Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / The Modified AIP Diet for Hashimoto’s: What Mickey Trescott Wants Every Patient to Know | Ep. 200
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to episode 200 of the Health with Hashimoto's podcast. 200!
- 0:05This is a huge milestone. Did you know that most podcasts, especially when they
- 0:10are launched by just like one person, no team, nothing behind them,
- 0:15they don't go beyond 10 episodes.
- 0:17And here you are supporting me as I release episode 200.
- 0:22Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening.
- 0:26Thank you for subscribing and following however you do it in the platform that you listen on.
- 0:30If you have left a rating and review, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
- 0:35That is what tells the algorithms on all of the different platforms that this
- 0:39podcast is worth listening to and they push it out to more people.
- 0:43So thank you so much for supporting me. This is going to be a busy week for
- 0:48the Health of Hashimoto's podcast.
- 0:49Today I have an interview for you. I wanted to do something special for episode 200.
- 0:54And one of the most popular topics that I talk about and that people ask about is diet.
- 1:00So today I am interviewing Mickey Trescott, and she's going to talk about the autoimmune protocol.
- 1:07I did not realize that this protocol was essentially started by a group of women,
- 1:12and Mickey is one of those women who started it.
- 1:15So her story and all of the information is shared.
- 1:18Is phenomenal. I think you're going to really enjoy this episode.
- 1:21And then on Monday, it is May 25th, which is annual World Thyroid Day.
- 1:27So I will have an episode like with the basics that if somebody,
- 1:33if you want to just share one episode with somebody to say this is Hashimoto's
- 1:37or this is thyroid, that will be the episode to share.
- 1:41So May 25th, every year, I try to do something fun. So that's going to be this
- 1:46coming Monday if you're listening in real time.
- 1:48And then because Mickey is releasing a new book, I will also do my monthly book
- 1:54review episode, and that will be on Saturday.
- 1:57And then finally, before I hit play on the interview, head down to the show
- 2:01notes where you will find a link so you can pre-order Mickey's new book. It is a gorgeous book.
- 2:06I have it in my hand right now as I record.
- 2:09It is absolutely gorgeous. You can look at the episode cover of the picture
- 2:13and you can see it. It releases on May 26.
- 2:16So if you're listening in real time, it is May 21st today when this episode
- 2:20releases and the book comes out in just a couple of days.
- 2:24So you can head over to Amazon or your local book retailer and pre-order it
- 2:29and then you can get it next week.
- 2:30Welcome to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast. This is where you will find
- 2:33clarity and simple, sustainable strategies to feel better.
- 2:38I want to help you figure out your root causes.
- 2:41My name is Esther Yunkin. I am a registered nurse.
- 2:44I know how exhausting it is to live with fatigue, brain fog,
- 2:48and the ups and downs of Hashimoto's. And that is why I'm here.
- 2:51I'm here to cut through the confusion and to give you practical steps to
- 2:56support your body, and calm your immune system so that you can regain your energy
- 3:00and feel like yourself again. Welcome back to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
- 3:04Today, I am joined by Mickey Trescott. She has her master's degree in functional
- 3:09nutrition, which is so phenomenal.
- 3:12I don't know about you, but I have seen so many influencers on social media
- 3:17talking about nutrition and talking about autoimmune and talking about Hashimoto's
- 3:21and how they have the best advice because they have personal experience.
- 3:28Well, Mickey has personal experience. She was diagnosed with Hashimoto's in her
- 3:3120s, but then she has a master's degree in functional nutrition.
- 3:35So I'm super excited for this conversation.
- 3:38She is releasing a brand new cookbook.
- 3:41It is the new autoimmune protocol. So if you're curious about the AIP diet,
- 3:47that is what we're going to talk about today.
- 3:49Welcome, Mickey. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
- 3:52Yeah, thank you so much, Esther, for having me. So I am an autoimmune patient, first and foremost.
- 3:58This is kind of how I got into doing what I do. About 15 years ago,
- 4:02I was diagnosed with celiac and Hashimoto's disease after a pretty severe health crisis.
- 4:09So I know now, in retrospect, a lot of autoimmune patients report the average
- 4:13of being six years and five doctors, according to the Autoimmune Association.
