24: The Risks of IBD Drugs And The Natural Alternatives You Can Use

Biolgics are scary, but there are alternatives. I'm going to show you the op 5 most common Crohn's and Colitis drugs, how they work, side effects and some alternatives that you can safely use at home.


TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• The 5 main types of IBD drugs
• The long list of potential side effects 
• Fixing vs. Managing your disease
• Alternatives vs. Rx. medication
•  Precautions to take with supplements
• 3 Reasons why your IBD CAN BE REVERSED

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Transcript

Josh Dech:

IBD medication can be absolutely necessary and frankly lifechanging, but the question that you need to be asking is, is it safe? And if you're worried about the side effects, then you might also be wondering what can you do instead.

Now in this lesson, we're going to cover the five most common classifications of medication. We're going to talk with you about what they do and why they're used, as well as some of the pros and cons and the side effects of these medications that you're at risk for. And of course, some alternative options that have much lower risk and high rates of efficacy — contrary to what your doctors told you.

Crohn's and colitis are reversible.

Now I've helped hundreds of people reverse their bowel disease and I'm here to help you do it too, because inflammation always has a root cause — we just have to find it.

This is the Reversing Crohn’s and Colitis Naturally Podcast.

Now I do these live trainings in my Facebook group every single week and put the audios here for you to listen to. If you want to watch the video versions of these episodes, just click the link in the show notes to get access to our Facebook group and YouTube channel. And for weekly updates, information, tips, and tricks, you can sign up for our email list by clicking the link in the show notes below.

If you don’t know me, my name is Josh Dech. I'm an IBD specialist, medical lecturer, physicians consultant, as well as a scientific strategist and education director for the Root Cause for Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. My whole career is dedicated to helping you reverse your gut disease — so your IBD and even severe IBS.

And today we are talking about pharmaceuticals: what they're used to treat, why they're used — that’s going to be the good, the bad, the ugly, and of course the alternatives.

So here’s what we're starting with: the five different types. There are five main classifications, we'll call them, of medication. I'm going to walk you through what each of them are, what they do — you'll be very familiar with some of these medication names. I’m going to walk you through how they work inside of your body and why they’re used.

And the five I'm going to go through with you here are in order. So depending on where you're at in the order probably depends on your level of severity or length of time you've had this — or how many drugs you've quote-unquote “failed.” They often use that term. I call that medical gaslighting, which we can get into.

But here's what I want to tell you now — we're going to go through the five types of medications.

So the first ones we're going to use — we're going to call these 5-ASAs, also known as aminosalicylates. So these are going to be your drugs, most commonly mesalamine. This one's got a few different names — mesalamine, like Asacol, Lialda, Pentasa — it's got different names. But the idea being: you can take it oral, you can take it suppository, it comes in a foam — all kinds of ways you can take it.

That's the first one.

The second one that you're going to see — that you may have already used — it's called corticosteroids.

Now these are going to be things like your -sones or even your -sonides. These are going to be your corticosteroids — so things like Entocort, Uceris are kind of the trade names we call them, but these are the generic names — the drug under the label.

The next, number three we’re going to put up here, is called your immunomodulators — I'll use immunomods for short. Immunomodulator drugs — so these are your Imuran, like your azathioprine, your methotrexate. Okay, so these are modulating or modifying your immune system.

The fourth class — these are the scary ones that most of you want to avoid. I hear this all the time when you're talking to me, asking me questions like: "I'm scared of these ones!"

These are the big bad Bs — oops. I was trying to get clever with my words and couldn't even spell.

It’s going to be biologics. I think I know how to spell that word by now. So biologics — this is your Entyvio, your Remicade, your Stelara, your Humira.

And the last one, which is actually relatively new over the last few years, and considered to be a bit... I’ll say more scary because it is a little more unknown because of how new it is — these last ones, this is the fifth class we're going to talk about today — is called a JAK inhibitor.

JAK inhibitor — just because of how they work in the different pathways. But this one you’ll know as your Xeljanz.

Okay, so you got your 5-ASAs, your mesalamines. You got your steroids — so prednisone, budesonide. You got your immunomodulating drugs, so things like Imuran, methotrexate. Then of course your biologics, the big scary Bs — right? These are your Entyvio, Remicade, Stelara, Humira. And then of course we have your Xeljanz.

Now, this isn't a complete list. These are just the most common ones that I see in my practice. There is a nonstop onslaught of new medications being made all the time.

If you see me kind of leaning and adjusting here — I had ankle surgery last week, so I'm just standing on one leg because I'm not allowed to put pressure on it.

Here's what I want to talk to you about.

