Root Cause Solutions For You

Unraveling the Intricacies of Whole Food Nutrition and Herbal Medicine with Dr. Jeffrey Smith

October 04, 2023 Fabiola Reyes, Root Cause Expert, Cert. AK, CellCore & Nutrition Response Testing® Practitioner Season 1 Episode 13
Unraveling the Intricacies of Whole Food Nutrition and Herbal Medicine with Dr. Jeffrey Smith
Root Cause Solutions For You
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Root Cause Solutions For You
Unraveling the Intricacies of Whole Food Nutrition and Herbal Medicine with Dr. Jeffrey Smith
Oct 04, 2023 Season 1 Episode 13
Fabiola Reyes, Root Cause Expert, Cert. AK, CellCore & Nutrition Response Testing® Practitioner

Have you ever wondered about the vast universe of whole food nutrition and how it could improve your life? Prepare to have your questions answered and your health horizons broadened as we chat with our distinguished guest, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, a seasoned chiropractor and the proud owner of Comprehensive Integrative Wellness. Dr. Smith unravels the intricate tapestry of whole food nutrition with his wealth of knowledge, painting a vivid picture of its integral role in our well-being.

Our conversation takes an even deeper turn as we enter the captivating world of herbal medicine. From the therapeutic effects of high-quality herbs to the importance of proper extraction methods, we leave no stone unturned. Get ready to learn about the potent effects of oregano on gut health and the crucial need for digestion to function optimally for herbs to be effective. We also shed light on the importance of patience when using herbs and the need to examine our lifestyle and dietary choices carefully.

In the final stretch of our enlightening discourse, we delve into the realm of genetic testing and its potential role in nutritional optimization. We examine the implications of specific gene variations and thoroughly compare various genetic testing services. We also discuss the significance of consistent supplementation and probe into the role of nutrition for athletes. Whether you're an athlete or a health enthusiast, this episode promises to be a treasure trove of valuable insights and practical tips.

To schedule an appointment with Dr. Smith, call 585.233.7331 or email jeffreysmithdc@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION HAS NOT EVALUATED THESE STATEMENTS. This is not a medical service; our information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. The Root Cause Solutions For You, its practitioners, and employees make no warranties, express or implied, concerning this email's contents. You should never disregard medical advice or delay seeking it because of the contents of this episode.

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Have you ever wondered about the vast universe of whole food nutrition and how it could improve your life? Prepare to have your questions answered and your health horizons broadened as we chat with our distinguished guest, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, a seasoned chiropractor and the proud owner of Comprehensive Integrative Wellness. Dr. Smith unravels the intricate tapestry of whole food nutrition with his wealth of knowledge, painting a vivid picture of its integral role in our well-being.

Our conversation takes an even deeper turn as we enter the captivating world of herbal medicine. From the therapeutic effects of high-quality herbs to the importance of proper extraction methods, we leave no stone unturned. Get ready to learn about the potent effects of oregano on gut health and the crucial need for digestion to function optimally for herbs to be effective. We also shed light on the importance of patience when using herbs and the need to examine our lifestyle and dietary choices carefully.

In the final stretch of our enlightening discourse, we delve into the realm of genetic testing and its potential role in nutritional optimization. We examine the implications of specific gene variations and thoroughly compare various genetic testing services. We also discuss the significance of consistent supplementation and probe into the role of nutrition for athletes. Whether you're an athlete or a health enthusiast, this episode promises to be a treasure trove of valuable insights and practical tips.

To schedule an appointment with Dr. Smith, call 585.233.7331 or email jeffreysmithdc@gmail.com

Facebook


Disclaimer: THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION HAS NOT EVALUATED THESE STATEMENTS. This is not a medical service; our information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. The Root Cause Solutions For You, its practitioners, and employees make no warranties, express or implied, concerning this email's contents. You should never disregard medical advice or delay seeking it because of the contents of this episode.

Fabiola:

All right, welcome back everybody to the root cause solutions for you Podcast. My name is Fabiola and I am your host. I am super happy today to have with us a very special guest, dr Jeffersmith, who is a chiropractor, and Dr Smith is super knowledgeable. He can tuck your ear out about whole food, nutrition, herbs and all the good stuff that you really need to know as far as being as healthy as you can be. Dr Smith is the proud owner of comprehensive integrative wellness and we'll make sure to add his contact information in case you want to chat with him, all right. Well, dr Smith, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Dr. Smith:

Excellent. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure and we look forward to chatting with your group.

