 Hey everyone, this is Dr. Ruscio. I'm here with Dr. Alexandra Gio and today we're going to be talking about her success with Healthy Gut Health U and the protocol that it contains. So Alexandra, thanks so much for taking the time to share your story and speak with us today. Of course. I'm happy to be here. Can you tell people a little bit about your background because the fact that you do have this advanced degree, I think makes it even more relevant because you certainly have a degree of education tangential to gut health. So tell us a little bit about that before we kind of go into the rest. Yes. Okay. So I did a double doctorate program, a PhD in natural health and an ND. And my doctoral dissertation actually is in cardiac research. You know, I didn't really focus too much on gut health, although now I am much more aware of how important it is. So that's my original background. I was trained initially as an acupuncturist. So I have some background in that. And so, you know, my interests, of course, span all areas of natural health. Great. So you certainly come into this as someone who maybe is not highly educated in the niche of gut per se, but you certainly have this nice foundation of education that you walk into the conversation with. And tell us a little bit about the symptoms that you were suffering with. Well, my greatest symptom, of course, was anxiety. I mean, just unbridled anxiety. I had trouble just driving my twin six year olds 10 miles to their ballet class. And I thought, you know, something's really wrong here. And I had searched through so, so much online. I mean, so many books I looked over. And then I came across to your book, Healthy Gut, Healthy You. And I started reading it. And I didn't realize the gut connection to anxiety. And interestingly enough, I was at two different birthday parties for my twins. They are in two different classes. And so I went to one birthday party, a pool party on Saturday. And I just happened to be asking other mothers, does anyone else here have this anxiety? And nine out of 10 of the mothers were being medicated for anxiety, whether it was Lexapro, Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Valium, the list went on. And then I was at the second party. I was curious the next day, I did my own little sort of brief study there as well. And again, the same statistics nine out of 10 mothers are medicated for anxiety. Wow. Does anyone know anything about probiotics or how to help your intestines and how to support yourself? They knew nothing about this. Well, I guess the time is, is, you know, very serendipitous for us to intervene into the, the importance of the gut brain connection. And this is something I don't feel like I talk enough about, although it's something I'm starting to discuss much more because you do see, and we shared from the office now about a few months ago, Hartman Jeet's story of just this debilitating brain fog in this 20 something professional in San Francisco, who, who came in crying that she was afraid she was going to lose her job from this, this again, this, this very, very intense brain fog. And within a few months that was completely gone. So, and I myself suffered from not so much anxiety, but brain fog and depression and just as kind of general malaise. So certainly the gut brain connections profound. And yeah, you know, Lex pro, I'd really love to see a lot less of that. And I'm sure many people listening to this would agree with me and only use that for at best some select cases. Can you tell people a little bit about what, if anything, you had been doing prior to reading the book in terms of where you're trying herbs or diets or medications? Yes, prior to reading the book, I was trying to use holy basil. I was drinking chamomile tea every morning. I have an office that I drive to that's over an hour away. I was having anxiety just driving on the highway. And so I had to drink chamomile tea. I was really on the edge. I was very anxious all the time, even just taking a shower as silly as that sounds. I would have anxiety. And I thought I had no idea there was a gut connection. I mean, this is all news to me. Right. Right. And were you having gut symptoms at the same time? Reflex, heartburn? Yes, actually, I was but I never put two and two together. I was having bloating gas. I wanted to lose 10 pounds. I also, you know, I enjoyed my wine. I grew up in an Italian family. We had pasta every Sunday night. We had our pasta probably at five meals a week. And wine was was freely introduced. I mean, it was just sort of part of our lifestyle. I had no idea how that was affecting my gut file. I had no clue the connection. Yeah, and it's a fairly pervasive problem that you fell into. I don't know if I would say it's a problem per se, but it's an unfortunate situation when people look up natural treatments for anxiety or whatever symptom it is. And they're just trying to naturally treat whatever symptom it is. And as great as chamomile and holy basil can be, if there's a problem in the gut that's that's causing that, then those are going to really pale in comparison. And that's again, another thing that I learned, you know, way back going back to my story, I tried a whole litany of treatments based upon my symptoms to naturally kind of manage them. And they didn't really get me anywhere until I addressed the underlying root cause, which was the gut. So what did you what did you learn from the book? And what did you start doing to kind of unravel your symptoms and lead to the I learned a little bit about grains and dairy sort of how to reset my diet. I was kind of eating the wrong things and fruits. I didn't realize the impact of fruits. Every day I was getting hives, and I couldn't