I'm going to go through each of these medications. We're going to go through how they work inside your body, what they're doing — and during this entire time, if you think you know what they have in common, I want you to drop it below, okay? The second you think you know what they have in common — feel free to take a guess. If you think you know what all these drugs have in common, I want you to put it below. I want to hear from you, okay?

Here’s the first one: 5-ASAs. These block — okay — they block inflammatory mediators.

So there are different things in your body that produce — they signal and say, “Hey, let’s bring in the cavalry.”

Think of it this way. If you have an accident on the highway — cars pile up — there are signals that go out to call in things like your fire, your ambulance, your police, to block down the roadway and help whoever is in danger.

Then you have your mediators, which are the ones that are going to be your drivers. You have the actual immune cells — these are your firemen, your medics, your policewomen, whoever's on scene there, okay? So these are taking care of you.

These block those mediators. They block a lot of those signaling pathways and say, “You know what? Don’t come. There’s an accident on the highway, but let’s zip our lip. Let’s not tell anybody about it.” And they block that signal.

So it can help control inflammation. Okay?

That’s number one — it’s what your mesalamine does: it blocks.
The next one that we talked about — number two — these are your steroids. This is your prednisone, this is your budesonide.

These ones here — they actually modulate gene expression that is involved in inflammation.

So your genetics — we often go, “My genetics, it’s why my eyes are blue, it’s why my skin is this pale, it’s why my hair is blondish sometimes.” These are my genes.

But there are also genetics that are active and ongoing — I mean, genes have to keep my eyes blue, right?

So what happens: you have certain genes inside of your body, inside of your digestive system, that are responsible for these tissues. And they look at certain inflammatory things, and they go, “Yep, we’re going to turn you up, or turn you down.”

They're the signals that say, “We’ve got a fire on the highway — let’s scream really loud or really quiet.” And they make that difference.

These are the ones that will determine: “Hey, there’s some bacteria here — let’s react to it.” These are what your genes are doing on an ongoing basis.

They modify this expression and say, “You know what? Maybe let’s be really quiet this time. Let’s not make any noise about the accident on the highway.”

Another thing they do is they inhibit the release of these pro-inflammatory — here, let me use this word — cytokines. Just an inflammatory process — inflammatory cells and proteins in the body are made all the time. And cytokine is in this umbrella — and so it’s one of your inflammatory things.

These also suppress your signaling pathways. If you want to get sciencey — you have your NF-kappa B, your AP-1s — and they also reduce what we’ll call your immune cell recruitment.

So these are the cells now, right? We got those signaling pathways, we got the radio that says, “Hey, call up the police and fire and call up the paramedics.”

And then you have the cells that actually come to clean up. That’s going to be the workers, your people, your emergency crew.

This actually reduces how many you call to the scene.

So the reason you’re inflamed is your body says: “Hey, big show, big screen, we have a problem, let’s bring in the cavalry!”

And they all show up on scene. They block up traffic, and there’s a big to-do. That’s inflammation inside your body. You have all these huge signaling pathways and all these immune cells coming to the rescue to try to heal you.

This is why you’re so inflamed.

What these do is they just quiet that down and say: “You know what? Don’t bring the whole army — bring like 10 guys. It’s a little inflammation, but it’s not a whole ton.” So it controls that response.

Okay, the third one that we’re looking at — number three — these are going to be your immunomodulators.

Now these are the ones that we just mentioned — of course your azathioprine, or like Imuran, methotrexate — some common drugs there.

These reduce the immune cell activity.

So again — the firefighters, the police — they say, “You know what? Do a half-ass job here. Don’t do a whole lot.” That keeps the inflammation down.

They also manage that white blood cell activity, and they reduce overall immune activity — so the signaling back and forth, all the stuff is kind of quieted, right?

So it’s reducing your immune responses.

If you’ve not caught on just yet to what all these have in common, let me know in the comments if you know what it is.

Okay, so 5-ASAs — they block your inflammatory mediators.

Your corticosteroids — these are modifying gene expression, inhibiting these inflammatory responses.

You have your immunomodulators, which are reducing your immune cells and your immune activity.

The next one we talked about here — of course — we have your biologics, and I’m just going to put JAK inhibitors because these are a very specific inhibitory pathway — not going to get into today.

But these ones will block something — if you guys like the science — called TNF-alpha.
I guess it’s going to be a little A — um — that’s tumor necrosis factor alpha. So TNF-alpha, it’s an inflammatory thing.

And then you have your — again — your cytokine inflammatory response. You heard me use that word before.

And then these also block and help regulate what we call your T-helper cells.

If you’ve heard me talk before about TH, TH1, TH2, TH17 — TH is T — think of your immune system like an octopus. These TH are the arms — what sort of pathways, we’ll say, so to speak, are these immune systems going to be responding on?

