Intro: Welcome to the Heart Soul Wisdom podcast. A journey of self discovery and transformation. Moira Sutton and her amazing guests share real life stories, tools, and strategies to inspire and empower you to create and live your best life. Come along on the journey and finally blast through any fears, obstacles and challenges that have held you back in the past so you can live your life with the joy, passion, and happiness that you desire. Now, here's your host. Create the life you love. Empowerment life coach moira Sutton.

Moira: Welcome to season four, Episode 83, taking back control of your health and well being with founder functional diagnostic nutrition expert, Reed Davis. Reed is a board-certified holistic health practitioner and certified nutritional therapist. And he's an expert in functional lab testing and holistic lifestyle medicine. He is the founder of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, which is FDN and the FDN certification course with over 4000 graduates in 50 countries. Reed served as the health director at a wellness center in Southern California for over ten years. And with over 10,000 clients, he's known as one of the most experienced clinicians in his field. He serves on the advisory board of the American Natural Wellness Coaches board and the American Association of Natural Wellness Coaches. Reed lives in the US. And when he's not teaching the FDN certification course and helping his graduate build their private practices, he is usually found gardening, riding motorcycles, and as I just found out, also sailing. So, without further ado, I would like to welcome Reed Davis. Welcome, Reed.

Reed: Thank you so much, Moira, for having me here. And I hope we can do some good today.

Moira: This is great. And thank you for being flexible with the timing because I ended up taking August off, so I didn't do any recording or anything and just gave myself that gift of time. So, you're the first-person sort of like back in the seat. So, it's going to be great.

Reed: Glad to hear it. Hope you enjoyed time off.

Moira: I did. It went by very fast. I don't know, time speeding up. Do you think that's age when people say, oh, when you get older, or.

Reed: Do you think it's just it seemed that way. I don't know. But it seems like, oh my God, faster and faster.

Moira: Yeah. So that's the good thing about meditation or breathing deeply. Like today I was talking fast when we just talked before, we got on, and it's like, take a breath and just enjoy the moment and we're going to have fun anyway. And you have so much knowledge from your expertise. I want to start with what led you to this path of holistic health and nutritional therapist. Did you have your own health concerns? Is that why you got into that?

Reed: No, but I was concerned about something sneaking up on me. I was actually in environmental law and conservation and kind of saving the whole planet. Air, birds, water, trees, beasts, and noticing how the downward spiral in those areas with health of the planet, let's say, and I turned my attention to people around 25 years ago, I just decided to work with people instead of the Earth. And it was an amazing I didn't have my own health challenge at the time. I thought I was really healthy. I'd had some boo boos from very active lifestyle, but never really been to a physician before. And I was amazed at what I found when I jumped into the human health space.

Moira: Now, when you jumped into that, let's look at that. First of all, this FDN nutrition, how did you create that? Now I can hear your passion just to inspire the world and educate them. And now I can hear you really, truly care about Mother Earth right through the environment. So that's fantastic. But how did that FDN nutrition, how did you create that?

