Hello, ladies and gents. Robert Sykes, KetoSavage .com. Today I've got special guest, Risa Gru on the line. She is a functional nutritionist and she is an expert in all things thyroid health. So we dive deep into that. We talk about autoimmune issues. We talk about inflammation, talk about what some of the primary drivers for this inflammation and
autoimmune issues could possibly stem from. We talk about nutrition, fiber, removing excess carbohydrates and processed foods, all kinds of things nutrition related and autoimmune and thyroid related. So very interesting conversation. Learned quite a bit from her. I've got no doubt that you will take something from this. So without further delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the podcast with Risa Gru. And
we are live. Risa, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm doing wonderful. Well, myself, I'm excited to be chatting with you because you are an expert in all things thyroid and autoimmune. Is that correct? Yeah, I happen to know a lot about that. Yeah. I'm excited to learn from
you. I want to kind of get some backstory because I got your one sheet and it said that you had, you know, dealt with some autoimmune issues yourself and that was kind of the catalyst for you embarking on this journey. Give me some backstory on what those issues were for you in the beginning. Yeah. So, you know, I was, you know, merrily rolling along and I got married and had
a baby and no problem. They conceived like first shot, you know, no, no issue. And then I was trying to conceive my second and kept trying and kept trying and kept trying and I got pregnant a couple of times, but couldn't hold the baby. So I started to just think something's up, right? So I went to a fertility specialist and they did a whole blood panel on me and turns out that I needed some thyroid medication. My
thyroid was an underachiever. So I see him made a script and I said, well, how long do I take this for? And he said every day and I said, no, no, for how long? And he said, oh, you know, for the rest of your life. And I walked out of that appointment. I remember it vividly and I'm thinking, why is it that I now have a prescription for a synthetic that is supposed to do something my body does and nobody's
asking why? Why is it not doing what it's supposed to do? So that sort of started my search and I realized that I needed to look into why my thyroid was an underachiever and figure out what it needed to become active and a full contributor. So that started my health journey. I love it. I
love it. I feel like I had actually before you and I started recording out a podcast yesterday with a functional medicine practitioner and he was talking about toxins in the environment and autoimmune issues and inflammation, systemic inflammation. And I've had so many of these podcasts recently. I feel like the narrative is just trending the wrong direction as a society.
Like we're getting unhealthier and unhealthier and people are struggling with more and more autoimmune issues, thyroid issues, hormonal issues. Like this is the norm right now, it seems. It's unfortunately, it is on the rise. And a big part of it is our environment and our toxins that we have and we're way overloaded. And there's no sign of that
decreasing. We're approved about 2 ,000 to 5 ,000 chemicals by the FDA each year regardless of who's in the White House. So yeah, we're getting sicker and we have to be more diligent about taking care of our own health and decreasing our toxic load for sure. This is kind of an unrelated question. It's related, but I don't normally ask this question, but where do you think this tipping point started?
Like at what point did we start getting unhealthier as opposed to healthier as a species? Oh, I'm so sorry, you broke up a little bit. Can you repeat that question? What do you think the tipping point was for this downward trend in health? Like what was the catalyst for that starting in the first place, you think? Well, I think there's a few
contributors. One is the use of glyphosate, which is ready roundup, what we use to kill weeds and what we use in conventional medicine. Once we started saturating our soils with glyphosate, I think we started to trend downwards as far as our health was concerned. We started having more endocrine issues because it is a major endocrine
disruptor. So that's your thyroid, sex hormones, and adrenals, your adrenal glands that produce cortisol and anxiety, things like that. And it takes years to get glyphosate out of soil. So if you take a conventional farm and you're going to turn it into an organic farm, it takes at least two years. And our soils have really, really been depleted. I believe the statistic is we're at 40 % less nutrients in our soil from
the 1950s. So, and that's a fairly, not super recent statistic, but it's very sad. Our soils are really the root of all the problems, I think, and really one of the easiest things to fix. Also affects climate control. But so glyphosate is in our, unfortunately, it's in our rain water. It's everywhere. It's in everything. And it's really very damaging to human life and plant life. So
that is a huge contributor. In addition, when you go, I don't know if you ever travel out of the United States, and you go to the supermarket or the market, I should say, in, like I was in Italy, and went into the market, and their freezer section is like maybe five doors. Our freezer section are two full aisles all the way on
both sides. And it's crazy how many frozen pizzas, even in Italy, they had like two frozen pizzas. And they have maybe four ice creams, we have like 25, at least, you know, then we have bars and popsicles. And, you know, there are our options are endless. And most of our food choices are processed and lacking nutrients, right? They're empty calories, they're empty carbs and void of any nutrients. So
we're hungrier and we're eating. When I grew up, I don't ever remember really snacking. It wasn't a thing. And, you know, we wouldn't drive through anywhere. And you went to a meal, you're hungry. And I feel like eating is much more of a sport now. We go to Starbucks, we get our coffee, and we get our scone or our pastry or our
muffin with that. And then, you know, of course, Frappuccinos, well, you know, those are 65 grams of sugar. And then we put some whipped cream on top. And that's a suitable breakfast. I mean, I can't tell you how many kids I see walking into schools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools with a Frappuccino. And they'll have a master's school, you know, sometimes. So it's, we are not eating real food. We
are eating processed baked food. Yeah, I completely agree with you there. I feel like, you know, with me being in the Keto space, it's like, I've tried to prioritize just simply real food. And I've plugged in a lot more to the regenerative agriculture movement, the homesteading movement and just procuring your own food, raising your own food, doing it through organic means, plugging more into the local community.