- 4:17My diagnosis was a little bit faster at two years, but there was some unresolved
- 4:23stuff, and I had a pretty crazy crash. So I ended up with white matter lesions
- 4:28in my brain, so they thought maybe I had multiple sclerosis.
- 4:32I also had a lot of pains in my chest cavity, like pleurisy and costochondritis.
- 4:38So maybe I had like a connective tissue issue.
- 4:41So I was kind of bouncing around from different specialists and they landed
- 4:45on celiac and Hashimoto's told me, you know, your thyroid's normal.
- 4:49Just you don't need any treatment despite being completely debilitated, being bedridden.
- 4:54And previously, I had been a super active person in my 20s.
- 4:59Yeah, I was rock climbing. I was cycling. I was running. I was doing all the things.
- 5:02And then all of a sudden, I literally could not even work my coffee shop job.
- 5:06So that's really what led me to do research about diet and autoimmune disease.
- 5:12I'd had a prior job working as a chef, so I had been working under very well-trained
- 5:18chefs, kind of learning from them.
- 5:21Some of them had like holistic background where they were cooking Ayurvedic
- 5:25and all kinds of different interesting medicinal ways. And so it really...
- 5:30Inspired me to kind of lean back on that and think maybe diet could be a solution.
- 5:36And that's how I found the autoimmune protocol.
- 5:39And of course, back then, it was this thing that was one sentence in,
- 5:44you know, functional medicine circles and ancestral medicine circles.
- 5:48It was kind of nobody's child, but, you know, a bunch of researchers were talking about it.
- 5:53And as a patient, I was like, I'm just going to try this. And I found some other
- 5:57women that were also trying it for different autoimmune conditions like IBD, multiple sclerosis.
- 6:03We formed a little group on Facebook, which, you know, today would be kind of
- 6:07the girlfriend group chat.
- 6:09And we were just all sharing experiences with each other, implementing this
- 6:13thing that was, again, a sentence in, you know, a few different resources.
- 6:17And out of that and out of our collective experience where we all kind of recovered
- 6:22our health using this came the movement of AIP growing,
- 6:27you know, to expand to other people and conditions and eventually books and
- 6:30everything and kind of led me on the path to where I'm at today.
- 6:35Wow. That's, wow.
- 6:38You went from super healthy, super active to bedridden to now you're healthy again.
- 6:45And diet was at the core of your healing journey.
- 6:50I love that. And like you said, it was one sentence. So can you tell us, how is AIP...
- 6:57Evolved from what was that one sentence? And then through the years, what is it now?
- 7:02Yeah, so back then, there was this paleo diet caveat where if you have autoimmune
- 7:07conditions, you might consider removing grains, legumes, eggs,
- 7:12nuts, seeds, and nightshades.
- 7:13And today, we know that as core AIP. That's kind of the original autoimmune protocol.
- 7:18But that was literally the sentence, take out these foods in addition to like
- 7:22a paleo diet, or in functional medicine. They were using specific elimination
- 7:26diets for autoimmune disease that had the same list of foods.
- 7:29And the reason why these foods were highlighted is because there was some research
- 7:33at the time in, you know, specific foods showing how they interact with the
- 7:39gut environment, specifically with leaky gut.
- 7:41And I'm sure your listeners are familiar with kind of those tight junctions
- 7:45and, you know, anything that people are sensitive to that can kind of provoke
- 7:49an immune response can kind of open up those tight junctions.
- 7:52Set off the immune system.
- 7:54Of course, with autoimmune disease, we have a wonky immune system already.
- 7:57So these researchers were basically theorizing if we take out all of these foods
- 8:01that somebody could be sensitive to, then that kind of clears the slate and they might feel better.
- 8:06There was no advice of like what to do next. So there was no reintroductions. It was just this diet.
- 8:12And at the time, you know, I discovered it. I experienced really meaningful
- 8:17improvement in my health.
- 8:18I will say I've had also good medical care on alongside of that.
- 8:21So it took me about nine months after I discovered AIP. I experienced a lot of improvement.
- 8:27Then I saw a doctor who was finally willing to treat my thyroid.
