101- Strategies to Improve MS Symptoms with Dr. Michael Smith

Bryan: [00:00:15] We've been hearing a lot about the immune system lately due to the pandemic occurring in the world right now. And with novel viruses and little information, we start to hear about all the different ways the immune system works in the body and how it goes into action to try to protect us, which is pretty dang fascinating.

And like you heard an episode 99 sometimes the immune system can get confused and starts to turn against our bodies. Which causes a whole different set of issues. What's up everyone? I'm Bryan Carroll and I'm here to simplify health and wellness information, and today we will be talking about ms, which is where the immune system starts to attack the central nervous system.

And when this happens, it can be extremely debilitating. As my guest, Dr. Michael Smith will talk about in this episode. Before we dive into this episode, our hearts go out to all those impacted by the Corona virus and the families who have lost loved ones these times are very trying and it really tests our resilience as humans.

It is also testing our ability to communicate with each other and how to get scrappy when you are stuck at home for weeks or even months. And how did just slow down a little bit. And over here at summit, we want to support as many people as we can and since a lot of us are stuck at home right now, I am working on some different at home fitness programs to get you up and moving and to keep your blood flowing.

And right now I have a program that is perfect for people who are just getting started with the exercise. Or wants to learn how to use their own body weight and minimal equipment to exercise and to make it accessible to everyone. I have a pay what you can option, since we really are headed into the unknown right now, and I know a lot of people are pretty fearful and nervous about what's ahead.

So if you want to get moving from the comfort of your own home, then go to a summitforwellness.com/28days. Now, my guest, Dr. Michael Smith, is originally from Australia and is now located up in Vancouver, BC. And when we recorded this episode, Australia was battling all of the wildfires. And over the last few months, all that information has kind of disappeared.

So I'm hoping things are doing better down there, and I hope that they were able to get a lot of those wildfires under control. So let's dive into my conversation with Dr. Michael Smith. Naturopath and functional medicine practitioner at planet natural path. Originally trained in Australia, but now living on Vancouver Island in Canada.

He has done functional medicine training with Dr. Terry Walls, Dr. Daniel Kailash and Chris Kresser. Michael uses functional medicine testing to uncover the root cause of your health issues and combines us with diet, lifestyle, and nutritional and treatments to improve your health. Thank you for coming onto the show.

Michael. 

Michael: [00:03:03] Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's been a pleasure 

Bryan: [00:03:06] of course. And, as people can recognize, you have a nice little accent up there, but you only are about like an hour and a half away from me. So it's pretty cool to see that you're on the West coast over there on beautiful Vancouver Island. but as we dive into this, I would love to learn a little bit more about your background.

So can you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

Michael: [00:03:25] Yeah. So as the accident shows, I'm from Australia. I have, I've been over here three years now, but I haven't lost the accent. Mmm. So I trained as a naturopath in Australia, but before that I was actually a chef. So like a lot of people who are into health and wellness, they actually come from a place of.

Being unwell. And so I was working long hours as a chef, 15 hours a day, not eating well, doing a lot of the wrong things as habit wise. And he ended up getting what I now know was probably chronic fatigue or adrenal fatigue. I was tired, couldn't do anything and or a naturopath. I wasn't into that. Like I went to the doctor initially and every test came back fine and I just went to a naturopath and they just gave me some diet and nutrition things to do.

Which I followed. Mmm. Luckily I had the support of a really good boss at work as we were, like, the types of foods we're serving at the restaurant went like the super healthy food. You weren't eating, you know, what Brown rice and different  just supported me in getting in whatever I wanted to eat in the restaurant.

So that was really good. And yeah, from that I saw the change in the diet that I did, made a massive difference to my health. So, and that inspired me too. Keep working at that. And it took a while. But working long hours as a chef is not every, every chef I know wants to get out of being a chef. And so I decided to go into studying to be a naturopath, which took, four or five years in Melbourne, Australia.