And as I've dove deeper into that, it just seemed like the right natural thing to do, like how we're supposed to live as a species. But that is so far removed from what the general population is doing. Which is so sad. It's really, it's just, it's so sad to me, how many kids don't cook, how many adults don't cook. So it's, we, it's cooking as a life skill. So I made sure my kids left my house, they were, they
knew how to cook my son cooks. So it's really, it's an important life skill. And it is sad. And it's not that hard to get real food. Yeah, 100%. So what is your primary, you know, client patient demographic? Like, who are these people that are coming to you? What, what do they typically struggling with? Gosh, I work with so many different people. I work with professional athletes. I work with regular adults. I
work with a fair amount of teens. 15 and up, who are really struggling with anxiety, I get a lot of anxiety. And some other, a lot of metabolic dysregulation. So a lot of insulin resistance, a lot of diabetes, I deal with a lot of blood sugar, dysregulation, and I deal with a lot of autoimmune, a thyroid, we do a lot of
thyroid and gut stuff. A lot of people you'd be amazed at how many people live day to day with bowel issues, whether it's chronic diarrhea or chronic constipation or blood in their stool or bloating, stomach pain. I do a lot of skin issues. And really, you name it, I do it. I'm curious about this teen
demographic. Are they mostly coming? Like, are the majority of the teens coming from an anxiety standpoint, or is it pretty big myriad of things there as well? I would say that the majority of the teens I get are anxiety. I'd say about 50 to 60%. A lot, maybe even more. And the other ones are, I had one yesterday who was put on Ozympic for blood sugar dysregulation, insulin
resistance years ago. And so he wants to get off of that. And he really, he's a great example because he really changed his eating and he got to the gym and he works out every day. And he really changed his life. And I'm still helping him get off the chemicals. But yeah, so most people, I think, and then a lot of girls, teenage girls seem to really want to lose weight. I think Instagram, social
media has really affected them and their image. And so they're very concerned about their weight. Do you think the social media is likely one of the primary drivers behind their issues with anxiety as well? Sure. It's, you know, there's several primary drivers. I mean, it depends what your home environment is like and what the value is there. But also your peers are
certainly very influential at that age. But social media and a lot of people change their, you know, they fix their photos to make them thinner and do all kinds of altercations to that. So I think there's a lot of pressure for teenagers when they see, when they're on Instagram all day long, and they see these really thin girls and it's, you know,
they come in, they want to lose weight. So I focus on wellness and I believe that weight loss is a side effect of wellness. So we focus on wellness in my office and people will lose weight. Absolutely. Everybody who wants to lose weight loses weight, but I focus on wellness. Yeah,
that's key. It is unfortunate. I mean, I was actually speaking, I got invited to speak at a high school the other day and I was just talking to these students and it's such an impressionable age. Like I forget what it was like when I was in school, but it's like you talk to these people, you see them and they, more often than
not, they're just not sure of themselves yet. They don't know who they are, they don't have the confidence, they haven't been tested in a lot of ways. So they're very malleable as people, which is good, but not when all the inputs in their life are negative, which is what a lot of
them are getting right now. Right, which is really, really sad, but it is, you know, somebody like you would be a great influence because I've read somewhere that the influence changes, you know, when you hit adolescence instead of your parents being the number one influence for you, it's
your friends. So, you know, changes. So it depends on, you know, who you're hanging out with is really very critical to what your values are and where you're going and what you're doing. Completely
agree. I would imagine with the type of patients that you're seeing, you know, a lot of these that are dealing with chronic inflammation, autoimmune issues, hormone dysregulation as a result of, you know, living a long life filled with these
toxins and environmental factors. When you're getting younger people coming in, in their teens, that have the anxiety issues, but then also a lot of the physical implications that have come from these poor environments and just the foods that they're eating, like seeing that kind of negative effect take hold in such a young individual, like having hormonal issues at such an early age, having
type 2 diabetes before you've hit double digits in age, like this is not a good thing. No, it's terrible and our numbers are increasing rapidly. We are a very, very sick nation and an obese nation and, you know, unfortunately, conventional and allopathic medicine says there's a pill for that. So now we have pills for that and they're giving it, they just got approval to give it to 12 year olds, semi