Fabiola:

Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dr. Smith:

Sure, sure. Well, I'm not too far away from Ithaca. I live in Canada, new York, and I've been in the healthcare industry since almost the late 90s. Well, I was going to school, I graduated at Westland University, I had a neuro background and major there and started working in the hospital at Orignette and really enjoyed a lot of that. My end goal was to potentially come to doctor. I didn't know it was going to be a doctor of kind or a practic. I learned pretty quickly that working in the hospital that just really wasn't the area that I wanted to go into. I worked in SleepCenter. I performed a few hundred allotopsies with a pathologist and I very quickly learned that doing things noninvasively was really the better option. Actually, while I was working in Rochester the high-end tissue bank to end recoveries, I went to my first chiropractor. That really kind of changed my idea of what chiropractors were doing and they were not only just adjusting people's spines, they were also looking at the whole person. I went down to Seneca Falls that was New York Chiropractic College. They looked at my transcripts and asked me if I wanted to start next week. Actually, my wife was about eight, nine months pregnant at that point. I waited until the following semester to start up and really enjoyed my time there. Just a fabulous school.

Dr. Smith:

Once I graduated from there, I really didn't think that nutrition was going to be such a big role, as it ended up being. I got a chance to meet one of my mentors. His name is Adam Davis. He really turned me on to whole food nutrition. Things just really started taking off in my practice with nutrition. I quickly separated that from chiropractic because they really are two different things. From then on, he actually asked me to work with him a little bit. That's how we actually got to meet, because I was working in your office.

Dr. Smith:

Really, what's happened now is I've shifted and moved towards. I sold my practice about five years after that, after about a total of 10 years in practice. Really, my goal now is to help practitioners and educate them on nutrition and the different tools that they can have in their practice to help them grow and help work people. I love to adjust. I love to see patients individually, but you can teach people to do that as well. They can go out and see what your people. That's a way to learn from me.

Dr. Smith:

I've had some big changes in the last year. I've contracted with a few different companies that I find Each of them are just wonderful in what they have to offer as far as whole food supplements. As far as herbals A NutriGenomics company by the name of my DNA Then you're familiar with the people that visit your office that use the protein, the perfect immunos and everything from body health. I'm working a bit with them and that's kind of something new for them as well. There's two different things that are on my plate now, during the last year of transition and creating comprehensive integrative wellness. It's kind of been a time to reflect a little bit, which has been really enjoyable for me as well.

Fabiola:

That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. If you can teach us how to fish, you know, then.

Fabiola:

That's that concept, Because I think most of us go into some sort of practitioner role or healthcare provider with that intention, with, like, we want to help people. Then we become teachers. We become educators because we can definitely impact and affect, reach more people that way, and sort of empowering other people with that same purpose. That's super cool. Well, that's awesome. Tell us a little bit about whole full nutrition, because I think it's a topic that most of us are familiar with. Hopefully, most listeners are familiar with that concept, but I think it can get lost in translation because there are so many messages out there. There are so many different lifestyles or ways of life. I don't even like to call them diets anymore, because you should really adopt it as a way of life. But tell us a little bit about what does really whole food nutrition mean and what does that really mean for someone.

Dr. Smith:

Yeah Well, a year ago you asked me this question and my answer would probably be a little different. Whole foods for me is, yes, you can supplement and you can take really good herbs and really good whole food nutrients, but the basis of it is eating, eat, what our ancestors eat, things that are real. They either break we're breathing at one point or whether it was an animal or a plant. That's really the base of whole foods. When I say my answer a year ago and about a little different, I worked for over 12 years for a whole company and we always had an idea of the way they were making their products Good. Absolutely. I still use some of them today.

Dr. Smith:

One of the new companies that I'm working with is doing things, I think, a step up Instead of using and I think I break it down to a whole fruit supplement versus a nutraceutical versus a pharmaceutical. A pharmaceutical, everyone knows you go to the doctor, they write your script and here you go. They know that it's made in a lab. It's a chemist that spent millions of sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars developing ways to alter body chemistry. A nutraceutical is the same thing. I'm friar to us. I'm starting the recording. You would talk about vitamin E and understanding how they're extracting that. When we think of most vitamins and minerals on the market and you look at labels, most of them are synthetic because they're being made in the lab by the same pharmaceutical companies that are making medicines.

Dr. Smith:

The whole food supplement arena is something I'm sure most of your guests are aware of. They purchase, whether it be collagulars, actually say heart tissue or adrenal tissue. When you ingest that, then you can help support those different organs. For me, that's the big change that just happened. Is the company Food Research, or Doctors Research, is the company that supplies food research, a brand nutrients which you guys are familiar with. They're using a unique way to grow nutrients using saccharomyces, your BCA.