And luckily I fell into a super busy clinic. After that, we moved to Queensland and. There's nothing like learning to swim and diving into this deep end. So I was getting like 10 12 clients a day and and wanting lots from that, I realized that there was some people like me that would just change their diets or take a few supplements or nutrients and that would get well, but those other people that   health didn't change it.

I was still unwell and so that led me into more investigations into. Yeah. What else could be helpful? And that's where I came across functional medicine. I came across a guy called Dr. Daniel Kailash and ended up studying with him for a year and changing the way our words in that I started implementing a lot of like detailed, Stool testing, hormone testing, blood testing to try and find that underlying cause of why people are unwell. 

Bryan: [00:05:54] And, a lot of the work that you do now is with, hormone testing, which has, Mmm. Ben, like one of your main focuses in your practice, is that correct? 

Michael: [00:06:04] Yeah. Initially there was a lot of work with hormones.

probably because of my own history of fatigue and you adrenals, and then working with women with hormonal issues and men with low testosterone, in the last few years, it's, it just continually progress. I'll do a lot more digestion testing, so. Digestion is one of the key areas of health. Like, you know, I kind of realized that people may have hormone problems, but if they've got digestion problems, that could be part of the problem.

And so addressing the gut health is often the first step role. W w we'll, I'll work with anyone. Mmm. Sometimes people may not even have digestion's symptoms, but when you do the gut testing, there's different imbalances. Then they have, you know, leaky gut. So they may not have so much necessarily digestion symptoms, but.

The digestion gut issues are causing inflammation, which is causing problems elsewhere. So then, you know, probably the hormone testing, the gout testing and organic acids testing. The three core tests I do along with, of course, detailed pathology and pathology testing is important, but often it comes back normal ones.

These other functional medicine tests that can get to that. Underlying cause. 

Bryan: [00:07:16] Now did you start looking more into at digestive issues before you met Dr. Terry Walls, or did she kind of open your eyes up a little bit more to that side of things? 

Michael: [00:07:28] Yeah, it was definitely before. So over the past few months I've been studying with Dr.

Walls a bit over the past, probably since five years ago with . Dr Kayla. She was a big on the gut testing. And then I did the, Chris Kresser functional medicine training, and he was also, you know, that was his first step is, is addressing the gout and making sure that is good. So making sure people don't have CBO, a digestion imbalances.

So it's, it's been, it's been around for a while. in the past I've had my own digestion symptoms that I've had to work with. So it's, it's working on  the testing, but the different diets that will help with. Different people. yeah. In the old days it was always know if you've got a digestion problem, eat more fiber.

And that's sometimes still with the message that doctors will give. But for some people, that's, you know, the worst thing they can do. And or even taking probiotics, take more probiotics. And if someone's got CBO or bacterial overgrowth, that's just like adding more fuel to the fire can make things worse.

so the gal health is, it's emphasized in the Wolf protocol for sure. Like, you need to be able to absorbing nutrients and eliminate the toxins. That's like the key of gut health. And if you're not doing that, then things start to go wrong. 

Bryan: [00:08:41] You know, you bring up a really good point there because about, you know, probiotics might be good for one person, but not the next person.

And I feel like we live in a society where people really want, clearcut answers. Like. People want to hear that everyone needs an EFA or everyone needs a probiotic. Well, that's not really how our bodies work. And there's so many factors that go into it that, influences how something like a probiotic.

reacts within our bodies. So can you talk a little bit more about that? 

Michael: [00:09:12] Yeah, so there's definitely no one supplement for everybody and no one die for everybody. There's probably simple truths that people would follow, like, and we'll get more into the walls protocol, but you know, the emphasis there is nutrient dense and cutting out the inflammatory causing foods.

So that is important. But as far as like, you know, the probiotic example. Depending on the person. Different probiotics can be helpful. So there's soil based, there's the lactobacillus, bifido bacteria, and they can be fantastic for certain things. The Saccharomyces boulardii, there's different strains that depending on where they are on their health journey, will be better suited for some person.

And you can always experiment with different things, but that's where testing with the Gulf testing CBO testing can help to sort of work out a more definite plan for somebody and what they should do. And so if you've got yet, I've got bacterial overgrowth. Sometimes the last thing to do is adding one of these new beauty probiotics that have 10 different strains and hundred billion bacteria, some strings.

