Well, hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes ketose a.com, and today we get special, repeat guests dr. Kozlowski, aniline. Last time he was on, we talked all about gut health, improving the microbiome. He had written a book book called unfuck your gut. So we Dove deep into proper gut health. He just recently published another book, this one being called, get the funk out and this one's all about, you know, toxins hormonal health and just how to improve your body from a
detox standpoint. Basically and basically Ali, like all the, the xenoestrogens, the hormonal disruptors that we have in our system. So we dive deep into that to how to improve that. What works, what doesn't work? We kind of cut through a lot of the nonsense out there. As far as many detox programs go we talk about what an actual functional medicine, doctor should be capable of what their training looks like, and we just kind of dispel some of the
rumors around that as well. So I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. He is a very bright guy. He knows his stuff. He's been doing this for quite some time. So I always learn something when I chat with them. So without further Ado, sit back, relax and do a podcast with dr. Kozlowski We are live doctor Kozlowski. How are you sir? I'm good. It's great to be back. Thank you for having me back again. Yeah man for sure.
For sure. Enjoy our last conversation which was in 2021, I believe and you have since published a new book and I'd love to kind of dive into that man. So for anybody that didn't listen to the first episode, can you give us a quick little run down on your back story and what got you into nutrition space before we dive into your new book. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a traditional family practice. Doctor that switched over to the dark side and went into
functional medicine. And the whole point of functional medicine is to look at the underlying causes of disease. So, when someone comes to me with, I be a guest, or, with lupus, or rheumatoid, arthritis, or Dementia or Autism. I'm not thinking about what pills to give them to feel better. I'm thinking, let's figure out why this is happening. Opening. And if we get rid of what's Happening, then the symptoms will go away on their own.
And so when we talk the first time, my first book was all about the connection to the gut and and Hippocrates said it 3,000 years ago that all disease begins in the gut. Well, the first step in healing the gut is your diet and nutrition. So in the first book, I recovered nutrition and I covered the gut microbiome and balances like sibo and candida. And some of those are some of
the things we talked about last. Time and then the key to good health, which is the mental emotional and spiritual component, right? And stress, and living in that sympathetic nervous response and how it shuts down your gut and
how the gut will never heal. When you're chronically stressed out, not working on it. So when I when I was done with that whole you know putting that book out, I kind of realized that I had left a couple subjects untouched and Cuz I say, when somebody comes to me as a functional medicine, doctor
there's five main areas. We look at and they are food gut, health mental, emotional spiritual health, which are the first three that I covered in the first book and in this new book which is called get the funk out and it's Funk spelled with a see because we used to say my practice that we put the funk and functional medicine. So this new book is get the funk out and the two areas that it covers our And toxins and the
connection between the two. So, I've got a chapter on the thyroid, the adrenal glands, insulin and blood sugar, and the pancreas are all together. And then I've got one on testosterone and my own story of low testosterone, and my experience with that. And then for women estrogen dominance and other hormonal, imbalances that women experience. So, the first basically five chapters are all about the The different hormones.
And then, the last half of the book is all about the different toxins that were exposed to. So a lot of people are hearing about detox and don't really know what it is or what you're detoxing from. So, I hit on the, the biggest toxins that we encounter, which in my experience, are heavy metals like lead and Mercury mold. If you've ever lived in or worked in water, damaged building and then all the other stuff.
So the average Woman is exposed to a hundred different toxins before even leaving the house and that comes from makeup and deodorant and hair. Straighteners, and what's in your smoothie, the almond milk, the vegetables, what's in the air that you're breathing, you're if you have dogs that toys, the Plastics that their toys are made out of if you have kids, the Plastics that their bottles or toys are made out of emfs from cellphones and Wi-Fi, routers and 5 G, and And that's
tough. And so we're under this constant Onslaught all day of environmental toxins and when we're not, detoxing properly, our hormones, get screwed up. And so that's the connection, a lot of people don't realize and that's what I tried to write about. In the book is it's very easy to diagnose a hormone imbalance. So if somebody comes to me, tired constipated dry skin thinning hair, you know, I'm going to test their thyroid, I'm going to look at their adrenal glands.
And I can diagnose them with a low thyroid or adrenal fatigue, but my patients, aren't that easy that? They're not like alright, cool, I have a low thyroid so that it's good. My patients want to know why. And so, a lot of the time, it's our toxic environment. And so that's the connection between the two. So that's what get the funk out is about. I can make the argument that every one of us has one hormone
balance. At least, if not more, and You know, in regards to toxins we're all being exposed, the question is, is how much do you have in your body and how do you get rid of what's in there? So those are the major points of the book. And so I'm down to talk about any one of those. I don't know if you have a follow-up question or which direction you want to go in. Yeah, yeah. Let's definitely down for any of them was stepping down deep and all this.