-glutide. So it's, if that's not the answer, it's not the root cause. It is, we've got to teach people to eat better. We've got to take, make sure these big food companies are not advertising to kids over and over and over again and, you know, all these big soda companies are in schools and, you know, they're subsidizing our education. It's, it's, it's a very crooked, broken system. I'm about to get my megaphone
out and start screaming because it's bad. So we need to be very diligent on our own bodies and our loved ones and educate people as much as we possibly can. Completely agree. Out of curiosity, you know what the parameters are or the, the criteria that has to be met in order for them to prescribe semi -glutide to a 12 year old? Like what, what markers do they have to be showing in
order for that to be warranted? They just have to show insulin resistance is my understanding. So insulin resistance is, you know, when, when, when the cell, it has receptors on each cell. We have trillions of cells in the body and those cells are, are those, those receptors are, are hindered, they're damaged and we can't put it in, we can't take glucose or glycogen
into the cell and used for energy. So inside the cell, every cell has what we call mitochondria and mitochondria is our energy factory, right? It makes ATP our energy and their fuel source, if you're not on ketosis is carbohydrates. And so when we eat a carb or a sugar, anything that turns into sugar, the pancreas pumps out insulin and it converts it into glycogen and then it escorts it into each cell.
Mass will use for energy. There's two very effective ways to gain weight. One is to get the cell more than it needs. So it just parks the excess in fat cells and fat storage. And the other is to break off those, those receptors so that we can't even penetrate the cell. And then we just park it in fat cells and fat tissues.
So the most effective way to lose weight is when your receptors are open and you give the cell less than it needs, so that it has no choice but to pull from the storage unit and take that excess energy so that it can use it for its
production of ATP. I'm curious with, with so many kids battling with this obesity crisis and, you know, being in some resistance at such a young age, like, where do you think that trajectory shifts? Because I mean, in your one sheet you were talking about you making your own child's baby food at an early age because you saw that the trajectory things were going was just not a good one.
And that's unfortunately like when you go down and talk about grocery store aisles, like when you go down the kids grocery store aisle, all the baby food is, is totally nutritionally void. Like it's a bunch of heavily processed foods and squeeze packets that are so far
removed from what real food is and should be. And that's just what people are weaning their kids off of, or they're going straight to formula fed and then using these, you know, nutritionally void filler foods. It's just starting them off on a complete wrong path. Correct. Yeah. And we're, we're, we're
consuming more carbohydrates than we ever have. So think about the pizzas and the sandwiches and the crackers and the croissants and the pastries that were consuming all day long. So I focus on protein, fat and fiber. And if you, when I look at people's food log, when they come into my office initially, I'm like, where's the fiber? Right.
So somebody could be eating, you know, a lot of protein and maybe low carb, but they're not eating very much fiber. So we need fiber, fiber is really essential and a lot of bad fat. So any restaurant you typically go to unless it's a really a health food restaurant, they usually use bad oils because they are less expensive and they're more shelf, shelf stable, stable. And so they will have these bad oils day in and day
out. If they're eating out twice a day, every day, those bad oils like canola oil, soybean oil, vegetable oil, all cottonseed oil, all those oils are highly inflammatory. So we will see people with a lot of systemic inflammation just from eating out like that. They're not getting those good fats like olive oil and avocado oil and coconut oil. They're probably not eating many much avocado or nuts and
seeds and eggs and getting an olives, right? Those are really good oils for us for brain development. You know, when my kids were in elementary school, they were in a private school and I was horrified by the food service. And I actually had a meeting, I went to the founder of the school and I said, this, this food that you're feeding these kids is not helping with brain
development. It was a very academic school and you're so cutting edge about all the academics. But this is a really big area that you're not really even talking about or focusing on. But this food that they eat is critical for the brain development. So I had a meeting with them and they, I sat down and I said, tell me about what the foods that you serve.
I know everybody loved the popcorn chicken and and I said, where are the vegetables? And they said, Oh, nobody orders that so we don't serve it. So when we ended up changing that system out, and we got somebody else and then we ended up growing a garden at the school, and we would use that as well. But still the food services that schools use are just horrific. The state run schools are usually pizza and hot dogs.
