Dr Michael Ruscio - 20th June 2018 (LDN, low dose naltrexone) from LDN Research Trust on Vimeo.
Dr Michael Ruscio is sharing his experience with Low dose Naltrexone.
He treats people suffering from symptoms like daily bloating, constant fatigue, and unexplained weight gain, simple steps to start living a healthy, enjoyable life.
There are many different conditions that I'm sure both clinicians and patients grapple with and it's hard to sometimes determine what do I do first.
Should I have a heavy metal test, an adrenal hormone test, a female or male hormone test, a thyroid analysis, a gut workup, a test for mold or Lyme? And I think a very prudent approach is to first start with your dietary and lifestyle foundations.
And there different diets that could be an appropriate starting position.
And then if they're not improved symptomatically I take steps to optimize their gut health.
And also along with that, I take a fairly cautious progressive look into the gut and thyroid health.
Oftentimes I'll start someone with a paleo diet and sometimes the paleo diet is typified to be this very high meat, especially high red meat, high-fat diet, but it really doesn't have to be. You can have a few different derivations on the paleo diet that can range all the way from high carb, lower fat to lower fat, higher carb.
But the main tenant of the paleo diet is the removal of process foods. And also a decrease consumption, if not elimination of things like most grains and also some beans and legumes and a focus on meats, nuts and seeds, fruits, and vegetables, and healthy sources of fats. And that's a really a good starting point for the gut.
Now, if someone comes in with a high degree of digestive symptoms like the classic IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) type symptoms, gas, bloating, loose stools, diarrhoea, constipation, or potentially oscillation between the two then we'll oftentimes start with a low FODMAP diet, which has been very well studied in the context of IBS.
We could start with the standard low FODMAP diet that cuts out things that are not compliant with the paleo diet, like grains and dairy.
I think there are many clinicians who are moving this direction and kind of seeing this for most diets two to three weeks is enough time to evaluate. And you should have a sense that clearly you are feeling better. It's not to say you should feel 100% improved. Then keep going until you reach the peak of your best improvements and shortly after that, you can start to reintroduce some of the foods that you cut out, because for most people they don't need to adhere to the low FODMAP diet or the paleo diet 100%. They usually find that there are a number of foods that they can bring back into their diet and be okay with, but there's a few foods that have to be cautious with and when they reintroduce the foods, they have a reaction. So they can experiment and adapt
to a diet to themselves so they don't feel like they're being totally overcome by it by dietary restrictions.
One of the first things to consider is how many carbohydrates you're eating in your diet.
Usually, the lower someone goes in carbohydrate, the more fat they end up bringing into their diet because they need something to replace all of the carbohydrates that they've cut out. We have a high fat, low carb. Now some people with IBS do feel better when they eat a lower-fat diet, but there are also some people with IBS who feel better when they eat a lower carb, higher fat diet, almost like a ketogenic-type diet.
As to potentially have the risk of being too low carb for your metabolism and causing things like fatigue, insomnia, which can be a problem. One of the things that people tend to do is bring back in carbs. We have people start with or more things like potatoes or sweet potatoes or squashes.
Some people are not incorporating enough healthy fish or fatty fish like salmon, sardines into the diet.
There is interesting research about thyroid and gut. That assessed, I think it was 1,809 patients. Being hypothyroid was the number one cause for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO, which is a quite simply an overgrowth, too much bacteria in the small intestine. They also found that people with higher colonization of the Helicobacter pylori, which is a bacterium that can reside in the stomach connects back into the thyroid.
So it seems that the gut small intestinal, bacterial overgrowth, H pylori, hypothyroidism are all connected and by improving the health of one's gut, we can certainly see an improvement in thyroid autoimmunity.
Now, this is not published. This is more so what I've seen in the clinic, I think at some point we will see this published.
I would like to talk about the brain and gut health. I suffered from when I had gastrointestinal issues years and years ago. I was brain fog and brain fog is a terrible symptom. You feel like you can't hold a conversation because you can't remember things you feel kind of out of it. It's really an unpleasant symptom and there's research now being published showing the gut-brain connection.
The clinical literature says has found that for both anxiety and depression, probiotics have a favourable impact on both of these conditions.
And of course, probiotics can heal the gut in a number of ways. It can be anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and antifungal. So if someone has bacterial or fungal overgrowth, probiotics can help with those.
Diabetes is also amenable to dietary change. Type two diabetes that is typically one is a little bit more of a different story, but absolutely by improving one's diet, you can absolutely see fairly remarkable improvements in a lot of things.
I wrote a book "Healthy gut healthy. you". It's available on Amazon. You can also go to www.healthyguthealthyyoubook.com to learn more about the book.
But essentially this book was me trying to give people a very reasonable and responsible education on their gut health, why it's so important, all the things that they can benefit and then taking all that information.
Also, people can head over to my website, which is www.drrusso.com to book an appointment.
And I do see patients physically in my office in Northern California, outside of San Francisco, and also via telemedicine via Skype or what have you, if they're not in our area.
Summary of Dr Michael Ruscio interview. Watch the video for the full interview.
