Does stress or anxiety play a part into that as well?
Because I have psoriasis and mild psoriatic arthritis.
And I know when I get stressed, it seems to get a little bit worse.
I don't know how much that plays into the whole equation.
So when you have an autoimmune disease, I want to stop and lean into this a little bit.
Autoimmune disease is kind of like a schoolyard bully.
If he's picking on kids over here, he's probably picking on kids in other places too.
Welcome back to another episode of the Space Tomatoes podcast.
Today we have our hosts, myself and Alex.
Say hi, Alex.
Hello.
Today we have a special guest with us.
This is Dr. Kevin Smith, who is a board-certified chiropractor and functional medicine practitioner.
He has vast clinical experience and has been in practice since 2001.
Welcome to the show, Dr. Kevin Smith.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here, and I wanted to say how grateful I am to be able to share some good information with your audience.
Awesome, awesome.
So what got you into doing this?
What was the onus or the impetus behind this, what I would say, fundamental shift in the way medicine is practiced?
Okay, so let me give you a quick and dirty background of where I come from.
So I'm from Pittsburgh, and I did my pre-medical training here in Pittsburgh.
Then I went to the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, and I spent about four
years there and graduated with my doctor of chiropractic degree in 2001.
I then moved back to Pittsburgh and opened up a practice.
and people were coming to me for things that you normally associate going to the chiropractor for
back pain, neck pain, headaches, sports injuries, automobile accident injuries, things like that.
And word was getting around. I was doing a good job. But every once in a while, people would come
in with some weird, mysterious problem that I couldn't fix under using the tools that I got
from chiropractic school. And that led me to become curious and figure out what can I do to
help more people. And eventually I started to take seminars and all kinds of things on clinical
nutrition. And that led me to study blood chemistry analysis and thyroid care. And that led me to
learn about functional medicine. And right now in this country, there are two broad categories
of healthcare that you can choose from. There's allopathic healthcare, which is what a medical
doctor typically does. And then there is a functional medicine, which is what I do.
Now, allopathic healthcare, what they do is they try to manage a symptom in the form of using a chemical, usually in the form of a drug.
So whether it's high blood pressure or thyroid disease or autoimmunity or whatever, they prescribe medicines to try to help manage the symptoms.
functional medicine on the other hand is a personalized patient-centered approach to
health care and that asks the question why why do you have this problem why do you have high
blood pressure why are you overweight why do you have thyroid disease why do you have autoimmunity
and what they found is that there's no there's no problem that just happens just because there's
usually some kind of an underlying driving force that caused this in the first place,
or what I call a root cause. So what functional medicine does, the doctors have to put on a bit
of a detective outfit and figure out what's going on. They have to dig a little deeper,
order more blood tests, and find out exactly what contributed to the problem in the first place.
And that's a very different type of a healthcare approach than the stuff that most people
have been exposed to. Okay. So when you look for these roots, what are some common areas you look
as kind of a general rule of thumb that guide where you go?
So there's a couple of different things that can contribute to a state of ill health. There is
anemia, which is a problem where you can't transport oxygen on the red blood cells throughout
your body. There is blood sugar problems. That's the number one stressor in the body.
There is cortisol issues. That's a chemical produced by the adrenal glands that sit right
above your kidneys, and they control the fight or flight response of your body.
There is sex hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, testosterone.
Remember, boys and girls make both, and they need to be secreted in the right amount for the right gender and the right age.
So, for example, a 22-year-old woman is going to have a different estrogen response than a 70-year-old woman.
There is gastrointestinal problems, problems with bowel transit times like diarrhea or constipation or problems with absorption.
There's problems with food allergies or food sensitivities or intolerances.
There's problems with chemical allergies.
Simple things like household cleaners that you may be using every single day to clean your dishes or to do your laundry can have a profound effect on some people.
And there's stealth infections that can have an effect.
All of these things collectively can mess up your body's physiology and cause problems with your thyroid, with your blood sugar response leading to insulin resistance, have a poor night's sleep, all kinds of things that can wreck your health.
And so all of these things need to be explored and to be considered.
And we have some lab tests that can help us to figure out what exactly is going on.
Do you think diet plays a large part in that as well?
Yeah.
So clinical nutrition is one of the things that I've studied for a long time.
So diet, clinical nutrition, that is one of the founding building blocks of health care.
So if a person is eating a whole lot of processed foods, heavily refined sugars, other types of things that they think are perfectly fine to consume on a regular basis, they could potentially cause harm down the road.
And, you know, your eating habits, if you eat a lot of fast food, if you eat a lot of processed foods, if you eat a lot of sugar, that will definitely cause a problem either now or in the future.
So that is definitely one of the things that I pay attention to.
Do you find it difficult to help patients make the changes?
Because both Havik and myself have made tremendous changes in our own personal diet,
and I know it was difficult to accomplish that.
And I would think for a lot of people that would be a huge hurdle to jump over
because it's much easier to just take a pill to fix everything,
which is what I think a lot of the standard health care system pushes.