These T-helper cells sort of work in these pathways. And so your biologics target some of these TNF responses, and they block some of these immune cell responses or help regulate these immune responses that are implicated or connected to your inflammatory responses.

So again, we’re going in and saying, “Hey, rescue guy — don’t come.” Or, “Hey, you know what? All the fire crews coming, all the police and paramedics — let’s just turn those down or shut them down entirely.” So that’s what they’re doing.

What do these have in common?
These five types of drugs that we just talked about — your 5-ASAs, your steroids, your immunomodulators, biologics, and JAK inhibitors — what do they have in common?

Spoiler — if you haven’t guessed it already — last chance to put it in the chat…

They block inflammation or they suppress the immune system. That’s what they have in common. They stop the response.

But let me pose a question to you:

Do you want to stop and block your responses to the problem — or do you want to fix the problem?

Let’s go back to my favorite example. This marker here is going to be my nail.

I’m going for a walk. I step on a nail — goes through my foot. Now that nail’s stuck inside of my foot.

What I need to do now is go, “Okay, do I want to block my pain response to that nail — or do I want to pull the nail out of my foot?”

This is the question we need to be asking.

Now unfortunately, as you know, you’re told it’s a genetic, autoimmune, idiopathic — meaning no known cause — type condition. So all you can do is block or inhibit.

If you believe that, of course, that’s your only option. We're going to talk about this later.

What they have in common is they block it.

Now here’s what I do want to ask you — if there was a laundry list of side effects for these things…

In fact, I took the 20 most common drugs that are used, and I actually compiled the list of the side effects.

That’s this thing back here — this big long paper is back here. I compiled the list of the side effects of the 20 most common IBD medications.

How many side effects do you think there are?

Different unique side effects across 20 of the most commonly used IBD medications?

Now’s your chance. Okay. Three… two… one…

This paper here is three full sheets. Nearly three full sheets, at 12 font, double spaced, standard print — three full sheets. I don’t know if you can see that there.

There are 70 different side effects. Seventy.

The most common ones that we see on this whole list across the board are things like:

• Nausea
• Diarrhea

Well — you’ve got IBD. The vast majority of you are not constipated. You’re dealing with diarrhea, and already some nausea, inability to eat.

Other side effects you get:

• Abdominal pain
• Headaches
• Fatigue

Give me a hands-up, give me a thumb-up if you have abdominal pain already, if you’ve already got headache or already got fatigue.

They can also run the risk of causing rash or skin infections — let me know if you’ve got one of those already.

They can make you susceptible to other infections inside of the body.

Well, Crohn’s disease and fistulas go hand in hand — you’ve already got infection risk.

They can cause fever, joint pain, even weight gain in some of these.

Now these are not uncommon side effects for bowel disease — weight loss is a bit more common, so there’s your outlier.

This three-sheet list — these are all the possible side effects.

So if you’re worried about some of these, I don’t blame you — I would be too.

And so we’re talking about what can be done and other alternatives to maybe working to get yourself better — we’re going to give you some options here that you can use that are highly anti-inflammatory. They work on a lot of the same pathways — these gene regulation, these inflammatory or cytokine or TNF responses — they operate on a lot of the same pathways.

Now I will preface — there is a time and place for medication. I am not anti-medication. I like to use medication to bridge the gap from where you are right now — which is inflamed, having a diagnosable disease condition, and ultimately a completely altered or destroyed quality of life.

These can be wonderful to take you from where you are to getting your life back — but they are a Band-Aid.

If I have this nail in my foot, it is numbing cream for the pain — it is not removing the nail. That is ultimately our solution.

However, in the meantime, to get some relief — more natural, with little to almost zero side effects — I’m going to give you a nice comprehensive list of things that you can start using to give yourself some inflammatory relief.

They won’t work for everybody — but then again, medications, these immunosuppressives, need to be 30% successful in clinical trials to actually pass and be given to you — at the tune of $10,000 to $20,000 a month. So, you know — pick your poison.

Okay, so here’s what we’re going to look at — and I find these extraordinarily effective.

And again, 300+ clients we’ve helped now reverse. I’ve seen thousands of clients on these types of supplements over the years in different careers.

So the ones I’m going to give you are highly effective.

The first one we’re going to look at is called PRMs.

These are pro-resolving mediators. You’ll get these as extracts out of omegas, but they are extremely powerful and they help mediate some of these inflammatory responses.

They are a bit more expensive, especially for high quality.

I can put a link if you ask — and if you’re on the podcast or on the YouTube, I’ll put a link below and you can get access to that.

There is a shop that we can get you 15% off from one of the best companies — it’s called NutriN — and we have a good working relationship with them.

But PRMs are pretty expensive — but worth it.