Reed: I had to name what I had been practicing, sort of unknowingly for ten years. So, when I did make that career shift, I went to work in a clinic, and I was hired mostly to run the business because I'm a good businessman, and I'm really an excellent organizer, I guess is my strength in different ways. But I was also invited by the owner to go to nutrition classes with her, and she said, the only thing you have to do is your homework. And mine, she was getting a diplomat. She was a doctor and said I would end up with a certificate and I could work here's the thing, that I could work with her patients in between my classes. Wow, who gets an opportunity? I jumped on it, and as I was running this clinic, I was also taking classes and working with the patients in between. And, oh, my goodness, did I fall in love with that. Working face to face with Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jones, who had a health problem and no solutions. This was totally alternative medicine at the time. Now, since it's evolved a bit, but the answer to your question is, I just started doing things. For ten years, I worked in that clinic trying to help people, and everything I did was investigative, trying to get to the underlying causes and conditions and then giving the people ways to live themselves out of it. They pretty much lived themselves into these problems. So not only did I have to figure out what was wrong, which is where the lab work comes in, I became an authority on laboratory work. I ran thousands and thousands of labs on thousands of people, but also, because I'm not a physician, don't want to be a physician, don't want to diagnose, and treat specific things. I wanted to find out everything that was really wrong and then give the person things that they could be in control of, get themselves out of it. So, I created this system of investigation and this system of protocols that was working very well I had one of the busiest sort of nutritionist programs and businesses in the country I was told that by the lab directors and other vendors they said who the hell are you? No one's this busy. No one has this many people coming. You do as much laboratory work as any five doctors. Reed that's what I was told. And I said, I don't know, I just work hard. I love what I'm doing. I didn't know I was doing anything so amazing. But I got asked to teach over and over and over again. And after ten years, I started teaching, and I had to call it something I was having. My first really was just a workshop, a two-day workshop for practitioners to come and learn what I had been practicing in the office and what I had developed. And I had to call it something. And I just came up with functional Diagnostic Nutrition. It's functional. It's all about function. There's no diagnosing, but it's diagnostic in nature, because we're looking at lab data. So, it's not like a medical diagnosis. You don't need a license to do it, but you're using data. And then it's nutrition, which really is nutrition and nurturing. So, the nutrition nurturing thing became the sort of theme. And once I called it Functional Diagnostic Nutrition because I couldn't think of a longer, I was stuck with it. But now it's kind of cool because there's 3000 FDN practitioners, so we call it FDN. Affectionately. We're FDNS. We're FDNS. It's quite a community. Which I'll just finish by saying when I started teaching in 2008, I didn't know there'd be a community that would develop out of it. But the people who signed up to learn the system of lab work and natural protocols completely holistic natural drug free protocols, they basically would take the course and wouldn't go away. They just said, hey, what else? What about this, what about that? So, for the first ten years I conducted postgrad interviews, interviewed the first 2000 people I interviewed myself I'm a pretty large staff now to handle the traffic but I asked them what could I do to make it better? The court and your ability to go out in the world and do this as a so that's how the course grew to what it is today, and I'll just say that's how FDN was.

Moira: Created wow, that's a great real-life story who were the people that came? Were they people that were doing alternative things like maybe reiki reflexology? Who were they?

Reed: All of that, but at first it was just nutritionist. I put it out there like four, because you have to kind of target. And I had some good friends who had some groups they'd worked with, and it was no trouble to sign people up. It just grew like crazy. And I changed right away from having live workshops to going online. And that, of course, opened it up to the whole world. So, we've been able to grow because of that. But the community is mostly nutrition, personal trainer, health coaches, huge now, and that's been a growing profession for ten years. And we're kind of the cream of the crop. We're the top of the heat there. Because of the level of education, the amount of pure anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, I teach everything that I learned in ten years, in ten months. That's what the course is.

Moira: Wow.

Reed: Plus, the business perspective, plus to be a health entrepreneur, because I'm really big on that. And then, of course, now the alumni is huge. It's got a life of its own and continuous training and education and support. So, when you join FDN, you join a family of like minded people who want to do some good in the world and are willing to work at it. And it's just one of those growing things. It's good.

Moira: There was a need for it, for sure.

Reed: People are suffering still. I mean, you'll never run out of customers. I had someone call me once to decide if they were going to sign up for the course. Well, do you think I can get any customers? I said, well, where do you live? He goes, New Jersey. I said, oh, no, there's no sick people in New Jersey. Forget about it.

Moira: Well, I like that you teach the business perspective, too, because a lot of I've been an entrepreneur for over 30 years, for sure, and I never really knew the marketing side. And Michael Gerber, who wrote I forgot the name of his yeah, I had him on a TV show I had many years ago, and he talks about the entrepreneur trying to wear all the hats. And you can't do that. You have to get people who are expert in everything or first of all, you can only do what you're good at or learn, like the marketing and business side.