That's exactly right.
It is very difficult to change a lifetime of bad eating habits.
But what I found is that if you give people a big enough why that it's going to drive and motivate them, they will overcome these habits.
So one of the biggest things that is a challenge in my life is being a coach or being a psychologist or a cheerleader and teaching people that they have to change their habits first and foremost.
Good habits lead to good health.
Bad habits lead to bad health.
And there are some things that are fundamental.
I mean, the body can be very, very difficult to learn everything about it.
But as far as the basic building blocks of health care, proper good nutrition, hydration, plenty of sleep, exercise, paying attention to your posture and your joints through chiropractic care.
these things are are not difficult to to do but they do require a bit of a concerted effort
but changing a little at a time is i think the key if you try to
to bite off more than you can chew then you can run into some problems
yeah so i just had a thought completely slipped my brain this is awesome
i really do that happened to me last time when that happens speaking of issues right yeah
as lx had mentioned we we both have changed uh a lot about our diet right um we both
i'm a farmsteader right so i live on a small farm uh lx is is a homesteader more of a suburban
homesteader type. And one of the big things is, has been not just going to, you know, the periphery
of stores, right? We, we are huge advocates of if it's not on an outside wall, don't buy it,
don't consume it and stay very far away from it because it's probably going to kill you.
Sorry for saying it that bluntly, but that's, that's the eventuality of it. Right.
I teach people the same thing, to shop on the periphery of the store, to stay away from the middle part.
If it's a plant, eat it.
If it's made in a plant, don't eat it.
Right.
If it's got any ingredients that you can't pronounce, don't buy it.
If it has more than five ingredients, don't buy it.
So sticking with simple little things like that are good goalposts to have, good markers to help guide you as to what is good for you and what to stay away from.
The only industry that I hold in more contempt than the pharmaceutical industry is the food industry because they are very sneaky and they put a lot of things into foods that are not very good for you.
So it's really surprising for people to hear this, to hear these messages like a lot of ketchup is mostly sugar.
And yeah, high fructose corn syrup.
And it's cheap because it's a subsidized crop and they can afford to put that in sodas and ketchups and cookies and all kinds of stuff.
Go try and find a loaf of bread that doesn't have corn syrup in it.
high fructose corn syrup is it's everywhere you know and then you go for maltodextrin exactly
maltodextrin another sugar that that you know you see that it doesn't say there's nothing about that
says to a normal human being right non-scientifically trained non-medically trained
that this is actually a sugar and it will have an insulin response so what what i found is that um
ultimately we are composed of cells.
We are made of cells.
So the cell is the smallest unit that the body is composed of.
Cells get together to form tissues.
Tissues get together to form organs.
Organs get together to form systems.
And systems get together to form a human being.
But if you look at the cell, a round cell,
The cell wall allows for the transmission of nutrients and food and water and all kinds of information that the cell needs to survive.
And on the cell wall are receptor sites, receptors kind of like antennae that people used to have on the roof of their house to pull the three channels they used to watch.
I'm dating myself now.
But anyway, on the cell wall of every cell, there is a receptor site for thyroid hormone.
So thyroid hormone, T3, kind of functions like the accelerator pedal in your car.
If you step on the gas, the car is going to speed up.
And if you take your foot off the gas, the car is going to slow down or it's going to go to a stop, right?
So every cell needs a supply of thyroid hormone to make it work right.
And so if you're talking about neurons in the brain, if the neuron is not getting a good supply of thyroid hormone,
the symptoms that are going to happen to that person could include brain fog,
or it can include memory loss or cognition issues or problem-solving issues.
It could affect a student and his ability to learn.
So ultimately that could be caused by the thyroid.
If it's the gut, then the responses could be that gut motility slows down
and it can be responsive with constipation or the opposite of that.
It could speed up and cause diarrhea, causing problems with absorption of nutrients.
And that is a very big problem.
The gut is considered the body's second brain.
So it can affect the peripheral manufacture of serotonin and dopamine, which are neurotransmitters that control mood and happiness, things like that.
If it affects the heart, then it could cause the heart to speed up or slow down.
Every single cell in your body, all 70 trillion cells, all of them have a receptor site for thyroid hormone.
What that means is that the thyroid gland could be a master regulator of your entire body.
So whenever you see people that have irritability, nervousness, brain fog, cognition issues,
their hair falling out in clumps, the loss of the outer one-third of the eyebrow,
their fingernail beds are cracked and brittle, they have loss of libido,
they have sleep irregularities.
Either there are problems falling asleep or problems staying asleep, or they have irregular menstrual cycles or infertility.
All of that could be traced back to abnormal thyroid physiology.
And so to complicate it, the cell wall could also be degraded because of chronic inflammation.
Chronic inflammation is the root cause of every disease that we know about such as cancer heart disease diabetes COPD joint problems all kinds of things like that
And guess what causes inflammation?
Too much sugar.
Sugar.