It's just, that I use. They might only have a a hundred million. One of them I use, and it's a specific strain that's effective or the single string product  so sometimes the best thing to start with and the multi-strain ones come along later. Perfect. 

Bryan: [00:10:29] now one thing that you are super passionate about right now, and you're doing a lot of research and studying on is multiple sclerosis, which Dr.

Terry Walls, a lot of her, information originated coming from that because of her own experience with ms. So can you talk about why is that such a passion for you right now? 

Michael: [00:10:50] Yeah. So ms has never been big on my radar. I've had a few ms clients, a close friend who actually studied to be a naturopath with, developed ms and actually did the Wolf protocol to reverse her symptoms.

And, and now is, you know, traveling the world and super successful in doing what she's doing. And, but it started for me in the last six months when my wife lost the use of her, one of the fingers. And it was seeming like such an unusual symptom like, but she couldn't, she was having trouble picking up things like, it's amazing how much one thing it does.

And she was dropping things and it was affecting her work. So she went to the doctor and luckily the doctor said, well, yeah, let's do a, you know, and she's had a couple of headaches and things like that. So the doctor said, let's do a scan. Oh, an MRI of the brain and sabbatical cord. And the brain came back.

Okay. But there was a couple of lesions in the spinal cord. So then that's when down the the path of getting referred to in your role just, and he's done like a ton of blood tests and asked a ton of questions and you know, he said, Whoa. Basically I think you've got ms, we need to do some more steps. So we've gone done another MRI and next step is a, is a lumbar puncture.

But she's got all the classic signs and symptoms of ms like, and ms  is a condition that is a progressive and people can start having symptoms, you know, five, 10 sometimes even 20 years before they actually get diagnosed. And because the symptoms are so vague and they could be related to so many different things, you know, looking back now, it's easy to look back on retrospect and.

Some of the symptoms that she's had since our daughter was born 13 years ago. it could all be relating to this ms and she might've had periods of remission and then periods of like a flare up. And over the past few months she's been going through this right. Philly major flare up. 

Bryan: [00:12:56] Can you talk about what those signs and symptoms might be for ms?

Michael: [00:13:00] Yeah, so it could be things like a restless legs. It could be just pins, needles, tingling. Pain, fatigue. Mmm. Cognitive problems, vision problems. Mmm. Bladder problems. So they're all things that could be related to, you know, you could, you could cross them off as, you know, some other thing. You know? Yeah.

With say the bladder problems, having, yeah. Giving birth, they started off to that. It could easily be from that, but doing all the exercises to improve, that's never really help. It's turned out like a, it's with Alicia on the spine or affecting what the nerves down to the bladder, vision problems, you know, as you get older, vision changes.

And that can also be related to ms and, and the fatigue. So the fatigue can be. Relentless sometimes, but you know, you can always put that down too. Not sleeping well, which is another ms sign actually not sleeping well. And so it's hard to diagnose just from symptoms. 

Bryan: [00:14:04] That's why it takes so long to diagnose in it.

You have to go through a lot of different testing for it. 

Michael: [00:14:10] Yeah, and like, you know, if someone's had like a heart attack, doctors will know they've had a heart attack. It's pretty black and white, or even some autoimmune conditions like thyroid. It's. There's a test, like the thyroid antibodies, which is a simple blood test you can do with ms.

There's no one test that says, yes, you have ms. So you could have a, an MRI and it may not show up any lesions and you could still have ms and that could. That only happens in about 10% of people. And it could either be that the MRI's not sensitive and it misses the lesions, or you could have lesions and they could be related to something else.

So these classic ms lesions, there's a couple of other, causes of that. so then I do like, if they do vision tests, they do lots of other blood tests to rule out these other possible factors. And then the final test I do is a spinal tap. And if you've got the antibodies for ms. Then you've got it. But even then with the spinal tap is not a 100% diagnostic because about 10% of people with ms won't have these antibodies in the, in the spinal fluid.

