber.

So going to carnivore eliminates the food — which eliminates the bad things they poop out.

So we have to keep in mind that not all diets are good for all people in all circumstances.
Everyone’s going to be different based on their current physiological makeup or their gut microbiome — and what’s inside their body, and what they’re able to break down, digest, and absorb.

So we have to keep this in mind.

Now generally, an elimination diet can be a really good thing, right?

We talked about this — I believe fairly recently.
 I think last week, we talked about elimination diets.
 They can be really beneficial because you’re removing the things that could be filling up your cup.

If you haven’t seen that yet, go back to the last episode.
 It was last week’s live.
 If you’re on the YouTube, it’s in the playlist.
 If you’re on the podcast, it’s the previous episode from this one.

We talked about filling up your cup.
Elimination diet just doesn’t add more water to the cup.
When the cup overflows — you have disease and inflammation.

We have to keep this in mind.

The next biggest lie is diets.

Now, we have people all the time who come in and say,
 “This is the best diet. This is the one you should do. You should try the SCD. The AIP. The carnivore. You need to do Mediterranean. You need to do vegan. These are the best.”

The truth is — all of them have a different purpose.
There’s no one single individual diet that’s good for everyone, always, in every case and circumstance.

Now when you look at this, there’s a couple reasons why carnivore might work.
That one’s been really popular lately, especially with IBD and other bowel diseases.

But look at carnivore — what is carnivore by definition?
 It’s an extreme elimination diet.

Now, I am a huge advocate for animal-based diets.
I think they’re amazing.

Do I think all plants are bad and poison? No.
Do I agree that some of the plants or most of the vegetables we have today didn’t exist thousands of years ago?
Also yes.
Crossbreeding and GMOs, etc.

So there are problems with our current food.

But traditionally speaking — or say ancient-wise — I don’t believe there’s an inherent problem with a lot of the vegetables and things that we could be eating.

I think it’s what we put on them more so than anything.

But carnivore is an elimination diet, so you cut out everything except for meat.

There’s a lion diet, then there’s carnivore, heavy animal-based — which would be your eggs, you can get your salt, you can get honey.
Some people might use fruit, so it’s more than animal-based.
But then they will go to the lion diet, which is basically red meat, salt, and water.

Now again, it’s an extreme elimination.

And so think about this.
 If you have microbes inside of your gut — we have all kinds of different microbes.
We have some microbes that use fiber.
We have some that do not digest fiber.

You can’t break down fiber on your own — cellulose, like plant material.
Rabbits can break it down. Humans can’t.

Your gut bacteria have to break that down.

But interestingly enough, those born on farms in rural countries like Nigeria actually have a higher concentration of bacteria that can break down fiber to produce what we call short-chain fatty acids.

These are very beneficial for your body — for inflammation, immune signaling, gut health and the works.

But did you know in Western cultures, where we don’t have as many of these same microbes —
Your body actually has microbes that produce its own short-chain fatty acids, rather than converting or fermenting fiber into them.
It just makes it itself.

So your body is constantly adapting.

But if you’re eating a lot of fibers — for example, say we have bacteria.
 We’ll call them gram-negative — not all of them are bad, but most of them are gram-negative.

Call these the bad guys.

These will eat, break down, digest fibers and other sugars and junk and alcohol, etc.

But they produce bad things.
They produce toxins.
We call these LPS — that’s lipopolysaccharides, also known as endotoxins.

Endo, meaning inside.
Toxins, being toxins.

So they produce these bad guys.

Now if you have an overgrowth of these gram-negative or bad bacteria, or parasites or fungi, or something that’s overgrowing in a place where it should not be — and you’re feeding them heavy amounts of fiber —
They produce more of these toxins.

What do toxins do?
They inflame your gut.
You get more immune responses.

So by eliminating them, we go,
 “Look! I fixed my gut! Maybe I’m just allergic to vegetables.”

Or maybe —
 You have a gut that’s actually dominant, where the big fish in the pond eat first.
They’re eating the fiber, they’re using it to poop out bad things, rather than the good guys pooping out good things like short-chain fatty acids.