So we can go back to the sugar problem right away.
and it can also be caused by toxins or gut problems so it can get complicated very very
quickly and one of the things that i do is to figure out what's causing these problems in the
first place by analyzing and ascertaining what how are the cells breaking down
okay yeah that makes a lot of sense especially you know i'm a big proponent of gut biome
being one of the first places to look to heal thyself um and you know the sugars piece just
in addition to that at least from my perspective i think is you know sugars aren't always what you
put in your mouth and you think are sweet, right? When you eat a piece of bread, your body's going
to turn that into sugar, right? There's just, there are a number of foods, you know, especially
the carbs. And, you know, that's kind of an oversimplification because broccoli has carbs
in it and won't trigger that insulin response. But at the same time, the more, you know, simple carbs,
as well as some of the complex ones, potatoes being another one, right, lead into that as well.
And then the absorption issue where if you can't get the minerals, if you can't get the nutrients,
the phytonutrients, et cetera, to power these, you know, these little electrical impulses that are sending,
you know, the right amount of a hormone to the needed cells, then, you know, this all
starts to look very, very promising and viable from a, a, not a treatment perspective, but from
a holistic change that is more akin to a cure of the problem as opposed to a treatment, right?
Yeah. So whenever you eat something, whether it's a carb or protein or a fat, one of the macronutrients, there's a hormone in your body called insulin that's produced by the pancreas gland.
And the job of insulin is to take the sugars from whatever you eat and shuttle it into the cell to make energy.
So the insulin molecule takes glucose out of the bloodstream and shuttles it into the cell plus oxygen to make ATP.
No matter what you eat, whether it's carbohydrates, proteins, or fats, insulin is going to be secreted by the pancreas to meet the demand.
So you want to think about the different macronutrients, kind of like sticks that you use to make a campfire.
The carbohydrates are like the little kindling that you use to start the fire.
They go up very quickly.
So if you eat a carbohydrate-rich meal, it's going to burn out, and then you're going to be left hungry very soon after that.
If you get thicker sticks, like wrist-thick sticks about the size of your wrist, that's like proteins.
they burn slower and they last longer. And then the big logs that you can put on the fire after
you have some coals, they're like fats. So if you eat a fatty meal, you're going to be full for a
long, long time, just like the logs are going to burn for a long time if you put those on a campfire.
So what people are doing is they're consuming too many simple carbohydrates.
Like you said, a broccoli is a carb and a Twinkie is a carb.
But they're not made to equally, right?
So you've got to be careful about that, not to label everything as one thing.
Just like there's good fats and there's bad fats, there's good proteins and bad proteins,
there's good carbs and there's bad carbs.
A simple carb is something that your body is going to be able to use very quickly and very readily.
And so the analogy that I would use for that would be a Twinkie or a snack cake or something like that.
It's not going to last for a long period of time.
Whereas if you eat good fat, like something very rich in omega-3 fatty acids, it's going to last for a long, long time.
It's going to keep you satiated for a while, and it's not going to keep you hungry all the time.
That's why when you eat Chinese food, you're hungry in an hour because there's so many broccoli and simple rice and all that stuff.
It doesn't last for a long time, whereas if you eat a really fatty meal with salmon or mackerel or sardines, it's going to keep you good to go for a long period of time.
So I tell people, don't think like all carbs are the same, all proteins are the same. You have to be very specific with what you're going to be consuming.
interesting so how much how much so one of the things that i've actually been on a uh a journey
of exploration on is is thyroid uh issues in general uh near and dear to my heart not personally
my own thing uh but um one of the things that that it i just it keeps coming back up it keeps
coming back up. And there's plenty of anecdotal evidence, but it seems the industry is just
terrified of this. And I think there's potentially some decent reasoning in the outside cases for
this is the usage of iodine. So in the United States, the number one cause of
low thyroid disease is Hashimoto's disease. It's an autoimmune condition that your white blood
cells attack and destroy the thyroid gland. That's in the United States. According to the Academy of
Endocrinology, 90% of all cases of low thyroid is due to Hashimoto's disease. Outside of the United
States, the number one cause of low thyroid is due to iodine. As Americans, we don't have the
problem of low iodine. The reason is because we put salt on everything. So we're getting a
sufficient amount of iodine in our diet. So just a small interjection there. I don't eat any salt
that has iodine in it.
Jacobson is pretty much the only salt that I use.
So when you talk about people that have made lifestyle changes,
they may have completely removed iodized table salt from their diet.
And they're not eating processed foods, which means they're not getting it there.
It's certainly not growing in your vegetables,
which leaves you with kelp as a supplement or, you know,
an iodine supplement of some form. Is that wrong? Did I misspeak on that?
I would say that there are people out there that will remove as much iodized salt from their diet
as possible. But the majority of Americans still eat out and the stuff is still salted. And it's
still they use iodized salt. And when you go to a restaurant, you don't have complete control
over everything that's served to you.
But overall, by and large, the majority of the people in the United States,
it's not due to iodine deficiency.
