Here are two nutrients and two microbes that play huge roles in material and infant health, yet almost no obstetrician or gynecologist is advising their patients about them--a major oversight! Because doctors are not doing their job in advising people on how to stack the odds in favor of not having premature labor, correcting vaginal dysbiosis, and markedly improving the health of their child, you can take the reins of health on your own. I also include a discussion about human milk oligosacchar...
Jun 06, 2022•22 min
If you've been following my programs, you are likely already supplementing around 3000-3600 mg per day of EPA+DHA for heart health benefits, as well as reduced potential for Alzheimer's dementia and to reduce triglycerides. But did you know that there are important benefits of omega-3 fatty acids for pregnancy, lactation, early neurodevelopment, and for reducing endotoxemia? Omega-3 fatty acids are a good example of something that is essential, as they play crucial roles in many aspects of human...
May 24, 2022•20 min
Here are a number of strategies that you can adopt on your own to substantially improve your immune response and thereby maximize protection against viral and bacterial infections, while also improving other aspects of the immune response that could otherwise lead to autoimmune disease and even cancers. I therefore provide actionable steps you can take to boost the immune response, methods that most doctors are unaware of but allow you to achieve a level of health that is superior to that obtain...
May 18, 2022•21 min
Tracking finger stick blood glucoses can be an extremely powerful tool for health--if used properly. Unfortunately, most conventional doctors have no idea how to do this and instead advise you that blood sugars of up to 200 mg/dl are acceptable. This is absolutely and completely wrong. Tracking blood sugars prior to a meal, then 30-60 minutes after a meal, to identify peak blood glucose provides insights into diet and health that can even be used by someone with type 2 diabetes to become non-dia...
May 12, 2022•17 min
Lactobacillus reuteri is one of the most important bacterial species in the human microbiome. Yet it has been lost by the majority of Americans due to this microbe's susceptibility to common antibiotics like amoxicillin and ampicillin. One of the terrific benefits of L. reuteri is its ability to provoke release of the hormone, oxytocin, from the brain. Until recently, there was no user-friendly way to boost oxytocin. It cannot be ingested orally because the digestive process breaks it down. It c...
May 03, 2022•19 min
The tools and insights into the human microbiome are exploding and everyday people--non-scientists, non-microbiologists--are able to generate new experiences and learn new lessons that provide important advantages in health. We, as microbiome citizen scientists, are learning new lessons virtually every day: how to increase energy, smooth skin wrinkles, reduce arthritis pain and perhaps even slow or reverse joint arthritis, improve mood, deepen sleep, all by managing our microbiomes. For example,...
Apr 20, 2022•26 min
Although I and others have discussed thyroid health issues many times over the years, I still see people struggling to understand how to best manage this important area of health. And getting thyroid right to optimal levels is really fairly straightforward, except that many doctors remain uninformed or disinterested in helping you achieve ideal thyroid status. Among the issues I address: How to recognize symptoms of thyroid dysfunction, especially hypothyroidism How to use oral temperature as a ...
Apr 13, 2022•24 min
The intestinal microbiome, i.e., the collection of microbes in your gastrointestinal tract, are proving to be major players in the length, quality, and content of your sleep. The intestinal microbiome can make the difference between deep, restful, dream-filled sleep, to superficial, disrupted, dreamless sleep, and all the emotional and health consequences that accompany these crucial differences. You can take steps, including cultivation of specific microbial species, to regain wonderful, restfu...
Apr 03, 2022•26 min
How did a cardiologist aborting heart attacks, putting in stents, and performing other heart procedures end up talking about the destructive effects of wheat? It was far from a straight line but a series of blunders and inadvertent discoveries that led me down this path. But it was a path that showed me how powerful going against conventional advice could be that led to spectacular weight loss in people, putting many people with type 2 diabetes into remission, reducing blood pressure, and revers...
Mar 30, 2022•46 min
It's a basic requirement of life and health: vitamin D. Even after I and others have been broadcasting this message for over 10 years, many still ignore it, remain skeptical, or simply don't get it right. And, sadly, you cannot rely on your doctor to get it right, as they often say things like "You can get all the vitamin D you need from diet, or "Just get some sun," or "There's no need for vitamin D"--all of which is tragically wrong. But getting it right yields SO many health benefits. So it i...
