Dr. Tom O’Bryan discusses his journey into functional medicine and the importance of addressing inflammation and food sensitivities, particularly gluten, in relation to health issues. He emphasizes the role of the immune system and the potential benefits of an autoimmune-friendly diet.
Highlights:
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys, Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. In today's podcast, I interviewed Dr. Tom O'Brien, and we talked about the root causes of inflammation, chronic, and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Tom is an expert in autoimmune conditions, gluten, leaky gut, toxicity. We'll go into some of the scientific articles, connecting the dots for some of these core issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Again, Dr. Tom has a new summit coming out this month called the Inflammation Equation Summit. You can get access to that summit at inflammationequation. com slash Justin. Again, we'll put the link right in the description below, so just go down below and click it. Hope you enjoy today's podcast. And we are live, Dr.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dr. Justin Marchegiani in the house with Dr. Tom O'Brien. Dr. Tom is a mentor. He's been on the lecture circuit, speaking about functional medicine, gluten, gut permeability, autoimmune health, chronic inflammation for decades. I first saw Dr. Tom, I wanna say it was 2008 at a Metagenics conference, and then I, I actually introduced him.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: He gave a lecture on gluten sensitivity and gut permeability, I think in 2010 at my chiropractic college at the time. So it's, it's been a while and we're coming full circle. Dr. Tom also did a big summit in 2013 on gluten. It was one of the biggest summits at the time. And then a summit on autoimmune health called Betrayal in 2016.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, Dr. Tom is at it again with his new summit coming out called the Inflammation Equation. Dr. Tom, welcome to today's podcast. How are you doing?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Thank you so much. Very good. Very good. And it's nice to be with you. Thank
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: you. Well, same here. So first off, just how did you get here today? I mean, you started off talking about gluten when it really wasn't that popular, and then 2010, then it got big.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But you were talking about it before it was really a thing. Yeah. How did that happen? Yeah,
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: yeah. Well how did that happen? Well, we have to go back to 1979. When my ex and I were trying to get pregnant I was an intern. Chicago and I called the seven most famous holistic doctors I'd ever heard of and said, what do you do for infertility?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So they told me I put a protocol together. We were pregnant in six weeks and my name, my neighbors and married housing, we lived on campus. They'd been through artificial insemination, nothing had worked, and they asked if I'd work with them, and I said, well, you know, I don't think it's gonna hurt you. Okay.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They were pregnant in three months. So now we're four months pregnant, just so happy and telling the world, and we tell our friends in Chicago, schools in Chicago, And our friend's sister in Wisconsin had two miscarriages and could she come down and talk to me, please? And I said, well, I don't know what I'm doing.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Oh, okay. Okay. And that's how it started. I came out into practice with the realization that there's not much in medicine that's all or every. But this was every. Every couple that was having problems with fertility, whether it was miscarriages or infertility, premature ejaculations, fibrocystic breasts, it didn't matter.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Every couple as a component contributing to their problem was that they were eating foods they had no idea We're causing inflammation in their body because they felt fine when they ate the food, but now we know, you know, with food sensitivities for every one person that gets gut symptoms, there are eight that don't, they get brain symptoms or joint symptoms or skin symptoms.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So if you think. It's safe to eat pizza because you feel fine when you eat pizza. Well, maybe a little bloated, but I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not a big deal. Just a little bloated. But if it's activating your immune system and the weak link in your chain, you pull it a chain that always breaks it. The weakest link, one end the middle of the other end, your heart, your brain, your liver.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So you eat a food that activates your immune system, but doesn't cause gut pain. And the weak link in your chain is your brain. You've got more depression that next day or more anxiety the next day. And you don't associate it with what you ate because you don't feel bad as soon as you eat it. But we discovered that in every couple dealing with fertility issues, they also had foods that they were eating that were a problem.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So that sent me down the road of exploring what foods for an individual are a problem. And consistently the number one food has been gluten consistently. And then I started reading the science about it and my jaw dropped again and again and again. I'll give you one example. That puts it in perspective, you know, if you go to your doctor with some kind of a brain dysfunction, cognitive decline, or migraines, or your child's got seizures, something.