- 8:31I think that was doctor number six for me, specifically with the Hashimoto's,
- 8:35which, you know, if you have Hashimoto's, like, you're probably not unfamiliar with that experience.
- 8:39And I needed that, too. You know, the diet was a part, the medication,
- 8:42you know, type and dose and everything was a part.
- 8:45But together, those things really led to meaningful improvements for myself
- 8:49and a lot of other people. And then that's kind of where the movement was born
- 8:53and where it turned into, you know, thanks to Dr.
- 8:56Sarah Ballantyne, who is actually one of the original six women who I did AIP
- 9:00with, you know, she has a background, PhD-level research biomechanics.
- 9:05And so she used her research background to kind of solidify it into a protocol
- 9:09like, let's do this for, you know, a month or three, and let's reintroduce foods
- 9:14based on allergy and immunology research.
- 9:17So that was kind of the original autoimmune protocol was, you know,
- 9:20you eliminate the foods, you do it for a defined period of time,
- 9:24maybe a month or two, but people honestly back then were doing it far too long.
- 9:28And then you reintroduce foods to see individually how each food affects you.
- 9:33Now today, fast forward 15 years.
- 9:38We have medical studies starting around 2015.
- 9:42AIP has been studied as the whole diet and lifestyle approach in humans with
- 9:47different autoimmune conditions.
- 9:49So while this original research was all a lot of animal model or a lot of single
- 9:54food in humans, it was pieced together from a bunch of different sources.
- 9:58We now have data showing that AIP used in specific populations like IBD,
- 10:05which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
- 10:08That pilot study was conducted in 2015. The results came out around 2017,
- 10:13and there were about 17 people, and they showed that within six weeks,
- 10:1873% of them reached clinical remission, which, if you guys are familiar with Crohn's and colitis,
- 10:24you know, they're not asking people if they feel better subjectively.
- 10:27They're going in with a scope, they're doing a colonoscopy, an endoscopy,
- 10:31they're looking at the tissue, and they're getting a visual reference.
- 10:34So that is really meaningful.
- 10:36There have been two studies in Hashimoto's, which I know your audience is really
- 10:40excited about. I am too, because I'm a Hashimoto's patient, showing symptom
- 10:44improvement in either 10 and 12 weeks were the two different study lengths,
- 10:48and we can talk more about that.
- 10:50There have also been, has been a study in psoriasis and a couple studies in rheumatoid arthritis.
- 10:56And actually one of the rheumatoid arthritis studies was actually just published
- 10:59a couple weeks ago, conducted in New Zealand.
- 11:02So now there's all this research about real people, groups of people.
- 11:06Of course, we're defining categories. So this RA group, I think, was like nine.
- 11:11Hashimoto's was 17 in one and 30 in another. IBD is like 16 or 17.
- 11:16But these are real humans living their normal lives. They have autoimmune disease.
- 11:21Each paper defines kind of how long and how sick they were.
- 11:24But that information out of that has really informed the AIP community and the
- 11:30practitioner community in how to use the protocol and then now how to modify it even. So, yeah.
- 11:36I have a book that's coming out. It's called The New Autoimmune Protocol,
- 11:39and it really synthesizes all of this research in a way that,
- 11:43you know, a regular person can understand, but then also show why now we have
- 11:48that core AIP, which is kind of that original framework.
- 11:51And then now we have modified AIP, which is a new framework that has kind of
- 11:55come out of the research and actually come out of how effective core AIP was.
- 12:00It's extremely effective, but it is also stressful and not everybody can do
- 12:06it. So over the years, you'll hear people saying, I tried AIP,
- 12:09it was too hard, I just couldn't stick with it.
- 12:11Now we have this new approach, it's more affordable, it's more accessible because
- 12:15it includes some foods that make it really convenient.
- 12:19They expand some nutrient density.
- 12:21And so, yeah, that's what I'm really excited about with this launch.
- 12:25Yeah. One of my most popular podcast episodes is I think number 44.
- 12:29And it's about like choosing the right diet for you.
- 12:33Because like you said, adopting a new diet can be super stressful. And that was my story.