It's due to an autoimmune condition.
And so the immune system in your body is your body's defense mechanism.
And it's your white blood cells that go around your body through the bloodstream,
and they look for viruses and bacteria and parasites and things that potentially can cause you harm.
But every once in a while, it mistakenly attacks your own body.
And that is what is termed autoimmune disease.
Auto meaning self and immunity destroying your body.
So there's over 100 different autoimmune diseases that have been identified by researchers, and they are named based on what body part is being affected.
If the immune system is attacking the thyroid gland, that's called Hashimoto's disease.
It was first discovered around 1920-something.
And if it attacks the lung fields, that's called sarcoidosis.
If it affects the brain, that's called multiple sclerosis.
If it affects the large intestine, that's called Crohn's disease.
If it affects the small intestine, that's called celiac disease.
If it affects the joints in the hands or the spine, that's rheumatoid arthritis.
And if it affects the skin, that's called psoriatic arthritis, which is a clinical variant of rheumatoid.
There's a hundred different types of autoimmune diseases.
And anytime somebody walks in my office with some weird, mysterious problem that you cannot determine what it is by a simple blood test, it's most likely autoimmune disease.
And in my office, you're autoimmune until proven innocent.
I like that.
But the majority of the people in the United States that have low thyroid function, it's linked to an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's.
And what happens is that the white blood cells start to attack and chew up the follicles.
Think of like Pac-Man.
The little Pac-Man goes around and eats the little white dots.
That's what happens with autoimmune disease.
But instead of the white dots, it's the thyroid follicles.
And by the way, that's why people that take thyroid medication, things like Synthroid or Levothyroxine, they always have to increase it.
Not always, but the majority of the time they have to increase the dose.
You start off like at 50 micrograms and then 88 micrograms, then 100, then 125, then 150, on and on and on.
because as the thyroid gland continues to get destroyed by the immune system,
they have to increase the dose to keep up with the demand.
And about 17% of people that have thyroid disease are going to be helped by medications.
That means 83% of the people will not be helped by the medications.
that's why i think that just relying on techniques and methodologies that were created in the 1960s
is no longer sufficient you have to evolve as time goes on yeah and then so
very interesting stuff isn't part of this also due to a form of atrophy that comes along when
you're pumping in the hormone itself, you're trying to counter the fact that it's not producing.
But when that's present, doesn't a certain amount of atrophy start to also occur? Like you said,
the typical case is that Senthroid or Levothyroxine is going to increase in dosage,
and it's increasing. And I believe everything you're saying, no question, but I do have a
question about that, that atrophy aspect? Well, the first of all, autoimmune disease
accounts for some cases, but it can also be your thyroid function can also be interrupted
or impacted by what I call triggers. And a trigger is something other than autoimmune disease
that does this. And once again, those triggers are things like anemia, blood sugar problems,
cortisol issues, sex hormones, chronic inflammation and oxidative stress, GI problems,
food sensitivities, chemical sensitivities, and stealth infections. And those triggers,
what we want to do is we want to identify what's going on with that person. And the way that we
identify them is through testing, lab testing, and that comes in the form of blood, urine,
stool, and saliva. By checking those things out, we can systematically identify what is going on,
what's causing, what's driving the problem, what is the root cause of this, and then lastly,
eliminate the triggers. And by rebalancing the different structures of the body,
we can put an end to the misery of low thyroid symptoms.
Hmm. That sounds promising.
Does stress or anxiety play a part into that as well?
Because I have psoriasis and mild psoriatic arthritis.
And I know when I get stressed, it seems to get a little bit worse.
I didn't know how much that plays into the whole equation.
So when you have an autoimmune disease, I want to stop and lean into this a little bit.
Autoimmune disease is kind of like a schoolyard bully.
If he's picking on kids over here, he's probably picking on kids in other places too.
So if you have an autoimmune disease, it's very likely that there are other places in your body that are also either being affected right now or will be affected in the future.
Some of the places that are very common are the thyroid gland, the skin, the joints, the brain, the lung fields, the small intestine, the large intestine.
And not everybody is going to have multiple areas of involvement, but it's a very, very high percentage.
The second thing about autoimmune disease is that it cannot be cured.
Anybody that tells you that they can cure an autoimmune disease is lying to you.
But while you can't cure it, you can put it into remission.
So it's no longer causing mischief in your life.
It's kind of like the electricity that goes to the chandelier above your dining room.
While you can't flip a switch and turn it off, you can dim it down.
so you can limit how much damage that that psoriasis can wreak havoc on your life.
The medical or allopathic approach to this is to use a chemical to suppress your immune system.
That's all those commercials are on TV.
They're all immune drugs, every single one of them.
And rather than suppress your immune system,
I would like to find out what can be done to reduce the effect of the harm from your immune system
so that you're not susceptible to colds and flus and you're not sickly all the time.