Reed: I teach it very simply, and you're right, it takes the desire to be you have to want to help people. And what could be better than helping people and making a good living at the same time?

Moira: Yeah, perfect.

Reed: You could actually make a lot of money if you want to. So, a lot of us doing the helping others business are more altruistic than we should be. We think we should give it away, and that's just not true. You got to realize that the more successful you are financially, the more people you can help. And I learned that really quickly, and I was an entrepreneur to begin with, so I know how to do this and make money at the same time. And so, I teach that in the class. But there are still some who just want to work for some, they just want to do the work. They just want to, let's say, read the laboratory tests and interpret them and come up with a protocol and kind of dictate the lifestyle and help coach people, their health coaches. They want to do health coaching. They don't want to run a business. So, there's plenty of opportunity to create teams and colleagues who maybe are better at that part. And also, now doctors are hiring FDNS left and right because we're so good at what we do, and they're not trained the way we're trained to create a truly integrative and complementary health practice.

Moira: Yes, that's exciting. I think a lot of people who are in my audience that are listeners today would be very interested in they're searching for their purpose, their passion, how they can help. They're definitely those kinds of people that want to help other people on the planet. So, this is going to be very exciting. I know people right now, as you're.

Reed: Talking, I'm thinking, yeah, well, there's a place to go.

Moira: I know we're going to get that.

Reed: But some people just want to work on themselves, so that's a prerequisite of our training, is that you work on yourself?

Moira: Yeah. That's important.

Reed: All the labs on yourself that you get, all the mentoring and coaching for your own issues, and then you can decide later, oh, hey, can I do this for a living too? Really? Yes, you can. There's transitions that have to be made from the guys say, don't quit your day job until we get it sorted out here for you financially, so you can just work on yourself too.

Moira: That's excellent. Now you have one of the things that I have questions about for today was for Amir Dress. D-R-E-S-S for Health Success Guide. Can you explain what that is? And also, that is the gift that the listeners will be getting, which that's very generous of you and very exciting. So, what does that stand for?

Reed: Well, thanks. And do you mind if I give you a little background first?

Moira: Because I would love that.

Reed: Well, the idea was, here I am in the office, there's chiropractic and acupuncture and nutrition and these modalities and services. But I started realizing really quickly in the first couple of months of practicing, so to speak, that, hey, it's not coming in the office that matters. That's great. You're coming in for your acupuncture and your chiropractic and other modalities, but it's what you do at home that matters. That's what's going to get you better. Mrs. Smith, what's your diet like? How well do you sleep and how much exercise you're working in there? And what about stress reduction and different things, managing your life in certain ways, and not to mention the mind, body, spirit aspects? And then, of course, supplementation was big, so that spells dress, diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, supplementation. And that developed pretty quickly in my head, and I was telling people about Dress. But then to actually flesh out took years to flesh out. Well, how do you figure out the right diet for an individual and then rest is different for a lot of people. It's not just sleep, it's learning how to be meditative and to rest your soul and your emotions as well. Sleeping helps with all that. But diet and true rest and exercise, everyone just can't go to the gym and work out like a maniac and that's not even good for most people. So, there's all this way of individualizing. The dress program maybe especially around if I had to focus on two areas, it would be the diet, getting that right for the individual. And it took me years to figure that out and to meet the right people. But also, the stress reduction because it's so ubiquitous and there's so many different kinds of stress and ways you can be stressed out and sometimes you don't even know it. And on and on, then supplements are huge. But right now, I don't have my own line of supplements. Keep threatening everyone. So that's what dress is. And again, I kind of figured it out quickly in the first couple of years that, well, dress is going to be my protocol system. But it's two things. One is the individualization and then also having a system. So, it's systematized, so it sounds like it's a pattern, but it's also highly individualized. And that's really the case to make it for you.

Moira: Very cool.