So we have to consider that it’s maybe the makeup of your gut that means you can’t eat these vegetables or fiber right now —
but in general, they’re probably going to be okay.

Lots of people thrive on fiber.
 Lots of people thrive on carnivore.

We have to ask ourselves — why?

What is the gut microbiome makeup of those people able to break these things down?

So the next one we’re going to address —
The next lie — is going to be supplements.

People often talk about supplements being a cure-all.

“Well, I took this supplement and I feel really good.”
 “I took this supplement and it cured my symptoms.”
 “I took this supplement — therefore you should take this supplement.”

The same thing as dealing with diets.
They are time and place, and they are individualized.

This is why people come in — I firmly believe — they come into the holistic world and they don’t actually get better.

Oftentimes, they either stay the same or sometimes get worse.

Because what they’ve done is they’ve gone to symptom management.

And by managing the symptoms —
 You’re doing the exact same thing as you are with pharmaceuticals, versus natural supplements.

Both of them are going to manage your symptoms.

Now, pharmaceuticals can suppress the immune response.

Remember we talked about cause and effect?

You have an infection, inflammation, something attacking your body —
Sends the white blood cells, the immune responses, the inflammatory signals and proteins and all these things down, which creates a response.

Which leads to the feeling of inflammation —
Dilation of blood vessels, sensitization of nerves — leading to a sensation your brain interprets as pain.

But the pharmaceuticals suppress that response.
They turn off the radio signal.
Your body doesn’t call in the cavalry, nothing is sensitized — and you feel better.

It doesn’t remove the problem —
 It just shuts off the signal.
 We ignore it.

On the other hand — supplements can sometimes do the same thing,
or sometimes they can decrease the level of response from the immune system.

But either way, a lot of people go to the holistic world and go:
 “Well, it doesn’t work. Functional medicine, natural medicine, holistic medicine doesn’t work because I still feel terrible.”

What you’ve done is — you’ve gone from medication to plant-based medication.

You’re still managing your symptoms.

What we want to do in the world of supplementation is:
 They have to have, above all else, you need to have a purpose.

That purpose — number one —
 We need to name the root cause.

Are we going after a parasite?
Are we going after a fungus?
Are we going after a this, or a that, or whatever it is?

We have to be able to name the thing.
That way, we now know what we’re going to take.

We have to always ask:
 Why? Why? Why?

We’re going to know what we’re going to take.
 We’re going to know how long we’re going to take it for.
We also know why we’re taking it — because we know we’re addressing the name, the thing.

So say someone comes in and they go:
 “Okay, I’ve got parasites.”
 I’m like, “Great. Here’s what a parasite protocol will look like.
Here’s why we’re taking it — because you have parasites.
Here’s what we’re taking.
Here’s what we’re going after — this strain, this species, this thing.
Here are the supplements.
Here’s how long we’re going to be taking it for.
And ultimately, here’s my end goal.”

When we’re done this — here’s the result that we want you to have.

We can name the result.
I’m not just looking to decrease the inflammation —
Of course I’m looking to physically remove something from the body.

This has to go in steps and processes.

Most people miss drainage.

We talked about that as well last week.
 We talked about draining and emptying your cup.

We have to drain the body systems —
Your liver, your lymphatics, your kidney, your colon, your skin, your sinuses, your lungs — your bile duct is a huge one.

This is how things exit the body.

We have to use drainage.
We have to go after the thing.
We have to know why we’re taking it.
We have to be able to name it.
We have to know what we’re taking, what that timeline looks like, how long we’re going to be taking it, and have an end goal.

Then you can have steps, processes, and stages.

Otherwise?
 You’re simply masking symptoms, and now you have plant-based medication instead of a roadmap and a plan.

And this is where so many people go wrong.

This is why we say,
“Oh, holistic doesn’t work.”
“Holistic never helped me.”
“I tried all the things.”

You tried all the supplements — in the form of plant-based medication.

But you didn’t identify your root cause — the reason you’re inflamed.
Therefore, you had no game plan.

You’re throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks — and we wonder why we’re still ill.