Dr. Smith:

One step above taking, say, a whole fruit vitamin C product that has maybe some carrot and some L-fels on bakwi and things like that, but also has some excorbic acid which is not that's made from corn sugar and sulfuric acid in a lab where this new company, we're using hydroxyl, but in the case of vitamin C specifically, that is actually just oranges. A lot of the B vitamins are grown using the saccharomyces, your BCA, which they contain their own B vitamins as well and beneficial gut flora as well, but growing them to some levels that can be therapeutic. It's been a very interesting journey. We're always learning, aren't we? I know you're always in some kind of program to further your knowledge. That's been an interesting journey over the last year to really understand that whole fruit mentality eating, but also from a supplement standpoint as well.

Fabiola:

Yeah, no, that's so true. Because, um, yeah, not every supplement is created equal, not every food um is created equal, just like we differentiate our um organic foods from our conventional foods, and so sad that you have to label them that way right, organic versus conventional, it's just food. And why? Why do we need to make this distinction? Is because, like you mentioned, or unfortunately, some of our foods and supplements are made in a um a lab where, um there being its man made. And yeah, I had this experience like I was sharing with you, uh, with with a client who was looking to take um X amount of vitamin E um a day and and and I'm looking at my whole food supplement and I'm like, well, if you wanted to get that much vitamin E, you will probably need to get 164 tablets and that's just not the kind of part Um, so uh, but that's who we're trying to research.

Fabiola:

You know what? What options does she have to be able to hit that level? That uh was being asked of her and, uh, every vitamin E was like derived from soy and that we were looking at and I was like, wow, that is such a. That's so sad because soy is one of your most heavily sprayed, um you know, crop with um, with glass facade, which we know in, definitely, how it affects your um, your digestion, your heart, your uh mental health, your liver, um, everything, and then um, and then that just the estrogenic properties of soy as well.

Fabiola:

So, her being uh a female, I was just like, oh gosh, you know, I mean, I don't, where do you go?

Fabiola:

Right, like, and most of us are going to um uh convention, you know, like a chain store and buying things off the shelf because, yeah, our doctor said, hey, you could you benefit from this vitamin, and we don't know better. So, having having a good source of um one, the understanding that not all foods and supplements are created equal, and then being able to read through those, the, the, the, the fine lines right between the lines, and be able to recognize what you're putting in your body. So I appreciate you breaking that, that down for us, um, and correct me if I'm wrong. I think, um, something you've dabbled also is into herbs, right, and? And you have from one from just talking to you and you know from before and and uh past interactions, you're very knowledgeable about herbs and I've always been very impressed with how much uh herbs, how many herbs you know and what they did. But tell us a little bit about herbs, because I don't think we've covered that um in in your episodes before.

Dr. Smith:

Yeah, yeah, well, you know, herbs are, are, are very unique and you know I I do them as food as well. You know there's there, they're growing out my garden, um, but I think their ability to uh support the body is definitely different than your vitamins and minerals and they have the ability to have these physiological effects that, um, in some cases they're very similar to pharmaceuticals and really, a lot of times you'll you'll find that, um, the drug companies are trying to mimic what these herbs are, are, are doing so, um, yeah, very, you know, very, fortunate, one of the companies that that I started working with is Gaia, and Gaia uh has been around for, you know, several decades. Um, they do have a retail line, but what, um, what they're attempting to do is establish a professional line for practitioners with professional grade uh formulas. We'll say, and, um, you know they're, they're out of Brevard, uh, north Carolina, uh and uh, several hundred acres.

Dr. Smith:

They are really, you know, when you, when you look at the herbal producers around the world, they're, they're one of the biggest for for several different uh, um, you know herbs, they skull happy, one of them, and and, and and, acanacea being another, and it's just, it's, it's amazing, I always found in in practice and working with patients that, um, yes, we want to get those vitamins and minerals, you know, from a whole food source in there, but we throw water to herbs in there that can alter some some physiology. Um, high quality herbs that you know, that is, that are extracted, you know properly, and uh, then you're giving them at their doses, so not the same type as, like you know, throwing some sage or some rosemary or thyme in your soup um, but at really therapeutic doses and and you can make some, some changes very, very quickly. Um, you know, oregano is a great one to mention.

Dr. Smith:

Like you know, um, gaia Pro has a wonderful oregano and um that the effects on and on the gut are just absolutely amazing. You know the, the, the. You know, putting the gut into a good position for flora to live properly, um is huge. You know cause. You know I'm sure you've heard to talk about herds a lot, but you probably heard me talk about digestion even more. And, and if your digestion is not working well, then you know what, what it would do.