I've seen several headlines as of late about like the rapidly decreasing male testosterone like that. Average male testosterone from what it is. Now versus what it was 100 years ago. It's like half of what it was on average. Correct. Something crazy like that. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah, what is that? The primary driver there.
Do you think it's it? You think it's like a, just a summation of the Obesity rates, getting higher, the toxins, the the foods like, is there any one thing that is the primary driver is just a combination of all the above? It's my belief that it's all of the above. I don't think it's just one thing in a regular medicine.
They're always trying to pick one thing, you know, they're always trying to find the one cause and in my experience whether I'm working with low testosterone or Autism, or autoimmune disease, I rarely find just one thing going on and you know, for me, I can use myself as an example. So I got diagnosed with low T. When I was 32. And and I was pissed, I was offended.
When the doctor even suggested that I might have low T, and then we test it in my level was below, 200, which is a disaster but it made everything make sense for me that I think I had it for way longer than that. But you know, my own story is, is I had a terrible diet growing up. Like, I was an immigrant, my parents are from Poland and the number one way for me fitting in was eating McDonald's and pizza. 'He and Burger King and in Chicago, Italian beefs.
And and so my diet was terrible, I started binge drinking when I was in eighth grade. I never learned how to manage stress. When I did my toxin testing, I had a bunch of lead in my body. So I had all these different factors. I don't know which one did it. I think it was all of them, but and so I find different stuff in different men and and You know, just there was a study, a couple
weeks ago. I don't know if you saw it, but they were testing the rain in New Zealand and they found microplastics in the rain in New Zealand, right? And so then they found those same microplastics in the testes of men. So yeah, when you're, you know, your testes there where you're going to be making the majority of your testosterone if they're full of plastic than. Yeah, they're probably not going to be making as much testosterone as they would be. If they weren't full of plastic,
100 years ago, right? And so, you can pick any of those toxins when we talk about the toxins like lead or Mercury or mold or glyphosate or Plastics, a crazy 12. Sorry. Now, that I thought about it is, if you start looking at some of the athletic clothing that people are wearing, there's plastic and a lot of this athletic wear and we can absorb toxins through our skin. So, you know, people need to start reading the labels. Is not just on their food, but on their clothing to.
And so the any of those toxins are fat soluble. So they try to get into our body, through our skin, through our gut, and through our lungs, those are your barriers to keeping the environment outside, right? And so those are your first detox, organs, your skin, your gut and your lungs. But let's say you've been smoking a long time, so your lungs are weaker or you have Had a really poor diet and you've got a leaky gut, so those toxins
can get in easier. Well, all those toxins are fat soluble so they will get absorbed two things that have fat in them. Every cell in your body is surrounded by a membrane that has fat in. So, these toxins can literally get stuck in any cell in your body. I haven't seen convincing evidence, why? But they seem to be favoring our reproductive glands. So your thyroid, your pancreas, your ovaries of your woman, your Estes of you're a man, that's where they seem to really like to hang out.
And and so detox is the process where the liver which most people know as their main detox. Organ the liver, makes those toxins water soluble. That's what detox is. It takes those toxins and breaks them down, making them water soluble so you can then poop pee and sweat them out and that's what detoxing is. Well, if you're exposed Too, too much. Like me. Where I'm binge drinking. I smoked cigarettes for a while,
you know, I'm eating like crap. I'm not supporting my detox because your detox your liver to detox properly. Lee needs, lots of vitamins and minerals. So if your diet you're eating at McDonald's, like I was and then you're being exposed to all these toxins. Your body can't keep up and they start getting stored and then all sudden you're 32 and before, you know, it, your testosterone is less than 2. Hundred and it's like what
happened then. And I don't know where things went wrong, but they definitely did at some point and then there's a lot of things I can look at during my timeline that are probably risks of why I ended up with low T catch and got you, it's like for somebody listening right now, what would
be their plan of action? Like, I guess just first of all, you know, taking taking a analysis of them themselves asking themselves, how I feel how they're performing and if their energies, you know, waning over time just being conscious Conscious and in tune with the body, I suppose the first thing.
But I'm assuming there are some recommended tests to see what your level of these heavy metals or what the level of these toxins in your system are, is that typically like a hair analysis test, or a urinalysis test, or how is that typically done? Yeah, different. What I'm so in each chapter, I go through how to test your thyroid, how to test your testosterone. And I've got charts in there with what are normal ranges,
right? So I would typically like, you know, if somebody, you know, a guy in his 30s, He's our 40s came to me and they're like, listen, like you know, I'm working out. I'm eating right, I sleep. Okay. And you know I just carrying
some extra fat, right? I'm not turning muscle, I'm not turning, I'm not carrying amount of muscle that I should be based on my lifestyle, I'm going to test their testosterone and I'm going to test their total testosterone to test their free testosterone, and I'm going to do that via blood test so that you can go to your regular hospital or local lab and it's just a quick blood draw and we'll find Doubt your, your
testosterone levels. The crazy thing with testosterone is that when you get the results, the lab has a reference range of about 200 to 11:00 as normal. Yeah. Well, that's a psychotic range, right? Like, how could you have, a level of 1,000? And that's normal. And I have a level of 210 and that's normal like, that, that's not right, right? So, they argue that an optimal testosterone is when we're in our late 20s, and that's around.