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And your doctor tries to help and they can't, you go back, they send you to a neurologist. The neurologist tries to help, gives you some stronger medication, doesn't help, you go back, gives you something else maybe, doesn't help, you go back, now you're a year or more into this thing. And if you're lucky, the doctor sends you, the neurologist sends you to a tertiary neurology center.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: That's the geek of geeks. Those are the scientists that love to explore and figure out why something's happening. And one of the first papers I read on this topic of wheat and the brain was from a tertiary neurology center. So okay, these are the smartest of the neurologists. And they wrote that when the cause of a problem is identified, meaning a patient went to their doctor, didn't help, went to the neurologist, didn't help, got referred to the tertiary neurology center.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: When the cause of their problem could be identified, 5 percent of those people had their immune system fighting wheat. Elevated antibodies to wheat. 5%. Okay, but when the cause of a problem could not be identified at a tertiary neurology center, 57 percent of the people have an immune system, and they take wheat out of their diets, they get better.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: It didn't matter if it's spinal cerebellar ataxia, which means it's really hard to move. You know, you can't use your muscles very well or you can't, but your didn't matter what it was. Fifth, those that get referred to the worst cases, they get referred to the tertiary neurology. So they got better on a gluten free diet.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So that just dropped my jaw to understand we've got to go way past the gut and symptoms in the gut. to identify, should I look into this more or not? You know, to, to create suspicion, could this be part of my problem? We have to go way past the gut for that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, when you look deeper at this, right, is it, is the underlying mechanism really just gluten upregulating the zonulin protein and then opening The gut lining and then exposing the immune system to these proteins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then as the immune system gets exposed, now it's open season on all these different other proteins, thyroid, pancreas, all the nerve sites. Is that really like the first domino that starts everything going downstream?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Dr. Justin Marchegiani You're really close. You're really close. Just a little bit of tweak.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: It's the immune system that starts the whole cascade. You know, inside your gut, when food comes out of the stomach, We have sending guard there with high powered rifles. They're called toll light receptors. I think of the guards at Buckingham palace, you know, the guys with the big hats. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys are as stiff as could be.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: We'd call them dormant. They're not doing anything, but don't mess with those guys. And in the first part of our gut, we've got toll like receptors that are there watching coming out of the stomach. This is a life saving mechanism from the days of our ancestors. You know, 10, 000 years ago, before agriculture, our ancestors were nomads.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They followed the herds. And their number one concern was to find food. So they'd find something. They pick it up, first they smell it, then they nibble at it, and then they eat it. And if there was bad bugs that they didn't identify, then as the food came out of the stomach, it was the toll like receptor to say, oh look, a bad bug.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And they activate The immune system, here comes zonulin, as you described, to create leaky gut, and the reason for the leaky gut is that the water, when your cells move apart, a little water comes into the intestines, and it washes out the threat with the poop. Right. Leaky gut is really good for you. It saves your life every day.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Excessive leaky gut. That is not good for you. So it does two things. That toll like receptor activates onulin, as you described, and it activates NF kappa B, the major amplifier of inflammation. I call it the desk sergeant at the police station. You guys go over here, patrol this neighborhood. You guys go over there, take care of any problems.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: You guys go over there. That's NF kappa B, the major amplifier of inflammation. So, when wheat comes out of the stomach into the first part of the small intestine, Toll like receptor looks at it, and because these proteins of wheat that are poorly digested, they look like the outer shell of a bug. They've got the amino acid structure of a microorganism.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: This is what they're teaching at Harvard right now. And that when wheat comes out of the stomach into the first part of the intestine, you activate this defense to protect you to save your life from a bad bug. But gluten is misinterpreted as a harmful component of a microorganism by our immune system.