So it's not black and white. And, and even with some people, they can get a flare up of symptoms. So they might have the tingling, the fatigue. yeah, they might lose the use of the finger. And. It might last a week or a month in it all, it comes back to normal and they may not have, may not have another symptom ever, or it might flare up again in a year or two years later.

In fact, my wife's that, that finger that she lost use of a month or so later that it's all back to normal now. Oh. But although symptoms are coming and going, so it's all, it's a constantly changing thing. 

Bryan: [00:15:51] And it's interesting since we've already mentioned Dr. Terry Walls. she was diagnosed with ms and then her, con  progressed so far that she was actually in a wheelchair.

And then she had started to do a lot of research and, changing her diet and everything, and that she got to the point where now she's out of her wheelchair and she's walking around. Mmm. Which is fascinating because a lot of times with ms people or doctors prescribed physical therapy and like you had already mentioned, okay.

It doesn't really help that much in the long run.  that's kind of the protocol that they have for it currently. So can you talk a little bit about what did Dr. Terry Walls do that helped too reversed her ms and how can this be applied to other people. 

Michael: [00:16:39] Yeah. So, if anyone doesn't know much about Dr.

Terry Walls, she has a great Ted talk on, on  her story. But briefly, she was actually a physician in a hospital in the U S and she was not into natural health. She was not into alternative therapies. She was a strike down the line physician. And so when she first got diagnosed with ms, she went to the best doctors in the country.

She did exactly what they said and took the drugs they said, and progressively got worse and worse. And she went from having what's called, progressive remitting ms to just progress him. So it was just, there was no sort of, no let up. And so then she started looking, one of the neurologists said, look, you know, some people you know, have seen improvement with diet and, and there's only because their new role just said it.

That? Well, if the neurologist thinks that dye can influence, then maybe there's something in this. And so she started investigating diet. She, I actually met up with dr Loren Cordain and sort of following the paleo diet, and, but you're still progressively getting worse even on the medication she was taking.

And, and so the, you know, the diet alone didn't, didn't, didn't help at first. And then she started taking like a ton of supplements and. Similar sort of thing. She, she was continuously getting worse. And then she thought, well, these supplements are working. So she stopped. But then she got worse much faster and she realized the supplements must've been helping to a degree.

And so she started doing more like , these are all the supplements I'm taking. How can I get this, these nutrients and vitamins from food? Because all the research shows that that's the best way to get it. And that's the start of the wolds protocol is in that is a super nutrient dense diet. So you can eat a paleo diet.

That doesn't mean you're eating, like on the wolves protocol, she recommends three cups of like sulfur containing vegetables, like onions, garlic, cabbage, today, three cups of multiple colored vegetables in three cups of green vegetables. And so the average person is not doing that, whether they're reading Palio and not.

And. And there's, you know, there's a lot more to the wall's diet than that. And so it wasn't until she started changing the diet that she noticed symptoms and, but it wasn't also like, it's not that she changed her diet and got better, it's, she started looking at a whole range of different things. So she was teaching and she started teaching other doctors about ms.

and so she started to having a purpose and she went from like. I'll know I've got ms to look. I'm going to be an example of my children. I'm going to teach doctors and judge, she had this purpose in life. She had a mission, but she had something to prove, something to live for, which is really important.

And you're right. She was in a wheelchair at that stage, and because she'd been in a wheelchair for so long, the muscles at all a trophy, so she wasn't able to just get up and walk. It didn't quite happen that way. So exercise is definitely important, but it's not. The only thing you need. And for her exercise, it was a very basic exercises, but she did a lot of what's called electrical neuro muscular electrical stimulation, like e-stim.

And so that was  helped her muscles grow and improve without actually exercising. At that stage, she couldn't do it. And then she slowly started. You had a walk with a frame and then a cane and then walk on assisted. And I think it was from being in a wheelchair. One year later, she was riding a bike. I didn't kilometers and electric box, but she was still peddling a lot.