Mar 25, 2022•33 min
Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO, in which unhealthy bacterial species have proliferated and ascended up the 24-feet of small intestine, is now epidemic, an epidemic that underlies common health struggles that include weight gain, obesity, pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, and numerous other health conditions. Solutions for SIBO typically involve antibiotics, despite being a condition that was likely caused, or at least w...
Mar 20, 2022•26 min
Conventional "solutions" for depression are largely inadequate: often ineffective, with side-effects that include weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and suicide. Evidence is increasingly pointing towards the intestinal microbiome as a source for depressive symptoms. This tells us that prescription drugs such as the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, that only address a step in the pathway of serotonin metabolism, do not address the underlying cause of many, if not most, cases of de...
Mar 08, 2022•18 min
Over the past 30 years, I have made a number of blunders in health. But I always made it a point to learn from my mistakes. Doing so taught me a number of important lessons in health and nutrition, lessons that revealed just how little conventional ideas on health yielded and how doing things very differently yields enormous health advantages. In this episode of Defiant Health, I therefore recount: How cutting dietary fat and eating plenty of "healthy whole grains" leads to metabolic disasters H...
Mar 04, 2022•40 min
Here I read an excerpt from my new book, Super Gut: A Four-Week Program to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight , specifically chapter 5, Mind Your Mucus. Before we get to the business of restoring lost microbes and pushing back unwanted species from the upper GI tract, we can also take action to strengthen the mucus barrier. Some strategies I advocate can bring relief from issues like abdominal discomfort and bloating within minutes to hours of adopting. I discuss: What ro...
Feb 25, 2022•31 min
If you suspect that you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, SIBO, have "telltale signs" of SIBO such as fat malabsorption or restless leg syndrome, or have tested positive for breath hydrogen gas, then what should your next steps be? Let's consider your options so that you can choose the option that is best for you. Xifaxin (rifaximin) Candibactin AR/BR FC Cidal with Dysbiocide "SIBO Yogurt" Lactobacillus gasseri Lactobacillus reuteri Bacillus coagulans For more information on Dr. Davis’...
Feb 15, 2022•17 min
Saccharomyces boulardii is a probiotic fungus, a relative of Saccharomyces cerevisiae used to ferment wine and beer, but better adapted to living in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Although it does not take up long-term residence, its passage through the GI tract has been associated with substantial health benefits. Making a sparkling cider with this microbial species is an easy way to increase the number of microbes you can obtain while enjoying this delicious effervescent drink. It also...
Feb 05, 2022•19 min
Restoration of a microbe lost by the majority of people, Lactobacillus reuteri, causes the brain to release oxytocin, the hormone of love, affection, and empathy. It brings you closer to other people, helps you see another person's point of view--it makes you a better human being. It also brings on what can be regarded as age-reversing effects: smoother skin, restoration of lost muscle and strength, deeper sleep, reduced appetite, accelerated healing, and other benefits. We increase bacterial co...
Jan 26, 2022•18 min
Widely-prescribed statin cholesterol drugs have been associated with muscle weakness and pain, as well as markedly increased potential for type 2 diabetes, while providing minimal reductions in cardiovascular risk. But there is also potential for a rarely discussed collection of side-effects not reported in the billions of dollars of clinical trials sponsored by the drug industry: anger, hate, and aggressive behavior. Paleovalley is Defiant Health's sponsor. To order their excellent grass-fed be...
Jan 16, 2022•17 min
Everyone knows that sugar rots teeth and raises blood sugar. But there are additional phenomena that result from consumption of sugar that even your doctor is likely unaware of. Understand how and why sugar impacts health in so many unexpected ways and your efforts at regaining health, losing weight, and slowing the phenomena of aging will be more effective. Sugar Science: https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu For more information on Dr. Davis’ programs: Books: Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Yo...
Jan 09, 2022•19 min
Because most of us as modern people have lost the intestinal microbe, Lactobacillus reuteri, that is responsible for increasing release of the hormone, oxytocin, from the brain, are the phenomena of love, affection, and concern for other people less intense than they used to be in prior times? Was love and affection stronger, for instance, in the 19th century, the Middle Ages, or the Greek Empire? I share a unique personal experience that indelibly imprinted this question on my brain. In the mea...