- 12:39You know, I was told to stay away from all of these foods. And I ended up like
- 12:42almost not eating. But I can't eat. I don't know what to eat.
- 12:47And therefore, I'm just not going to eat, which is obviously not healthy.
- 12:52Yeah. Mentally stressful, physically stressful, like all of the above.
- 12:58So what would you, what advice would you give to somebody if they're just diagnosed?
- 13:02I had a message in my inbox just the other day, just diagnosed.
- 13:06They told me to stay away from, I think she said dairy, gluten,
- 13:11and eggs is what her provider told her. And they said, this is lifelong.
- 13:15What would you tell somebody in that spot? Yeah, so this is a really great question
- 13:20because, you know, specifically with the autoimmune protocol,
- 13:23so AIP is not something that's lifelong.
- 13:25That's something that a lot of people mistake about it is they think that it's
- 13:29a diet that you just apply either for prevention or for maintenance.
- 13:32And the Ottoman Protocol is actually something that you go through and you do
- 13:36to experience how your body feels when you lower that inflammation,
- 13:40you reintroduce foods, and then you land on a perfect diet for you long term.
- 13:45And you also have this skill of how diet affects you and really learning how
- 13:50these different foods affect you.
- 13:52So it's really not a diet. It's just kind of something that you use,
- 13:56a tool that you use in order to basically design your ideal diet going forward.
- 14:01Something when somebody is facing down some eliminations like gluten,
- 14:06dairy, and eggs, those are very, very common food triggers.
- 14:09And I don't know if this person, maybe they had a food sensitivity test, which is very common.
- 14:14That is a big reason why a provider might be like, you're not going to be able
- 14:18to have these foods for a long time.
- 14:20And of course, that's really hard, but those
- 14:22foods might actually be real triggers for her. And so she's going to have to
- 14:25figure out how to eliminate them.
- 14:27So my advice is actually, you know, the same whether or not you're staring down
- 14:31like a celiac disease like I had.
- 14:34I'm going to have to remove gluten from my diet forever. I know that right at the outset.
- 14:39Or if you're going to go through something that's like a short-term protocol,
- 14:42like the autoimmune protocol, you need to learn how to sustainably make the change.
- 14:47And so the preparation is really where a lot of people get lost.
- 14:52And something that I've added to this book, the new autoimmune protocol,
- 14:56specifically the transition phase to the autoimmune protocol, needs to be more robust.
- 15:01And you can apply this to any type of diet change that anybody is going to make
- 15:06that's going to be long term.
- 15:07And really the steps are to really define your why. So like, why are you doing this?
- 15:13You know, this person wants to feel healthy, but why do they want to feel healthy.
- 15:17What is their vision of health? A lot of us, you know, we're so sick in our
- 15:21bodies, we can't imagine a future.
- 15:23I really remember feeling like this. Like, I couldn't imagine my future as like
- 15:27aging, already being so sick at 26.
- 15:30I just, I had no ability to comprehend healing.
- 15:34And I think that's actually a really important part of going through the process
- 15:38of healing is imagining yourself feeling better and then also experiencing life
- 15:43in the way that you want to, whether or not you have perfect health.
- 15:47So I talk about in the book, I have this exercise defining your health vision,
- 15:51which is really just kind of clarifying for yourself, like what health means
- 15:56to you and why you want to be healthy.
- 15:58And like for me, I define health as the ability to spend time and do things
- 16:03with the people that I love.
- 16:04And I like that expansive approach because it doesn't require me to have like
- 16:09perfect lab work, right?
- 16:11It doesn't require me to be able to like lift a certain amount of weight in
- 16:14the gym, right? Like it is really.
- 16:17Allows a lot of variation. And I will go through seasons where,
- 16:22you know, I'm here or there.
- 16:24But like, when I think back on that, I'm like, this is why I do what I do.
- 16:28And I can still do these things even when I'm kind of not feeling my best, right?
- 16:32So I love that exercise for anybody who's about to go through change,
- 16:36because you can really fall back on that when things get hard, right?
- 16:41And then the second thing that I love doing is a confidence assessment.
- 16:45So I have this exercise in the book, there's about 10 different questions,
- 16:4910 different areas where you're
- 16:51going to rate yourself from a 1 to 10 how confident you are in that area.