Reed: No, cohort you're not a cohort. Whoever the listeners, if you're listening, you're not a cohort. You are an individual. You're a study of one. And that's what I learned to specialize in, in a sense, in the office, coming up with the by the way, I'll give you there's another acronym on the investigative side. So, it's H-I-D-D-E-N-I had to learn which labs to run and how to interpret the data or use the data to highly correlate with an individual. Do these labs explain why you are the way you are, whatever complaints you have and so on, while others can't figure it out? I might add, no one else figures out. So, here's what's really wrong. The H-I-D-D-E-N. Then the solution is under your control. You need to be the boss of yourself and your activities and everything, what you think, what you eat and all this stuff. So, the dress protocol is just that. So, there's two sides. There's the Investigative Hi. D-E-N. And it stands for hormone immune digestion, detoxification, energy production and nervous system. I know it's a mouthful, we can visit it at any level you want, but the dress protocol is how you live. And it's really fascinating how individualized that can get.

Moira: Yeah, so to remember that they say it like the hidden stressors and then just in their head, like you said, the hormone, the immune, digestive, detoxification energy production in the nervous system, that was one area we definitely want to go to. The internal stress that we have and.

Reed: How we look after the way you respond to any external or internal sort of negativity. There are what I call contributors to metabolic chaos, and they come in mental, emotional form, existential angst, of course, the environment, which is where I started with the whole thing, there's thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of chemicals that have never been tested on people. They've been tested sometimes on rats, but otherwise we're the rats, we're being experimented on. And it's not right, but it's the way it is. So, we have to deal with it, and we have to realize that there's not only when I say stress, people think oh, I got bills, I got relationships, I've got a job I don't like or whatever, but it's also the world we live in is stressful and the body responds the same. And let me throw in because I have a very well used body aches and pains from old injuries, the number of sports and extreme things I've done, I was actually quite careless in some regards. And you get hurt neck and back and both shoulders, both knees, et cetera. So that's a type of stress. Walking around in pain is stressful here's. The beauty of it is we sorted out, I did by running thousands of labs on people, the body responds the same, very much alike to any form of stress with the hormone levels, with the immune system, what happens there with your digestion and detoxification systems and so on, the autonomic imbalances, the nervous system and so on. There's a pattern, but it could still highly individualize it. That's the beauty of the hidden stressor investigation. I really love the term no if you don't mind. Contributors to metabolic chaos. And what I mean by metabolic chaos is that there's imbalances and there's dysfunction that occurs and it can be really far upstream, like far, far away from where it's manifesting in your body. You could have an acre pain, or you could have a bad feeling, anything from a migraine to gout like a toe that's cut. And anyway, there's stressors upstream. And so there was a thought when I started root cause, we'll get to the root cause and today you see people, it's in their handle. I get to the root cause. You know what, there's never one, there's never one. There's always multiple causal factors. And here's something that your audience really needs to get they're having an effect upon each other, and no one seems to consider that well, you have all these different things going on mental, emotional, physical, existential, chemical, biochemical, lots of stressors and contributors to this chaos. And it's chaos because there's no one root cause, they're intermingling having effect. And a lot of times that's not measurable or not singly measurable. And so I've done my homework on this and that's why it just could be accurately defined as metabolic chaos. It's not just a catchphrase, that's what's going on. So how do you sort without a system to sort it out again. Remember the very beginning, except pretty good organizer. So, I was able to organize this data that I was getting into a system of investigation that anyone can do and everyone should, pretty much, but anyone can. These are mostly at home tests. You get the data, you sort out the causal factors. You can see the domino effect, you can see how the effect they're having on each other when you know what to look for. And then the protocols make so much more sense. People are so much more motivated. And I was told, can't tell you how many times, reed, how come no one else ever figured this out? How come no one else is looking for things this way? That's what motivated me to start teaching. Everyone was saying, hey, I've been to ten practitioners or twelve or more, and you're the first one, Reed, that actually explained anything to me worth of ****. So that's that I think it's really important.

Moira: Read and thank you for all that. This stress cascade and the symptoms are, you say, the last thing to appear on the stress cascade. And it started quite some time ago. And there's other things going on which we might think something shows up. We're stressed, I have this happening, but there's more going on than that. So that's why I think also this is so important, to really get to the root cause of metabolic chaos. For sure.