She said, add. So it doesn't take forever to, to change, but you know, it's not like a magic cure overnight and it's not just try some dietary change and it'll work. It's looking at that whole level of mindset diet. Having support around you and, and the exercise and movement is still super important. 

Bryan: [00:20:40] So if someone just got diagnosed with ms and they hear this podcast, why are the first steps that, well, someone should take to start getting more nutrient dense foods into their diet?

Michael: [00:20:55] Yeah, so the, if you looked at the, with the wall's diet, there's four different levels and . If you've gone from just an average American diet or the average Western diet, and if you look at the wall's diet, you might think, Oh my God, I can't do this. And because there is a lot of, there's a lot of different foods to eat and there's certain foods to cut out.

So  Dr. Walls emphasizes this, and this is true for when I've worked with lots of clients as well. Is that you, you know, for some people, my wife's in this category, she's all or nothing. She's going to do something, she'll do it to the T, whereas other people need to start step by step. And so knowing, yeah, knowing where you're at and what the type of person you are can be helpful.

So it's not like you've got to do everything at once. For some people, the first step might be just to adding more vegetables into the diet, getting a variety of foods. as I said as this, you know. Eating three cups of, greens and three cups of multicolored vegetables and the sulfa containing vegetables can be tricky, but doing things like juices and smoothies, there's an easy way to get it into the like easy way to get those nutrients in, cutting out the foods to cut out to some people that can be a good place to stop.

And the pro inflammation causing foods that are recommended, the cut out, gluten, dairy, sugar and processed foods and eggs. And a lot of people are surprised about eggs because they're super nutrient dense and the super healthy for so many people. But there's a link between eggs and autoimmune conditions and eggs and ms.

and so it doesn't mean you've got to cut out these foods forever, but it's recommended that you get to a point where you cut them out for three months and notice a difference. So it takes three months to reduce down the inflammation, heal the gout, and then you can. Experiment with adding things like eggs back in and seeing if your body will, you know, except those foods or if it causes any sort of inflammation.

And so that's a big change for some people. So for some people, they might just start with gluten.  just notice, you know, is my digestion better as my, it's my fatigue better. A lot of people find they don't have so much brain fog when they don't have gluten. The next step might be cutting out the dairy.

And then cutting out the sugar containing foods. So it's basically just eating a real food diet. That's, that's level one of the, the wools dire level two goes into another step. Alright. Yeah, 

Bryan: [00:23:27] I was going to ask, when you say eggs, does it matter? Chicken, eggs, duck eggs, or just eggs in general? 

Michael: [00:23:34] Thanks. In general.

Yeah, so there is like. The best ways are to see if you're reacting to a food is to cut it out. There is some food tests out there that will, that can test if you're reacting to eggs or not. And some of those tests can actually differentiate between chicken, eggs, duck eggs, especially if there's a lot of inflammation and gut issues.

I don't tend to do food intolerance testing straight up. Because sometimes you get a lot of false positives. People do these tests and it's like, Oh my God, I'm reacting to all these foods. I can never read them again. But if you actually heal the gut, you'll find that a lot of those reactions go away. And there could be just one or two things that you're reacting to.

So it can be a lot of, you know, false positives or false negatives on food intolerance testing. So the best way is to cut them out 100% and. And ideally you want to, you know, as I said, you can start with like gluten or start with dairy and then add things in. We don't want to cut out gluten and saying, Oh, it doesn't really help.

I'll let us back in and then cut out dairy. Because you could be rafting to both of them. And unless you cut them both out, you don't know if you're improving or not. So it's like you need to get to that point where it's, we are doing, you know, all or nothing, and, and there's plenty of support out there these days, like on the walls protocol.

there's. There's the Wolf diet, there's lots of autoimmune paleo books, there's lots of recipes. And the key is getting your family on board, getting someone to support you, and or even getting someone to guide you through the process, like a wools trained practitioner. 

Bryan: [00:25:06] Awesome. So what is level two 

Michael: [00:25:09] a level?