- 16:55Because whenever we change a diet or do something with our lifestyle,
- 16:59everybody has a different friction point, right?
- 17:02Some people, you know, they can't go up $1 in their food budget without stress.
- 17:07Other people have a lot of money in their budget, but they just don't have the time, right?
- 17:11Some people don't know how to cook.
- 17:14Other people don't even know how to pick out a sweet potato, right?
- 17:17So your barrier, you know, it might be an unsupportive partner.
- 17:21It might be that you're weighed down and caretaking for an elderly family member or kids.
- 17:26You know, whatever that is, that's your unique thing. And so putting that out
- 17:30in front and saying, okay, here is my thing. Here's the thing that's going to make this really hard.
- 17:35And then before you do anything, spending time kind of pre-solving that barrier.
- 17:39So if finances are an issue, it's like, where can I get these ingredients for the best price?
- 17:44How do I need to alter my routine, maybe to go to different stores or,
- 17:48you know, get a membership to Costco or, you know, find a creative solution
- 17:53to that problem instead of trying to do that while you're also trying to implement the diet?
- 17:58Because that's just the hardest thing to do. So that would be my advice.
- 18:02That's very helpful. I absolutely needed something like that when I was first
- 18:06diagnosed. And I know a lot of people do.
- 18:08Will you tell us about your book? Because it's not just here's the science,
- 18:13here's the research, here's AIP, but you also have a cookbook.
- 18:16So tell us about your book.
- 18:18Oh, yeah. So about half the book is the new autoimmune protocol program guide.
- 18:24And it's written to be extremely clear and simple for people with brain fog
- 18:29because, you know, I'm a Hashimoto's girly myself.
- 18:31You know, I have my moments to just be really clear. This is how you do it.
- 18:35These are the parameters.
- 18:37Now, we were talking a little bit about AIP back in the day,
- 18:40which was like one sentence.
- 18:41Now you get half of a book where I'm just telling you exactly like,
- 18:45okay, you're going to transition following these steps. This is how long you're
- 18:48going to spend doing each of the steps. Here's how you know when you're ready.
- 18:52Then you do the elimination, which is kind of where all the work is done.
- 18:55You're going to do it for 30 to 90 days. You're going to track your symptoms
- 18:58and hopefully your baseline increases.
- 19:01When you get that baseline increase, you're going to walk through reintroductions,
- 19:05which I talk about, you know, the stages.
- 19:07You're going to reintroduce foods that are most likely to be successful and
- 19:11most nutrient dense because, of course, we want an expansive approach to diet.
- 19:15Again, this is not like this forever restricted thing, right?
- 19:19And you're going to follow a procedure so that you can actually identify which
- 19:22foods are causing your symptoms.
- 19:24And so I talk about all of that, including like frequently asked questions and some troubleshooting.
- 19:30And I also cover the science in a way that like if you wanted to show your partner
- 19:33who loves science and is kind of skeptical or your doctor, you could show that
- 19:38and it all has references and everything in those human studies that I talked
- 19:42about because that is really important.
- 19:43We want to know that the thing that we're doing, the method,
- 19:46is actually something that people have put to the test.
- 19:49Of course, you know, these groups are pretty small, but they do tell us that
- 19:53about three out of four people experience meaningful improvement when they do
- 19:58something like the autoimmune protocol,
- 20:00even as short as like six weeks in this IBD study, up to about three months.
- 20:05And so hopefully that is just a really clear package that everybody can understand
- 20:10if you're interested in AIP, this is kind of the new resource.
- 20:14And then the second half of the book is a cookbook. And it's a cookbook that
- 20:18has a core AIP recipe collection and a modified AIP recipe collection.
- 20:22Now, I've been writing recipes for 15 years. I've written over 500 of them.
- 20:27This is my fourth cookbook.
- 20:28And really the energy that I brought to this recipe development was how can
- 20:33I bring you guys these recipes that are the most nutrient dense,
- 20:38eliminate all the ingredients that we're not having in the elimination phase,
- 20:42but also not be weird and be affordable and like one pot and a lot, not a lot of cleanup.