Reed: Yeah, the root causes and how they're affecting each other. So, it's an expansion on the root cause model, which is a great model. Hey, look, you never stop looking for the root cause, but understand that it could be really far away from where you're suffering. Whatever's manifesting for you that's negative, it could be really far away. By the way, here's something else. This is a twist, okay? It could be gone. The root cause there was one doesn't even have to be there anymore. So, what that means is that something that happened 10, 15, 25 years ago started the downward spiral of some sort. Cells have an effect on each other. The cascade just never stopped, even though that stressor is gone. So that's even more remarkable that there are always multiple causal factors. Some of them don't exist anymore. So, you tell me you're going to find the root cause. No, you're not. And so that's why, again, metabolic chaos kind of explains it all.

Moira: Wow. So how does a FDN practitioner identified healing opportunities and help their clients interrupt the stress cascade? So how does that happen? That interruption that piqued my interest.

Reed: Yeah. Well, there's different ways to put interruption, but it's to restore the balance and whatever it is that's dysfunctional. And most of these dysfunctions are long term, chronic kind of conditions that are downward spiraling. So, you really need a good investigation of as many healing opportunities as possible. One thing we don't do is guess. We don't guess that oh, it sounds like a parasite, or it sounds like hypothyroidism, or it sounds like this. Well, yeah, it might. And you might even be right some of the time. But running one test is not helpful because whatever you start to focus on is not the only issue, and it's being affected by so many others. That's why the hidden hormone immune digestion. And I can show you, and I can show you the downward spiral of how physically, on your lab test that well, yes, there's stress. It's all basically that's the root of all evil if you will. As we meet these challenges, our body tries to compensate and adapt to them, and that causes imbalance dysfunction. And if it just keeps going on and on, if all you ever do is treat the symptoms, take a pill or whatever, get a massage or something, that's all temporary. So, to sort it out and I think to answer your question, the way you identify multiple healing opportunities is to run we run five labs on every person. That's the prerequisite. Yes, it sounds like a lot, but when you go to someone and they use the sounds like method, sounds like thyroid, okay, well, run a thyroid test. Yes. Confirms my suspicions. It's the thyroid. I found your problem, and here's your medicine. Take this. The symptoms might even abate to some extent, but you haven't addressed the reasons why that person is hypothyroid. Because there's nothing wrong with the thyroid. It's just responding to stress in a certain way. It shuts down. Your body's just dealing with stress by hibernating, by slowing down metabolism, which is what the thyroid controls it anyway. Right now, there's lots of chemistry, biochemistry going on, and anatomy, physiology. And I can explain it all. I think this format here is probably not best suited for that, but yes, I can explain it, and I can show you. I've created slide after slide after slide with animation that I've done myself, that's one thing I had to learn was to get pretty good at you can't use a whiteboard anymore these days. Hardly. So, I have I know what's going on behind the scenes, so to speak, and can explain it in such a way that just saying it sounds like thyroid. There's a traditionally reliable cluster of symptoms, and yeah, the thyroid is involved. You could be hypothyroid, but there's nothing wrong with your thyroid. That's the key. That's the difference in our way of thinking. And if you ask a regular physician, well, why is my thyroid underactive? We don't know. We don't know. And they'll tell you it's genetic or some bullshit, when really there is a reason why your body's going into hibernation and you're gaining weight, your hair is thinning, and you have constipation and you feel sad and all these things. There's always a reason. The difference is we're not doctors. We don't want to diagnose and treat hypothyroidism or anything in particular. We treat nothing specifically, but the improvement program, the dress program, is designed to treat everything in a sense, self treat everything non-specifically. Your cell function improves, that organ or system that it's in improves, your health improves, and symptoms go away almost by accident. Let me give you a really quick example.

Moira: Yes, I would love that.