The people that get say cortisone cortisone is a steroid It an immune suppressant So they will give that to people with say with knee pain or with hip pain or low back issues But you can only get it about
four times a year because if you get an injection more often than not, then you're going to be
susceptible to infectious agents all the time. That's the reason that the doctors will only give
But again, they're only interested in suppressing your symptoms.
They're not interested in going after the root cause of the problem.
Yeah, that's been my experience as well.
I stopped going, and I know it's not a dermatology issue per se, that it is an autoimmune issue.
And that's pretty much where they wanted to go is give me a biologic.
And I said, no, thank you.
By the way, excuse me for interrupting you, but Hashimoto's disease is not a thyroid disease.
It's an immune system issue.
Just like you experienced with the psoriasis.
That's an immune system issue.
That's beating up your skin really bad.
So you are 100% correct.
It is not a dermatology-based problem.
It's an immune problem.
All right. And I did have, well, I guess I still am diabetic technically, but my A1C has been,
I think 5.4 was the last A1C that I got, and everything's pretty much under control. I don't,
you know, able to control the diet now and without any medications, thankfully.
But I mean, it's still a journey.
So speaking of that, there's actually four types of diabetes that have been described
in the medical literature. Type 1 is juvenile onset diabetes where your immune system is
attacking the beta cells of the pancreas. Your body cannot produce insulin and you need to take
insulin for the rest of your life. That's a bonafide autoimmune disease. Type 1.5 is the
same exact mechanism, but it happens after puberty. It happens during adulthood. So people
that have type 1.5 diabetes need to be on insulin, and it's not due to overconsumption of simple
carbohydrates or the lack of exercise. It's that their immune system is destroying or has destroyed
the beta cells of the pancreas. Exact same mechanism. Type 2 diabetes, which probably
accounts for about 90% of all cases of diabetes, is due to lifestyle modification. That's a
self-inflicted wound. So it's due to diet and your exercise habits. It's completely reversible.
and type 3 diabetes which is talked about in the medical literature is also known as
alzheimer's disease so there's a direct relationship between out of control
blood sugars and early onset dementia
interesting wow i've heard some correlation with cholesterol as well not sure that there's any
merit to that, but it could make sense. Well, that's a big can of worms right there.
Right. In my opinion, cholesterol is an innocent molecule that's been accused of a crime it
didn't commit. Yep. Just like eggs, just like a number of other things.
There's a lot of mythology in healthcare. They said that eggs were terrible for you. You got to
take statins you gotta do this and and follow the food pyramid back in the days when the the base of
the food pyramid was grains and and cereal and pasta and bread and then we learned that no that's
actually wrong and and what who sponsored the food pyramid well that was the agricultural
industry and the dairy industry that did that yeah kellogg and and the like also had some big plays
and they're looking out for all of their bottom line.
Well, they're not interested in your health.
They don't care about your health.
They care about their shareholders.
That's it.
Yeah.
Interesting.
So your practice is in Pennsylvania, correct?
Yes.
I'm in Pittsburgh.
I'm in a suburb of Pittsburgh called Bethel Park.
but I help people from out of state.
We just, through the phone or through Zoom,
we can drop ship them their supplements,
their test kits.
They can go to an online supplement dispensary
that I use called Fullscript
and get whatever they want,
deliver right to their front door
and if they pick priority shipping,
they'll get it in two days.
So they don't have to be in the Pittsburgh area
to work with me.
I've had clients that have been in Texas
I've had clients in California, in Utah, in Colorado.
So wherever your listeners are listening from, I would prefer to stay in the continental United States because of tariffs and customs and all that crazy stuff.
But if you're in the continental United States, you can work with me and you can figure out what's causing you these problems without having to be restricted by geography.
Do you have specific labs that you work with to do the testing or do you have a kit, home kit of some form?
Yes to both. So I work with traditional nationwide labs like LabCorp or Quest Diagnostics.
And I have functional medicine labs like Cyrex or Meridian Valley Labs or Genova.
or there's probably a dozen of them that I work with on a regular basis.
So there's no one test that can give you 100% of all the information out there.
So they all have a job to play.
So if we want to look at what foods that you're allergic to
or what foods I should say that you have a reactivity to.
I work with Meridian Valley.
So how this works is it's a blood spot panel.
So you draw a couple of drops of blood from your fingertip and you put it on a test card.
And then we mail it out to the lab and they test your blood against 95 different food antigens.
All the usual suspects to find out what you have a high reactivity to or what your body has a low reactivity to.
So basically, the more reactive that your body is, the more sick that you'll get if you're exposed to this thing.
I tested this on myself.
I have a problem with dairy, with some grains, with crab, and with almonds.
And that made me very sad because I love to eat crab.
I don't stop eating crab when I'm full.
I stop eating crab when I'm tired.
so um back in the old days um red lobster had this thing called crabby mondays
and they'd see me coming and they go oh god him again
i i i very very small amounts or i'm i'm really sick for the rest of the day
wow yeah that would be a big bummer i don't eat it very often but
i think probably one of my favorite foods is dungeness crab just that would that would be a
bummer yeah oh i'll tell you what the old in the old days the way to figure out what your body
was what foods were making you sick was to do what's called an elimination diet
And you would basically go on a super bland diet and slowly and methodically reintroduce certain foods and see if that food could provoke a response.