figure it out. I didn't know what used to be intolerance was. I had to sort of learn all of this on my own. And your book really was the first step in the right direction. It was like a revelation. I thought, Oh, my gosh, this is what I need. This is what's going to help me overcome. But I didn't realize the true significance of the anxiety, you know, the brain gut relationship, it's it's becoming more clear every day I live it. It's been the most profound effect on my life of anything I've tried. Awesome, awesome. And were the dietary changes enough to get you all the way there? Or did you have to escalate beyond? I'd say I'm 80% there. You know, I'm doing the probiotics now. I started actually with the Just Thrive. I have to tell you, I took one Just Thrive pill, and I immediately felt anxiety being relieved. I thought it was kind of interesting that within 24 hours that could occur. Like how much could that have helped my gut in 24 hours? So I was a little surprised at that. But then I read I had to be a little cautious if there was dysbiosis to be careful using soil based. So I went ahead and went with gut pro. So so that's what I've been on now for about three months. Okay, so you started off with a diet and did you did you use just kind of the general paleo diet? Did you end up using low FODMAP? I started with low FODMAP. Okay. That's what I started with. And actually, that improved my histamine reactions. And that's been published. One study is we've talked about before on the podcast, produced an eight fold decrease in histamine levels when someone went on low FODMAP. And this is one of the reasons why I start people with low FODMAP before going to low histamine, because the low histamine diet, while it can be helpful, yes, in my opinion, is more so in N phase, more symptom based consideration, because more of the root cause issue of high histamine production. And just for the audience, histamine is a compound found in foods and in bacteria, and also a byproduct of immune system activation in your gut. So when people have dysbiosis in their gut, and that's also causing inflammation, then that can really kick out a lot of histamine. Histamine does function as a neurotransmitter, it can be one of the molecular mechanisms behind things like brain fog. So a low FODMAP diet will starve these overgrowth. And when the overgrowth are starved, there's less bacteria that you know, to directly produce histamine. And there's less irritation to the immune system in the gut because of that dysbiosis. So there's less immune system mediated or released histamine. So you really kind of get this one two punch for reduction of histamine when using a low FODMAP diet. And that's what you notice. And how long did it take to notice the change? Was it within? Well, probably about 10 days. I'll tell you, it's very powerful. Because I was admitted to urgent care three times last year, with hives covering my whole body. And they would look at me, you know, I called my father once to come there and get my kids. And the ER doctor looked at me, and my father said, he looks scared, he doesn't know what's wrong with you. So they sent me to allergist, allergist said, you're only allergic to cats, that's it. And they didn't understand what was wrong. So you know, people need to be educated about this gut connection. Very well said. So you got about 80% of the way there from low FODMAP, is that correct? I would say yes. Corporating that the great and a just starting, you know, I'm not actually reintroducing foods yet. I'm still just at the support with the probiotics. I'm at the initial stages, but I'm already seeing dramatic improvements. I'm devoted. You've got me. Great, great. Well, this is always nice to share what I would term a more simple case where 80% improvement from the low FODMAP diet. And there's a good likelihood. All you'll need to do is go through the probiotic protocol. And the probiotic protocol does introduce three different probiotics, one from each category, a lactobacillus, with a bacterium blend, a soil based probiotic, and then also a saccharomyces bilardi. Now, have you brought in one from each three of these categories yet? Or are you just just those just the first two? Okay. But you know, as again, I'm just a little cautious, because I don't know how how if I can go back to the soil based just yet. You know, I just want to make sure everything else is intact before I work it that way. Sure. And how long were you on the low FODMAP? Because one of the concepts I discussed in the book is if you're in the the dietary phase step one, and you're seeing improvements, stay on the diet until you see your improvements plateau, because some people may plateau as in your case at 80%. And that's very important to know going forward, because if you plateau at 80%, then you may only need a small push from the probiotics, and you get to 100% in your heel. So, you know, how do you take about 10 days to see that improvement? I'm staying on it. Yeah. Alright, so you've continued on. Are you still seeing improvements? Or do you feel like you plateaued? Every day I'm seeing improvements. My hives went from 30 a day on my body to maybe one every other day now. Great. And how long have you been on the low FODMAP for? I'd say for about six and a half, maybe seven weeks. I fell off over the holidays. Sure. Yeah, makes sense. Okay. Good. Good. So great. So, again, your case really does illustrate what I would term a simpler case. We're seeing the majority resolution of symptoms with just some dietary changes. You're still improving about six to seven weeks in, which is great. And what I'd recommend doing here would be to continue on the low FODMAP diet at minimal. The minimal