In fact, I recently gave them to a client of mine who was going through an active flare — she’s like, “I’m flaring up, don’t know what to do.” I said, “Great, take these PRMs.” Problem solved. Did not flare — because they’re that powerful.

The next ones we can look at are going to be things like palmitoylethanolamide — again, this helps regulate the immune response — typically very safe.

Another one, which isn’t — I’d say it’s kind of a medium-price supplement — is called butyrate.

These ones — I think BodyBio actually sells them. You can get either sodium or I think it’s a calcium butyrate — doesn’t really matter which one you use.

But butyrate is actually a short-chain fatty acid — it’s made by your gut bacteria and it has anti-inflammatory properties. It actually helps repair and sort of build up that gut lining.

It can help modify and modulate those immune responses — can be very powerful stuff.

But sometimes the dosing you need might be anywhere from 2 to 10 times the bottle — so you might blow through it pretty quick.

But again — if you’re in acute use, if you’re worried about flaring — mate, it can be extremely powerful.

The next one you can use is CBD — I will put a slash for THC, though it’s the CBD that’s been studied.

Because of the cannabinoid receptors inside your body — you have them in your gut, your groin, your brain, your eyes — they’re all over your organs. They’re very, very powerful — cannabinoid receptors in the body.

And so CBD can do that for you, and often combined with THC.

Now some people feel a bit buzzy — they don’t like the feeling. That’s okay.

If THC bothers you, or you gotta drive or work and can’t test — make sure it’s a pure CBD.

But as a pharmaceutical note — if your doctor is open to it — something CBD actually pairs extraordinarily well with is a drug called LDN.

You might be familiar — it’s called low-dose naltrexone.

Naltrexone is what they use in the ambulance. They’ll use this in hospital for anybody with like an opioid overdose, but they’ll give them 25 or 50 milligram injections.

Low-dose naltrexone — there’s even ultra-low-dose naltrexone — you’ll go .2 to .5 milligrams, up to about 5 once a day, typically in the evening, and it pairs really well with CBD.

Now LDN — your low-dose naltrexone — is a pharmaceutical. It typically has to be compounded — made in a pharmacy — but it is pennies to get.

It’s actually a very, very cheap drug, so it’s very easy to access for the most part, if your doctor is willing to play with that dosing.

But it can give you weird dreams, has some sides — you do have to really go slow, and I’d work with a practitioner who knows what they’re doing.

So these are a couple here — let me continue this list for you guys.

So the next one we’re going to be talking about — this one’s kind of a gimme — is going to be aloe vera.

Now aloe has great properties — and in fact, I’m just going to put this up on the board here with the other one I like to use called slippery elm.

It is actually the inner bark of an elm tree that’s all ground to a super fine powder. It is a soluble fiber, so you mix it with water — I wouldn’t take the capsule. The capsules aren’t enough.

You get a nice bag of the bark, like an organic slippery elm bark — I know Organic Traditions has one on Amazon, at least in Canada.

But this bark — you’ll actually mix it with a little bit of water, and you mix it with a spoon until it sort of makes this runny, sort of snotty type of texture — and you just take a teaspoon of that, mixed with water, comes to about a tablespoon or two, and you take it 30 minutes before a meal.

It helps coat — so think soothing and cooling — it helps coat your insides, your intestines.

And these — the aloe vera — soothe and cool, but they’re also what we call mucogenic.

So think about it — if you’re wearing a pair of shoes, you’re going to blister if you don’t have a sock.

This is the sock.

If you don’t have a lining inside of your gut — and you probably have a compromised lining, for sure, if you’ve got bowel disease — but these help rebuild that, and structure that, and kind of soothe and cool at the same time.

They can be very beneficial, and again I’ve not seen any negative side effects, unless you take too much aloe at the same time and it might run through you and cause some diarrhea.

But making sure you’re getting not the preserved, not the flavors, not the juices — but it’s got to be like a nice pure, preservative-free aloe vera.

Pressed would be really great — that’s the next one.

So I talked about these last week. I will use caution here, because I cautioned last week — literally last week I was like, “Hey, maybe don’t use probiotics…” — because there are some that are high in histamine.

Many people dealing with IBD have high histamine or histamine issues. It’s what we call — remember that word — TH — T-helper cell — it’s a TH2 immune-mediated response.

This means a TH2 pathway that deals with immune responses like histamines, allergies — these types of things.

It is modifying your immune responses to make them a bit hyperactive.

And so probiotics — some lactobacillus, your L probiotics, oftentimes can be a bit higher in histamine.

But honestly, go to ChatGPT and say:

“Hey, give me the top 10 most popular strains of probiotics that are good for my IBD that are low in histamine.”

ChatGPT will do the work for you.

It’s a great way to go about it.