800. So I'm looking for for a man, to be close to 800 and then I will look at relative to their symptoms and their levels of what the best options are to try to get it up. So I'm going to focus first. I'm trying to get you feeling better, right? So whether that's using supplements medication or hormone replacement to get your levels, back to normal, same goes with the thyroid. It you know if I have a man or a woman come in and they're like, listen, I'm tired.
I'm constipated. I have dry skin. My doctors testing TSH and they're telling me my thyroid is normal. I'm going to say screw that. I'm going to test your tea for your teeth, three, your thyroid antibodies. And we're going to look at the ranges same thing. If you're at the bottom of the range of T4 and T3, I'm going to diagnose you with a low thyroid and we're going to get that going. We're going to get your thyroid replaced, whether it's with again hormone or with supplements.
And then if someone asked me about, like I want to dig into why, right? Like why is this happening? Opening the one test if I could pick just one test. So, if anybody's listening to the first podcast, read my first book, or checked out the second Booker is going to, you know, the main things. I focus on our gut Health Nutrition hormones toxins and I've got all these fancy Labs
that the regular doctors don't. If I could just pick one of my tests to do for somebody, I didn't know anything about the number one test that I would order for anybody as heavy metal testing, and that is lead and Mercury or the two heavy metals that I And the most frequently there is nothing in your history that I need to hear. That tells me, I should test you for heavy metals. LED is in the air.
It's in an airplane, exhaust. So you're exposed just by going outside and breathing in the air. They used to put lead in paint. They used to make pipes out of lead. So you're drinking it, you're breathing it, you're touching its in food. Mercury is in fish. It's in Dental fillings. It's in the exhaust from coal-burning plants. So it settles in the crop. So it's in the Oil.
They are everywhere. And, and so, the craziest thing about toxins is they've done studies on umbilical cord blood right, which is where Mom transfers nutrients to the baby. When the baby's growing in utero, they found over 100 different toxins in umbilical cord blood. So that means before you're even born, you're being exposed. So someone can be born with a bunch of lead and mercury and not know it because Mom didn't know it.
So if I have a woman that comes to me for pregnancy planning, the first thing I'm going to do is talk some testing. If they're like, listen, I I want to have kids later this year, you know, the six months or next year, first thing we're going to do is detox because Mom can pass those toxins along to
the baby. So I would really recommend heavy metal testing but hair analysis, in my opinion is a terrible way of doing it. So a hair analysis is very affected by what kind of products you're putting on your hair. The gold standard for heavy. Metal testing is what is called pre and post chelation testing. This is a urine test. So like the way I describe detox that detox is this process of making toxins water soluble so you can pee poop and sweat them out.
That's why you're in. It is the best way to test for toxins because that's where you're getting rid of them. So eight pre and post chelation test is you wake up and you pee in a cup and that's your pre test that measures your active exposure. Is there something in your diet or air or water or house that we need to identify and get rid of? So, you're not being exposed anymore because the first step in any kind of detox is to stop exposure.
But we what we really want to know, Is how much is built up in your body? And for that, we use a medication called dmsa. Dmsa is a chelating medicine, it pulls things out of your body. So we give you a dose of dmsa that's based on your weight. And after you take this medication, you get this big orange jug and every time you peed, you collect it for six hours. And what's happening is, is the dmsa is pulling. What is stored in your body out and then we're catching it in
this jug. And we compare the pre to the post-test and the pre and post-test should look identical. I very rarely see that. What I see is that frequently, the post test the levels are way higher. And so what that means is that the dmsa found a bunch of lead and Mercury or arsenic or specia more thallium to pull out and that's what it is stored in your body. So if you got it, Bunch of that stored in your body.
That's what I'm going to recommend to detox you and that is what I did for myself because my allowed levels were high but not like I've seen in some of my patients, got you, okay. So let's talk about details because that's something that you hear a lot on the interwebs and a lot of times it's being pushed by some snake oil salesman, the trying to sell supplement. So I don't discredit detoxing at all. But how is it done properly? With testing. So we're on the same page, like
probably my most hated thing. And it is just the amount of marketing that people are getting hit with, from influencers selling detox products, right? They'll they'll sell you one product that should detox you from mold and parasites, and in and heavy metals and all this stuff. And for me, I'm all about testing and, and because I would detox somebody differently from glyphosate than from mold than from lead and Mercury than from other chemical. So, for me, it just gets down to
testing. So I would do pre and post chelation for heavy metals. I would do a urine mycotoxin test for mold. I would do your urn levels for glyphosate. We can test other herbicides and pesticides and Plastics through urine. Testing. So I'm going to order that testing and I'm going to see what what you have inside of you and and frequently, I'm finding more than one toxin. So then I'm going to give somebody a detox plan.
