 Hey everyone, this is Dr. Ruscio. I'm here with Dr. Navaz, who has had an interesting story with Healthy Gut, Healthy U And it's actually fairly interesting how we met. I was at a conference in New York they're speaking at the Integrative Health Care Symposium and about in the front row and You gave me probably the nicest compliment anyone has given me about the book to date And you said you know me and the doctors in my office This book is like our Bible for improving patient's gut health, which I mean it's one thing It's great when a when a lay person applies the book protocol and feels better. That's awesome But to know that doctors are using this with multiple patients Yeah, really really made me feel like the book was having an impact in the world So I have to thank you for that because that you know That that was a compliment that I kept thinking back to over the next few weeks and just being very happy With with what that meant in terms of the impact the book was having so Welcome and thank you No, my pleasure and thank you for for writing such a wonderful book and sharing that resource with us because from the doctor's perspective It's it's difficult to know everything all the time and having something that we can refer to and go back to where necessary and See if something's missing or it's just not working in this direction Maybe we've missed something on that side having that resource is really really effective And so thank you for for doing that. Yeah, then my my pleasure and that it was a big part of the reason Why I wrote the book was to really help people navigate what can be a tricky area the gut as as effectively as possible Tell people a little about you know, how you practice what you do how the books been helping you really kind of whatever you want to share Certainly, I am a functional medicine practitioner. I'm located in Toronto, Canada And I've been working doing functional medicine for about three or four years now ever since it had a very positive impact on my own life and Affecting my own gut health and so I used to weigh 250 pounds. I used to have significant health challenges IBS significant issues with being borderline diabetic Obesity blood pressure issues all of those same issues and this was happening in my 20s And once I was able to identify what those issues were get the right lab testing figure out What really needed to be done to affect my cellular health and get the root cause sorted out I was able to affect affect my health in a very positive way And so my energy level started to rise and I really just started to feel like I could do more that my health Wasn't holding me back anymore and a big component of that was affecting my gut health because my root cause was an Overgrowth of yeast in my gut. I had a very specific yeast overgrowth that was found on one of our lab tests And we were able to identify that get rid of it with relative ease and natural herbal and supplement remedies and such and Then once the changes started occurring in my life I said I have to stop doing what I'm currently doing and I have to now shift all of my attention To sharing this life-changing information with as many people as I possibly can And so I shifted into clinical care as a functional medicine doctor from being a chiropractor Hands-on chiropractor, right, right? And it's amazing how your own personal experience can really change your trajectory I thought I wanted to go into orthopedic medicine when I was younger until as you probably know I had a parasite in college and it just really brought me to my knees and I saw this huge change in how I was feeling and I Doubt I would be the person I am today in terms of what I've achieved Even if I ended up in a different field because I didn't have the energy I didn't have the metal clarity and I certainly didn't have a positive mood And so it's it's hard to think I'd have the richness in my life in any facet from professional to relational If I didn't address that issue and so of course when you have that experience You can't help but want to share that with other people knowing how impactful it is absolutely So are there some things that you're finding particularly helpful as doctor working with patients that the the book has has kind of laid out for you Yeah, there's a huge component that that I feel like a lot of people really do overlook I actually wrote in my own book on on a very similar topic or on on that gut-brain connection topic But I feel like prokinetics and and having that right level of peristalsis and movement occurring through the intestine allowing that that Proper digestive sequence to occur is so important and strongly overlooked We we tend to miss that piece of the puzzle will always talk about you need to eat these foods You need to avoid those foods you need to eat slowly But we miss a lot of the sequencing pieces of the puzzle and and allowing the Kinetic function of our peristaltic movement to occur and and allow all of the organs to do the job That they need to do in the time allotted in the amount of time that they actually need to do their job Effectively and optimally in the greatest cases so there was a really great chapter in here on prokinetics and Allowing that peristalsis really to occur that made a huge change for me And so it is really like our go-to reference in the office to be able to go and check that out all the time Just go back and refer to you know patients come in with with various challenges that Ranges from an IBS to a Crohn's to a thyroid issue to And and staying on top of all of those things the vast majority of these health challenges Biochemically really do start in the gut and so if we can have a positive effect there in the gut We can really affect that positive change And you said something that I think is worth kind of elaborating on and I'm curious to hear what you're seeing in your practice Which is thyroid? Yes, certainly there are Obviously of course cases that are overtly hypothyroid that need medication There are some cases that aren't hypothyroid But someone goes on the internet they google their symptoms and they think that they have a hypothyroid problem all the while The cause is the gut and there's this other scenario also where someone's diagnosed hypothyroid They're on medication They're not getting any better in the root cause of their symptoms is the gut Seeing any mixture of these two Yeah, for me primary hypothyroidism is is one of the least common things that that are that we see in practice The vast vast majority of people that come