Latest / Motherhood Alliance Podcast / When the Body Turns on Itself: Understanding Autoimmunity w/ Dr. Mitch Sutton | Reclaim Health
Transcript
- Britney: Hey everyone, we are Britt and Dreya from motherhoodalliance.com and we are excited to welcome you to a four episode series with Dr. Mitch Sutton, a chiropractor and the founder of Reclaim Health. Dr. Mitch is a powerhouse of knowledge. You're going to learn that in these four episodes as he specializes in not only the nervous system, but also immune dysfunction, barrier permeability, which is the gut and the brain blood barrier connection, mold toxicity, eczema, allergies, asthma, autoimmune and neurodegenerative disorders. Using advanced testing and targeted support, Dr. Mitch helps patients truly connect the dots of their health in order to understand how their body is actually functioning so they can stop guessing and they can actually start healing. And when he's not helping patients reclaim their health, he is a husband and a dad of two girls. We are really excited to introduce him to you now. Andrea Renkas: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Motherhood Alliance podcast. We are back here with Dr. Mitch from Reclaim Health. Welcome back, Dr. Mitch. Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah, thanks for having me again. Andrea Renkas: Yeah, absolutely. So in this episode, we're gonna be talking more about the autoimmune disorders that you typically see. And so I guess, how would you define autoimmunity? And what are some examples? Dr. Mitch Sutton: the classic answer is that your immune system starts to attack your own body. Your immune system is doing something wrong and creating an auto antibody somewhere in your body, which is like, I don't like that. That's not a great understanding. That's not a great. Because you can't do anything. It doesn't give people, this is just how it is. And there's nothing that we can do about it, which is you can do everything about it to resolve some of these issues. Britney: jump in. Andrea Renkas: Sure. Dr. Mitch Sutton: there's obviously a lot of things that are going to create damage. in inflammation inside your body. Now, inflammation is not a bad thing, it is normal, That is how your body heals. Okay. When you stub your toe, smash your hand, that has to go back to its normal state. When people can't resolve that inflammatory process, that's where technically what happens is that this, whatever tissue that it is, is constantly damaged, constantly irritated. And there's parts of your immune system that always are sampling what that damaged tissue is. And it does this because it's trying to protect your body from if there's an infectious agent or a toxin that's trying to do it. But if it's not a toxin or if it's not a infectious agent, which most likely a lot of times in the autoimmune side of things is that that's what it is, but that tissue is constantly being broken apart. And your immune system is constantly sampling that tissue, which is exposing itself to, say the T helper cell, adaptive immune system that's pushing the body like, Hey, is this my body? Is this my body? Is this my body? Is this my body? And eventually you kind of, honestly, you kind of run out of resources a little bit and your body basically says, this has been constantly inflamed. We're going to start creating. an immune response to it, which is where you then produce the auto antibody. So Andrea Renkas: Okay. Dr. Mitch Sutton: it more so has to do with stopping and resolving that inflammation so that the body's not constantly, whatever tissue that's damaged inside the body is creating that immune exposure to the system that says like, we're under attack. Yeah, there's, there's, I mean, there's a lot to this thing, you have these things called antigen presenting cells, right? It's part of your innate immune system that says, hey, this is something that we're dealing with, what do we do? And if it's, again, it takes a little piece of whatever thing that's in the body, whether it is normally, right? If it's a bacteria, if it's a virus, or if it's a fungus, or if it's a environmental toxin, it says, hey, this is not good for us, what do we do with it? Let's get rid of it. Now, if that... is your body's own tissue, that same process happens. And when that's constantly irritated, that antigen presenting cell takes a piece of whatever that is and presents it to that immune system that says, this is something that's constantly damaged inside the body. We need to get rid of it. And then it goes in and attacks it. So it's kind of the, you know. first step in understanding some of those pieces, but there's a lot more of what's actually going to create some of that damage inside the body. Andrea Renkas: yeah. Britney: Yeah, so there's different types of autoimmune disorders, right? So there's ones like Hashimoto's where I have heard of people putting that into remission. There's other ones like rheumatoid arthritis or MS or like these other ones. Do you believe that all of these diseases could be put into remission? Like all of them? Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah. And I say Andrea Renkas: Yeah. Dr. Mitch Sutton: that hesitantly because Andrea Renkas: Mmm. Dr. Mitch Sutton: it's not necessary, like, Ken, yes, 100%. But there's also the piece of do we have enough time and resources in order to resolve that issue? Right. Cause it also depends on how long somebody's been dealing with one of these issues. this isn't just, two, three months, everything's better. if you've been dealing with a chronic autoimmune issue for 20 years, it's going to take us a little time. there's, there's that piece of like, okay, what part do we need to start with and, and where, where do we need to go? Cause there's, there's this, again, not everybody's equal, but also where you start with somebody if, if it's a really bad flare or if it's been a chronic issue and they've already changed, some of the lifestyle things, right? They're trying to make sure that they put good food inside their body and they're trying to, you know, they make sure they're vitamin D and they are already taking some supplements stuff, those are all helpful things, That kind of Okay, is it this piece is this piece is this piece is this piece, Because in some cases, you just have to kind of calm down the system, right? You have to slow down that immune system process in how it's creating inflammation. Because if you just kick in and start let's go after stuff, and your body's already inflamed, it's actually going to make things worse. Because the there's so much of that destruction that's already happening and then you're stimulating more of that response to like, we're just creating more destruction inside the body, you're gonna have issues. So there's times where depending on how severe, how inflamed, what kind of issues are of where you need to kind of start with some of those things. Britney: So, okay, Andrea Renkas: I feel like. Britney: we talked in the last episode about barriers. Is that kind of where you're always starting? Is those tests that you talked about and just kind of getting a 10,000 foot view of what's going on in their body? Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah, now I'll say 90 % of the time, autoimmune issues are from some sort of barrier dysfunction and that barrier dysfunction is what's going to shift and change how immune system works. And it's this entire zigzag pattern, It's this entire teeter-totter piece because any inflammation inside a barrier is going to increase something called your TH2 immune response. which is the reactivity side of things, which then that increased TH2 is what suppresses your TH1 or your pathogen fighting side of things. So if you do have an infectious agent that's creating this cross-reactivity molecular mimicry to the tissue, then you can't clear out the pathogen, which then that tissue is going to constantly be inflamed. Now, the next piece of this is that there's another cell That's called a T17 cell, OK, TH17. When that cell is elevated, that is what continues to create the tissue autoimmune destruction. And that cell is kept in line, that is normalized by a normal functioning TH1. So in this pattern, if you will, If you see, and you can measure all these things, which is this lymphocyte map test is so cool. Cause it looks at the balance. looks at the ratios. looks at your seven, th 17 looks at something called a T regulatory cell looks at your th one th two natural killer cells, CD eight cells, like all of these cells that are a part of this journey. but if a th 17 cells elevated, you can kind of trace it back to a barrier issue because you have to bring down. Well, you have to increase your TH1, but TH1 is suppressed because you have a high elevated TH2, which is from the inflammation that's happening inside the barrier. So you fix the barrier, you normalize your TH2, which normalizes your TH1, which then stops the destructive TH17 process from happening. Britney: That's, I, you know, I wish you had a, I wish you had a whiteboard right now, honestly, for those who are on YouTube, but I was just going to say it. Dr. Mitch Sutton: I know, I Yeah. It's it right here, I can get it. If that works. Andrea Renkas: know, well, he does have a whiteboard. He likes Bye! Britney: I was just going to say it for those of you listening, Dr. Mitch, he is on social media doing educational videos all the time with his whiteboard. the way you explained that was perfect because you could definitely follow what you're talking about. you're bringing me back to college because I have a lot of microbiology and human anatomy classes and TH1 or T1, T2, those I've heard before. But this T17 thing, you're blowing my mind here. So just a little shout out for his social media videos that he does because you're doing a whole educational series. Dr. Mitch Sutton: And that's one of those things. It's very much like, this is just how your body works, this is how certain disease processes are set up because again, this is the information. You do what you want with it, this is how Britney: Right. Dr. Mitch Sutton: this works, right? I'm not trying to, you need to do this or you need to do this. this is just what happens and why these things are, are occurring inside your body and what things are great to support and how all that works. Andrea Renkas: Well, and I, yeah. Britney: Yeah. Andrea Renkas: I just love though how you're teaching this stuff and if somebody is dealing with an autoimmune disease or if they're dealing with something that is, you know, whatever it is, right? The way you can explain things, not only educate them and helps them understand, but it helps motivate them there is hope and I can, you know, I can fix this issue and they know why. And I feel like that's one of the biggest things is instead of you just saying, hey, do this supplement, take this test because I said so, I'm gonna explain some things for you to use so you can understand. And then you make your own decisions and more than likely they're gonna go with what's best. Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah. And people are starving for why, that is such a, a huge piece that, mean, and this just goes into it further, but people are, I feel like dying for taking responsibility for themselves to do something. But if they don't have direction and if they don't understand, or if nobody's walked them through, especially in the chronic disease area. it's, well, you go to your rheumatologist, right? You go to your medical doctor and they're going to put you on some sort of immune suppressing medication, and that's just going to shove down just all of those cells. Now there's this loop that happens because that, that same, that same shift in your TH2, TH1, TH17 is the exact same like presentation of immune system that shows up in cancer patients. because your TH1, which is your pathogen fighting side of things, is also your tumor fighting side of things. And so you have this autoimmune issue and then you suppress immune system because you don't want the flare or the reaction, which then you suppress all of those cells, which then you're creating that environment for then cancers to go through. And then you go through your chemo and your radiation, which just wipes your body out even more and creates more autoimmune issues. And around and around and around and around you go. that's a common loop that people have of I have this autoimmune issue and then I get cancer and then now I'm back to an autoimmune issue and then environment set up for some of those things to happen again. Britney: You know, I'm kind Andrea Renkas: Mm. Britney: of laughing a little bit because in my head as you're talking about that, something that popped in my head is like, is there a TH1 supplement? Because there's a supplement for everything nowadays, like GLP-1s. It's like, okay, well, this is Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah. Britney: something created in your body. Let's make something orally you can take to boost that, right? And it's like, where's the TH1 supplement to Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah, there's, okay. Technically then, that's, stragglist does that, that's gonna drive and that's gonna help immune system signaling in pushing more of a TH1. Berberine does that. There's something that's also called angiographis, there's certain supplements that if you know how body is presenting that are gonna very much help. support your body in that sense. and especially in an autoimmune case, like astragalus is a go-to because that's going to help support and push that TH1. But also it, there's this, there's this other immune signal that's called STAT3 that that's what stimulates that 17 and creates more of that tissue destruction. But astragalus also inhibits that STAT3. So you can already get started on certain things because again, And autoimmune issue is not, it's not an organ specific issue, like kind of yes, right. But it's, it's, it's a system issue, right. It's an immune system dysfunction issue. And so if you know how that system and where that, what that looks like in a disease process, then it doesn't matter if it is Hashimoto's or if it's, if it's hypothyroid or if it's Graves disease or if it's MS or if it's lupus or if it's Crohn's or colitis, Again, autoimmune issue, what's immune system doing? How do we already start supporting those pieces? Britney: Let's talk about genetics a little bit though, because even in our first episode, you had talked about how somebody who's having barrier permeability or dysfunction, their symptoms may come through as asthma and then somebody else may come through as eczema and somebody else may come through as XYZ. So where does genetics fall into play here? Does it just mean that if you are having an autoimmune response, likely, like if your mom had RA, you may be more likely your response would come out through RA, whereas someone else's would come out through Hashimoto's or different things because these different immunity pieces are attacking different areas of your body. So how is that kind of deciphered? Is that genetic? Dr. Mitch Sutton: Right. there's the science of something called epigenetics. Okay. Epigenetics is how your body is either going to turn on or turn off specific genes based on the environment that you put it in. Okay. Now, like, yes, obviously you get your genetic code from your family, but also you get your, your habits in your, in your environment and how you, how you live your life also from your family, what you grew up with. And there can be certain situations that like, okay, you have a family history of this. yes, you get your genetic response from your family, but also that environment that's going to trigger and lead to that gene flaring. But also you see where, you know, it's not the end LB I'll say all because there's people, family history of like, four of my sisters have this and the one sister doesn't Why is that one different? This happens all the time where this is not just a death sentence, if you will, that you're automatically going to get these things. Because if you change that environment and know what's actually creating the inflammation and the triggers, that's where you can kind of, GenX don't really have a major play in this. Now, saying that, OK. is that there are some, some specific genetic tests that you can look at that there's, there's one specifically that if, if you have a hard time actually absorbing vitamin D and if your body has a difficult time with this, then it's more like, okay, you just need to make sure that you support your body with more of this, right? Cause let's just say somebody takes 5,000, use a vitamin D and their blood levels are eighties, nineties, and somebody takes 5,000 I use vitamin D and their blood levels are in the 20s, which 20 is not good. I shoot for like 100. And this is too, Technically, toxic levels of vitamin D don't happen until they're like 270. So it's a high, high amount. Andrea