Dec 29, 2021•21 min
My new book, Super Gut: A 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight, will be released Feb 1, 2022. It is a book packed with new ACTIONABLE strategies that show you how to take back control over health. Among the issues I discuss: How replacing microbes lost from the human microbiome can yield extravagant health benefits such as deeper sleep, smoother skin, increased muscle and strength, increased empathy and reduced social anxiety How to recognize, then manage, th...
Dec 10, 2021•15 min
In this episode of Defiant Health, we consider something that we do not often consider: identifying the emotional stumbling blocks to success . Whether you are faltering in gaining control over weight loss, chronic pain, or other health or life struggle, JJ Flizanes discusses how the cause for your failure can be emotional, some factor in your past life that is keeping you from enjoying the success you desire. After a long career helping people overcome physical disabilities, JJ now devotes her ...
Dec 03, 2021•40 min
Neurologist Dr. David Perlmutter, known to most Defiant Health listeners as The NY Times bestseller author of Grain Brain, as well as Brain Maker and Brain Wash, makes some surprising and enlightening observations about a blood marker called uric acid. Up until recently, uric acid was thought to be the factor that caused gout and kidney stones. But Dr. Perlmutter reports on emerging science that shows that tracking uric acid is almost as crucial to health as tracking blood sugar and that uric ac...
Nov 17, 2021•34 min
Despite the widespread advice to consume more "healthy whole grains," a wide range of health problems, sometimes catastrophic, develop with their consumption. Humans made the mistake of incorporating the seeds of grasses ("grains") into their diet 10-12,000 years ago, not recognizing that they were trading health problems for near-term survival. Then modern agribusiness and genetics manipulations amplified the problems inherent to wheat and grains. The result: deterioration in health, weight gai...
Nov 14, 2021•19 min
Food intolerances are proving to be a rapidly growing problem: intolerances to nightshades, so-called FODMAPs, fructose, histamine-containing foods and others. But why? And does just eliminating the food solve the problem? We need to view food intolerances as a warning sign of the process that causes food intolerances in the first place: disruptions of bowel flora and especially small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, SIBO. Unrecognized or ignored and SIBO can lead over time to weight gain, type ...
Nov 05, 2021•28 min
Many people struggle with controlling their appetite, inevitably giving into temptation and impulse and thereby struggling with weight and multiple measures of health: higher blood sugars, higher blood pressure, higher triglycerides, fatty liver and others. You have the potential for spectacular control over appetite by adopting several natural, healthy, safe practices that allow you to make smart choices in diet, not be plagued by incessant hunger, be satisfied with less food than other people-...
Oct 28, 2021•13 min
It has only recently become clear that the hormone oxytocin profoundly influences many features of aging: skin, muscle, bone, etc. Most modern people, however, have lost the intestinal microbe, Lactobacillus reuteri or L. reuteri , responsible for provoking release of oxytocin from the brain (hypothalamus). You can therefore restore this lost microbe that, in turn, causes oxytocin to be released and enjoy thicker smoother skin with fewer wrinkles, restoration of youthful muscle and strength, dee...
Oct 21, 2021•19 min
The modern diet is woefully deficient in the protein collagen and, as a result, we experience increased potential for skin wrinkles, slower healing, arthritis in joints, even diseases of the aorta. You can correct this situation by including foods rich in collagen, knowing how to navigate collagen hydrolysates, and taking advantage of boosting oxytocin by restoring the intestinal microbe, Lactobacillus reuteri. Get your Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen...
Oct 13, 2021•16 min
The American Heart Association and other agencies, dietitians, and doctors all urge us to cut our intake of fat and eat more "healthy whole grains," ignoring the fact that wheat and other grains provoke a panel of unhealthy metabolic changes that hugely increase risk for heart disease. Understand these phenomena, ban all wheat and grains from your life, and enormous changes develop across multiple metabolic markers that add up to reduced risk for heart disease. Even better, incorporate the short...
Oct 05, 2021•22 min
Most people already know that the hormone oxytocin is the hormone of love and of uterine contraction during childbirth. But that is only the tip of the iceberg of what this hormone can do. Higher levels of oxytocin have been found to increase dermal collagen and thereby reduce skin wrinkles, restore youthful muscle and strength, preserve bone density, deepen sleep, reduce appetite and have other youth-preserving, anti-aging effects. So how do you recognize a lack of oxytocin and how can you incr...
Sep 28, 2021•13 min