The people who get better are the ones who can name the problem,
and they have a roadmap and a plan on how to get there.

And they can segment things and say:
 “This is what I’m taking.”
 “This is why I’m taking it.”
 “This is how long I expect to take it for.”
 “Here’s the game plan if things don’t go exact — if I get better or slightly worse, we know why it’s happening.”
 And then we can determine the end result.

And we continue to go layer after layer with the same process — until you get better.

So the biggest lie that we see is that:
 “Well, supplements — this one worked for me, it can work for everyone,”
 or
 “Holistic and natural routes and supplements don’t work.”

It is a misuse issue.

It’s not that you can’t learn to speak another language —
 You just have to learn to conjugate your verbs better.

It’s not that you can’t do something —
 You just have to learn to do it properly.

It’s as simple as that.

Any skill set has to be learned.

I can learn how to play keys on a piano — simple.

But if I can’t learn to play them in order, I’m making noise, not music.

And this is the difference with supplements.

If we’re not using an end goal and having a game plan, we’re just taking things to manage the symptoms.

It’s plant-based medication — rather than solution seeking.

I hope that clarifies that.

Now, the next big lie we’re going to talk about...

I did put fiber on the list, but I actually got into that with diets — what are we feeding and why are we feeding it — so I’m going to go ahead and skip that one.

The next thing that we want to talk about is going to be the gut-brain axis.

Now, the reason I bring this up — most of the holistic community recognizes this.

A lot of the Western world is finally starting to, but it kind of goes... I don’t want to say it goes both ways, but it’s sort of a conflict of interest.

In one instance, they’ll say,
 “Stress causes problems.”

We know stress is bad for the body.
We know it elevates blood pressure.
We know it increases inflammation, etc., etc.

Well — everything is cause and effect.

You can’t have good without bad.
 You can’t have light without dark.
 You can’t have positive without negative.

So how can you say stress is bad while ignoring the opposite side?

You know the old adage —
 Laughter is the best medicine?
It’s true.

Happiness, peace, joy, purpose — all these things are actually good for the body.

They actually produce endorphins.
They actually help your immune system.
They actually aid in healing responses.

There are all kinds of amazing benefits that simply come from having purpose, meaning, and happiness.

Or even just on the other side — decreasing your stress.

By decreasing your stress, you’re increasing gut motility.
You’re increasing digestibility.
You’re increasing the likelihood that your gut microbiome will thrive.

In a stressed out body — in a stressed out nervous system — everything is shot.

Your immune system is compromised.
You get over-hyper reactions.
You get more inflammation.
You burn through the vital nutrients your body needs to be healing.
You burn through vitamin C’s, B vitamins, sodium for your adrenals — and all kinds of stuff.
You burn through it at an increased rate when you’re overstressed.

So when doctors say,
 “Well don’t worry about it. The gut-brain axis — we don’t really know...”
 The truth is — they don’t know.

But we do.

You do know the gut-brain axis matters.

Go ahead and tell me stress isn’t a trigger.
I dare you.

If stress doesn’t bother your gut —
 You’re a mutant, or you’re the one in a billion.

But for most people, stress is a trigger because their cup is already full,
and then that stress is just enough to overflow — and cause you to have your symptoms.

And now you go:
 “I’m inflamed. Stress caused my issue.”

No, no, no.
Stress finished or overflowed the cup, leading to you having symptoms.

But something else was in there.
 Going back to the root causes.

On the other hand — we have to acknowledge the gut-brain axis, number one.

But what is it even?

I mean, what is the gut-brain axis?

Well, if we look at your brain, and we look at your GI system — this is going to be the gut — I’m going to draw that: squiggle squiggle...

Okay — they are connected.

You have — I forget how many — tens, if not hundreds of billions... I’m just going to put hundreds of billions. I’m not a neurologist.
But hundreds of billions of neurons in the brain.

You have approximately 400 to 500 million neurons inside of your gut.

But take it a step further — this is really cool —
 Did you know that in utero, in your mother’s womb, as you’re growing from a fetus to being alive and a human being...

Your brain and your gut actually start from the same cells?