So level two is the Wolf, what she calls the walls, paleo diet. And essentially it's the same as. The wolves die. You still cut out those same foods used to leak the same nutrient dense foods, but it goes to that next level in that you cut out the other grains or you at least. So things like legumes and rice, you cut them down either 100% out or down to like one or two servings a week.

so it's, so it's more of a paleo diet and you also add in more nutrient dense mates like the, the old mates. So Olga mates have been proven to be the, you know, the most nutrient dense foods in the world. So compared to lean steaks, organ meats, oily fish, they're going to have a lot more nutrients. So it's adding any more nutrients from those foods plus seaweed and, soaked and sprouted nuts.

But you can still do in level one, but it's just emphasize in level two that more nutrient density 

Bryan: [00:26:09] makes sense. And then a level three. 

Michael: [00:26:12] So level three is the, the wools, well, she calls paleo plus or Quito. And so that is actually a ketogenic diet. And not everyone needs to do a ketogenic diet, but it can be especially helpful for people with cognitive issues.

Or if someone's coming from a place where they're the insulin resistance overweight, they may need to lose weight. A paleo diet or a keto diet can be a great place. And. The keto diet. I don't see it as like a longterm diet. And if someone does well on it, that's not something you can do like forever. It could be something that you do for a few months to help with their cognitive symptoms or to get the white back on track.

And it's something you can switch into. Like . Quito could be great now, but if you do it constantly all the time can lead to other hormonal problems, potentially thyroid problems, potentially issues of sex hormones, or people can get too lean. But it could be something that people can do for a month or two and then maybe switch to one of the other levels named back onto the keto diet.

Bryan: [00:27:12] And then the final level, level four, 

Michael: [00:27:14] level four is the elimination diet. And this is the, if the other one, Santa strictness is the stricter of the diets. And once again, it's not something that people need to do forever, but it's recommended to do it for that a hundred days and that, so as in all the nutrient dense foods.

But it also cuts out, along the gluten dairy, eggs. It also cuts out things like nuts and seeds, nightshade vegetables. So it's a little bit like the autoimmune paleo diet. And once again, not everyone reacts to nuts or not shaved vegetables. But if you've got a lot of pain and inflammation, this can be, this can be a good guy to just work out.

Is there other food triggers that are causing the symptoms? So if someone's. Like you don't have to start at level one, then go to level two and three and four. If someone's in a lot of pain, if they've got a lot of chronic health issues, and I'm not just talking about ms here, but other autoimmune conditions, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue,  if they're mentally prepare for it or if they've got the support, they can go straight to level four and think, yes, I'm going to do the elimination diet.

And for some people it gives us the, gives them the quickest turnaround in symptoms. And I've seen some, some, you know, some of my clients have done that. They've gone straight to level four must start at level one. That's fantastic. And if you've been doing level one for a few months, and I haven't had anyone do level one or two or three and not see improvements, like everyone sees improvements, but you know, you might get 30% better and just know that there's more more to go.

So that's where doing the elimination diet can be the next step. 

Bryan: [00:28:55] So let's say you start at level four, the elimination night, you figure out foods that you react to and then your body gets into a really good a position where you're feeling really good. Once you get to that position, do you back it down to level one and that's kind of your maintain baseline area, or what do you do there?

Michael: [00:29:17] And once again, there's no perfect answer for everybody. That's going to vary from person to person. So if after you know, three or four months on the elimination diet, you're feeling great, well then you can. It's probably best to keep it, keep out things like sugars and gluten and dairy. Although, you know, the occasional bit of sugar may not be the worst thing for some people, but you could test out the nightshade vegetables and see if you know, especially people with arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, those sort of inflammation causing symptoms.

If you add in the notch, I have vegetables like. They like things like potato, tomato, some super delicious things, and you get the symptoms back, well then you want to cut them back out again and you need to add these things back in. One of the time, you might add in the nuts and seeds and see how you respond.

So it's just systematically adding those things back in. And if you can add them back in, well then you're effectively going back to a level one or two diet. And. For a lot of people, a combination of one or two with the nutrient density and like, I don't think everybody has to do the paleo. For some people, eating rice several times a week can be fantastic.