recommendation would be continue on the low FODMAP diet until you plateau and then reevaluate. If you plateau at around 80 to 90% improvement, then time simply may be the only thing that gets you the rest of the way there. If you feel like you plateau, you know, usually I say about 70% is where I look at the cutoff. And if you're plateauing around 70% or you're just curious how much better could you feel, that's when you can step into step two more fully, or you're already kind of integrating a little bit into step two. And I'm very confident that given your response to diet, going through the well rounded probiotic protocol in the book and making sure that you stick to that protocol and try one from each category and giving that some time will probably get you the rest of the way there. So in your case, what's likely happening is there was dysbiosis that dysbiosis was was causing histamine intolerance amongst other things. And the histamine intolerance was causing the hives, which that's well documented histamine intolerance can cause hives, and also some of the neurological symptoms like the anxiety. Now, the low FODMAP diet as we discussed can lead to an eight fold decrease in histamine. Great. Yay. And now we can also get more of an anti histamine effect with probiotics. Although we have to be a little bit careful because not every probiotic is going to help everyone all the time, which again, which is why I break them down in the book into the three different formulas, and people try one of each. But also there's a number of studies published in other histamine mediated conditions like urticaria like hives showing that probiotics can in fact improve those conditions. So it's exciting to just see you have all this potential ahead of you with just a little simple probiotic protocol, which will probably get you the rest of the way there. So great. I mean, this has been fantastic. I'm so happy that you've seen these results. Is there anything else that you want to share? Anything else that you learn from the book or lessons or things? I just want the general public to know that this is a lifesaver. If this is such a has such a dramatic improvement in my lifestyle, I just imagine so many other people out there are missing this. I don't know how we get it into the hands of the masses. But I think the word has to I mean, I would stand on the tallest tower and and share this with people because I think it's it's so important. I didn't realize how many women were suffering with this anxiety and and they don't know the the gut brain connection. And as I didn't until I discovered it firsthand. So for me, it's this has been monumental in my life. Great. Well, we are we are not the tallest tower, but we're a tower. And so hopefully this will help announce it to to a you know, array of people. One or two things that's when I ask you kind of kind of in closing follow up here. One of the things that I notice with some books that talk about diet is a very hard line is given on diet. And sometimes that can create more anxiety in someone. I'm wondering, you know, did did the way that the diet was couched in non absolutist terms? Did you find that easier to? Oh, yes. Yes, you could pick and choose what you what you were going to eat. You could make up your your you know, you can make up your daily menu based on a variety of things. You weren't just you know, isolating everything. And no, I thought it was very helpful. I mean, for me, the biggest challenge was avoiding grains and dairy. That was my biggest challenge. But you know, once I understood why I was eating what I was eating to reduce the inflammation to reduce the histamine response. I got it. I mean, I was devoted. And I said, Well, this is just this is the way the rest of my life is going to be. I'm going to just going to focus on what is going to help my gut. Perfect, perfect. And like you mentioned earlier, you'll go into a reintroduction later and you'll figure out what your personal relationship should be with gluten and grains and dairy. And you'll likely to be able to tolerate some. You may not be able to go out and have a huge bowl of ice cream and three slices of pizza and a beer with no repercussion. But I will be able to do is is have a diet that's absolutely suitable. You'll probably be able to have your your occasional dietary excursions with little to no repercussion. And it should be a very doable dietary plan in the long term, especially once you get over this hump of gut healing, you got stronger and more resilient. Well, the beauty of it is, once you get into this, it just doesn't change how you think about food. It changes how you feel about it. I don't have the cravings for chocolate every day that I used to have. I don't have the cravings for a beer, which I did every once in a while with a cheeseburger. I don't have those cravings anymore. So that really takes a lot of the work out of it. It makes it a much more accessible, easy program to integrate. Perfect. Well, I mean, you know, you're preaching the choir here, which but I'm so appreciative for you sharing your story. And I'm fairly certain this will help many, many women and men, because this also applies to men who are suffering with any kind of litany of neurological symptoms, realize that, yes, give your gut a look because there's a very high probability, not a guarantee, but a high probability that what's going on in the gut could be causing what's going on in the brain. If you get to the root of that, you don't need to be going on sleeping pills or antidepressants or what have you. So fantastically well said. Anything else that you want to leave people with as we close? No, no. Thank you for today. I was happy to be here. Awesome. Thank you.