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: That's why it happens. And then Maureen Leonard. Also at Harvard, a famous gastroenterologist, she, she looked at over 60 studies on this topic and she wrote a summary in the Journal of the American Medical Association and she said gluten activates Toll like receptor 4 in all humans, creating transient leaky gut and permeability permeability and inflammation in all humans who consume it.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So for anyone that's listening to this. If you're human, even though your wife may not think you are sometimes, but if you're human, this relates to you. And if you think because your gut doesn't bother you when you eat wheat, you'll get it right one out of eight times. Because that's the ratio. For every one person that gets gut symptoms with a problem with wheat, there are seven that don't, they get brain symptoms or skin symptoms or joint symptoms.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They don't get gut symptoms. So if you think, well, I feel fine when I eat wheat. So that makes it okay. You're you're, you'll miss it. Seven out of eight times.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Was on the other side of the equation too, where people will avoid wheat, but then they'll have. So, rice, oat, corn, and there's still some potential cross reactive mimicry there, because, you know, there may not be brother or sister, but there may be aunt, uncle, cousin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And the immune system may create some reactivity with that, plus there's some scientific articles just showing that, well, let's say you avoid gluten, but you're eating other processed grains, there's still not a lot of nutrition, and there can still be other You know, maybe other inflammatory components, whether it's fermentable components or anti nutrients of, of other orders, if you will.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, there's that as well. So, I see patients that get stuck, even just going gluten free, and then we kind of move them more to an autoimmune friendly diet, where we cut out all grains to begin with, and maybe even some other ancillary foods that may look healthy on paper, like nuts or seeds or eggs, and sometimes that moves the needle more.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What's your take on, like, stepping it up and really avoiding all grains, or even more of an autoimmune friendly approach sometimes?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Yeah, you've got an as a clinician, you've seen people, you've seen some people who respond to just gluten free, but many that don't that they, they get better, but they're not at the level they want to be yet.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Right. And so you start looking at other foods. And what happens is because we're born and raised on this food. It's not really a food, but we're born and raised on wheat. And it's got some good qualities. It's got some protein, it's got some vitamins, it's enriched, you know, so not, not everything in wheat is bad for you.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And so when, when you take it out of the diet, but it's, it's been weakening you and weakening you and weakening you and weakening you until eventually you cross the line of tolerance. And now you can start getting symptoms. You've caused enough damage to where you're getting symptoms. And at that point it's, it's safer.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And More guaranteed success. I guess I'd say it that way to do the approach that you're referring to, the auto immune diet approach. Those things that might likely be a problem for you for a while. And let's see how you do. Let's see if you start to shine. and feel great. The exception to that is if people don't want to do that unnecessarily, you, you can do testing.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: There's testing available now that's very, very accurate to see, do you have a problem with dairy? Do you have a problem with eggs or with soy or with lectins? And so, the, these tests are called the Zoomers. Like the wheat zoom, you zoom in on the problem for it. So for those that really want to know right now, can I eat dairy or not?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Can I eat wheat or not? You just want to see is my immune system fighting this food. And if it is, take it out of there. You have to take it out because Mrs. Patient, your immune system is just the armed forces in your body. It's there to protect you. There's an Army, a Navy, an Air Force, a Marines, a Coast Guard, we call them IGM.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: There are different branches of the armed forces there to protect you. So, when, now, and here's the key, and we're doing an event soon on this topic. The Center for Disease Control tells us that 14 of the top 15 causes of death are chronic inflammatory diseases. It's always inflammation, without exception, except for unintentional injuries.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: That's the only one. Everything else is chronic inflammation. Right. Under the surface, where you feel fine for years, but you're actually killing off cells, killing off cells, killing off cells. But you don't, they haven't killed off so many cells that you're dysfunctional and you notice that you're not functioning quite right.