- 20:48So like, that's a lot of filters, right? You might be like, I think,
- 20:52thought about that and like nothing comes up.
- 20:54Well, I can tell you these recipes are definitely the types of things that I
- 20:58have put so much time and energy into just figuring out how you can hack making
- 21:03food, especially like batch cooking, you know, making a few extra portions to throw in your freezer.
- 21:09That's something that I really recommend for like when you don't have a lot
- 21:13of capacity, you wake up, you're in a flare, we have autoimmune disease, it's going to happen.
- 21:17So just making sure that you have easy options, but also that they're not weird
- 21:21because, you know, sometimes we're eating with our families and like we want
- 21:26everybody to be on board, right?
- 21:27We don't want to be trying to recreate something that's just not working out
- 21:30with a bunch of expensive ingredients.
- 21:33So half of it's a cookbook.
- 21:35You mentioned like waking up and all of a sudden you're in a flare.
- 21:38In that situation, would you recommend like restarting the protocol or what's
- 21:44what's the protocol in that situation?
- 21:47This is an awesome, awesome question. Thank you so much, Esther,
- 21:49for asking it. So I love this concept that I call battening down the hatches
- 21:53and unfurling the sails.
- 21:55And battening down the hatches is when you start waking up and like for me with
- 21:59Hashimoto's, I'm just like not getting out of bed after my alarm.
- 22:02I'm not recovering from my workouts. I'm starting to notice those signs of like
- 22:06engine trouble. Like we're maybe going to go into a flare here.
- 22:09What I do is I take a couple steps back with my diet to change.
- 22:14Eliminate foods that I call my gray area foods. So when we reintroduce foods,
- 22:19it's very rarely a clear reaction.
- 22:22You're going to get a lot of reactions, like my reaction to eggs.
- 22:25It's like I eat them once, I'm fine. I eat them the second day, I'm like, digestively.
- 22:32I eat them the third day, and I am definitely constipated and bloated,
- 22:36and my gut is inflamed, and I know that that's a no.
- 22:39So they're gray area foods for me. Will I have eggs once in a while,
- 22:43of course, one dose of them like does not bother me.
- 22:46But eating them in like all the time is not really work for me.
- 22:50So when I'm battening down the hatches, I'm not having any of those gray area
- 22:54foods. I'm just kind of going a couple steps back.
- 22:56For some people, that might be pretty close to the elimination phase.
- 23:00For other people who have included some other food sustainably,
- 23:04they know that it's not a problem for them. Like for me, this is rice.
- 23:07Like I have never had a reaction to rice. Rice is very supportive to me. I'm very active.
- 23:12I'm not going to leave that out. I know it works for me. But eggs, for sure.
- 23:16Nightshades, dairy, I'm leaving these things that are maybe a little more questionable out.
- 23:21And then I'm relying on foundational foods that I know make me feel
- 23:25good. So bone broth, lots of protein, fermented foods, colorful vegetables.
- 23:32A lot of times when I'm in a flare, I don't want a lot of raw food.
- 23:35I actually tolerate better like slow cooked, you know, slow cooker or pressure
- 23:40cooker, roasted, slow roasted meats, that kind of thing feels really good to
- 23:44my system and nourishing when I'm like that.
- 23:46So that's kind of like a batten down the hatches. Then when you're feeling good,
- 23:50you know, you're like, I've not felt my Hashimoto symptoms in a while.
- 23:53I'm waking up feeling energized.
- 23:55You know, I'm going to go on vacation. I'm going to live a little.
- 23:58It doesn't mean I'm going to eat gluten. Like, I have celiac disease.
- 24:01Like, that would not be smart.
- 24:02But I might have, like, you know, an egg, gluten-free egg dessert or something.
- 24:08You know, something that's, like, a little special, you know,
- 24:10because I'm on this trip and I want to eat out and I want to try something.
- 24:13And I know what the consequences are. That's the most important thing.
- 24:17Once you've done reintroductions, you've kind of experienced that progress,
- 24:21you've kind of experienced the symptoms, and then you get to decide if those
- 24:24symptoms are worth it for you long term, because that's all what we're doing here is, you know,
- 24:29trying to live our best lives and find fulfillment and joy.