And I mean, if you go to Costco and you just look at people are eating at Costco, there's no vegetables there, there's no good fats there, it's just, it's just sugar and carbs. So it's a little bit of protein, but I wouldn't say that is a good source of protein. And it's that's how unfortunately Americans are eating. And that's why we're obese and sick. Yeah, the school lunches is definitely a horrendous
situation for sure. Like I, we've got a two year old now, and I'm thinking about, you know, he eats nothing but the best right now. And I'm trying to figure out how I want to parent him as he, you know, goes places outside the home, how he's going to eat there. If he goes to school, like what, what type of food
he'll have available to him then. And it's like, that's where I get scared, because I don't have control over that and everything that's offered to him is horrendous to begin with. So I'm just going to be packing a lot of lunches, I guess. Exactly. That's what I did. I packed a lot of lunches and I educated and when their, their friends came over, I mean, I remember having kids come over and they never had tried
cauliflower before. So I always gave good food and it was delicious. It was, you know, I would, I would make good food, but so and even now when I see my kids friends all grown up, they'll say, Oh, I eat, I eat asparagus because of you now. And so a little bit goes a long way. And I think schools that that is something that really,
really needs to change. And also hospitals. I'm horrified, horrified at what they serve people in hospitals. It's just unconscionable to me. This is supposed to be a place where you're supposed to heal. You know, apple juice and cottage cheese and, you know, donuts and pancakes are not going to make you heal. It just aren't. So
it's, and it's so common sense to me. And, you know, I remember my local hospital, they, I was working with a lot of people there and one of the doctors, the chief of staff, and he just went in and said, you have got to take out this air fryer. It's just crazy that we have French fries in the hospital. So eventually it took a while, but they eventually took
out the air fryer. So it's, it seems so common sense to you and I, but it really isn't to mainstream institutions. And that's where I think we can make a big impact is that shift there. Well, I think, like you were saying earlier, the art of
cooking is key. But so many people are opposed to spending any time in the kitchen, any time preparing food, especially food that is raw or minimally processed, that they didn't have to process. Like there's been such an emphasis placed on convenience that it's come at the, you know, absolute exclusion of health. That's
why you see all these vending machines. I was at a hospital the day for a dexa scan and there was just vending machines on every floor and there's nothing good in those vending machines. And they're just catering to people that are already sick and unwell. So it's just, you know, like a compounding effect that takes place. It's good for business. Yeah, good for business. Somebody's getting their, their pockets
filled for sure. You mentioned, you know, the importance of fats, proteins and fiber. And I'm 100 % on board with fats and proteins, the fiber, I mean, I eat fiber, but that just for the sake of playing devil's advocate, what is your take on like a carnivore approach where they pretty much totally exclude fiber, but seem to improve their health quite a bit? Yeah, so it's interesting because
that does happen. It doesn't happen for everyone, but it does happen. And I would say that is a short term fix for sure. I don't think it's a lifestyle, but it does seem to work in a short term setting. But we all need fiber. It's just, it's, it's like making, creating garbage and never taking it out. So if you don't take out your trash, you start to putre -pie your foods and your
system, right? You have to take your, you have to clean out your intestines because it affects your absorption of nutrients and your inflammation and your intestinal lining and gosh, I'm married to things. And so if we don't have fiber, how are we going to take the trash out that that fiber binds with the waste and scorch it out of the system. So, and water is super
important as well, but fiber is just critical. And in addition, all fiber foods have tons of nutrients. It's amazing that that happened, but it's true. So I'm specifically talking about vegetables and greens and, and, you know, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to go and get switch chart and make a whole thing, but, you know, it could be just celery sticks and celery is these
crystals that help break down your acid. So there's, it could be carrots or, or Higama, which is high in fiber. It could be artichoke hearts. And I always encourage people trying something new, trying, trying new vegetables you've never had before. And you don't have to have them steamed or raw, but you can stir fry them. Now you can air fry them. You
can roast them and saute them. And there's so many ways to eat vegetables that are delicious. You know, I make like mashed cauliflower with horseradish and coconut cream. It's delicious. Or, you know, I do a lot of roasted cauliflower, but roasted, I do a lot of roasted vegetables, period, because they're just so much more tasty that way. I've
been on a kimchi kick lately. So I've been eating a lot of pre fermented, you know, sauerkraut, kimchi, things of that nature. I feel like my, my GI handles that a little bit better as well. Awesome. Yeah. That's a natural probiotic. So we do a lot of kimchi and sauerkraut in my house too, and some kombucha. Yeah. Kombucha is good. Kombucha is really good. Yeah.