in with the thyroid issue Have that occurring starting in the gut the root cause Is is generally coming from the gut and so we'll often find on on a stool test We'll find over growths of certain Bacteria that are autoimmune triggering bacteria that are probably leading to some sort of hashimoto style process Leading to that hypothyroidism or we'll find a parasite that's leaching a lot of these nutrients that are necessary for thyroid function And so if we don't get those nutrients then the thyroid isn't able to do the job And so our thyroid isn't primarily hypothyroid It's lacking those nutrients But the primary source of that issue is actually starting in the gut the vast majority of the time That's what I see in my practice as well Yep, yeah, and and I would say I'm I'm grateful that the functional medicine community has increased the awareness of Hashimoto's and the underlying autoimmune process that does cause thyroid hypothyroidism But at the same time I think that's that's kind of exploded in awareness And it's it's a bit dwarf the importance of the gut When really the from a causal perspective the gut is more prominent and thyroid is secondary as you said And so hopefully we're making a small dent in kind of rectifying some of that imbalance Absolutely, that's that's what we got to do just keep educating and sharing and Hopefully people will figure out that the gut truly is where all of this stuff really does begin It's funny We we like to think of the the primary brain as being the one between our ears But it really is funny how how much information is stored and and shared from our gut And that really is the enteric nervous system the nervous system around our gut that truly is the first brain and everything stems from there Completely agree and you're preaching in the choir as you know Are there any other thoughts or insights or maybe k stories where The book was was helpful or or just from generally treating a patient's gut You saw some noteworthy kind of improvement Yeah, we've had a lot of patients come in with digestive dysfunction autoimmune gut issues And this has been a wonderful reference for us going through a lot of the case studies that you presented in there because Cases tend to be a lot easier to kind of go through and and read through When when you have similar symptoms as as a patient that went through a positive case study, right? And so anytime we we start to get a little stumped with the Crohn's case or an all sort of colitis case The first thing that we'll we'll tend to do is pick up that book and refer to A little bit of this case or that case different scenarios. So I'll tell you one. We had a patient come in with With really severe almost explosive diarrhea. He he essentially could not Um control his urgency at all. He he essentially He was a driver which didn't work well. He was a delivery driver for FedEx and His his FedEx route. He knew every single washroom along that entire route because he That he needed to go he was going to have to pull into a lot and just jump right in right so Being able to affect a life very positively in that way being able to To eliminate that source of stress for him by using a lot of the tools that you incorporated in the book Were just wonderful for us to be able to share that with this gentleman and and he really did notice significant improvement and literally it started within three days of making changes where Like the the issues weren't as urgent and all of a sudden he was going to the bathroom twice a day and it was Simple and easy and it was like the urgency was just gone That that made a huge difference for us It's easy. I think sometimes to unless you've suffered with with somewhat debilitating diarrhea To really understand how debilitating that can be and it reminds me of matt the inflammatory bowel disease case study We shared in the newsletter a few months back This bright young guy who had everything going for him and was was trying to take this new job I believe was it was in new york And he he had to take some time off of work because he was so scared to not be near a bathroom And and when you think about how crippling that must be to be to be a young person who who has the ability to Do this new job and go out into the world and have an effect, but they're just crippled by this diarrhea It's it really gives you a new kind of respect for how impactful You know chronic diarrhea can be on someone's lifestyle and and as you're describing with his case He had a new Lease on life once we got that diarrhea taken care of and he felt so happy He could pursue forward with his job and with his career and have you know The positive impact in the world that he wanted to would not be hinged to a toilet And he had a similar sort of I knew where every bathroom was around my around my work Kind of like one of those signed philip episodes wears the cleanest public bathroom But we don't want anyone to be encumbered by that So yeah, what a what a gift to be able to take that off someone's psyche Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing better than being able to give Somebody the opportunity to live their life without having health as their Um as their concern and as a stressor because in in cases like that health truly can be A stressor or the lack of health can be a major stressor for people Agreed agreed Well, you know, I really appreciate you you sharing your thoughts. Are there any Kind of final thoughts that you want to share with people and then also Please tell people your website in case people want to reach out and connect with you Regarding the the good work that you're offering in your practice Certainly. So I practice in toronto, but I do work remotely very similarly to dr. Ruscio and The idea is let's get the message out to as many people as possible Let's let's share the idea of becoming healthy starting from the root cause addressing what needs to be addressed the way that Nature intended really for us to be able to make positive changes for people and so Um, you can reach me or you can learn more about me at dr. Habib.ca And uh, if you're interested in reading about the vagus nerve, I do have that book as well You can just go to vagusnervebook.com Awesome. Awesome. Great. Well, thank you again for for sharing your story and thank you again for that That great compliment. I really appreciate you just letting me know how helpful the book has been It makes me feel good about the three years of of work that went into it And I really really appreciate it. Definitely my pleasure. Thank you