So probiotics can help build that back up. They produce a lot of good byproducts — like that butyrate we talked about earlier — these short-chain fatty acids.

They can create signaling molecules, and they send messengers to the body to regulate your immune responses.

So they’re not up here and superactive, but instead they can really calm them down.

We’re keeping that signal quiet because these probiotics can create that response, which is really beneficial.

I’m going to give you three more here.

The next one is going to be curcumin.

Now I would get a nano-curcumin — um, that is a poorly written word that says “Nano” now, but that’s all right. Nano-curcumin or liposomal form.

Again, NutriN does have this available, I know. But curcumin by itself is not super bioavailable.

But it can be, again, extremely anti-inflammatory, help modify that immune system.

Go slow. I’ve seen some people have negative responses, though it’s rare — but typically can be well tolerated.

But in the Nano, and there’s one on NutriN I know — it’s called Curcumin 400x — I think it’s like this nice lemon-flavored liquid.

But again — very absorbable, and that’s what we want to do. So you want to get the Nano version — otherwise you’re probably not going to get the benefits.

There’s only two more I’m going to show you here — which are again extremely anti-inflammatory, can be very potent, help with blood, and help control some of these.

The first one: vitamin D.

Vitamin D is almost classified as a hormone. It’s a vitamin — but it operates very similarly to a hormone, and it is implicated hugely in immune deficiencies.

Low levels of vitamin D — now oral dosing versus IV is different.

Get sunshine where you can, of course — but supplementing vitamin D, sometimes 5,000 to 10,000 IUs a day, for short stints or long term — get your levels checked — can be extremely beneficial.

And it’s one of the greatest immunomodulators we actually have. And you can produce it by simply going into the sun — or you can buy it for relatively cheap.

I’m just very careful about grocery store vitamins — so your Jamiesons and other cheap brands — you get what you pay for.

So make sure you’re getting a nice brand — typically a liquid. I avoid hard tablets — they’re basically just expensive pee.

The last one I will talk about here is going to be Qing Dai — also known as indigo naturalis.

This is a Chinese herb — not well regulated, so hard to get a nice quality — but has shown in many people to stop bleeding in like hours. Some it’s a couple of days.

However — long-term use can be hard on the liver and kidneys, so you want to watch that — but it can really help manage some of those responses.

Now I want to ask you another question.

We’ve gone through so far — we talked about the types of medication, right?

We talked about what they have in common — they block inflammation.

What do medications and all the supplements I just gave you have in common?

They all manage inflammation.

Everything I gave you is an alternative to some degree to medication.

Are they perfect? No.
 Are pharmaceuticals typically stronger? Yes.
 Do they have a laundry list of 70 different side effects? No.

All these ones I gave you are almost guaranteed to be perfectly safe, provided you follow the manufacturer recommendations.

Very little — very few people have any sensitivities.

However — we know, if you are taking all these herbs and these vitamins and minerals and plants to manage your symptoms — what do you have?

You have plant-based medication.

And that’s something I want to be very careful about here.

So the goal isn’t so much to just cover the symptoms.

However, if you’re going, “You know what? I don’t love the symptoms — or the side effects that I’m getting from my...” — especially low-grade — if you’re on biologics already, you’re probably in a pretty severe state.

But things like your corticosteroids, so prednisone, budesonide, etc. — mesalamine — a lot of the time these can just be modified by getting onto some of these other simple plant-based.

But the more severe it gets, the more severe intervention you need.

So again, I want to bring this analogy.

You step on a nail.

You go to your doctor — he looks at you and goes:

"It’s a pretty bad looking nail. It’s infected, it’s inflamed... but it’s part of your body now. There’s nothing we can do. So I’m going to give you numbing cream. I want you to take it for the rest of your life. And if it doesn’t help, we’re going to cut off your foot.”

You’d punch them. And that doctor would lose their license — guaranteed. That’s medical malpractice.

However — when you go from being healthy — 10 years, 20, 30, 40, 50 years — and out of the blue, boom, you have a bowel disease, your doctor looks at this and goes:

"Yep, it’s just part of your body now. There’s nothing we can do. I know it sucks, but here’s medication — take it for the rest of your life to manage your inflammation. And if it doesn’t help, we can do surgery and cut your bowels out."

Why is that not malpractice?

Why are we not looking at the root causes?

Now I did, last week, a video on some of the primary infections. It’s multi-layered, but these are reversible conditions. We’re in the middle of publishing the research — they can be fixed, but we need to know the root causes.

So I’m going to go over three really important things here.

If you’ve heard these before — listen again, because this needs to be hammered into everybody so you can become your own advocate.

I want you to advocate for yourself to your doctor. I want you to have the tools to go to your doctor and say, “Hey, this doesn’t make sense — explain it to me.”