And some people need to do that for, to stop themselves getting too thin if, if they're underweight and, and not everyone reacts to rice. So it's working out, you know, what's best for you level one or two. And for some people. Level four, they just feel fantastic there and, and they're happy to eat those foods and the research, or not just the research, but the bought the walls has proven that you're not missing out on any of the, any of the nutrients and vitamins from these levels like she's gone through and show him how much above the RDA and into the optimal range as you are on nutrition with all these diets.

Bryan: [00:31:02] Oh, wow. Yeah. That's good to know. Mmm. Now, going back to level one, you were talking about adding in a lot of different vegetables. and it sounds like it's at least six cups of greens a day. Mmm. Let me know if I got that wrong. But someone coming off of a, just a regular diet and they are looking at that and saying all these vegetables that they need to add in.

And you did mention, you know, you can do it in smoothies and whatnot. What are different ways to prepare vegetables and get them into their diet without it feeling like. They're eating a ton of food. 

Michael: [00:31:37] Yeah. So just to clarify, it's, it's three cups of the greens and three cups of the different colored vegetables and three cups of the sulfur containing vegetables.

Would you like the onion, garlic, cabbage? And so that's nine cups a day ad. And that is more than what I was eating. And since studying the walls protocol, like in one of the things she likes to emphasize this, her practitioners also practice it just so they understand what's going on. So I found it challenging to add in more vegetables and, and.

Often when people find out I used to be a chef and now I'm a naturopath, they're like, Oh, well that's such a different sort of, you know, jump. But it's actually handy being an ex chef to be able to give people ideas and how to implement these foods. And probably the juicing and the smoothies is the easiest way, cause you can get a lot of nutrition from the juicing.

but adding in foods like you can. Make things like slow cooked meals, soups, those types of things. You can get a lot of vegetables into that, especially if you're cooking them. You might lose certain nutrients, but most of the nutrients in like a Slocum food, they're still kept there. So that's another great way.

It doesn't have to be. Piles of salads. And in fact, some people just can't tolerate, you know, eating that many sellers or this time of year, like, you know, it's cold and snowy and wintery where we are. So you don't feel like eating, you know, piles of sell it. And that's where the soups and stews and, slow cooked meals are the best.

Bryan: [00:33:06] Perfect. And then, 

Michael: [00:33:07] okay. 

Bryan: [00:33:07] As we start to wrap this up here, are there, I mean, you did mention that it's really hard to figure out what is a MSM DME and what's a symptom for something else, but are there any Mmm. Red flags that people should be aware of, whether it's brain related or just in general, that you can start to point them in the direction that it could potentially be?

Ms? 

Michael: [00:33:31] So if you. If you're getting any of those like tingling, numbness, cognitive fatigue, vision, like those symptoms are not normal, whether it's ms or some other cognitive thing. So you need to, you need to take action. And if you go to your doctor and they run some blood tests and everything comes back normal, well, it doesn't mean she's just accept it.

There's no reason you don't need to do the Wolf protocol if, if you don't have a diagnosis. So one, one option, you just. Trial, the wolves protocol for three months, and this is not just if you've got ms, but any other chronic health issue and and see what happens. Well, you can push the doctor for an MRI.

That's probably the best step is to, is too be active, be proactive in your, in your treatment or in your diagnosis. A lot of adopters are reluctant depending on insurance and things like that, just to go ahead and do MRIs. But the key is don't ignore those symptoms. And. If you don't get a diagnosis, it doesn't mean you can't, you can't start a treatment plan.

Bryan: [00:34:35] Awesome. And is there any final things you want to touch on when it comes to ms? 

Michael: [00:34:40] Well, probably just having support of people around you and like you'd done, you know, the loan, there's, yeah, obviously family and friends, it's really important to keep them on board, but there's different, like things, the walls, they've got a support group.

There's different other support groups out there. Getting someone to guide you through the process. Yeah. Just having support  and not feeling alone in this process because it's hard and that's where, you know, my wife would say, look, I wish you could just feel how I feel like when you know, my whole bodies tingling or the symptoms is hard for other people to relate.