And they bifurcate — meaning they separate — to become two different organ systems.
But they actually start as the same thing.

And they connect directly with each other.

There are many different neurological connections.
You have connections from your gut that go directly into your spine.

And then you have, of course, the major one we talk about: the vagus nerve.

That’s one of the cranial nerves — is it 10 or 12?

Anyway, it’s one of the big cranial nerves — it’s been a long time, I haven’t studied cranial nerves since college 10 years ago — but point being: it’s one of the big cranial nerves, called the vagus nerve.

It actually innervates your entire chest cavity — it innervates your lungs, your heart, your intestines.

All this stuff is connected.

And so we have signals — these aren’t a one-direction street.

They’re actually what we call afferent and efferent — meaning signals can come and go both ways.

If you have stress and toxicity and bad chemicals being produced — they send bad chemicals to your brain, which sort of sets off this chicken-and-egg type scenario.

Which came first?
Was it the stress that caused the gut issues?
Or the gut issues that are now causing the stress?

Right?

Up to 90% of your neurotransmitters are made inside your digestive system.
Ninety percent.

Which means —
 If you have inflammation,
You’re stressed,
You’re not eating properly,
Your gut’s a big mess —

Picture this.
 You have a factory.
Okay? That’s a smokestack of a factory.

You have something comes in — in this case, it’s food.
Inside, you have your microbiome, your gut, etc.

On the other side — before the poop —
 You have things your body actually produces, which is going to be your chemicals, your neurotransmitters.

But if your factory is inflamed, your factory is on fire,
you can sure as hell bet what comes in does not produce the ideal byproduct.

It’s compromised.

And so this 90% of your serotonin, and dopamine, and all these good things for your brain — these chemicals aren’t being produced properly.

And it can lead to a deficit in the brain, which can cause more stress.

On the other hand, when you’re inflamed or toxic, your body actually has something we call the cell danger response.

Think of it like a cellular anxiety response.

Your brain knows —
 “Oh, something is wrong. I can think, I can feel, I can go through processes and experiences and go, ‘Oh yeah, something’s amiss.’”

On a cellular level, your body has the same anxiety response — as a chemical messenger.

It can detect it — it basically puts out a little chemical feeler and goes,
“Uh-oh — problem. Something is amiss.”
And it sends a chemical cell danger response back to the brain.

Which can help, again, contribute to this afferent and efferent messaging pathway both ways — which can lead to more stress and anxiety.

So it does feed itself.
It’s this ongoing process.

So we have to understand that the gut-brain axis —
We can induce happiness through breathwork,
through increasing endorphins,
through having meaning,
having purpose,
having healthy relationships.

These things can also help.

We recognize that stress is bad,
but the lie Western medicine tends to say is that the gut-brain axis isn’t a big deal in your recovery.

I beg to differ.

It’s huge.

But also — they ignore the happiness, meaning, and purpose in life, which contributes to the health of your neurotransmitters, that contributes to the health of your gut microbiome, your immune system, and all the different things.

It contributes to that cell danger response decreasing, and giving your body an overall better life, better feeling, better everything.

And in fact — there’s all kinds of studies that have been done over the years.

A really nice one — they had done many years back, probably 20, 40, 50 years ago, I don’t know...
We talked about it when I was in high school in psychology class —

But they had given people, certain groups of people, up to $1,000 to spend on themselves.
So it’s $5, $100, $500, $1,000 — to spend on themselves.

And then they measured their level of happiness.

How happy were they with the purchase they made?
 Did it bring them joy?
 Did it give them meaning? Etc.

On the other group of people —
 They gave them, again, up to $1,000 — but this time to spend on other people.

And they found — on average —
 That people who spent $5 on someone else —
Buying them a coffee,
Paying for their parking,
Little things —

Had more happiness, and for longer, than the people who spent $1,000 on themselves.

And so, there’s something to be said for living life well —
For giving,
For being in community,
For being helpful,
For being a member of society,
For having meaning and purpose in what you do and something to work toward...

It actually creates a healthier person,
a healthier body,
and a healthy chemical ecosystem for your body to thrive in.

And so these are our biggest lies.