Dr. Smith:

You know you're not, certainly not going to be able to, um, you know, take an herb, say like St John's wort, or, uh, romani, or or Afshua Ghanda or something like that, to help your endocrine system. If your gut's not worked out well, it just won't, uh, you won't be able to digest it, assimilate it and utilize it, um, as well as you could. So, um, yeah, herbs are absolutely wonderful and, and you know it's, it's very interesting because, you know, going to chiropractic school, we certainly have a long, you know, nutritional training, um, but I came on there, uh, I wouldn't quite say worried about using herbs, but I think definitely had you thinking that herbs were like you gotta be careful. Take a step back, look at all these contraindications, for can't take this with it.

Dr. Smith:

And and you know, especially like you know, you work with a patient who also works with an allopathic, you know medical doctor, and they go back and they say, oh my gosh, you put an ashwagandha on. You know they're on a you know a medication that has no contraindications for for that herb at all, but they just say, oh, I wouldn't take it. And and it's, you know, it's. That's that's to me. Is is very, very, very sad that you know they tend to go more towards that, um, invasive route first, um, before they look at these traditional routes of using, using herbs and, and you know, other other botanicals.

Dr. Smith:

So, um, but yeah, that's been, that's been a really, you know really fun process and, um, you know, there's, there's there are some great companies out there, uh, that, uh, that use herbs and and you know, um, I'm excited to get to the guy on a farm, you know, before too long, because you know, as as you know, you know, going to go to these farms that are doing it properly and you know regenerative practices is really, and you hear, the see the passion for these people growing these things. It's just, you know it's awesome.

Fabiola:

I agree, yeah, and you're 100% right, because I look at herbs as our medicine and before pharmaceuticals were ever created, we had to rely on herbs. But you're right, it's about the dosing right. It's about really getting into that system and being able to reach the system at a cellular level where you can, when you know the herb it's going to be it's not like a medication, you know when it's not going to be bypassing your body system, no matter what. It requires time, right, and I think most of us, we're, you know. I think the society is just, we're on a drive through, you know, like we want results and we want them now. Right, you don't get your Amazon order in today's, you're already contacting Amazon for a refund because you know you, you not get that package. But when it comes to nutrition, to healing the body, it just doesn't work that way. So I think and I've done that, you know where I'm like. Oh, if this is going on and I just don't give it enough time, then it's not the herbs fault, it's not the supplements fault, it's just you know what's my lifestyle, what's my, my life choices as far as food is concerned, that could be potentially preventing me from, you know, like you said, digestion. If my digestion it's not 100% there, then yes, I'm not going to be absorbing some of this nutrients.

Fabiola:

And I wanted to back up a little bit and mention to like with the whole food supplementation and I'm sure this is with herbs as well when we are, because what we're eating, just like when we eat organic in grass fed you know ethically food.

Fabiola:

You know if food that way we tend to eat need less of it because we are getting really the nutrients into our system, versus eating a bag of potato chips that is has all this bad oils and it's been processed, you know, in a way that your body recognizes as a chemical, versus that's a potato that you, that you're eating and I think, because we are eating, that the whole food supplements were to end, we're eating high quality herbs. We need less of that. So it just kind of reminded me of that incident with my client who wanted to hit a specific amount of vitamin E and for her to get all that vitamin E she needed all this hundreds of tablets. I'm like well, a whole food supplement, you're not going to need that much because you're really getting the real deal. Your body doesn't need a lot, of, a lot of stuff either, so especially if you're eating well, yeah, more is not always better, high dosing, you know, especially with herbs.

Dr. Smith:

Yeah it's not. It's not needed. You know you can get to 30 levels, but you don't need. More is not always better it's. It can cause some adverse reactions as well.

Fabiola:

So yeah, yeah, no, I agree, and sometimes you know people are taking all this, you know list of stuff and they come in. They come in with us and they're like 20 different supplements and I'm not I'm not saying big supplement. You know protocols or whatever I've not needed. You know from time to time, but it just requires the body needs to process, that you still need to digest it, that all the cellular energy, that it is required to break all of that down and then distribute it. I mean, the body's probably like oh, wow, okay, here come my 20 pills, and they were really neat. Oh that much, maybe not so cool. Well, tell us about this DNA, my DNA tests. I'm super intrigued about that because I think that's been a lot more popularity about knowing our DNA and understanding genetics. So tell us about that.