So just having someone to support you through that process. Probably the most important. 

Bryan: [00:35:21] And then my final question is, what is one actionable step that you want to teach everyone to improve their overall health? 

Michael: [00:35:28] One actionable step would be, well, there's so many different ones, but if someone's had to do one thing, what would that be?

We'd probably just be focusing on eating a real food diet as much as possible. Like there's so much processed stuff out there in the supermarket oils. So focusing on eating real food is that is the key. And one of the sub ones, you know, vegan, vegetarian, omnivore paleo, like eating real food is, is the key.

Bryan: [00:35:55] Perfect. And you have a fully comprehensive article on your website all about ms. So, people can go straight to there to see all of this written out in a nice and clean format. And that is at  planet naturopath.com/summit. Where else can people find you? Like social media? 

Michael: [00:36:16] The best place is go to my website planetnaturopath.com

I do know, do I have a planet naturopath Facebook page? I'm not too active on social media. so the best way, you know, there's a contact form on their website. Feel free if anyone's got questions or nothing, something that's not covered here in the article, feel free to reach out. And you know, I answer all my emails, so happy to answer any emails about yeah, mass or how the bolt protocol may help other people.

Perfect. And you also 

Bryan: [00:36:43] work can be a video or a phone call as well. So if anyone wants to reach out to you that way, those are other options as well. Well, thank you Dr. Michael so much for coming on. I appreciate you talking all about ms. There's a lot of people out there that have these types of symptoms and they're looking for help.

And, the more we can get this information to them, the more people we can help. So thank you so much. I hope you found the four levels through the walls protocol helpful and you can get some really great information from planet natural path.com/summit where Dr. Michael has a huge resource all about ms.

and if you know anyone battling ms right now, make sure they learn about this information and pass along this episode to them. And don't forget, we have the pay what you can option for our 28 days to a fitter you program for those who want to get more comfortable with exercise from the comfort of your own home.

And you can learn more about that @ summitforwellness.com/28 days. Next week we have dr Breanne Kallonen on to walk us through the digestive system and teach us why the gut is so important. And I keep saying it across a lot of the episodes that you hear. The gut is extremely important to our health.

So let's go learn a little bit more about Breanne. I am here with dr bran Callinan. Hey, bran. What is one unique thing about you that most people don't know. 

Breanne: [00:38:05] Well that they don't know well, they, if they don't know, they find out pretty quickly. I am incredibly stubborn and sometimes it's to a detriment because I really do like to get my own way, but in terms of patient health and advocating for my kids, I feel like I will go to the end of the universe to get to the root cause and, and figure it out.

Then. I argue if I feel like something's not right and really advocates for, I have my own ways, but definitely with my partners. Sometimes we butt heads with that for sure. 

Bryan: [00:38:37] And what will we be learning about in our interview together? 

Breanne: [00:38:41] In our interview today, we'll be talking about digestive health and why the digestive system is so important to your overall health.

Everything from weight to your hormones, to your mindset. It really all begins in the gut. 

Bryan: [00:38:55] And what are your favorite foods or nutrients that you think everyone should get more of in their diet? 

Breanne: [00:39:01] My absolute favorite is protein. I really think a lot of people are not emphasizing protein at enough, so at least 30 grams of protein at each meal.

I'm a big advocate for animal proteins. if you're not getting enough protein, at least use an amino acid. That can be helpful as well. Or a collagen based product and making sure that you have enough protein at each meal will keep your blood sugar stable. And we do know that 50% of anxiety can be attributed to swings in blood sugar.

So people who come to me, anxious, overwhelmed. Often we're looking at diet and just optimizing protein. 

Bryan: [00:39:34] And what are your top three health tips for anyone who wants to improve their overall wellness, 

Breanne: [00:39:41] sleep, poop, and stress less. 

Bryan: [00:39:43] All right. Are you ready to nerd out with us next week? Well, I hope so because it is a pretty fun episode.

So until then, stay healthy. Wash your hands and keep climbing to the peak of your health.