Number one — the world says:

“IBD is random, autoimmune, or just genetic.”

Garbage. Doesn’t make any sense.
There’s more data to back that up, but this is sort of the CliffsNotes.

Number two:

“All diets are good for all people.”

Not true.
They depend on your current circumstance, and what your body is actually doing on the inside —
What it’s able to break down, digest, and absorb,
Or what microbes are doing the breaking down, digesting, and absorbing.

Number three — we talked about supplements:

“They’re a one-size-fits-all,” and the lie that
 “Supplements don’t work.”

The problem is that people are using supplements improperly — as plant-based medication,
Rather than naming the root cause, and identifying it, and creating a plan and a process for how they’re going to take it,
When, why, and how long — and having a result, and an end goal, and identifying the layers they’re trying to go through...

So they can rinse and repeat this process until your symptoms gradually get better, and better, and better.

And the fourth and final lie we’re breaking today:

“The gut-brain axis doesn’t matter.”
 “Stress is a factor, but joy and happiness is not.”

They do matter.

All these things make a difference.

And if you want to repair the body —
 If you want to begin reversing autoimmune disease —
(Which, like we showed, most of them aren’t actually even autoimmune —
40 to 60% have antibodies,
But most of those can be coming from the drugs you’re taking anyway) —

So is it really your body creating antibodies?
Or is it something else?

And then — is your body creating antibodies to you,
or to the microbiome it’s trying to clean and get rid of because we broke that contract, that agreement?

There’s much more to the process,
And these are the lies we’re often told about gut health, and in your cases particularly, inflammatory bowel disease — your Crohn’s and colitis.

And our job, ultimately, is to give you the tools and resources you need to change your paradigm,
And become an advocate for yourself,
But ultimately — work to get better and begin reversing this disease.
But you don’t have to do it on your own, guys.

We have resources for everyone.

We have resources for little budgets.
We have resources for bigger budgets and medium budgets.

We want everyone —
We have everything from something that’s free,
To a small monthly membership,
To custom programs — all of it is available to you.

We just want you to know that it’s there.

The only thing you have to do to get access to those resources is —
Comment the word “solution.”

If you simply comment the word solution in the comments below,
I will reach out — we’ll have a connect —
We’ll talk about what the gut health solution looks like, what your options are.

If you just want access to the YouTube and the podcast, ask me for that below. That’s totally cool — you can have all the resources you want.

We do them every week here on the live in Facebook.

We take these and we make videos on YouTube,
And then we take the audios and make a podcast.

So if you’re missing them, you can subscribe to either of those and get notified all the time.

If you’re like,
 “I want to do some DIY and just kind of figure it out on my own” —
 Guess what — we have an option for that as well.

And it’s very — we actually made it for people in other countries, like, you know, third-world countries or in Thailand or South Africa,
Where the currency exchange isn’t there.
We want you to have some resources.

Or if you say,
 “Hey, like — give me the good stuff. Work with me. Take the guesswork out. I want the fastest, most direct, most customized, handheld option. I want to get better. I don’t want to guess. Just fix it now.”

Comment the word “solution.”
We’ll make sure you get all the information you need about what that looks like, and what the other resources are as well.

We make sure you guys have the tools to heal yourselves.

Now, I’m going to go into the comment section to see if we have any questions.

We have a question from Connor.

Connor asks:

“Are drugs like Remicade going to counteract supplements, or vice versa?”

This is an excellent question.

The long and short of it is —
 Probably not.

Now, there are a lot of things that doctors will say:
 “Don’t take this.”
 “Don’t take that herb.”
 “Don’t take XYZ.”
 “It might counteract things.”

The reality is —
I’ve never run into an issue on our side of people taking supplements, over-the-counter things, or remedies or protocols and actually coming into an issue of any kind.

Ever. At all.

But we have to consider your body.

Here’s the thing:
 When we’re going into a protocol, when we’re introducing supplements, when we’re doing things for the body to try to give you the opportunity or the resources to heal...

What we are not doing is anything magical.

We’re not wizards.

We’re not doing something that your body can’t already do.