Reed: Okay. So, a lady came to me 20 years ago when I was learning. I'm still learning, but you get what I'm saying, is, like, I'm running all these labs and all these people, and she came to me for tiredness and fatigue and overweight and feeling sad and things that sounded like hypothyroidism, but I don't want to diagnose that and put her on some thyroid medication. Can't write the prescription. My prescription is lifestyle. So, the point is that I did my labs, gave her things to do. Dr. E-S-S she started to have more energy. Felt more like going to the gym. Started doing a little more exercise, started to lose some weight. Her foggy thinking, cleared up lots of things, improved her energy, her libido, I mean, you name it. So, sure enough, after just a few months, it seems like four months, five at the most, she'd been doing great. And I get this phone call, read, I got to tell you something. Okay. What? I didn't know it was bad. Good. She goes, we're pregnant. I said, wow, that's fantastic. Kind of wondering, Why are you calling me? Call your mother, whatever. She goes, no, Reed, you don't understand. She goes, her husband, they just left the doctor's office, and she was happily, very happily pregnant. I said, well, that's wonderful. Congratulations. She goes, no, Reed, we gave up nine years ago trying to that's why it wasn't even so. I didn't even know what the symptom was infertility. Infertility is a major symptom of something that’s, so I didn't even know that symptom existed, and it went away. Her infertility disappeared. She said that we just left the doctor's office, and we both looked at each other. You know, Reed got us healthier. And so that's why now my body went back to conception mode. So, what I'm saying about getting healthier and the rest takes care of it, the symptoms go away. There's an example where I didn't even know what the symptom was.

Moira: Now if you look at some major things, like my mom, she's 96. She has peripheral neuropathy, and so she did a lot through the years. Like, she tried alternative, and she didn't have this, and it just got worse. But do you have people like that that come in or they have heart issues, or they have cancer? Every kind. Wow.

Reed: Now, here's what I want to make sure we're very clear on. Most people have been to the physician, and many were told that nothing's wrong with you. Your blood work looks normal. And so those are kind of the classic case where lifestyle medicine is what's needed. Doctors aren't trained in that. But there's another group that well, yeah, their doctor did find things. They have been diagnosed with this and that and this and that. That still doesn't matter to us. We're still going to apply the principles of health building. We're still going to run our labs that doctors aren't running and we're going to act accordingly. We're going to customize that individual dress program and see what shakes out. We trust that as the body heals and regains all its functions, including down to the cellular level, cells are parts of organs. They don't need to be taught what their job is. They know what their job is. It's an innate intelligence that we depend on throughout life anyway. But this innate intelligence, the cell just needs to be functioning right and then it knows if it's an adrenal cell or a brain cell or a muscle cell or an Ovarian cell or whatever it is. And so, it'll sort of function better. Excuse me. And that organ improves. That organ is usually part of a system. You have your endocrine system and your nervous system and your cardiovascular system, your lymphatics, you name it. When everything improves, those symptoms just kind of disappear. Now, if they have a medical condition in the mix usually means that there are some markers that the doctor is very concerned about that might go into a very dysfunctional state. And if that downward spiral like when you talk about neuropathy, there's a downward spiral that if you don't stop it and really start reversing it, then it can lead to amputation. I mean, dying. Lots of bad things can occur. And that's why doctors are so wonderful to have around because they know how bad it can get and they have ways to intercede. This is the key. When the downward spiral is contracted, really contracted, then the observations I make aren't very useful. They can't be capitalized on because our work takes time. The body can heal itself. There is an innate intelligence. It wants to be healthier and it's really smart, but you could say life gets in the way. The contributors to Metabolic Chaos have compounded and multiplied and now it's hard to sort out. So that's why you end up with these medical conditions. Doctors pick this thing or pick that thing, whatever it is. Irritable Bowel so people come with all of that chronic fatigue, and you name it, worse, much worse. And so, we let the doctor monitor not lit, but we work together. Really, the person supposed to be in charge of, well, I have a physician and yeah, we're trying to get this right and trying to get that right. And I have my FDN practitioner where we're getting everything right from a health overall health principal basis. And the two can work very handily together. And again, if we can get the doctor to get you out of the woods, stop the downward spiral, however, God forbid, surgery is necessary, something like that. But we don't like taking out body parts. In FDN world, we don't think you have extra parts. But sometimes if people come in that kind of shape, then they're going to need both medical and FDN. But at some point, you would hope that some things just seem to disappear and other things might require some management or we just call it oversight. So. Look, I'm an FDN practitioner. I've trained thousands of them. And we don't mind taking backseat to a doctor who's interceding with pharmaceuticals or whatever he has to save your life. If it's a really like, again, contracted downward spiral, got to have a doctor to use his magic. But once you're out of the woods, now you're in our sandbox. So that's kind of how I view it. And that makes it very friendly. There's no antagonism unless people are taking out parts for no reason. That'd be a bad thing. But you get point.