And, and in the book, I go through what my detox for heavy metals, looks like for what it looks like for mold, what it looks like for the other toxins, but I wouldn't jump into that if you can't get the testing done. So if you know, for people listening, you got to be real careful. Like going into your traditional doctor and like going in and being like, hey, test me for heavy metals, they're going to tell you to get out of the office. They're going to tell you, you're full of crap.
I was trained as a regular doctor and I went to functional medicine and honestly, I was fine with nutrition. I was fine with gut health, but I was a little nervous to get into detox because I feel like they kind of poison my mind during medical school and residency and kind of convinced me that toxicity wasn't a real thing. And and so if If you want to get tested for toxins you're going to need to look out for somebody who is certified in functional medicine. That's my advice.
So you can go to ifm dot organ, search for a practitioner who's certified and then make sure that they're comfortable with talks and testing, because not even all functional medicine, doctors are comfortable with it. Your regular doctor definitely is not going to be. And so, you know, a lot of times will make my decision based on someone's history. If you tell me that you've been getting water damage, In your basement or attic or in your bathroom.
I'm going to test you for mold. I would test anybody for heavy metals, if you've never been tested and so it does require I think working with someone that's comfortable with it. But I always like to talk about like, what are things that people can do to detox on their own, right? And if you don't have access to testing the best thing that you can be doing is making sure that you're peeing pooping. Sweating and sleeping, right? So drink half your body weight
in ounces in water. So if you're 180 pounds, drink 90 ounces of water, a day, when your PA if you're drinking that much water, you're going to be peeing, most of the day and you're going to be flushing toxins out. If you're not pooping everyday, you're not ready to detox because a major way that we could carry toxins and out is in the stool. So like I just saw someone this morning and she's only moving her bowels once a week, right?
So we're not I'm going to talk about detox until she's movement or bowels every day, so we're going to unfuck her gut as I said in my first book, before we go down the road of detox. Oh, if you're not moving your bowels every day, that that's going to be your overwhelming. First step in detox is. You got to get your gut right, which always starts with your nutrition sweating. We, you know, through exercise
is huge. One of my best tools for detox is infrared sauna Infrared sauna has a two-fold Effect. One is that it makes most people sweat but then the second one is, is that those infrared waves can help kill off some of the
toxins. So, if I'm detoxing somebody from mold or heavy metals, I'm going to want them exercising and doing sauna every day but that's something that anybody could do daily just to kind of help there detox and then sleep, you know, and if you're not sleeping sleep is when we were
Store, right? And and so, from the time we wake up from the time to go, we go to bed, we're under this constant onslaught of all these different toxins and your body should be regenerating and getting ready for the fight the next day. It, if you're not sleeping or if you're only sleeping, a few hours a night, you're also not going to be able to detox. So before you go die typing in and buying, you know, you're you know, someone's detox protocol,
focus on those things, right? Because it Those things are going to get you healthy and in other ways, too, but just drinking it up. Water pooping, everyday sweating, sleeping. That's going to take you a long way. Especially if you don't have access to testing and you just want to do things every day that are going to help your body detox. What about all these popular juice cleanses and coffee? Enemas? Is that it? Is there any validity that is that just all smoke and mirrors?
Like for example, you know, juice cleanse, I mean that's not going to detox you from from heavy, metals or toxins in my opinion, like the LED and Mercury if they're in there, drinking a bunch of cilantro juice. I mean, you got to drink like, I don't know, I think gallons of it for many years before that's going to help you. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong with fasting, right?
There's nothing wrong with doing, doing a juice cleanse, or a water fast, just because that shuts down your gut. Let's your gut, he little, if your gut is, Out there, you're going to absorb less toxins, the coffee enema. I mean I had a friend that was really into it. I tried it, I definitely felt a little boost from it but I think that's just because I got hit with a rush of caffeine.
They say that the caffeine can stimulate your liver to like ramp up detox but the problem that it with that again is that's going to help I think. But if again, if you've got a bunch of lead and Mercury built up in your body, That speeding up your livers ability to detox and I'm going to do that much.