Renkas: Yeah, yeah. Dr. Mitch Sutton: And you know, oh, you're around 100. You're going to build toxicity. You're not. It's OK. But mean, vitamin D is incredibly important and stimulating. actually you're something called a T regulatory cell, which regulates self or non-self. That's the tolerance cell. so giving more of those resources to see is the self or non-self, but if that tolerance is there, it's just going to attack. And that's a major piece of that. There's some other glutathione deficiency issues that people have that like the antioxidant side of things of if you can't get this out of your body, right. Then that's where you're also going to see some chronic inflammatory response inside a tissue. because you can't resolve some of that inflammation inside of there. there are very much cases where, you know, if you get stuck, if, I'll say the usual things of what we're doing, right, if healing barrier and making sure that immune system's balanced, but if there's still some of those issues, then it's like, okay, maybe we do need to look a little bit further at what part of your body just may need a little bit extra support or how do we have to do it a little bit differently because of how some of that genetic abnormality is gonna be presented. Britney: Realistically, if someone has been dealing with an autoimmune disorder for years, let's say five years, what is the timeframe mentally that they should be prepared for, for the healing process? I know, and everybody's different, but just, you know, it's not a quick fix. Like we're talking about, it's not gonna be Dr. Mitch Sutton: such a loaded question. No, no. Britney: a two months of supplements thing. this like, you plan on the number of years you've been suffering to be the number of years it takes to Dr. Mitch Sutton: You know, saying this is I've had people where, yeah, Andrea Renkas: And what does it include too? Yeah. Dr. Mitch Sutton: so certain, okay, certain antibodies, have, they have a half life, how long that they actually last inside your body. Thyroid antibodies, those are good, like five, six months that they last. So sometimes like measuring every month, is it efficient? because they're still going to be stimulated, Because you just haven't had the time to heal some of that stuff. Now saying that, I've also had some of the antibodies level drops before that. There's a couple of patients that she had thyroid issues and I just started giving her some vitamin D cause it was pretty low. And you already saw a shift, you already saw a change in how the autoimmune response was affecting her body. and again, which piece is creating the issue for each person. I mean, more so it's, it's the, the questions and the exam when I go through, right? Because every time I ask a question and sometimes they're all over the place, but the question is basically, what is this body system doing and what pathway is not working appropriately? And this is something I'd like to share. like why medications have side effects, right? Medications have side effects because it manipulates a specific biochemical pathway inside the body. And, you know, like in last episode, your body's complex, but it's not complicated that biochemical pathway, that same pathway happens in more than one Oregon system inside the body. So if you're manipulating a pathway over here, because it's a lock and key mechanism, it has to then manipulate all of those other things that are in some of those other organs, which is where then you see the dysfunction. But the pathway is the pathway. And if that's not working, it's not working. And asking some of those questions tells me, OK, is it this one, is it this one, is it this one, is it this one, is it this one, which then Okay, this is probably the test that we need to do based on what your body's presenting. What other issues that you have going on? there's so much in just having the conversation with people that you can find out so much more information, which I feel like is almost a lost art. Like it's Having the conversation and understanding where people are at is more so kind of what determines how fast somebody's gonna resolve an issue. Now, saying that, okay? I don't really do anything for people. and I say that with an asterisk here, I show them what to do, this is how you need to make sure that you are taking care of your health. Now, obviously, yes, it's the test and it's the recommendations and it's, this is how all of this works. But if somebody doesn't want to walk through the door, they're not going to get better. Cause and that's, that's their choice, At the end of the day, if they want to do the things and this is how this works and I will hold your hand. I will push you through the door. I'll drag you through the door. But you got to be the one that goes through the door. But I'm going show you how to do it. I'm going to show you all the things. Britney: Yeah, it really is a mental shift from traditional medicine where somebody's like, I have this symptom and then, you know, they're given a pill and within a week, man, they're feeling better. And all they did is swallow something. Right. Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah. Britney: what you're saying is this takes action. This takes time. This takes dedication. This takes commitment. And so people have to be ready to do that. But I think what we're talking specifically about autoimmune disorders, a lot of these people are ready. They're just like you were saying earlier, they're just desperate for help. So it's, I think what you're talking about is this can be done for anybody though. Dr. Mitch Sutton: Correct. Right. And usually, okay, resolving the issues, can take six months, can take a year, can take five years, depending on what it is. Now, especially in the first, we'll say two to three months, if, if pieces are not feeling better, if, if you're not seeing some improvement in some sort of sign or symptom, then okay, we're doing something wrong. Cause if you start to get some positive change within the first few months, we're on the right track, like ding, ding, ding. Yep. Andrea Renkas: Yes. Dr. Mitch Sutton: This is, and then it's just time, right. Then it's just time. This is what we're going to do. This is what you need to make sure that we keep staying on top of. And then we come back and retest it in three months, or if it's four months or seeing where some of those pieces are, because yes, there's the feeling better, which is obviously what people want, but Also looking on paper, like, hey, this is physically what changed inside your body is also just incredible. Andrea Renkas: Yeah. Dr. Mitch Sutton: just, just last week I had, she's rheumatoid, right? Joint pain, just gut issues, constantly irritated, inflamed in pain. and she went to a rheumatologist and had a positive a and a, which is an anti-nuclear antigen, which is a kind of. basic autoimmune marker. And it was three months, and she retested that ANA, and it's actually it's back down to normal. So the reversing of and resolving some of that autoimmune response and reaction inside the body is it's the coolest thing in the world. Like see it on papers. It's like, yep, hey, look what happened. Britney: So for her specifically, Andrea Renkas: You did it. Britney: it new some nutrition changes plus some supplements? just give us a really high level and quick overview of for her, what was the difference? Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah, this was not her original issue that she came in with. This was more post-menopausal hormonal dysfunction. But some of that just wasn't getting any better, right? Because there's still some underlying piece that's happening inside the body. And we did a stool test, and there were some permeability issues. And then we had to kind of shift gears a little bit, be like, okay, this is actually what's going on and what's creating your problem here. And so we started to work on healing barrier and making sure digestive systems work inappropriately, right? When we talked about previously the chemical, biological and physical tissue barrier, started putting some of those things back together and you saw that shift in how immune system and specifically the autoimmune process went back to normal. Andrea Renkas: Wow, it's Britney: Cool. Andrea Renkas: amazing. Britney: All right. Well, I'm excited that we still have two more episodes coming up because we're not done with you. And Dr. Mitch Sutton: Yeah. Andrea Renkas: you Britney: something interesting that I just want to point out is that you're a chiropractor. Not once have you mentioned chiropractic or nervous system stuff yet. So really quick, how is that tying in to all of the immune talk that we're having? Dr. Mitch Sutton: So technically, there's the two primary issues that happen with people is that there's something that's creating damage to immune system or something that's creating damage to nervous system. each one of those can be the first piece that stimulates the other, you can have an inflammatory immune reaction that's going to send the signal to nervous system and nervous system is going to do something, right? And the reverse of whatever stress piece, create the immune signal, the neurological response is going to create damage to the nervous system. when you talk about cortisol, This is stress hormone. That increases your heart rate, your blood sugar, blood pressure. how it increases your blood sugar, even though you haven't eaten anything is it starts to eat away at some of your body's own connective tissue, It starts to eat away at your collagen. which is what also holds together your intestinal lining. And so when you start to break apart intestinal lining, then that's where you see the permeability piece, which is gonna shift immune system, which is where you're also seeing, sometimes people flare, right? Some people have autoimmune triggers because of high periods of stress. Like you got to solve that issue first before you get into some of the other pieces. Britney: All right, well, Andrea Renkas: two by four. Britney: I do we talk briefly about giving a shout out to your social media videos that you've been doing What are your handles? Where can people find you on social media? Dr. Mitch Sutton: what is Reclaim Health Clinic is Instagram. and then I think just Reclaim Health Clinic is on Facebook too. And this is, I'm, yeah, I know, this is Britney: We'll throw it in the show notes. How about that? Dr. Mitch Sutton: one of those things, honestly, like I, I, I am not a social media guy, it's just not my favorite thing. but Andrea Renkas: Mm-hmm. Dr. Mitch Sutton: these are the videos, these are the things these are. And again, information on what to do in some of those pieces. Britney: Yeah. Dr. Mitch Sutton: I put them all out there and hopefully somebody sees them. Britney: All right. Well, find them in the show notes people you'll find them there. Okay. Well, we're hitting pause on this conversation again. if you guys have not listened to episode one, make sure you do before we head into episode three, but we're going to be talking more about those neurodegenerative diseases and like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's. These are things that people are so fearful of, especially if they've been in their family. So I really am excited to open up that conversation.