Dr. Smith:

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a, you know, very interesting arena and, quite honestly, you know, a little less than a year ago, not something that I was ever interested in. However, you know I looked into the end of this company the company is called my DNA and it was just some an opportunity and the tests that they were had just started performing and the amount of knowledge that you can gain from it is absolutely amazing. So you know, the number one thing that most people think about with genetic testing is you know they wanted other ancestors. Where am I? You know where am I from and you know when you look at those tests out in the market, they're very inexpensive and there's not much science honestly backing up what they're doing, but you know where they say you are coming from.

Dr. Smith:

So this test through my DNA is a comprehensive about lifestyle's evaluation test, a different swap.

Dr. Smith:

So it's something very, very, very simple to do, painless, and you know my report came back and I know 120 pages of information up and it really gets into the field of nutrition.

Dr. Smith:

So you know what does my specific DNA, you know, potentially different than my brother or my sister, what do I need to function optimally, and so it really gives you this baseline of you know, say, imagine you got a brand new patient that comes through the doors and you know this is the first thing you do and you recognize that they have some MTHFR abnormalities and you know that's certainly a methylation.

Dr. Smith:

I'm sure people are familiar with that in MTHFR but there's several MTHFR genes so you know this sounds to look at several of them and then if you'll test to have an abnormality of what will, then it's going to dive further into it to look at. You know if there's more issues. So you know it can look at specifically digest, yet look at the need for nutrients you know, talk a little bit about that Also looks at the whole section on methylation, the whole section on immunity. It's spit out a cool that a grocery list for you that's specific to your DNA and what you need, and also a very cool section and there is blood work like what based on your DNA, specifically what should we be looking for. And it's very interesting.

Dr. Smith:

The more you know, the more I read into my tasks because I certainly get the hundred pages and sit down and just read it page for page for page, because it you get into the that nitty gritty of, like you know, genomics and genetics and like I'm going to tune out, but I want that functional stuff and a bit more clinician in that aspect you can start to look at like okay, well, the only blood work that came up that I should be checking regularly is vitamin D, and when you read into that vitamin D and the, the genotype that I am, it's typically from Northern European descent where you know they would eat vitamin D rich foods like cod and different things that you know, even eggs as well have some some vitamin D in there, because they were in the Northern climate and they weren't seeing a you know a sun, like someone who lives more in the later.

Dr. Smith:

So you can kind of tease out some things. I, you know, know some history, ancestry, where you know basically kind of Northern European, but there's some really cool things that you can tease out of that. But, more importantly, you know all the specific nutrients that I need, things I should avoid as well.

Dr. Smith:

Like that's always a big thing too. You know I was not, you know, eating intolerant, but I was lactose so, which is something you know common for you. For that you know well, so I will. I've avoided certain foods because of it and I had some nutrients, like choline was something that I needed a lot of and I wasn't. You know, calling again is, and you know, from the food source, but that's something that I've added in from a whole source just because of that.

Dr. Smith:

So, and you know it brings up a good point about you know, genetics, because there the research is really really growing up and all of these.

Dr. Smith:

You know I believe it's 100. Oh, 90 genes in 110 or 119 SNPs that they're looking at in this one task for really affordable cost of well under $500 upon evaluation, it's like more, but some of this stuff you can go to the Allopathic Committee, get some genetic testing done and they're going to charge you thousands and still not yield as much information from it. It's been a really cool arena and we've been working with healthcare practitioners to introduce that to you, to neutral genomics tests, into their practice and understanding that, okay, you can go right off the bat that this person needs to avoid milk or there's an alcohol in there. Are you able to metabolize that Right Sleep section? What time should I be waking up? I mean an early riser or a later riser and all of this stuff is backed by really, really high scientific, evidence-based research. It's been cool it's something that's relatively new to the market that the company that's running the test has been in the US for a bit. They were originally in Australia and moved over here and they're doing some really cool labs.

Dr. Smith:

They've been doing a lot of work for actually for the FBI and for law enforcement agencies, things like that but the test that we're doing is definitely very different and privacy has been really one of the number one questions that I get from people on it. I certainly would have joked into if I knew that my DNA was going to be they're going to the Chinese government or going to pharmaceutical companies, because when people do some of these cheaper ancestry tests, that's what's happening they're selling your data, they're selling your DNA really quickly and we are not doing that at all.

Dr. Smith:

It's in a secure lab and you actually have everything destroyed if you want, but yield is just a tremendous amount of information and that gives you another tool in the toolbox is really what it is, and it's certainly a big factor and a big, important piece of information to know.

Fabiola:

Well, that's so cool because I think DNA is always so fascinating just from a curiosity standpoint and also from a clinical standpoint and just being able to.