Yeah, I've got, you know, I'm kind of jaded with, or not jaded, but I'm torn because I've, I've gone periods, pretty significant periods with zero fiber and I felt fine. There's been periods where I've had a lot more fiber and I also felt fine. I think my body is pretty adaptable. Like it tolerates whatever I give it as long as giving
it quality stuff. And whenever I don't eat fiber, I do so in the context of not really, like when I'm in a cut, for instance, I'm dropping calories, my body's using everything that I am giving it. So there's not really any waste accumulation in the first place. But, but yeah, I think as long as you are consuming quality fats and proteins, one's need for removing any putrifying foods is likely
diminished as well. Yeah, sure. It'll be diminished a little bit, but you still have waste that needs to get escorted out. So yeah, how long did you do the carnivore diet for? I mean, I've gone periods, you know, in excess of years. I mean, I could totally go the rest of my life without ever consuming it green again. And I feel like I would feel
fine and function fine. And there's some people that have gone, you know, 10 years on a carnivore approach. And it works seemingly very well for them. I feel like a lot of people deviate from that because they just simply want more food variety, which I can totally understand in respect as well, in which case having a healthy green is probably your best option without a doubt. Yeah, there's nothing better than
a big green leafy salad. You're going to get all your calcium and tons of nutrients and minerals that we need. We need for brain health and for gut health and for thyroid and for cardiovascular health. And so it's just in general bone building. So we, and protein is huge, but fiber is really, really important as well. I think the main thing that people just need to simply avoid is the processed
foods, the carbohydrates. I mean, nobody needs the amount of carbohydrates that are consumed on average these days. Like the notion that you have to have carbohydrates for energy is pretty much dispelled with anybody listening to this podcast, ketogenic approach. But people that are even following, you know, traditional diets that assume they need, you know, 200 plus grams of carbohydrates. Like, that is not evident
anywhere in the literature. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I've worked with some elite athletes. I worked with an athlete who was running 100 mile marathons or 50 mile marathons. And, you know, a marathon was basically, you know, a training day. And so this, this woman was, she needed a lot of carbohydrates or fuel. So for her, I did a different system. And she, she's just needed carbohydrates, but she needed a, you know, a
boatload of protein for those muscles. So everybody is different. It depends on how much you, how active you are and how much muscle you have and how much weightlifting and all those factors play a part. In addition, I do genetic testing. So I do a genetic test that tells us if you have more enhanced with power and strength versus endurance. And so it's interesting to me to see that breakdown with
people. And, and sometimes I can see a pattern with somebody who was, and they usually tend to be somebody who's very athletic to begin with. We test them and then they say, Oh, yeah, that's why you're so athletic. You are, you have motivation to exercise, you know, genetically, they have that, and they have power and strength and endurance. So it's really interesting to me. So
genetics do play a part in that as well. How much of what we see now in society, like the obesity epidemic, the type two diabetes, the neurological disorders, how much of that do you would, would, would you attribute to genetic and epigenetic effects from generations prior to environmental factors that we're currently plagued with? So
genetics always do play a part in everything. And but basically, you know, we're doing so much advancement in genetic testing. And I really hope by the time my grandchildren are born, that I'm pretty optimistic about this, but it probably won't happen. Maybe my great, great great children. But I hope that when they are born, we take their blood and we say, Okay, here's
your genetic makeup. And you can make a right here or make a left there, you don't have to go straight and you don't have to. Now you know that you have a greater risk of this. So you can change the way you live or the way you eat or the way you do your brain health or whatever it is that you're concerned about. So that's the same thing what
I see is that genetic testing. So you might have a higher an enhanced need to get vitamin D from foods or supplements. But that doesn't mean that, you know, so so everybody is different. And so when it relates to the obesity academic epidemic and the inflammation epidemic, which is the diseases, you know, inflammation is the driver of disease, those, I don't
know how much genetics play. I mean, there is that level that playing field that that base foundation that we have. But it's really the choices that you make. So epigenetics are basically the environment and your lifestyle. How does that play with your
genetics? Yeah, so it's yeah, so if you if you have this genetic plate, let's say, and you are destined for, let's say you have the Abley 4 gene and you are destined or you have a higher likelihood for Alzheimer's. Well, if you know that information and you take steps to avoid that by decreasing inflammation in your brain, eating foods that are going to be brain helpful for cognitive health and exercise and sleep and
do all the things that are going to help boost your brain health versus decrease your brain health, then your likelihood of getting Alzheimer's is way lower than the average person with the exact same genes that you have. 100%. So yeah, epigenetics are really the way of the future. When it comes to genetic testing, there's a lot of difference like this has become a more trendy
popular subject. So people have, I mean, there's been all these different companies that pop up and will run your genetic data and spit out a recommendation. Some are much more reputable than others. Is there a particular company that you would recommend for that genetic testing? It depends what you are looking for. So they offer so many different things. The company that I use really does more nutrient involved. It's
more focused for nutrients. It focuses on workouts and weight loss and cardiovascular health versus something like a 23andMe that will just do more, it will do traits and it'll do a little bit of health stuff as well. But you know, how and my test does caffeine as well, but that does caffeine. It does dairy intolerance. Mine will do dairy and gluten. And that test does a little bit more, you know,
ancestry as well. So it really depends on what your objective is and what your focus is, what information you're looking for. Gotcha. Makes total sense. When people are trying to get things dialed in and they don't really know exactly where to turn first because it can seem pretty overwhelming and daunting. They're going online and trying to diagnose themselves and