Moira: Yes, I do. It's very fascinating. You shared in your Dress for Health Success Guide that 23.5 million Americans suffer from an autoimmune condition wherein the body is attacking itself. Why do you feel, Reed, that there's such an overwhelming number of people experiencing autoimmune disorder? And how, from your perspective FDN, what is it that you do? My thing, too. Why is so many people having this condition now? It's sort of like when you're talking like we have food sensitivities now. We have what? Wheat Belly book came out because wheat wasn't good. All these different things that came out. What's your perspective on this?

Reed: We've gone away from the natural world. I don't want to be a doomsayer because I'm really a positive person, but there's so many things in the environment now, including everything from the way we think, television, whatever, to the way we behave and the habits that we have that are bad for you. And so, we get into these downward spirals. I'm trying to make sure I stay focused on the question. I go off in these tangents.

Moira: It's perfect, though, what you do. I love that you go in and I do the same thing.

Reed: Yeah. These conditions that are chronic, that have gone over the tipping point to be medical again, you kind of need both sides of the equation. But we're here to build health, not treat disease. And I'm not sure that's answering your question. If you want to rephrase it so I could zoom in a little tighter.

Moira: I think my question really was that number 23.5 million.

Reed: Oh, it's way more. I think it's way more now. A much higher percentage of the population has autoimmune of some sort because the body's really smart. And yet with all my lead in was the environment and how bad it is, there's confusion, and the body's kind of limited as to what it can handle, chemically speaking. And you could throw in the other contributors to metabolic chaos. I mentioned existential angst and things like that having no purpose in life. And that makes your habits worse, and you don't want to exercise and on and on. So, the kind of this I just keep referring back to the downward spiral. Autoimmune just occurs because it can. Now, you could get specific. I know most naturopaths would say, what's leaky gut? And so, you get stressed out and your cortisol goes up and cortisol gets out of balance with DHEA. So, one is a catabolic hormone. It breaks the body down. Cortisol breaks your body down. Now you have this counteractive, counter regulatory hormone called DHEA dehydroepiandrosterone. And that's the parent of your sex hormones, by the way. But the first thing to happen is your body starts breaking down just cortisol to DHEA. Hey, it's going to happen. And one of the things we see in the cascade where we measure is that your secretary IGA goes down as cortisol goes up. And secretary or secretory IGA is the main defense mechanism in your gut. So, this mucous lining in your small intestine is full of IGA. It's an immunoglobulin that protects you. It hovers and looks for bad things that it can neutralize. That's a good thing. And so here, as stress goes up and that goes down, the IGA secretary IGA goes down. You become more vulnerable to Dysbiosis, for instance. Plus, you're not eating right. You're eating foods you're sensitive to and you're exposed to all these things, and you got all this stress going on. And so, you get a Dysbiosis. So that's an overgrowth of the unfriendly flora versus friendly. And you need both, but they need to be in proportions. Well, that makes you more susceptible to the next level. As I said, there's a downward spiral. And I have the measurements along the way. We measure the cortisol and the DHEA. By the way, remember I said that's the parent of your sex hormones. So, when your cortisol DHEA is out, your sex hormones go out. Now you've got estrogen and progesterone and testosterone issues, very possible and very likely and very common. And so, you got those kinds of complaints. Then you throw in the digestive complaints of hey, Dysbiosis. If you have a Dysbiosis, that means you're not breaking down food as well as especially your proteins. Proteins go into the body as amino acids. Amino acids are metabolized into neurotransmitters. Now you got brain health, you got emotional