Fabiola:

So sometimes we have a case that you're doing all the right things and something might not be. Or a specific supplement, you keep increasing the dose, or you keep increasing certain types of it, and just different from different companies, and why is this body not absorbing those nutrients? And I think you mentioned methylation. I think methylation has been something that, as practitioners, we just been so much more needing to be aware of, specifically because we're addressing a mold detox program or parasites or a lime, or even chemicals. If those systems in the body are not functioning 100%, then it's just going to be very difficult for people to be able to address all those root causes that are potentially leading to those chronic illnesses. And the fact that you can have a test that not only tells you about what's going on with your methylation processes but like yeah, I mean what time you should go to bed and wake up, it's like super awesome, because I'm a morning person, but maybe I shouldn't be not just kidding.

Dr. Smith:

It gives you the ability to say you know what my Tiana is like, sleeping a bit longer as you mentioned the toxin sensitivity and there's a whole section on that as well.

Dr. Smith:

It goes into molds, all sorts of different chemicals as well. So it's pretty cool when we get done something. We could spend a couple hours just talking about that and going through a report with people, and I've done a couple of notes in practitioners' offices and you know when somebody really sees the report and I usually pull up mine like take a look at me and what's going on and I'm a real person to look at.

Dr. Smith:

But yeah, very neat to meet company and something growing and people are just more and more aware of how it can play a role in overall wellness.

Fabiola:

Yeah, that's so cool. And you know there's a question I often I'm asked as a practitioner, you know well, how long would I need to be on a supplement? Or, you know, do I need to be on supplements for the rest of my life? And you know I'm like, well, you know, ideally no right, I mean ideally your system is functioning better and your body is just you're getting it from your food and stuff.

Fabiola:

But in my opinion, you know, sometimes we're living in a world that, unfortunately, we produce more toxicity every day. We're coming up with different new harmful chemicals every day and there's always just going to be something that we might be exposed to that is just making us. You know that nutrient deficiency because I believe very much that toxicity is create deficiencies and because we're toxic, we're not absorbing some of those wonderful nutrients. So you're working really hard on eating organic or eating grass fed, on taking your supplements with not removing some of those toxins can definitely hinder how your body responds. But you have a lot of experience on, you know, given your field and your line of work over the last, you know, since you became a chiropractor and been involved in that. Have you ever been asked that question by people you worked with or practitioners. How long would people need to be on a specific supplement?

Dr. Smith:

Yeah, no, it's a great question. People commit and they start working with you and they wanna get better as quick as possible and they wanna know how long and how much it's gonna cost me, and those are absolutely good questions that they should be asking, and it's not a my answer. It could be different than yours and we're both not wrong, or we both could be correct, and there's a generalizations that I like to give people from all of the speakers that we've seen over the years and experts in their field, and I always love the idea that, okay, like coming in and you're eating as healthy as possible, and maybe it might be all organic and grass-fed and stuff, but are there some issues with those sources too? There's these things that consumers need to just be more aware of and listen. Going to oldies and buying an organic, grass-fed burger is not a bad idea, but is it the same as going up to a co-op up to the street in Ithaca and grabbing some really good grass-fed beef that's been pasture raised around?

Fabiola:

there.

Dr. Smith:

So there's lots of variations with that. But going back to how long, the vertige that I always heard and always like kind of meant a lot to me is like listen, for every year that you have had something going on. And whatever we're trying to address, keep yourself a good one of good therapeutic dosage of supplements and, as well as that, eating. So we'll see people come in the office that they need to do a history on them and they recognize like, okay, well, they're in their, say, late 40s, 50s and they've truly had digestive issues since they were in high school or middle school. So we're talking just decades and decades. And that goes back to what you were saying before. I would love to say in a month you're gonna be perfect, it's just. But it's just not realistic. And, having said that, I think that, relatively quickly, people should getting some good response and, symptomatically, maybe having a little more energy or not being as constipated if they're not going once every two or three days when they should go in two or three times a day.

Dr. Smith:

So you're gonna get better. But like, where's that ultimate goal? What are we trying to do? Are we trying to get years? Are we trying to get quality of years? So it's and.

Fabiola:

I want both.

Dr. Smith:

I wanna have good quality life and have lots of energy, but also wanna live to be 120. So we'll see. But at the same vantage, I'm not 100% clean all the time and you just hear these crazy things that can happen and could I have an amniotic or a heart attack next week. You just never, never, never know.

Dr. Smith:

So I think, staying on path eating well, eating well, doing a good protocol. That may change over time. Absolutely may, because I think as practitioners we learn that you can't commit to a situation and say somebody's not sleeping well and their main goal is to sleep better, and then just give them, say, some valerian, an herb or some other very calming nutrients to get them to sleep better, without addressing that digestion or some endocrine imbalance that they have.