figure things out. Where do you think people should probably allocate the most bandwidth in the beginning? More sort towards the genetic testing, the blood testing, nutritional choices. Like what would you think the most proverbial bang for the buck is? Absolutely, 100 % blood test and stool testing. So that's what I do with everybody I work with because I always say I'm not really good at playing darts with the lights off
and I cannot see the target. So if you don't feel well, let's say you're not your optimal self, you don't feel like you used to feel, you're gaining weight, you're sluggish, you're having guts, stuff, whatever it is, if you get a real good functional medicine panel, which is what I use, a comprehensive blood test, and I'm looking at all four markers of blood sugar, I'm looking at all
nine markers of thyroid, I'm looking at iron panel, I'm looking at your white blood cells and the breakdown of that, I'm looking at your inflammation markers, which conventional medicine doesn't do any of those things. I mean, they'll order one marker of your thyroid. And so once you have an idea what the problem is, I'm always looking at the root cause. So what is the problem? Is
it sugar dysregulation? Is it sluggish thyroid? Is it overactive thyroid? Is it a tremendous inflammation? Then you have an idea of where you should start, where the dartboard is, where's the
target. The stool test, I'm a huge fan of as well, I do over 84 markers and I'm looking at your good guys, I'm looking at the bad guys, I'm looking at any overgrowth, I'm looking at potential pathogens, like Giardia and E. coli, Salmonella, I'm looking at worms and parasites, and then I get a really good general idea of how much inflammation you have. Do you have leaky gut? Are
you having a hard time digesting bats? Do you need, are you producing any pancreatic enzymes? You know, so on and so forth. There's lots of stuff on that panel that I get. That's
usually where I start. If somebody's interested in their genetics, then I will be happy to order that, but it doesn't really steer me, because as I said, your lifestyle really is more of a factor than what your base foundation is if you are active in achieving
optimal health. If you're not active and you're sort of active in achieving suboptimal health, or you don't really care, you don't put much effort into it, that's a different story than I would definitely say for sure, order those genetics, but the people that come to me are people who are interested in maximizing or improving their health. But
we order that test quite a bit. I offer it to everybody if they're interested, and then I can do further testing as far as like hormones are concerned, or a lot of viral stuff, or food allergies, things like that. But those are the two main tests that I order, and then we have an idea. Now, my philosophy, because I've been doing this for decades, is not every
person can eat the same way. So, where you might thrive on a carnivore diet, I probably wouldn't. So, everybody is different, and so nutrition then comes into play, and I customize an eating program for your particular health status.
So, if you've got blood sugar dysregulation, let's say you're in type one type, or type two diabetes, and you've been at it for a while, and there's a bunch of symptoms, and you have your gallbladder, and you don't have any fat malabsorption, I'm going to suggest keto, that's an
excellent way to get to stabilize blood sugars. But if you've got autoimmune, or you've got let's say you've got chronic bloating and some diarrhea, then I'm going to see if you've got SIBO, which I can usually see on that stool test, that small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, and then I'm going to give you a completely different diet, eating lifestyle, that is
going to help with your gut stuff. So, it really, I determine everybody's eating plan based on their health status, that's how I created Food Frame, which is my methodology and how I see people thrive. I really appreciate how comprehensive functional medicine as a whole is,
relative to Western medicine on average. I mean, if you go to your general family care physician, you may get a blood test, which is going to measure your LDL, HDL, and trig, and that's probably going to be about it. And then you'll get prescribed a statin, if your LDL is too high, and you'll probably get prescribed insulin, or ozimpic, or something like that if you're overweight. So, that is much more
comprehensive with functional medicine. I've had several functional medicine practitioners on the podcast, so I kind of want to learn more about that as a profession. When did you start going down
that route as a practitioner? So, I've always had a fascination and a passion about nutrition, because it was always so interesting to me, because everybody in my life growing up was always on a diet, all the women in my family, and I was like, you know, it's the same five, ten pounds
they're always trying to lose. And, you know, these, for some foods were good, some foods were bad, and thinking why those bad foods taste pretty good to me. So, it wasn't, you know, everybody was just always in this deprivation state. And, oh, I'm going to go off my diet tonight, and it just was this bad
relationship with food. So, I became interested in nutrition, and I studied forever, and then I became a clinical nutritionist, and I kind of put everybody on the same diet type, and I would test everybody for food allergies. And I realized, some people have a lot of food allergies, while some people didn't. And I realized it wasn't the actual root cause, wasn't the food allergies, because
you're not born with 65 food allergies, right? You have a leaky gut, is what I realized was the root cause, and these food allergies were basically sensitivities to foods, because you had gaping holes in your intestinal lining, and these digestive proteins were going in and causing inflammation, and
eventually leading into autoimmune disease. So, then I started to incorporate, when it wasn't really working for me, so it was pretty early on, and I started researching functional medicine, and, oh gosh, I went to a million conferences and webinars, and really learned how to read blood work, and then
I realized, now I have the tools. Now I can see where the target is, and now I can help people, and my success rate of helping people just increased tremendously when I started using those I'm assuming all curriculum for functional medicine is not created equal. There are probably some that are
much more reputable than others. Is there like a, like if somebody's listening to this and wants to go down the route of functional medicine, like what direction would you advise them to? The Institute of Functional Medicine is really good if they have a very comprehensive program, and they offer different things.