This method is so fast and it's relatively cheap to do and you can get a ton of great information.
I found out a lot of – I've helped a lot of people just by doing a food allergy test.
Okay. Very cool.
Is that anything that would be covered by insurance at all or not typically?
Not typically.
Insurance is mostly covering the standard approach that your primary care physician does, which is a very small overview.
So how this works is when you go to the primary care physician's office, he's going to look up your insurance and he's going to order exactly whatever the insurance will cover so that he can prescribe it so he can justify prescribing a drug.
So by the time, if you think about this, by the time you even walked in the PCP's office,
your treatment plan has already been predetermined for you,
usually by an actuary that sits in a cubicle in another city has never met you,
never looked at your labs, never read your x-rays, never interviewed you or did a consultation.
And so this is called industrial style medicine.
Whoever walks in the door is going to get the same thing over and over, and they're going to get a very glossy, superficial veneer of this process.
They're never going to figure out what's truly the root cause of your problems.
Yeah, and this is rampant in the industry.
I mean, it gets worse when you look at it.
you know, the insurance companies, there are, there are some of them out there that own large
hospital chains, which means of course the doctors are essentially working for the insurance companies.
The billing, everything else is all tied together and it just, it's, you know, it's sick care. I'm a,
I'm a big fan of avoiding the doctor unless one of two conditions are, are occurring. Number one,
something that should be solid is no longer solid and in more pieces than it was supposed to be.
Number two is when you're leaking. Okay. If you are leaking, go see, go seek help. Right.
Other than that, I'm not, I'm not anti-pharmaceutical and I'm not anti-physician.
I think that everybody has a role to play and there's a time and a place for everything.
sure we as americans we spend about 4.3 trillion dollars a year on health care
that's more than the next 20 countries combined it's such an enormous amount of money and here's
the thing for every dollar spent on health care 90 cents is spent treating chronic conditions
chronic conditions. Now, the difference between an acute problem and a chronic problem for your
listeners. Thank you. I was actually going to ask you. An acute problem is a new issue. It's a new
problem or a problem that would require a heroic measure to save a life, such as a heart attack,
a stroke, a broken bone, a gunshot wound, a burn, a laceration. And medical doctors that are trained
in the United States are brilliant at fixing these problems. They are the best in the world,
but they don't have a good track record when it comes to chronic conditions. When it comes to
chronic conditions, they don't cure anything. They manage problems. I can think of one exception,
and that would be a bacterial infection where you need a round of antibiotics to clear it out.
But when it comes to things like high blood pressure or low thyroid or a problem with
diarrhea or constipation, if you want to test this, stop taking your blood pressure medication
for a week and see what happens. It's going to go back up again. You're going to have to take
the medication forever and ever and ever. There's very, very rare circumstances where they put you
on a medication and then you stop taking it a week later, except for antibiotic therapy.
Now, that leads me to say that one thing that I've said before is that I want to figure out the root cause of a medical problem, of a healthcare problem.
Not to say that they're wrong.
It's just a different philosophy that I have.
So I have to do a little bit of digging.
I have to figure out what could be contributing to this problem.
And the way that I do that is to identify a trigger or assume it's an autoimmune disease and put an end to that by rebalancing the different systems of the body.
Yeah, and I'm not anti-medical establishment in general, right?
My father was a doctor and surgeon.
My mother, another doctor, different kind.
So I'm not anti that.
I guess to rephrase my statement, I generally avoid them in the terms of generalized health.
I think you're far better off managing your stuff with your diet, with exercise, with sunshine and time away from screens and other things that cause massive amounts of stress in our lives.
Worst of all, we actually go and look for it and eat it up.
Um, but you know, things like this, I think have a more, are more impactful, at least in my history than going and seeing a doctor, going and seeing a doctor is a, an almost 100% guarantee that you're going to walk out of there with medications to take.
and i'm not telling anyone nor would i tell anyone not to take medication that was prescribed to you
but i would tell everyone go go figure out what this is and talk to some other people uh you know
someone outside of allopathic medicine to see you know like dr smith here can can we at least
you know curb this problem right can we at least dim it like you said right turn the lights all the
way you know to the dimmest setting um and we again we spent 4.3 trillion dollars on our health
can you imagine how little we need to spend if they just followed that advice that you just said
if they just ate very clean they got plenty of sunshine they got plenty of exercise they slept
eight hours a night. They manage the stress. They just took care of themselves.
Most problems I found are self-induced. And it's because we are addicted to the screen.