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So there's no symptoms. You know, we know with Alzheimer's you've got 20, 25 years of no symptoms whatsoever while you're killing off brain cells. That came out in a report from A joint commission that the government put together because they said we got a problem here. Alzheimer's is going to bankrupt us within 25 years It's going to bankrupt us because more and more people are getting it You know blue cross blue and blue shield came out with a study In february of 2020 and no one listened to it because that's when the virus came but they they said we've got a problem And in the previous four year period, there was a 407% increase in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 30 to 44 year olds.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Wow. 30 to 44. 407% increase in four years. Wow, that's Blue Cross Blue Shield. Yeah, this is a pandemic of huge proportions. Our brains are being killed off by the amount of toxins and inflammation that's the immune system fighting all these toxins. And if you want to know if I'm sounding like a nutcase or not, there is a test you do called the NeuroZoomer Plus.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And it looks at 53 markers of inflammation in your brain and you will see just how inflamed your brain is right now. And by definition, when you've got elevated antibodies, you're killing off cells faster than you're making them. That's what elevated cells elevated antibodies means. You're killing off more cells than you're making.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Because regenerates, some slow, some fast. But when you've got elevated antibodies, you're killing off more cells than you're making. So when you're
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: looking at lab testing for gluten, I remember back in the day, the Cyrex panels came out and you know, there's, there's different markers like Gliadin antibodies in some of the stool testing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There's HLA alpha, beta. You have your conventional kind of more celiac oriented, whether it's transglutaminase or endomyceal or just a endoscopy looking at villous atrophy of 80%. So you have kind of your celiac side over here. And then essentially, if you weren't considered celiac, then the idea of looking deeper for gluten sensitivity or non celiac gluten sensitivity wasn't really a thing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But now the literature is showing, even if you're not showing celiac issues, even if you're not showing that villous atrophy, you're still going to benefit because There's still gonna be some level of permeability increase even without the celiac type of markers. Can you kind of draw a line between celiac and, and the other side of the offense, but maybe we'll just call it gluten sensitivity.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Dr. Kahn You bet. In, in Italy, there are 36 centers designated by the government as Gluten related disorders centers by 20 some gastroenterology, a few psychiatric, a few pediatric centers all over the country. And when a doctor suspects that a patient may have a problem with gluten, They send them to one of these centers because these experts, if they identify you have a problem with wheat, your food's a tax deduction.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And so that's worth doing. There's 36 of them all over the country, right? So they looked at 5, 000 people who were sent to one of these gluten related disorder centers. And so these are people that were sick. They went to their doctor, and their doctor said, You know, this might be weak. Go over to see these guys, because it'll help, and they're really the experts.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So these were sick people, and what they found was that nine seven, seven percent of the people had celiac disease. Ninety three percent had gluten sensitivity. that was just as serious manifesting as Hashimoto's thyroid or as brain dysfunction or rheumatoid arthritis or MS. It wasn't manifesting as celiac.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So we have misinterpreted the, the, the information for years thinking that, well, if you don't have celiac, there's no problem with wheat. That's just not true. And the science is very, very clear. Okay. It's a historical misconception to think that way because we now know very clearly the majority of people, more than 9 That have a problem with wheat that's causing a disease for them.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They don't have celiac. They've got one of the other autoimmune mechanisms going on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes sense. And I was reviewing a study just last week where they were talking about schizophrenia, for instance, and they had one patient had full resolution of schizophrenia, no symptoms for a year. And the underlying mechanism was gluten.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And the driving factor was it was decreasing. the carotid artery blood flow, so the garden hose in the side of your neck, that blood flow was going down so that frontal cortex wasn't getting the perfusion, the oxygen, the nutrition. And I imagine, you know, schizophrenia is just one disease. You could have all kinds of other borderline personality issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Maybe it's just making you depressed or anxious, or maybe it's dropping your IQ point. So I could imagine if that mechanism is happening, the constellation of symptoms or dysfunction or dis ease could be, you know quite, quite broad.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Yeah. Dr. Ray, I'll give you two studies on that. The one on schizophrenia.