I don't think so. For most people, I don't think those things are harmful if unless they're done inappropriately but I also don't think that they're the best tools like I can, you know, I do everything objectively. So Through a heavy metal test and I can tell you what, your levels of lead and Mercury are. And then I'll give you a treatment protocol for six or seven months. And then we'll reach text, right? So, I can show you, the levels are coming down and I heavy
metal detox. Is the only thing that I do. That's 100% effective. It works because the medication does its job and the supplements we use to do their job. So it's pretty easy to do. Mold can be a little tougher, but I always do Testing to make sure because people detox at different rates. So I have no idea to how fast it's going to work for you. But that's where we just rely on
a repeat testing to make sure. So I don't want to say that those things definitely do not work, but I can tell you that. Me, personally, I don't really use those tools. I mean, not I believe very much in fasting for hormones and for breaking down fat and for brain health, but for detox. I don't think it is. I mean, I think it could help but I There's better tools for depending on what talks and you're exposed to. Yeah.
Totally, why do you think there's such a push back against diving deeper into toxins amongst most western medicine practitioners? I think it my answer always is its pharmaceutical based and and I think there's something about the preparation of the chelation meds where they're generic so I don't I just don't think they're hitting any profits on the sand, like mole detox or glyphosate detox or other, herbicides or pesticides. I don't use any medications at all right. I only use supplements.
The only one that I use a medication for is Heavy metals but that's also like compounded medicine. It's my general belief that everything that we're taught as traditional doctors just is coming from the pharmaceutical industry. The more I've gotten into this in the more, you know, from the last few years and especially I'm kind of convinced that medical school and residency are almost kind of like a cult or a brainwashing from Big Pharma. An example. I can give is the gut, right?
So we talked about the gut, we Talked about the microbiome. We talked about sibo, we talked about all these conditions that I treat that I see be completely life-changing. Well, I went through residency in med school without even a never talking about the microbiome, why? Because if we talked about it, I wouldn't know what to do with them. Like all were taught is to diagnose things and then give a medication to fix that. Well, there are no meds for the microbiome.
Although I think it's already like eight years ago, apparently, visor and Merck. Massive companies have been working on medications from the microbiome. So as soon as you hear that there's medications for the gut and the microbiome, all the doctors will be testing for it but it because there's not traditional meds that are used for detox. That's why I think were poisoned to not think about it. That's my opinion.
I know my opinions can be different than other people you've had on here or you know, and that's my experience. But this, but it makes sense when I get that question all the time. Like, why didn't my doctor talk to me about estrogen dominance? Well, we use bioidentical hormones, there's no money in Pharma for that. Why didn't they talk to me about sibo? Now, there's an antibiotic but it's still not very well. Known, why didn't they talk to me about candid or dysbiosis?
The only way I can make sense of, with most of this stuff is that they because the answer is not meds, and that's what we're taught in my experience, is we're taught. To prescribe meds. And so if we were to diagnose, something that doesn't revolve meds, then as a regular doctor, I would have no clue what to tell you like how to fix it. Yeah. 100% man, that makes total sense to me.
So if someone's listening to this are trying to take actionable steps, you know, they need to get their nutrition down them, in the exercising, on a regular basis, sweating sleeping on recovery, when it comes to all of the toxins, all of the xenoestrogens, the phytoestrogens in the clothes,
you wear. Are the products we put on our skin like the cleaning supplies like how does one tackle that Monumental Beast of Burden right there like how did you go about that you just like totally go through your house with a trash can and throw everything away and start fresh. I ew g dot org that's the environmental working group so that's a non-profit. They've been around for a long time. You can go on there and and and test or not test but you can look up any product.
So A man or woman, could you could go down and look at every one of your personal care products from your deodorant, your mascara, to whatever, and it'll your toothpaste. And I'll give you a toxicity rating, and it's free. A lot of people have heard of The Dirty Dozen and the clean fifteen when it comes to foods and The Dirty Dozen are like the 12, most the 12 fruits and vegetables that are the highest and herbicides and pesticides. Most people don't know.
That ewg are the ones the environmental working group or the ones. Putting that out but they're also you can look at sunscreens and everything on there. I think it's the best resource. So the last chapter in my book talks about, you know how to replace cooking supplies and what to drink out of and what to eat from and and all this stuff. But at the end of the day, I mean, you know, for me, I moved from downtown Chicago, to Montana, to kind of just get
away from everything. That's not an option for a lot of people. So I think you have to Your best. And at the end of the day, I still believe that that what what's more important than any of this is your mental emotional, spiritual health. So the one thing I don't want to hear and I hate seeing it. Is that people that dive so deep down these rabbit holes of toxicity, that then they're scared to eat drink or touch anything, right? That's also not going to help
you. And so it's a balance where like, you know, for example, if you're eating the, you know, if you're deciding what to buy organic, Organic. And what to buy? Not, then use the dirty dozen as your guide and so if a food is on the dirty dozen, try to buy it organic, if it's not, then you could probably get away with saving some money and buying it, non-organic and then, yeah, you know, you can start picking things, whether it's your laundry detergent, or your personal care products.