We're addicted to the social media and we don't eat correctly. We go to McDonald's
six times a week and then biggie size our Lipitor. That was a joke.
i like that one not not really it's a little close to home for plenty of people who do that
out of people but yes i thought that was good well one of the things is that they eat what
people will eat whatever they want they will drink whatever they want they smoke whatever they want and they will look for pharmaceuticals to clean up the mess afterwards and good habits lead to good health bad habits lead to bad health so if you could tell people to just eat clean
eat good whole foods get plenty of sleep get plenty of uh water get plenty of sunshine get
outside and play like you did when you were a kid, a lot fewer problems would happen.
Yeah. And we usually, you know, when we have these discussions around, you know, food and health,
et cetera, we challenge people, right? Just try this 30 days. Just give it 30 days, right? Cut out
sugar and cut out simple carbs. Just, just cut all that out. Just those two things. That's it.
it's hard it's not easy you will feel weird i still miss bread two years later i still miss
bread every day same well i mean i i've had i've had this conversation where i i start people off
on an autoimmune paleo diet that's usually the starting place because that gut that typically
cuts all the bad stuff and they look at me like i just said something mean about their mother
right yeah i can imagine right yeah as little kids like a lot of people were given a reward
for doing well in school or doing a good deed they were given a cookie or they were given another
sweet and they so psychologically they associate good stuff to happen in the form of sweets so then
along comes this crazy doctor that's saying, don't eat so much of that, eat this instead.
And they're like really, really hostile and confused. So I, I realized that some people
aren't ready to hear the message, but I also believe that as the teacher, as the student is
ready, so there goes the teacher. So when they're ready to hear the message, they will reach out.
you're absolutely right my personal story and i'm not you know saying whatever but i lost about 120
pounds and like i said i got off all those medications and people say wow you you know i
especially people i haven't seen in a while just say yo you look great what what can i do to do
that and i tell them and they're like eh no thanks that's that's kind of what it ends up being yeah
And it is, it is difficult when you first start doing that. There's a period of time you physically feel the cravings, right? It's just a weird feeling. Your body is like, give me bread, give me sugar, give me something. And, and it literally feels physically weird. It doesn't feel comfortable.
but once you get past that an interesting thing happens because i'm not you know i'm not so strict
that those things have been cut completely out of my life right uh in that we will have a special
occasion and maybe i'll have a piece of bread or you know uh like you know we have a little retreat
that we do with friends and my wife will make homemade cinnamon rolls right and i mean she does
the whole thing from scratch and they're amazing. But what I will tell you is after eating them,
that same level of weird feeling happens to me and it's uncomfortable and it's my body going,
this is garbage. Why are you putting this in here? And, but it does take a good 30 days at least
before you start to get past that little hump and it becomes really easy. Like you just,
I think about it here and there, and I'm, oh man, a piece of sourdough would be really good.
I heard one time a comedian talking about a Cinnabon in the airport, and some of these people were buying a Cinnabon when they reached their destination, when they got home.
They weren't just buying a treat on their way to a destination somewhere.
They were on their way home and they still ate it.
So I don't understand that mentality.
I think that, well, I don't smoke.
I don't drink.
I don't do drugs.
I do drink some coffee from time to time.
But by today's standards, I would be considered a boring person.
Right.
But I'm also not going to suffer with chronic issues all the time.
Some people tend to be very reactive instead of proactive with their health.
And I want people to make that change.
I want them to be more proactive than reactive.
Some people are.
They'll join the gym.
They'll hire a personal trainer.
They will seek out better nutrition or take supplements to try to round the corners and do things that make sense to keep everything in top shape.
Other people, they will go to the gym.
They'll go one time.
They'll think they're going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger after one visit.
I try that.
It doesn't work.
So a little at a time over a long period of time is where it's at.
Yeah, absolutely.
At the risk of putting you on the spot, and I really don't mean to place you on the spot.
I do know a lot of people in our lives that are on a budget for one reason or another, whether they're retired or whether they can't work and they're on disability.
How much should somebody budget if they want to see someone like you and not be trapped into seeing just their PCP like they have been for years and they have these issues that they really need to take care of?
Well, I think that you have to ask the question, what would be the alternative?
If they didn't take care of their health, how much would it cost them to need to see an endocrinologist for the rest of their life?
How much money are people needing to spend on drugs?
The average person that comes in to see me is on seven different drugs.
I always ask their drug list because I want to find out what they're taking and what kind of problems that they're having.
and the average person is taking seven drugs.
Now, here's the problem with that.
If you're taking one drug, there's a lot of data on that drug.
It's been researched from the time of inception until the time that it's released to the public
is about 13 years.
And so they start off with doing a review of the literature
and then in vitro studies and vivo studies and cohort studies,
and they build it up until they reach random control double-blind studies.
And then it goes through three layers of FDA research until they find that the risks are minimal
and the rewards are maximized.
so what happens if you take that drug and then six months later you go back to the doctor and say
doc this drug isn't helping me anymore i need something stronger
so now the doctor gives you the second drug how much data exists when you take drug one
and drug two together.
Absolutely none.
Zero data exists.
Now imagine if you take drug one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven all together, and
they all have a potential of a side effect.
Okay.