- 24:34And sometimes that means, you know, like when we were all in college or,
- 24:38you know, young, staying up late, knowing that like we have a test the next
- 24:41day, we just like wanted to experience that.
- 24:43Everybody knew like it's going to be hard for my brain to focus and do well tomorrow.
- 24:47But guess what? I'm hanging out with my friends, you know, like,
- 24:50like, you know what you're getting into.
- 24:52So sometimes we do that with food when the consequences are not so extreme and
- 24:56we kind of know what we're getting into.
- 24:58Yes. We are all absolutely bio-individual. And like for myself,
- 25:03I even have to time things in my hormonal cycle.
- 25:06Like I know when I'm ovulating, I can eat certain things, but when I get closer to my period, it's,
- 25:12It's almost like batten down the hatches every single month because I know I'm
- 25:17more susceptible to junk going wrong.
- 25:20Yeah. And I mean, perimenopause, I just hit perimenopause a couple of years
- 25:24ago and I definitely notice, like you, a cyclical tolerance for food.
- 25:30And I'm not an expert in this area, but I have learned from other experts that
- 25:34like estrogen really controls histamine release, which is in the gut,
- 25:38which is like food sensitivity.
- 25:39So you can become sensitive to things that maybe you weren't sensitive to before,
- 25:44different combinations, different time of the month, you know,
- 25:47that is all real and valid.
- 25:49So yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up because that's something that I'm
- 25:52personally also working with at this time in my life.
- 25:56Every single day we get to like be the detective that solves our own personal mystery.
- 26:01But your book is going to be so helpful. So tell us again the name of the book
- 26:06and where people can find it. And when you said it's not quite out right now.
- 26:10Yeah, so it comes out on May 26th. It's called the new autoimmune protocol.
- 26:15It's got this beautiful navy blue cover with a little plate of some fermented
- 26:20food and veggies and chicken on the front.
- 26:23It is available worldwide. So it does there is a Kindle version.
- 26:27So no matter where you're listening, you can always get that digital version.
- 26:30And I would also say that I really believe in not gatekeeping AIP information.
- 26:35So I have a website called theautomineprotocol.com.
- 26:38All of the instructions, if you just want to like go check it out,
- 26:42everything's there for free.
- 26:43The book is just packaged in a way that I'm hoping that you find that helpful.
- 26:48That's a way that you can support me.
- 26:49But the information is all out there for free for everyone because I really
- 26:53want other people to be able to benefit from this information because of how
- 26:58much it was, like how hard it was when I was sick.
- 27:02I just want to make it better for the next person. So that's just kind of why I do what I do.
- 27:07That's awesome. And three out of four people are feeling better,
- 27:10according to all the actual research studies done.
- 27:13That is phenomenal. Yeah. So like with IBD, I'll just give you a little snapshot of the result.
- 27:18With IBD, six weeks, they saw 73% clinical remission.
- 27:23These were patients who had been sick for 19 years on average with IBD,
- 27:27which is like not newly diagnosed people.
- 27:30They were also people who were not in clinical remission despite being on all
- 27:34the best conventional drugs.
- 27:36So like biologics and steroids and everything was breaking through.
- 27:39So that was actually really amazing. They also did a survey of IBD patients
- 27:43of people who had used AIP, so this is a completely different population.
- 27:48They came up with the exact same 73% of people, self-reported that they reached
- 27:53clinical remission with AIP, which was really interesting.
- 27:56The Hashimoto's groups are challenging because we don't have clinical remission
- 28:00as a marker of progress with Hashimoto's.
- 28:03So, of course, we know that up to 60% of patients who have Hashimoto's and are
- 28:08treated correctly to target. So this means like our hormone levels are normal.
- 28:12We report symptoms that interfere with daily life. This is just a feature of Hashimoto's.
- 28:17It's just that it's why practitioners think it's like kind of a basic autoimmune disease.
- 28:22It's because they think that, you know, you correct the hormone deficiency and the problem goes away.
- 28:27Turns out it doesn't. We have lots of symptoms. So the symptom burden change
- 28:31in Hashimoto's in both the studies, there's an American study and there's a
- 28:35Polish study, was amazing across the board.