And the good thing is, is it's way easier to find now, like organic and cleaner products because people are aware around it. So, I mean, I think my book is a good resource and Ori. Ug dot-org. But just you know I mean I've been to many environmental medicine conferences which are all about the environment and you kind of walk out of there like terrified to go anywhere or touched anything or eat or drink anything and again that's not
healthy. So that that's where I say like you know if you can just do the basics of eating pooping eating well pooping everyday, drinking water sleeping, then that's going to take you a pretty far away and then if you couldn't Manage stress. That's also because the the sympathetic nervous system just like we talked about it, shuts down your gut, it's also going to shut down your ability to detox which is the last thing that you want. So it to me, it's finding a balance.
So if somebody asked me like what's more important like meditating and exercising and spending time in silence and in the present moment or making sure that your or your vegetables are organic and your water Has been reversed osmosis filtered in. You have nothing, but organic care products and close. I would choose the mental stuff. First, I think that that's way more important.
The detox is doable. You know, it takes time, it's not an overnight process, it's a struggle, but you can get there as long as you don't stress yourself out too much. What have you found to be like the most effective way of relaxing and kind of allowing Self to spend more time in that parasympathetic state. For me, I would say it's meditation. It's my connection with God.
So, you know, whatever spiritual connection and in some people, you know, they think of religion and spirituality at the same thing in a lot of people are turned off by religion, which I get. But spirituality to me is just the connection with the present moment. And so the, there's this Chinese philosopher that described anxiety is worrying about the future. Depression is worrying about the past.
So, what's the treatment? The present moment, it's very difficult to do. But, you know, the greatest tool with the most evidence is meditation in amazing tool that people can try is called HRV, heart rate variability, which is basically, you can buy a little monitor that connects to your phone or computer and it connects to your ear or finger and it measures the variations in your heart.
And if you're not having good variations, they'll teach you breathing exercises to kind of learn, Learn how to see yourself go into that parasympathetic response. I think everybody should be working with the therapist and to dig into you know usually childhood trauma and things like that it looks differently. The hard part is is it looks differently for all of us but I would say like my top tools would be meditation prayer. A gratitude list.
So find either your spouse partner friend group of friends and Share three to five things you're grateful for every day. It could be as simple as, like, having a hot shower, having a roof over your head, having a meal to eat for breakfast and, you know, that can kind of reset things. I love the app calm for meditation. So of knowing somebody's never tried meditation. Calm is an app. You can try for a week or for a week for free and there's thousands of guided meditations
on there. So, I would say my favorite book besides my own books would be The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I think it's one of the best books written. It's all about spirituality and and letting go of control if people that are listening or like, me and you constantly want to be in control and getting things done that. That's not healthy for your mental health. So just I have reminders on my phone that remind me to let go of control, it's a daily process. That's what I've learned.
I'm very much a A checklist person. So I made a goal 12 years ago of getting my mental health, right? I did everything I needed to, and then I cross that off and I can stop doing the things that were working for median. In my mental health fell apart again. So for me, I have to make a decision at every day to wake up and focus on it and do those kind of things that I mentioned. I would imagine the shift from downtown Chicago, to Montana's,
quite the, the changes. Well yeah, yeah, nature and peace and quiet are Huge for my own mental health. For sure. Do you do Journal at all? I don't personally. I mean a lot of people have recommended my therapist have recommended me to do it. I've definitely tried it. It hasn't stuck for me but that's again where like, you know, it's finding what works for you. So I know lots of patients and friends were journaling, is their number one tool and also,
like, what works for you today? Might not be the same, right? So maybe And didn't work before but you try it again and it helps. So I do think journaling is an amazing tool. Yeah I'm kind of saying when they have started so many journals to just not continue them. But I'm going to try and actually commit to that because I feel like whenever I'm reading a journal entry that I've written years, prior just that we've been able to have that perspective.
Now, from what I was going through then like that, that's been beneficial. So I need to kind of figure out how to make a habit of it, but it's powerful right for sure. But it just simply Getting into a habitual, you know, routine with it all, as is true with everything, exactly. It's that's like with meditation, right? Like I mean, people are like, oh, I tried it once and my mind was all over the place. So same thing. If I go to the gym just one time and I mean, I could barely lift
one barbell or something. Where if I go every day that's going to change, right? So it's the same thing with mental health, it's a practice, it that's it really is a daily routine. Just just like you know with exercise if you stop exercising You're sizing your physical well-being is going to fall apart. If you stop doing stuff for your mental health, every day, the same thing, it's going to eventually catch up with you. I and I know that from my own experience.
Yeah, totally. Now when it comes to diet nutrition and gut health gut microbiome Health, like when you drastically change your diet, you're going to also change the microbiome in your digestive tract. Like a lot of people are doing Carnival right now with 0, vegetation whatsoever. Once yeah, they've done that for usually, I guess about two weeks for the microbiome to more or less equalize. Have you have you seen and they're not running a long-term studies on that.