That's one, and pardon the interruption, but that's one of my chief issues with allopathic
medicine is if you come in, let's say it's one drug and you need to be on this drug and there
is a side effect. It may not necessarily be the drug isn't working. It's like, Hey, I've got this
thing. And they're like, Oh, Hey, take this. Oh, well now I've got this other thing. I would take
this. What they're treating is the side effects from the original drug. They're not treating a
medical condition. Right. And, and that to me is, I think that's problematic in general.
so you when when you're taking more than one drug at the same time you are in the world of
polypharmia that's actually a word poly meaning many and pharma meaning drugs so you're taking
multiple drugs the most i've ever seen in my career a guy walked in my office with his drug
list. It was a page and a half, single space typed. And he walked in like a zombie from having
taken all those drugs all the time. I think that the medical doctors need to do a better job
at communicating with other doctors to make sure that they are giving the patient the minimum
number of drugs possible, not just continuously adding to the list. And they need to be
cognizant of the dangers of polypharmia and on the person's well-being. A lot of the side effects
are because of the drugs that the person is taking, and they have to be aware of that.
But there's a cost. Getting back to your point, LX, there's a point of the cost of the drugs and the cost of impaired function. What's the cost of not being able to go on vacation with a family or a loved one anymore?
What's the cost of not being able to do their job anymore and produce for their family?
Or not being able to go to their grandson's baseball game?
Or not being able to go for a ride in the car?
There's a cost associated with a loss of function that they have to be aware of.
It's a very, very real thing.
When I've done lectures on, say, peripheral neuropathy, these people have things like numbness, tingling, burning sensations, loss of balance, cramping, muscle weakness.
Their extremities feel too hot or too cold.
And some of them are because of diabetes, but some of them are because of spinal cord issues.
And trust me, these people are one step away from needing a wheelchair or a nursing home.
And when you go into the nursing home, that's about $10,000 a month forever until there's nothing left, until you're on Medicaid.
So if I priced myself like they do with medicine, it would be $50,000, $60,000.
But fortunately, it's a lot less than that.
I don't have the exact figures because everybody is different.
Everybody needs something different.
but to work with a person's diet and to prescribe supplements,
a hell of a lot cheaper than drugs.
Nice.
I hope I answered your question.
It's kind of a long way to do it, but yeah.
Absolutely.
So where can people find you?
How do they get a hold of you?
Where can they take up your material?
Okay, so the best way to find out a little bit more about me and a little bit more about the conditions that I work with, you can visit my website at metabolicsolutions.net.
Don't go to metabolicsolutions.com.
That's the different site.
But go to metabolicsolutions.net and they can read more about me, about the different conditions.
And then if you want to speak to me or send me a message about what's going on with you, there's a place there that you can send me that message on the contact page.
And I'd be happy to hear from you.
If you want to have a phone conversation or a Zoom call, I can do that.
We can have a free 10 or 15-minute discovery call and find out a little bit more about you and what you're up against.
And I'll give you some advice.
Awesome.
Nice.
All right.
I think, Alex, any other things you wanted to throw out?
Not that I can think of right off the top of my head.
All right.
Well, I think we're at a good point to kind of take us out.
So one question we always like to ask our guests is, you know, throughout our life, people make profound impacts on our lives, right?
Things that maybe could just be a quote from an author, could be a sixth grade science teacher.
It could be mom, could be whoever you want.
But one thing we like to do is give people the opportunity to give a shout out to that influential person that made an impact on your life.
So who would you like to give a shout out to?
So I think that the one person that I'm thinking about right now is my dad.
My dad passed away in 1995, and he was my hero.
He was my best friend.
He taught me a lot about the importance of establishing rapport with people
and getting to know them as a person before you conducted business.
And so that's really what I try to do with people.
Before I can tell people what they need to do,
we need to, you know, come to figure out a little bit more about who they are
and who I am and get to know each other a little bit as a person.
And that's who I wanted to give a shout out to.
That's a pretty good shout out right there.
all right well thank you so much for coming on we really appreciate it it's been a wonderful
conversation uh you know hopefully our listeners will enjoy this and and who knows maybe maybe some
of them pick up the phone or go on your website and check you out i sure hope so um if you are
experiencing issues in your life that are impacting your health or your ability to
do things that you used to be able to do, give Dr. Kevin Smith a shout, right? Look him up on his
website, put in a contact form, schedule an appointment, talk with him, see if you can't
come to an agreement and hopefully get you back on track with your life and back to some, you know,
healthier state than you are now. Well, thank you guys for having me. It was an honor and a pleasure
to be here and uh i had a great time thank you so did i all right thank you once again for joining
us for another episode of the space tomatoes podcast you can find us pretty much anywhere
podcasts play uh including youtube x and you know a few other places everywhere pretty much
uh you know where to find us go look us up we appreciate your time and remember wherever you are
whenever you're watching this,
have an amazing day.
See you, everybody.
See you, Dr. Smith.
See you, guys.
We'll be right back.