The problem is — your body is trying to heal you.
That is its response. It’s saying:
“Heal and help.”

But there is such a big barrier here,
It’s unable to get to the problem that’s causing all the inflammation and pain.

Our job is to remove this thing and give your body more tools and resources to begin healing itself.

We are simply facilitators for your body to heal itself.

Now, when it comes to Remicade, Stelara, Humira, Entyvio, Xeljanz,
Whatever other drugs they’re using out there —
Even lighter ones like Prednisone and Budesonide, and you know, Mesalamine...

They are actually suppressing this response.

And so what can happen is:
 We can remove this thing, and there are certain channels of your body that may still be working at it,
But sometimes, it does get to a point where you’ve gotten so far along now, but you’ve suppressed your body’s ability to remove the problem,
Like it’s been trying to do — because you’ve suppressed that whole immune system so dramatically.

And this is where — I will never tell someone to come off their drugs.

I actually can legally get in a whole lot of sh*t for that.

I will never tell you to come off your drugs.

I always say:
 Listen to your doctor. Ask them first. See what they have to say.

What I can say is this:
 We have people who enter the program who are currently medicated, who have a load of symptoms —
It’s like the medications aren’t doing anything anyway.

We have some people who have no symptoms, and some who have some symptoms, but the medications are helping.

It’s a wide variety.

But ultimately — if you have symptoms, it’s even easier to tell.

Because you’re still bleeding, you still have bloating, you still have fatigue, skin issues, hormone, hair, liver issues, cholesterol, iron levels — whatever it is you’re dealing with...

There is a problem in there, and it may be creating symptoms still, small or big.

Then as you get through the program, you progress week by week — it’s 16 weeks — and then what happens?

At some point, your symptoms start to decrease.

Some people it’s right away,
Some people it’s after a couple of weeks,
But everybody can get better — it’s just a matter of time, and getting your body to participate and agree.

But as those symptoms come down, then we say:

“Hey look, you’re feeling so much better — maybe it’s time to talk to your doctor to see if they want to either increase the length of time between your doses or your infusions.”

Maybe they want to decrease your dose of your drug or infusion.

Maybe they want to start to modify and give you something else to taper you off of this in some way, shape, or form — to see how you’re actually feeling.

So they can see:
 “We’ve now gotten the root cause.”

Some doctors are compliant.
 Most aren’t.
They say:
“Nope, there’s nothing you can do. You’re stuck with it.”

But again — that’s a lie.

It’s a lie they were told, and now the lie they tell you.

But the truth is — it can be fixed.
It’s just a matter of time.

So our job is to go through and figure out at what point do you feel comfortable having that conversation with your doctor.

But yes — you can be on both.
 I’ve never seen it be an issue.

We have another question from Samantha.

Samantha asks:

“How many people have you fixed?”

Samantha — we are north of 300 now.

Now here’s the rub, guys.
 This is not easy.

Here’s what happens.
 We do have people who have not been successful.
We have people who have failed the program,
Or people who have not gotten through the program in its entirety.

Here’s what happens —
 We have a clause in our program that says:

16 weeks — in and out.
If nothing changes in 16 weeks — like you have nothing go on, like “I feel the exact same as the day I walked in, nothing, I’ve had no movement, I’m the same” —
We keep working with you for free until you do.

However —
 This is where it gets into trouble, because some people aren’t able to do this.

Here’s what happens with the healing process.

Some people expect this:

(hand gesture: straight line up)
“I want to get better. And if I’m not consistently getting better — nothing works.”

Again — we’re not magicians.

Here’s what often happens:

We see people who feel a little bit better,
Then they relapse again.
They get better...
Then they relapse.
They get better...
And then relapse again.
Then they get better again...

And this is typically how it goes — because each one of these things is a new layer of something we discovered.

I talked about this case — it’s such a good case —
 We had a client come in recently — this was just back, I think, earlier this year.

She was doing amazing.

She was seven to eight weeks in,
She was feeling incredible.
Her symptoms — she went from 15+ bowel movements a day,
Taking changes of clothes to work,
Wearing diapers around the block —
Like, couldn’t get around the block, she was having so many accidents. Blood, mucus…

Seven to eight weeks in — she was down to two to four bowel movements a day,
Mostly formed, a little bit of blood...