But have you seen any adverse response to that and people you've worked with I know, honestly, when I first heard about the carnivore diet, I thought it was a patient that told me about it and I didn't, I didn't think it was real. I didn't think that that people were doing and then I've heard a lot of people doing it and loving it. And when it comes to diet, you know, I can see five patients in a day and the first patient might be a raw vegan, right?
And the second patient might be a carnivore, which you can't really pick two more extreme diets and Yet both people are telling me it's the best they've ever felt, right? Yeah. And so at the end of the day I always believed in like what is working for you. Right? If you tell me, raw vegan is working for you, or if you tell me carnivores working for you, I kind of don't really care what it's doing to your microbiome. I mean, at the end of the day, what matters the most is that
you're feeling the best, right? And, and so, I have a number of patients that are carnivores. I haven't seen out stielike memorable differences and their microbiomes for a good or bad way. You know, the microbiome can change pretty frequently. So for me I always just look at you know, I want to hear how someone's feeling, right? Like if you tried it and you feel like shit that I'm going to tell you, okay? Well, that's obviously not the
right diet for you, you know? So I I would love and maybe, you know, unfortunately, I don't have the resources to do studies but I would love to take 100 people do a stool analysis on them, have them, you know, stick to a carnivore diet, maybe half of them stick to carnivore. Half of them stick to a vegan diet and then repeat a stool test after 3 months or 6 months. I mean as a science nerd that would be like you know that would be amazing for me. But you know, unfortunately that
gut testing is expensive. People don't want to pay for it. It I do. I'm not funded by some big Research Institute one day though. I I'll get there and I would love to do those studies and be able to show you the science behind what happens when when someone sticks to that diet long-term like you said, I mean it's a pretty new diet, right? And so in general, I personally think we need 40 Years of research on new things and medicine to really understand how they affect people
long-term. And so You know, you could start getting ideas sooner than that. But if you really want to True answer, I think there needs to be quite a bit of time to really get research on it. So for right now, I can't answer you whether or not, you know, in theory, you would think that the microbiome would get worse, right? If you're not eating pre and probiotics, then you're my cure bacterial, don't have anything to eat off of.
They're not eating off the meat, so you would think they would start dying off and that could be a problem down the road, but, and and the hard part is is so, you know, you could develop Bab dysbiosis, which is an imbalance microbiome, you know, a month after going after changing your diet. And that dysbiosis might not turn into disease for 5 years, 10 years, or 30 years because unfortunately, something like dysbiosis doesn't cause symptoms.
So if your gut microbiome starts changing negatively, it's not like you're guaranteed that, you're going to start getting bloating or gas like it. You might not know it until it's too late. And that's Where again the value of testing is is I would recommend anybody that can access a functional medicine, doctors to start doing this testing when you're feeling good, right?
When you're feeling, alright? Because 99% of my practice, people are coming to me. And they're like, you know, I've been diagnosed with Hashimoto's or rheumatoid arthritis and like, you know, fix me, whereas I would love to see people and there and they'll be like, well, for two years I was vegan.
And then for two years, I did. And then two years I was intermittent fasting and I don't know where things went wrong and I don't either because I don't have any Baseline tests to see, you know, where this stuff went wrong. So, I know sometimes it could be hard to access that testing, but if someone can, that that's the way to go in my opinion, what's the best way for people to find a qualified local functional medicine practitioner? I FM dot-org The Institute of
functional medicine. Dot-org ifm dot-org is the basically like the certification program, the training program for functional medicine and right at the top of the website is a tab that says search for a practitioner and you could type in your zip code and you can search within 10 miles or you could search within 250 miles and on that search though. There's a Check mark that you can check off. That says only search for certified.
Functional medicine practitioners and I would highly advise only searching for somebody that's certified because someone could get listed on there. If they've been to one course, but no offense, if you've only been to one course you probably have no clue what you're doing
with functional medicine yet. So you want to search for people that have gone through the fruitful certification taken the exams and then I would reach out and and Make sure that they're comfortable with the gut or comfortable with detox because you might email or call one person and they don't do detox at all or they don't do gut health at all. So it I would use ifm dot-org and then reach out to the practitioners that pop up and find out who's a good fit for?