Dr. Smith:

Their adrenals are not functioning well, their thyroid is not functioning well and that all kind of plays into maybe that sleep. But it's a step-by-step process of getting them what they need now and it absolutely can be a challenge in the nutrition field. I'm sure it certainly dealt with the emotional components of all. You could put somebody on the best quality protocol. It's exactly what they need, but there's an emotional component to what's going on and there is a lot of stress and they're not gonna respond as well. So it's happened. There's just so many different things that you can be doing to improve your health outcome and what are your goals?

Fabiola:

And they made changes as well.

Dr. Smith:

So it definitely really varies, and there are certainly, I think, the one case that I always told people like you need to be on this supplement for the rest of your life and every single time you eat you need to take one, and I'll quiz you which one I'm talking about, but in what cases it is, it's people without gallbladders. Oh, yes, colocal gas, or you know colocal or we bet.

Dr. Smith:

You need support or something with food research and it has violence. So you know, when people understand the physiology of, okay, the liver will make bile, kind of store it in that gallbladder. And then there's this sensation, a neural sensation, that happens when you eat fatty foods and it just tells the gallbladder that pouch to squeeze more bile into the digestive tract at the right time to break that fatty food that you just ate. And fats are good, we know, fats are great. You're not making any of the hormones without cholesterol Step from fats. So if you don't have a gallbladder, what's done is done. You can't put it back in, unfortunately, but you're still producing bile, but it's just being shunted into the digestive tract all the time.

Dr. Smith:

Yeah so it's not timed.

Dr. Smith:

So you know that's one supplement that I'd say listen, and you know, I guess out of you know the hundreds of patients that I've had and the hundreds and hundreds of practitioners I've had and I teach that to I wonder how many, how the patients, once you tell them that, are still saying on that you know. You know for the long term and unfortunately it's probably not as high a percentage as it should. So but all we can do is educate and you know if somebody's not symptomatically feeling something they tend to like. You know how many times you put somebody on a protocol for three or four months and they feel much better. And then they weigh.

Fabiola:

Yeah.

Dr. Smith:

And symptoms may come back, may not. A lot of times, what we see is people, their energy, just all of a sudden doesn't zap and gone in one day.

Dr. Smith:

It just slowly kind of degrades over years and years. They don't realize how much energy they don't or how bad their sleep has got. So it's typically things just don't happen immediately. So it's really a process and it's all about educating. You know, rain off the bat saying this will take some time, and I tend to. You know, in practice I tend. You know you don't ever want to fear somebody and say, okay. Well, you know, I do a heart sound recording test in my office.

Dr. Smith:

You guys do some heartbreak, variability, things like that, and if you see something, you're like oh, oh, you know, I had to say, you know like, listen, we've got to address this right now, or you know, something catastrophic can happen. It's a fine line of saying, yeah, we need to address this, but it will take some time, right? So it's always that double-edged sword and trying not to fear somebody, but trying to make them recognize how important this is.

Fabiola:

Yeah.

Dr. Smith:

Do you want to be around for your daughter's wedding or not? You want to be around for your daughter's wedding. You know those are things that certainly drive me to want to be healthier and healthier.

Fabiola:

Yeah, I agree, and then I think it becomes also a factor of degree of willingness. You know, I think that you know back in, I mean, however long ago, but we were more. You know, we ate the whole animal, right, like if we were hunting. We would eat the whole animal, and that included your organ meats. And how many people can say, oh, I eat organ meats every day? You know, I'm definitely not one of them and I don't know that I ever will.

Dr. Smith:

But then it comes to the under that.

Fabiola:

Well, I need to supplement it because I don't, I refuse to eat it.

Fabiola:

So, it's also that degree of willingness. You know, like if you're deficient and like if the my DNA test shows that I'm deficient in fish right, or my Omega-6s and my Omega-3s right, which most of us are probably very deficient on our Omega-3s Am I going to be eating the amount of fish that I need to be eating every day to hit those you know levels that my body needs? Most likely not. So guess what we're going to have to supplement with a high quality supplement with. You know, like I definitely love some of the companies that you've been mentioning because I believe in their high standards and, as practitioners, we wouldn't be using this products if we didn't believe and actually clinically see or so results with them.