She’s like,

“I haven’t felt this good in 15 years.”

Amazing.

Guess what we did?
 We introduced some fiber into her diet —
Right here.
Or right here, rather.
(gesturing along a charted progress line)

And guess what?

She plummeted.

She almost fully relapsed — to where she was before she started.

She was still better — but it wasn’t quite where she had been.
 She had a big relapse.

She went to work the next day — and had an accident.

So what happened?

Her body had another layer —
And that’s the part of this process.

People will lose a layer, and then they go:

“Oh no, I’ve relapsed. I’m no better.”

Oh no, no, no.

You’ve seen 40 parasites — two feet a piece — come out.
You’re better.

It’s just — there’s still something else going on.

In her case, we actually dealt with the mold and she was feeling better because we were detoxing her body.
Then we added fiber.

What happens inside her digestive system?

This is your gut, okay?

You have what’s called the secretory IgA.
Think of this as the immune system that deals with squishy surfaces — so oral, vaginal, rectal, even the sinuses — these areas.

What happened is we gave her some fiber — fiber gets into the colon like fish food —
Parasites come up and they start to nibble:

“Ooh, that’s fiber. That’s food for me.”

And then, because it was inside the sphere, the IgA went,

“Whoa — what are you?”

And it inflamed her all over again, because it lit up the immune system.

And she went,

“Oh, I fully relapsed.”

I said —

“No. We’ve already gotten mold out. Look how good you were feeling.”

We’ve now identified another layer —
And then we started working on it — and she got better again.

And this is the process.

And this is the process.

So a lot of people don’t have the fortitude to stick this out —
Because they go:

“Oh look — I knew. I knew it wasn’t gonna work.”

But in reality, it’s layer after layer after layer.

But we are slowly emptying your cup.

“Oh, I got stressed — I flared again.”

Okay — well, that shook the cup, and it was still halfway full.
It wasn’t empty entirely.
So you’re still getting better.

Your bounce back, your recovery, is better.

And this process — we say at least 16 weeks.
Some people? It’s many, many months.

If you’ve had this issue for 25 years, you’re gonna be in it for the long haul.

Think of us like a surgeon.

If you have a shattered broken leg —
You jumped off the third story, and you shattered your leg in 14 places —
As a surgeon, my job would be to go in, to fix and repair the bone,
To put pins, needles, glue, whatever —
Replace it. I don’t know — whatever surgeons do.
Cast it, bandage you, and then get you to heal and get you walking.

And now that you can walk around the block —
 It’s your job to go to physiotherapy.

The problem is — after 4 months or 6 months —
 People go back to eating junk,
They go back to living their lifestyle,
They go back to doing whatever they were doing that filled their cup in the first place...

And they go:

“Look, I was just in remission.”

And I say:

“Nope. You never fully healed. You just jumped off the third story and your leg wasn’t fully healed.”

You had more layers of the problem that you never addressed.
You didn’t give your body the appropriate time to heal.

And we go:

“Look, I told you. It’s just remission.”

No.
There’s more layers and more healing to be done.
And that’s the process.

So — everybody can get better.
 But so many people drop out at the first relapse.

So many people get in there — and they’re not “cured,” so to speak, in 4 weeks —
Because we’re not magicians — and they go:

“Ah, it’s not gonna work. I want out.”

And they are literally three feet from gold.

We’re 95% successful in 16 weeks.
Some people do hang around.
Some people decide — after 4 months:

“Like, I feel really amazing... but I don’t quite feel ready to go on my own. Let’s do another month or two and just figure this out.”

No problem. Whoop-dee.
 We can do that.

But the idea is that everyone can get better.

The people who fail are the ones who drop out,
The ones who don’t stick to it,
Who don’t come into the calls,
And most importantly — the ones who mix protocols.

Now you have too many cooks in the kitchen.

They go and start adding in supplements that are causing imbalances in the immune system that they don’t know they’re causing.

They’re not listening to their coaches.

And these are the people that fail.