They’ll probably fight you. They still fight me on it.

But you have the power — whether they like it or not.

So here’s the first thing about it, right?

Here’s the three things they say — the three legs of bowel disease that are unavoidable.

The first one is that it’s autoimmune.

And I’m going to go through these pillars — I want to knock the legs out of this table one by one.

One takes about 2 minutes to do — and this is the best tools I can ever give you.
Number one — we say it’s an autoimmune condition.

Well, did you know that only 70% — 70% of any UC case has any antibodies at all?

And it’s 60% of Crohn’s disease have antibodies — the most common ones.

Okay?

The rest — it’s like 50% of Crohn’s, and the rest of UC and Crohn’s, like 5 and 10%.

So there’s very little prevalence of antibodies.

Now you hear the word “antibody”, and — “Oh my body’s attacking itself.”

No no no — there are two kinds of antibodies.

There are antibodies, which are very special targeted soldiers for a specific invader.

So if you have a border, and you get foot soldiers coming across from a distance — what do you do?

You create snipers — a very specific unit.

It’s not good against a tank, but it’s great against that one specific foot soldier.

On the other hand, you also have autoantibodies — that’s when the sniper turns and starts attacking your own people.

So there are two antibody kinds:

• One is an external antibody — just an antibody.
• The other is an autoantibody, which attacks your own tissues.

Every single — the top 10, I’ll say — most common antibodies, from 70% down to 5% of the time that are prevalent, are auto.

Some are autoantibodies — not all. Very few are.

But they’re also just antibodies — they react to the three most common infections that I see — like fungus and mold and parasites, those types of things.

So we have to ask — Is it really autoimmune?

Even if they were all autoantibodies — what if you’re part of the 30 or 40% and your doctor’s treating you like it’s autoimmune?

Shouldn’t we be asking for better?

Should we not be asking more questions, to say, “Why? Why am I autoimmune? Where are my antibodies? Show me the blood work. Prove it.”

And then — when you have the antibodies, if you do — “Prove that they’re attacking me.”

“Are these autoantibodies, or could they possibly come from something else?”

So this is table leg number one. Knock that one out of there — damn good chance you’re not autoimmune.

Okay — that’s number one.

Number two — they will tell you now, okay — it’s autoimmune.

The next one they’re going to tell you is it is genetic.

Well — most of you don’t have any family history. Some of you do, and that’s okay.

But did you know — genes are not responsible for your disease?

There is no gene across the board that causes bowel disease. Doesn’t exist.

There are genes that are associated with bowel disease — about approximately — between Crohn’s and colitis, 20 to 25% of all cases have a genetic association.

So what I’m telling you right now is — your doctor said you have an autoimmune condition, which probably isn’t, and a genetic condition, which is only implicated 20 to 25% of the time.

So 75 to 80% of you listening or watching right now don’t have any genetic correlation whatsoever.

But also keep in mind — genes do not operate in and of themselves.

They are influenced by external factors:

• Infections
• Stress
• Sleep
• Chemicals
• Toxins
• Microbes
• Nutrients

They all program your genetics for what they do, create, and how they respond.

You have genes that actually turn over cells inside of your body, your intestines.
You have genes that react to certain microbes.
You have genes that produce and regulate inflammatory responses.

So if you put bad inputs into your genes — you’re going to get bad outputs.

But we’re blaming your genetics, when it’s probably not.

That’s table leg number two.
The next one I’m going to bring down for you here — we say the word they use is idiopathic.

So idiopathic — it also means unknown.

“We don’t know what’s causing this.”

Well let me tell you something.

Looking at the data of all the cases — you can actually verify this with the CDC, the Lancet, whoever you want. You can go back and check this data.

In the 1950s — oops, that should have been 1950s — okay...

There were 15 per 100,000 people who had a diagnosed case of Crohn’s or colitis.

Today, we’re going to go from the 2020s onward — that’s 463 per 100,000.

That is a 3,000% increase in 75 years.

You’re going to tell me there’s nothing causing it?

That it’s random, and just God plays favorites?

I call bullst.

So you have three legs:

• Autoimmune
• Genetic
• Idiopathic

They don’t exist.

And you now have the tools to go back to your doctor and say:

“Wait a minute. Show me otherwise.
 Treat me otherwise.
 Test my antibodies.
 I have questions that I demand answers.”

The toolkit they have, unfortunately, doesn’t always provide those answers — but they are out there.

So if you are actively looking for answers, this is making sense, and for the first time you’re watching this and you’re going:

“You know what? It’s been 15 years, 20 years I’ve been dealing with this… and the last 20 minutes — for the first time — this finally makes sense.”

Here’s what you can do:

If you’re here on the YouTube, if you’re here on the podcast and you’re listening or you’re watching — all you have to do is check the link below in the notes.