Fabiola:

So I can, it's definitely again, the not every supplement is created equal and it's not. So, yeah, no, this has been super helpful in trying to understand, you know, navigate through the need of supplementation. You know they're not all supplements are created equal and that you can even get to very specific testing to determine what type of lifestyle you should be having and how to prevent. Yeah, you know, like heart, heart events that you were just talking about, because I think heart disease is still the number one killer in the United States and that's like that's not even, that's not even an old people problem anymore, you know.

Dr. Smith:

I mean.

Fabiola:

Young athletes. Nowadays there's just like it's it's getting younger and younger. And when you look at the news and you're like, oh my gosh, so I saw just collapse in the middle of a game You're like how does that happen? Like you're an athlete, like that you should have like literally live until you're 120 because all the everything that that probably is involved about being an athlete. I was never an athlete, so I don't know everything that it involves being an athlete, but it takes more nutrients.

Dr. Smith:

You know to be an athlete. I always told them you know, I have a soccer who's just turned 17 and plays, you know, some really high level hockey, and you know if somebody's going to be pushing their bodies even more, they need more nutrients than the average person, and typically the average person's not good enough to start with. You're an athlete, you're not getting what you need, and then you're pushing yourself. You're just digging your own grave you know which is really really really scary.

Fabiola:

So, yeah, and even just working out right, I mean just getting up to the gym a few times a week it still just requires that much more nutrition and lifestyle and the quality of life and food. And, like you mentioned, you know, I mean I think every interview that I've done so far, every guest has brought up emotions and how important it is to address emotions. However, I said that you do address emotions, whatever your philosophy or whatever your technique is. It's just something so important for that, for that healing to happen. So, yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up as well.

Dr. Smith:

Got to be happy and be grateful every day.

Fabiola:

Yes, I agree 100%. So, gosh, we cover so much and I spend. So I always love talking to you because, like I said, you always have like so much information that you know, not only as a client, from a client's perspective, but as a practitioner who's getting education, and I always appreciate your knowledge. So if anyone other, whether it's a practitioner listening to this episode or someone who is really like eager and ready to change their health, how will one go about reaching out to you to get more education or care from you?

Dr. Smith:

Yes, sure, and again, I reciprocate. So it's always a pleasure, you know, talking with you and you guys have, just, you know, fabulous practice down in Ithaca and you probably even up and baffle a little bit as well. So you know, your dedication to help people be healthy is just is awesome. So so stood up for sure.

Dr. Smith:

And yeah, you know there's, there's. So, you know, like I was like, mentioned, there's certainly been some trying to the show, but the past year, you know, six months and they, you know people can certainly go to comprehensive and period of wellness. They could Google that and my Facebook page will certainly come up and I'm on Instagram as well as I think it's a Dr Jeffrey Smith with some underscores in there and you know I try to, you know, certainly post some, some pics of those kids that I just mentioned and some of the you know fun good stuff that I do, and I believe the website, if you went to the Facebook comprehensive integrated wellness page, has a direct link to a couple of the options that people have. So, if they're interested in doing that DNA test and I promise we're now, we're the third, which is a Wednesday, so by the end of next week I'm going to have a couple of different options for people to go on and say, just just purchase the test itself with no consult or anything involved, or have the option to do a brief consult with me once we get the results back and in goes through Okay, what you know?

Dr. Smith:

What do they specifically need? And and we could, you know mention the specific products that that might be helpful, and they can certainly go on and take the test through me and the brilliant guys report and do that as well. So you know that's if I it's a let's see. So yeah, you could call it comprehensive integrative wellness dot square dot site is the actual website specifically for that.

Dr. Smith:

So but yeah nobody's too far away when you get onto the internet these days. So, yeah, there's a couple options that can reach out and make questions that like awesome.

Fabiola:

So we'll make sure to add all those of that information and show notes so that people can easily just click and be directed to your, to your site. Well, I really appreciate you being here with us today and sharing your wealth of information. Was there anything else you wanted to cover before we end off?

Dr. Smith:

You know, I guess we like said we've covered a, covered a ton and you know, yeah, thank you, and thank you everybody for listening. And you know we're, we're heading into fall and I think immune is going to be another big. We'll say push, but we, you know that's a whole nother rabbit hole, but but, but, stay healthy, get the help that you need. There's, there's definitely good practitioners around you're around the country and need to find someone. You know I'm always open to helping people find, you know, good, good practitioners, because unfortunately they're few and far between.

Fabiola:

Yeah, true, awesome, all right. Well, thank you so much. We're signing off now.

Dr. Smith:

Okay, thank you, have a great one.

Fabiola:

Thank you, thank you.

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Exploring the Benefits of Herbal Medicine
Genetic Testing and Nutritional Optimization
Supplement Duration and Importance of Consistency
Importance of Nutrition for Athletes