But otherwise —
 300+ people.
 95%.

Next question in is from Connor again.

Connor says:

“This is my last question, guys. That’s why I’m tired.
 Modern drugs — I was on Infliximab, had a reaction, so the doctor changed drugs.
 And since I’m in a flare, he doesn’t think these at-home injections are working.
 So now he’s changing me to Skyrizi, that’s another more potent drug.
So sometime soon, plus he jumped me back to 40 mg of Prednisone.
I’m sick of meds.”

Yeah.

And that’s what it is.

You’re flare → flare → flare...
 But they’re never actually getting you better.

You’re just doing this:

(hand gesture: flatline loop)

Flare → better → worse → better → worse...

Because you’re suppressing the symptoms,
You’re suppressing the feeling of inflammation.

And they go:

“Look, we’ve controlled the thing that we still believe is innate.”

But we talked about this — the first big lie:
It’s not random.
It’s not autoimmune.
It’s not just genetic.

There’s a root cause.

Doctors don’t believe that —
 Therefore, as a fundamental belief of how you treat people...

If you believe it’s just innate,
There’s nothing you can do,
Of course you’re happy when you simply mask the symptoms.

“Look! We’re giving you some quality of life — yay us!”

On the other hand —
 If you believe there’s a root cause,
You believe this can be undone,
You believe this can be reversed,
You believe there’s more to it than just it being innate to you and your biology...

Then you understand that the root cause can be found —
And you’re no longer happy with simply masking the symptoms.

And this is the difference between functional and Western medicine.

It’s a big, big, big disparity.

Now I’m going to throw something at you.

My regulars will know this stat off by heart by now.
Those of you who are new — I want to throw something in, in case you still got doubts about this.

Check this out.

For those who say:

“It’s just genetic.
 It’s just autoimmune.
 There’s nothing we can do.” —

I throw these stats around like bloody water, because the world needs to hear this.

Back in 1990, okay — all the way to 2020, or was it 2019 when the last stats were taken?

Here’s what happened:

Globally — as per the CDC — okay, as per the CDC who takes all this data…

There were, depending on the study you look at,
 1.5 to 3 million cases worldwide.

In 2020, that was just ahead — just north of 7 million.

Some arguments say it’s just north of 8 million today.

So how can we, in 30–35 years,
5, 6, 7x our cases — I’m not that great at math — but five-ish times our cases in just 35 years...

...and call it just genetic?

One — that’s impossible.

That would take hundreds of years to actually create in people this unfixable genetic anomaly.

Number two — if there’s “no known cause” — we better figure it out.

Go back to pesticides and chemicals and toxins.

There’s over 100,000 different chemicals used in North American food,
Or food that we import or create here,
That’s put into our world — most of it into our food supply...

But also in your clothing, in everything we touch, in our chemicals, in your perfumes and cologne and soaps — it’s everywhere.

Well also guess what — in 1990, there were between 700 to maybe 900 different pesticides approved for use.

Today? It’s about 20,000 or so.
18 to 20,000.

Guess what that correlates to?

More disruption or destruction of your gut microbiome,
The integrity of the gut — again, that your body may be attacking.

So we’ve broken this agreement even further.

The math adds up in this case.

The math doesn’t math in the Western model —
But in the functional world, the math adds up.

We go,
 “Okay — here’s the problem, here’s what’s causing it, and here’s what we have to do about it.”

So changing the ideology, simply from saying:

“It’s genetic. It’s autoimmune. There’s nothing I can do. It’s hopeless.”

...to:

“No — there’s a root cause.
 There’s a reason this is happening.
 There’s something that my body is trying to heal me from.”

Then — we are no longer happy simply masking the symptoms.

We want to wind back the clock,
Remove the thing your body is reacting to,
Give it the tools and resources it needs to finally heal itself,
Removing inflammation, and
Reversing the disease.

That’s my spiel.
It can be that simple, guys.

That’s all we got for you tonight.

Thank you so much for coming.

We’re going to see you next week.

[Outro music fades in softly...]

Josh Dech:
Thanks for listening.

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

We’ve got courses,
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