And there’s going to be a link there — an email there as well — you can email me directly. You can schedule a call with me and the team to see if this is a good fit, to see if we can help you.

Because I’m telling you — it is not this lifelong BS, this death sentence.

And you can fact-check every single thing I’ve told you here.

Feel free — in fact, you want to take it, run it through a transcript, or run it through ChatGPT, and ask it, for example, “Is anything about this wrong? Medically inaccurate?”

And you’ll see very, very quickly.

Ask your doctor. Bring the stuff to them and say:

“Hey, I was told it’s not necessarily autoimmune, genetic, or idiopathic.
 That I may not have any antibodies — let alone autoantibodies.
 I may not have any genetic correlation — and genes don’t cause my disease anyway.
 And cases have risen 3,000% in 75 years, and they’ve doubled over the last probably 30.
So it’s this exponential growth — what’s happening?
Because you’re telling me there’s no cause — but something has to be.
Can you give me answers?”

If they can’t — talk to somebody else.

Feel free to reach out to me and my team, because we’d love to have that conversation with you — to show you what’s possible.
So I’m going to turn now to the comment section.

So we have a question from Ann:

“Could genetic makeup be impaired, causing response to invaders resulting in IBD as a result? Steroids work well during a flare.”

And you nailed it.

So here’s the thing — can genetic makeup, so your genetic predisposition, cause a negative response to invaders or infections?
Yes.

You have genes that regulate those immune responses.
You have genes that will decide how much you’re going to activate, what bacteria you will or won’t kill — on top of your microbiome sort of working autonomously.

But you have genetic responses, or genes that are programmed to manage your inflammatory responses.

So if your inflammatory genes are getting an input that is bad, the output is going to be bad.

If your genes are lacking or deficient in something, or they’re being reprogrammed — like they’re being programmed with bad food, bad stress, bad toxins, bad inputs — you’re going to have a hyperactive, unregulated response.

Of course you’re going to be sick.
Of course your responses are going to be unusual.

Now the question is — do we need to address the genes right away?

No.

Genetics can always be turned — think like a volume knob. They turn up and they turn down.

You can turn it up really loud with bad inputs, or you can turn it down quietly and gently with good inputs.

So we have to fix the input first, rather than muddling with the genes.

Hope that makes sense.

Ann Marie asked:

“Doctor highly recommended methotrexate be taken with Humira. Explanation was so Humira works longer, so no antibodies are formed against Humira. How much worse for the body is taking methotrexate at the same time?”

Well, let me tell you this — I could drink arsenic and it’s bad.
I could drink bleach and it’s bad.
I drink them both together — it’s worse.

Now, the doctor’s not wrong to say:

“Hey, we can combine these to elicit certain immune responses.”

But think of it this way — if you give me a hammer long enough, eventually everything looks like a nail.

And so what I’m going to be doing here — I’m just going to grab a crutch and lean on this one — oh, so much better…

So if you give me a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

So the idea is — if I have multiple drugs, and this is all I have in my toolkit, of course I’m going to learn how to combine them or utilize them and change the dosing and the reliance and get the responses I want to suppress the inflammatory condition.

Because I believe it truly is a genetic, autoimmune, unfixable, random condition with no known cause — therefore, the only hope is these medications.

So of course I’m going to modify. I’m going to use them in any way I can — and combine them.

However — you get closer and closer to this laundry list of side effects that we have.

So there are more things that we want to consider as sides, but again — we’re not going root cause.

And this — this is what’s very important.

Lauren asks:

“Are these alternatives long-term use as in daily or temporary for a period of time?”

Let’s say both.

And so — number one, let’s go back to the beginning here, Lauren. I guess this question was asked early.

So if you’re on medication, or if you’re on supplements, rather — and they’re being used as plant-based medication, because you’re using them to manage your inflammation...

You have a fire at home, and you’re pouring water on it.

I don’t care if it’s water from the lake or water from the tap — if it’s pharmaceuticals or plants, you’re putting out the fire, managing the inflammation.

But in either scenario — supplements or medication — are you turning off the gas leak?

And that’s what we ultimately want to do — is get to that root cause, and figure out what inputs are causing these bad outputs for your body.

Now again — if you’re going to use these supplements as a plant-based medication to manage your symptoms, then either:

• Short term — maybe more of them at the same time, higher doses, or multiple different ones — when you’re feeling a flare coming on,
• Or you do use medium-low dose long term, again to control inflammation.

But it’s all about really getting to that root cause.

Mariah had asked:

“What about ferments like yogurt?”

So — absolutely. But keep in mind again, in the probiotic strain, there are some probiotics which are higher in histamine — so we want to be careful.