health. You got all these things in the downward spiral. And that's why I call it when it's all messed up metabolic chaos. So, if you just try to say, oh, it's indigestion, I've got indigestion doc, and you only look there and you apply some agent, pharmaceutical or even over the counter to that, you're not really dealing with the problems that live stream the Dysbiosis and the low secretary Aga and the cortisol TDHA Imbalances and stuff. And it just gets worse from there. To get to the autoimmune you start having intestinal permeability issues because of not only the Dysbiosis, but now bigger bugs come. You get actual overgrowth of yeast and parasites and funguses. We all get exposed to these things bacteria, fungus, parasite. But a healthy gut reject most of it. Again, a healthy gut, mostly after good chewing and digestion in the stomach passing through to the small intestine. There's a real environment. There is an ecosystem that has to be in good shape, or you end up with this hyperpermeability. So now things you don't want leaking into your hepatic portal system do enter. And then that goes in and does what? Well, it congests the liver. Now you got a detoxification issue that will spill over. And so, you get things coming into your body that are not natural, that the body recognizes as bad stuff. Bacteria and immune complexes and certain antigens and things. And then what happens? Well, it starts reacting to everything. It literally just sort of gets confused. Pretty soon, believe it or not, carrots can look like a bacterium, and it'll attack carrots. And that can give you inflammation and migraines and bad skin and on and on. So, this idea of autoimmune, now that same immune system that's active, you've kind of ****** it off. Will go after your thyroid or your Adrenals or the skin or other areas. You know what lupus is. And these kind of autoimmune, they can get really serious, very systemic. For me, I kept going, starting out with overall stress and the environment, and then it goes into that Cortisol DHA ratio and so on. But most people would just sort of say, fix the leaky gut and you can fix AI. I'm not a true believer in that, but it's part of the problem.

Moira: Point is so fascinating. I just want to keep listening to you.

Reed: Well, hundreds of hours of recordings and you get the video to go with it. You get the visuals. I love it myself, where I could spend hours and hours, I hear that searching, researching, and that was my specialty, even in environmental law, was the research and writing of what's going on in the environment, mostly around case law, certain cases and how they were figured out. And it's an emerging area, by the way, but it's all still evolving.

Moira: Everything very fascinating. I know we're coming to the conclusion of our it's just gone by so fast, Reed.

Reed: I'm thinking, so you'll have to have me back.

Moira: That's it. I want to explore having you back because I'm really enjoying definitely. Definitely.

Reed: Thanks for letting me spout off a little bit. This is my pleasure. And it's not just a business for me. I'm in for the long haul.

Moira: Yeah, you're dedicated, and this is your passion. This is your passion. From environment to Mother Earth to people. Like you said, I think that unfolding is just wonderful. I know we mentioned earlier during our heartfelt conversation that you're gifting them with the dress for Health Success guidebook, which will be below in the show. Definitely I want you back.

Reed: Okay.

Moira: If you're open to.

Reed: Email and Reed.

Moira: I always end it saying thank you for you sharing from your heart and soul and your wisdom, which is our theme of the show, on taking back control of your health and well being. Namaste, Reed. It's been a joy.

Reed: Thank you.

Outro: Thank you for listening to the Heart Soul Wisdom podcast with Moira Sutton. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please join our community@moirasutton.com and continue the discussion on our Facebook page. Create the Life You Love you will be part of a global movement connecting with other heart centered people who are consciously creating the life they love on their own terms. Together, we can raise our consciousness for the greater good of humanity and for our planet.