So you could be a health coach or a functional nutritionist, or there's lots of different things you can do in the functional space. You can be an MD, you can be a DC, an ND, so there's lots of things that you can do, and they've got great resources, and if you need a functional doctor, it's a great directory as well for every, you know, all over the country. So I really like the Institute of Functional Medicine. I
think they are top notch. And how long does that study, that practice, that program typically take? Well, it depends. I mean, it could be three years, it could be, it depends which course you do, and depends how quick you do it. So it depends what certification you're going for. So it's not more than I think three years, but I think
it's six months to three years. I don't know exactly because I'm not part of that organization, but you can, you're going to get comprehensive learning in that, with that Institute. Do you get much pushback or flak from, you know, conventional Western medicine doctors, or are they pretty receptive to what you're suggesting and saying to your patients? It's interesting because I get a lot of different responses.
I get, I do work with a lot of doctors as patients, which always amazes me, and I love that because they help them read blood work, and they really don't know, they don't know what to order, because they, they're just really going on what insurance tells them they can order. And so I love teaching doctors about that. I actually had a dentist years ago as a patient, and we, you know, I helped him with his weight issues
and his energy and all that stuff. And he came to me about a year or so ago, he's developing a toothpaste, and now he started to implement ozone in his practice to clean the teeth, because I was telling him about that. When my kids were a little, I told their, their pediatric dentist about xylitol, and then I know that she eventually started carrying xylitol gum and things like
that, and realized, you know, did some research. So some people are open to it. I work with patients, and I'll work with their doctors, and some of the doctors will be completely closed to anything and say, this is, you know, ridiculous, and, you know, I'm not going to be supplement searches to trash, and, you know, so it really is a wide spectrum of responses to, but I think we're going in this direction. I
mean, I hope we are going more in this direction. And I think that a lot of MDs are very frustrated with not being able to help their patients. And they know it's a pill for an L paradigm. And, you know, I was working with somebody a few years ago who was a surgeon. And one of his biggest hurdles was lunch, because the pharmaceutical companies would bring lunch for his entire staff every single
day. And we, I, we talked about it, and I said, how much control do you have over what is being brought. So it turned out he had to bring his own lunch every single day, and eat real good food. But it's, it's, it's a challenge. So people are opening up to that. And I hope so because our our country needs good care. And so I do encourage any conventional alpathic medicine doctors to to just open their horizons and,
and, and learn. I think people are, I mean, I think, I hope, you know, we obviously are facing a downward trend in health as a, as a whole. But I feel like people are opening their eyes to the fact that there's, you know, not any one make or break factor, but it's kind of more everything in tandem, everything in unison that's working against us.
And with that holistic approach, I think they're looking for more holistic means of improving things, which paints functional medicine in a positive light, because that typically takes a more holistic approach and view. So I think the trends are moving in the right direction in that regard. Like I've talked to several people that were, you know, frustrated and dismayed by the care they're beginning
with traditional routes. And then they were able to break free of that and actually get some far, far more minimum progress made in working with the functional medicine practitioner. And so I think, I think that trend is starting to move in the right direction. Yeah. And I think people are finding functional medicine because I'm usually, you know, the last stop for people who are really sick and they, they're so
frustrated. And I mean, I'm working with somebody right now who is, you know, in our late 30s, she's got three young kids and she was in major, major pain or full body pain from rheumatoid arthritis. And the doctor just gave her a myriad of pills and said, here, take these for the rest of your life. And, and, you know, but they were trying to manage her disease or her diseases.