But in general, I find a lot of people do well with like an L. reuteri yogurt or something else.

But you’ll know. You’ll know pretty quick if probiotics cause a problem.

Another question from Ann Marie:

“What do you think about using Florastor? This is a Saccharomyces boulardii — it’s a yeast-based probiotic. What do you think about Florastor after a 5-day course of antibiotics?”

A-freakin'-men.
100%.

Antibiotics don’t only destroy the bad bacteria — they also destroy the good. They also chew up your gut lining, and they can cause mitochondrial damage — so that battery power, that battery house of a cell — they can break those apart.

So there’s a lot you want to do with antibiotics.

Number one — if I have to take antibiotics, I’m going to be on high doses — 500 billion to even a trillion CFUs or colony forming units of probiotics.

Ideally every dose of antibiotics — if they’re once a day or three times a day — they’re going down the hatch with it. It’s kind of like cannon fodder.

The second one is — I would be using something like Saccharomyces boulardii or Sac B. This is a really powerful antifungal. It’s actually a yeast-based probiotic, but it can help control candida, which likes to grow when you use some antibiotics.

I would use things like your slippery elms and aloes, because they help with that gut lining.

I would use things like phosphatidylcholine — you can get one from BodyBio again on Amazon — it’s PC, it’s phospha choline — can really help with some of that...

What’s the word I’m looking for... that mitochondrial dysfunction — as well as quercetin, vitamin C — there’s a lot of things I would use if they tolerate, if I have to use antibiotics.

Next question from Lauren:

“With your program, do you continue IBD medication along with natural therapies and cut out the meds? How does that work?”

Uh — yes and yes.

Now, I won’t tell you — I legally cannot — I will never advise you to come off medication.

But let’s take a scenario:

You’re on medication right now — you’re symptomatic. So even though they might be “controlled” or “regulated,” you’re still having a lot of symptoms.

You’re still getting inflammation, you’re still having fatigue, loose stool, some blood, some mucus — and you’ve been on these drugs for years.

So you’re already stable.

You get into the program — week 3, 6, 8, 10 — depends on you — your symptoms are gone, and you’re medicated.

Now might be an appropriate time for you to have a conversation with your doctor and say:

“Can I start decreasing my dose?”
 “Can I lengthen my time between infusions?”
 “Can I change something — because I think what I’m doing is working?”

The majority of them will not onboard — they don’t play nicely.

I’ve had literally one doctor in the hundreds of clients we’ve seen — one physician actually open the door and say:

“Come in, show me what you’re doing.”

And now I lecture for his academy.

So there’s hope there still, because of one — but they don’t typically play nicely.

So you might have to take that into your own hands — but I can’t legally advise you on medication, so I will tell you: ask your doctor.

And that covers my ass.

Next question we have from Mandy:

“My experience — biologics caused my skin cancer. Cool, right? No thanks. Not for me anymore.”

There are alternatives. You have to trust the process, and follow the guide, and get to work.

So Mandy actually went through the program — and Mandy has a remarkable story.

We actually had a chance to interview her — it is... I haven’t actually edited it yet for YouTube, because there were three of us, and it just — it takes so much time — so it’s in the works.

But Mandy’s got an amazing story as well. She’s actually a nurse — she went through this.

Billie Jean’s another one you can find on YouTube — she was also a nurse, and she also had skin cancer from her medications.

And they no longer have cancer, their bowels are perfectly healthy — you’d never know they ever had bowel disease.

Lisa is another great example — and she was on Uceris and other drugs, this close to having her bowels fully removed — and in 16 weeks, her colonoscopy report is near perfect.

And Curtis took that one on as well.

So there’s a lot of things that can be done — it can be really quite amazing.

So here’s my invitation to you.

On the podcast, you're watching on the YouTube — there is one action between you and potentially changing the rest of your life and possibly reversing this disease for good.

So my question to you is:

If not now, when?
And what are you waiting for?

It’s not a sales call — we’re not going to twist your arm.

I just want to have a conversation with you and say, “Hey, what if?”
Does this make sense? Is this a good fit?
And then we can go from there. It’s that easy — it’s all you’ve got to do.

And I’ll throw one more curveball at you — I don’t typically brag about this, because I don’t want anybody abusing it — but we know these work.

And we have at Section 17A of our agreements — that I actually sign myself and send to you — it says:

“Look, you come in — 16 weeks — and nothing has changed. Like, “Do I feel the exact same as the day I walked in?”
I do not charge you a dime.
We keep working with you for free, at no cost, indefinitely if we need to, until you get better.”

I believe everyone can get better — it’s just a matter of how long.

And that’s why I put that clause in there.

So there’s nothing standing between you and getting the help that you need — or at least just knocking on that door.