What? You're trying to work on catch because there seems to be like a lot of functional medicine practitioners popping up, but I don't know. Like a lot of them, I think they've got, you know, functional Medicine or F and T P in their Instagram bio but it's like I have no idea what what course content. They went through. What their schooling and education systems looking like like it, like, is there like a pretty low barrier to entry for some of these quote-unquote F +
TP certifications? Or is it pretty extensive. It's a disaster. What go, what's going on out there? Like my practice right now. 100% of my patients, that come to see me have already seen someone that told them that they were on a functional medicine practitioner Tichenor and then I go through what they've done or been through and it's like, you didn't do functional medicine at
all. So basically, anybody that thinks that they're practicing like any type of alternative medicine are advertising, that they are a functional medicine doctor because functional medicine is very trendy right now, and people, it has a good reputation for the most part, besides a lot of the crap that I see going on, but it's a way that people are able to The charge more and get more
patients through the door. I'm seeing them up charging tests and people getting ripped off, and it drives me nuts. I'm very passionate about it, because I got very lucky. Like, I trained at dr. Mark, Hyman's Clinic, dr. Chopra is Clinic, dr. Susan blum's Clinic long time ago. So I got to see how it's really done and then I've gotten to see over the years, all these people popping up that just have no clue what they're doing and so
it sucks. I I have heard feedback since putting out my first book and now the second one there are great resources. So you almost be able to weed out, who knows what they're talking about, who doesn't just by you're getting through my books. And because I talk about what testing should be ordered how to
interpret that testing. So some people that are you know, not doctors can know more about functional medicine just for my two books than some of these practitioners out there who are saying that they understand For now, for a baseline, like I said, I would use ifm dot-org and only search for people that are certified because then they've gone through the exams and, and, and they've proven that they have some knowledge around real functional medicine.
But basically most alternative medicine, whether its medical doctors acupuncture is chiropractors nurses? Whatever are saying that they're functional medicine and and they're not. So for someone lien doesn't going through the like the legit. Course and they're doing everything by the book and they're going through all the testing, like, how long does that process didn't like take? I they used to take seven years.
It's faster now because most stuff is offered online which also kind of scares me that like right now a lot of it is just being taught online because of what happened the last couple of years. So Yeah, it's it took me three years to get through everything. And then it took me a number of years of being out in practice to really start understanding it and I don't know exactly how long it took.
I've been doing this for 10 years, I started on my own I started studying a functional medicine in 2011 so it's been a while for me. But I mean the way I practice today is so different than when I first, you know, open my doors. I've learned so much from my Benson in from just being in this world but yeah, so people are getting it done within a matter of I think within two years now but I think that that it just takes it's just like
regular doctors. I mean most when you're a regular doctor, you go through medical school and then you go through three years of residency and then you typically join a doctor who has been practicing for a while to help. Teach you. Your kind of always learning and so It's hard to say. I mean, we're all different, but I mean, it's not easy. And especially if you go into it, like, I did, as a traditional doctor, it can be
tough to transition over. So someone like goes into their bedroom, locks the door and sits firmly computer for two months then comes out wave and a certificate. The probably a legit. Yeah. And then they start ordering tests and then they have no clue
what to do it got you. But that's my mission in life and I might be Things sooner than later, where you know developing a basically like a functional medicine, almost like a Residency program, where people can come in and learn how to practice like how to order this testing, how to interpret it, how to treat these different conditions. And that's all even after you've passed all the exams. Because passing the exams is one thing.
But then once you have a patient sitting in front of you and trying to figure out how to apply it because everybody's different, right? So, The hard part is is that nobody know patient works out exactly like the books tells you they're going to. Yeah, it'd be easy if it was that way but it's not in a residency like that would probably not be a cultish. Pharmaceutical based entity. Imagine that would be good, not at all.
Yeah, well awesome. At what people go to find out more about you and get the books. Yeah. Doc Dash. Cos.com d.o.c. Dashcam. AO z.com, that's my website. There's a links to both of my books. I have an Instagram doc underscore cause that's my Instagram.
I'm not overly active on there, but I definitely share anything that I'm doing and then just, you know, I try to do my best on there, while still be practicing medicine, and My books are on Amazon Barnes & Noble. If you want to support your local bookstore, they can get it for you.
They probably don't have it in stock, but they can order it within two days and it's unfunctional your gut, spelled with a c. So UNF UNC on Funk your gut, that's my gut health book and this new one is called get the funk out and that's Funk with a see as well. And so those are all over the place online or on my website. I love it. Love it. You have a plan. As for a third book in the pipeline review, not sort of diving into that yet.
Now, ya know, take a little breather after the number. Yeah, I think so. Yeah but I said that last time too and we'll just hit me one day that I started writing. So right now no nothing is in the works at all and nothing's in the plan right now. The next thing is figuring out you know how to just help train more practitioners how to do this the right way. Well that is quite a task ahead of you there so I get to no doubt that you were Up for the challenge, though. Definitely awesome.
I certainly appreciate the time dr. Kozlowski, I enjoy. The conversation is always learn something. Every time I talk with him and you're always, welcome on the podcast, man. So let me know that everything I can do for you, ma'am. I love it. I did. Thank you for giving me a platform to share this and and and talking about it that extremely grateful. You bet you bet we'll keep in touch and we'll talk soon. Likewise, thank you very much.