And we reversed it. So we haven't gotten a diagnosis yet to reverse it. We just started, but her pain is virtually gone in, you know, four to six weeks. So for, for, for that and with no medication. So I think people are realizing that that is not the right thing to do. And the unfortunate thing is functionalists and typically
is out of pocket. So it would be so great if we could get insurance companies behind this, they would save a ton of money because people wouldn't need long term care as much and as many doctor visits, if we just focused on what they ate, and it's worked on prevention instead of, you know, crisis, health
crisis instead of, you know, wellness. Has there been any fore momentum on that in front, like are there insurance companies that are reaching out and being more proactive in working with functional practitioners? Or is that not really the case yet? I haven't seen it, but I don't use insurance except for one lab I use with insurance and they are starting to deny it more and more. So in my case, that's going
in the opposite direction. And what's happening is people are finding this to be an opportunity. So it's a lab test that I use. And so people are starting to create their own lab test and it's private. And so they will pay cash for it. So it's a business for them. And they see an opportunity because insurance companies aren't even covering these to begin with. So, you know, I'm not I'm seeing the insurance
companies covering less. And I don't order any of my lab work through insurance companies because my copay ends up being more than if I bought it for cash through my office and I don't mark up my lab. So they're the same as everybody pays. But
it's crazy to me that we that it's expensive. And and the doctor, you'll go, people would go to their doctors, they'll say to me, well, I'm insurance, I pay for insurance, I want to order all your labs through my insurance company. I said, okay, great. I used to say, let's try it. But now I don't do this anymore because I've never had it work 100%. And some of the doctors don't
even know what some of these labs are. So they don't order it. And then they don't order it because they know the insurance company is not going to pay for it. So it's a whole headache for their front office. I don't blame them. But it's really the insurance companies that need the schooling on on changing the system. I worked with a guy who was an executive for a big
insurance company. And when after I worked with him, he's one of our last visits, he goes, wow, I don't know why we don't cover this, like all of the symptoms went away. He just he felt tremendously great. His weight dropped, everything worked for him. And he said, I said, please, please go talk to your your executive team and try this would be so good for you and for your bottom line. Yeah, insurance, I don't get me
started on insurance. Insurance is a total mess that ends at nightmare. I mean, that is without a doubt our largest personal expense in the home. And it's like my wife and I are both incredibly healthy. We eat the best foods. You know, we do not deviate. We train, we get all we're checking all the boxes yet I have to pay this massive
monthly premium. And none of the tests that I would ever want to get anyways would be covered by it. So it's like, I don't know, like you feel obligated to pay for insurance in that what if scenario, but it's like this is there's got to be a better way. Yeah, well, you're not even obligated to legally have to. Yeah. And it's really predicated more on where you live
versus what your health status is. When I just recently got new insurance, because I had to. And I said, Jill, you have some kind of a catastrophe program for me, because I don't really use your services much, you know, I'll pay for my annual OB appointment, but I can pay for that. I don't need to pay all this money for just for that. And she said, well, you don't qualify with your income
for that. So, and then I asked about the pricing and I said, aren't you going to live in a good neighborhood, then my insurance was more expensive. So it's a very broken system. Yeah. And I don't know what the solution to that is. I mean, there's just so many, so many factors at play working against the actual health care and betterment of society that I don't
even know what the solution would be. But I know what we're currently doing is likely the furthest thing from optimal. Yes, it's broken. Yeah, 100%. Well, talk to me about your course, your resources, your website, like how do people get involved? And what all does the thyroid course until? Yeah,
so I have a cheating optimal thyroid health. It's a course, an online course that is everything I know about thyroid, which is a lot because I've been doing it for so long. And for myself personally, I'm
worse my Hashimoto's. And so I break down everything, all everything you need to know what's what you should eat, what you shouldn't eat, what your supplements you should take, what supplements you should avoid, for hyperhypo, if your thyroid was removed, every scenario is in there and what labs to order, ask your doctor to order and how to read them, because we shouldn't know how to read our own blood
work. So it's really comprehensive. It's on my website. And that's available. And then I have a lot of products all gluten free, dairy free soy free jump free. And it's all on my website as well. I work with people all over the country, be a zoom and you can find me at my website is Risa R -I -S -A last name is grew G -R -O
-U -X nutrition .com. All social media is really secure nutrition and feel free to say hello, call the office make an appointment or just learn something from the website or in for Instagram. Well, I will most definitely link out to that and make it easy for people to find you. And I really appreciate what you're doing. I appreciate you trying to help people for the right reasons and just keep fighting the good fight,
Risa. Thank you. And the same to you. I appreciate you having the megaphone and talking about what's important in terms of health. So thank you. Hey, my pleasure. There's everything I can do to help move the needle for you. Just let me know. Thanks so much. Take care. Okay, YouTube.