- 28:3830 to 60 percent of the symptoms were decreased by a lot.
- 28:42And if you guys are curious about this, I have lots of research reviews on theautomineprotocol.com
- 28:47where I break down all the results of the studies.
- 28:50The Polish team also actually did a nutrient comparison where they kept the
- 28:55calories, so the energy density, of the participants' diets before and after
- 28:59AIP exactly the same, so about 2,000 calories.
- 29:03And the participants lost an average of 8 pounds and 10% relative body fat without
- 29:09changing the energy density and without doing anything with their medication or their hormones.
- 29:13So this is something that, like, you know, with Hashimoto's,
- 29:16it's really hard to grasp, like, a meaningful change. Like with IBD,
- 29:20you can go in with a camera, you can take a picture, right?
- 29:23With Hashimoto's, it's just really hard to see when you feel better.
- 29:26But that Polish team did a really good job implementing some of those anthropometric changes.
- 29:32They did a thyroid ultrasound that showed that the swelling and inflammation
- 29:35in the thyroid decreased. So that was all really interesting.
- 29:39And then for rheumatoid arthritis, the study that just came out showed that
- 29:4377% of those participants that did, again, like an AIP trial for,
- 29:48I think, eight or 10 weeks, they experienced meaningful clinical improvement.
- 29:53I believe 30% of them reached clinical remission.
- 29:57So, you know, with each disease, the target's a little bit different,
- 29:59what that means, but it's a great result.
- 30:01So I would summarize all that to say, if you have an autoimmune disease.
- 30:05You haven't tried AIP, you know, chances are three out of four,
- 30:09you're going to get a meaningful improvement based on some of the evidence that we have.
- 30:13And I think that those are really good odds for trying to figure things out.
- 30:17And I would also say for that last person, having also worked one-on-one with
- 30:22people this whole 15 years of my practice,
- 30:25there are a lot of underlying causes that when people treat and when they work
- 30:30one-on-one with someone, they figure that out.
- 30:32That's the thing. That's the obstacle to them really getting better.
- 30:36That's not really something you can implement in a study.
- 30:38But I would say if you try AIP and it doesn't work for you, there are lots of
- 30:42providers you can work one-on-one with to kind of do that root cause troubleshooting.
- 30:48Yeah. So, you know, you're not one of the three out of four.
- 30:50You're that fourth. But there's still hope. You're not.
- 30:54This is not a life sentence. Absolutely.
- 30:57So, Mickey, if there is only one thing that somebody can take away from the
- 31:01conversation, what is the biggest thing that you want him or her to remember?
- 31:06Yeah. So my biggest takeaway is, you know, for everybody listening,
- 31:11one thing that you can do, even if you're not ready to start an elimination
- 31:13diet or do anything, just think about nutrient density.
- 31:16I think when we have chronic illness, we often think of eliminating and removing
- 31:21and avoiding, and that's very negative.
- 31:23I love to reframe it with a positive because every day we have three plus opportunities
- 31:29to nourish our bodies, and there are so many good things that we can say we
- 31:33know about food for everybody.
- 31:35You know, colorful plants, you know, omega-3s, fermented foods,
- 31:40you know, however you eat, these things are components of a healthy microbiome
- 31:44and they construct a healthy body, right?
- 31:47So just think of those three meals as an opportunity to nourish yourself with
- 31:51something that makes you feel good.
- 31:53And also pay attention, what makes me feel good? Because what makes me feel
- 31:57bad can get really like into a spiral.
- 32:00It's helpful, you know, it's information. but also paying attention to what
- 32:04makes you feel good because over the years the things that I really fall back
- 32:08on are the things that make me feel good.
- 32:10I chase those before I chase anything else and that just allows me to continue
- 32:15to feel positive and empowered and like I can do something to make myself feel better you know.
- 32:22So that's my advice. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
- 32:27Please discuss any changes with your trusted health care provider.
- 32:30To take your next step, join our school community and explore the courses available there.
- 32:35You do not have to figure your health out alone.
- 32:38So that is school, S-K-O-O-L dot com.