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They looked at pregnant women and they measured the how many of these women had antibodies to gluten during pregnancy. And then they followed the offspring for 30 years. I mean, they followed them for a long, long time. Those women that were in the top 5% I'm sorry, the top 10 percent of antibodies to wheat, their offspring had a 73 percent increased risk of developing schizophrenia.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: 30 years later, meaning their brain didn't develop. Those pregnant women in the top 5 percent of antibodies to each, so meaning the ones who are really up there a lot, their offspring had a 230% increased risk of developing schizophrenia 30 years later. The brain doesn't develop completely. And we know that's true.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Not just for gluten, but also toxic chemicals have an effect on baby developing in utero. So, When you think of wheat as a toxic compound to the body activating the immune system, you start to understand some of the mechanisms of how phthalates, chemicals used to mold plastic, like nail polish, you put nail polish on and the phthalates are in your bloodstream in four to five minutes.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: But there's no evidence that that amount of phthalates is toxic to people, but it accumulates in the body. And those women that were in the highest category of phthalates in urine in pregnancy, they looked at 326 women in Chicago in 2016. Those in the highest category compared to those in the lowest category, the children of the moms who were highest amount of phthalates that had accumulated in their body, at seven years old compared to the children of moms who were low in phthalates in pregnancy.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: The kids whose moms were high in phthalates, those kids IQ was seven points lower, 6. 7 to 7. 4 points lower, every single one of them. Now you just go to Google and type in phthalates and neurogenesis, brain cell growth. Here come the studies. The higher the phthalates, the more inhibition of brain cell growth.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And so when mom's been doing nail polish on her 10 little fingers and 10 little toes for 25 years, or she gets coffee at the local coffee shop, puts a plastic lid on it. The steam condenses on the underside of the lid, drips back down into the coffee. Full of phthalates, and you put that in your lips, the hot liquid hits the underside of the lid, tapers down into the opening, full of phthalates, and you do that regularly for a lifetime, now you've got high phthalate levels in your body, now you get pregnant, now your baby's brain is at risk of not developing properly, and you have a healthy pregnancy.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And a healthy delivery. And you never know that your child's brain, their IQ is down because the brain never developed completely because of these chemicals. And it doesn't matter if it's wheat, or phthalates, or mold. There are many, many studies that show it's the toxicity in these young women that's contributing to the increase in autism.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: The increase in Alzheimer's in younger people. I mean, that's why we're doing our event, the inflammation equation. where I've talked to the authors of these studies. I interview them. I say, well, doctor, wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did you just say yes. Well, does that mean yes. Oh my gosh. Did you hear that?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Wow. And so that's, that's our event. The inflammation equation is to take all this information and deliver it in a Understandable slow pace, not like now you and I are going boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, for your listeners so that everybody gets a real appreciation. That the one thing you have to focus on for you and your family, that's going to give you the most bang for your buck.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: How do I reduce the inflammation in my body?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And gluten is going to be one component of that. No, for sure. Yeah. We're going to dive into some of those other areas. It's amazing that. You have peer review science, you have information coming out that these toxins, which we can preventably avoid, but they're ubiquitous throughout plastics and throughout packaging products and, and lots of processed food, that there isn't a public health cry to remove them or pull them out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, it's, it's amazing that the wheels of change in that area are incredibly slow.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: We've been groomed and brainwashed to not complain and just accept it. In Europe, there are over 20, 000 chemicals that are outlawed. They can't be brought into the country in any food, in any packaging. Nothing because they've been shown to be dangerous in the United States.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Do you have any idea how many chemicals have been outlawed? 12. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Not that many.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Not 20, 000.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then they'll give the rest of a grass status generally recognized as safe and they can still package it. Right.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Right. Right. Exactly. And so what we're dealing with and the way they got to Got away with that with the grass generally regarded as safe You have to show that the amount of exposure you get within 24 hours is toxic to humans It's not it's not the amount of mercury that's in most tuna fish is not toxic to humans, but mercury accumulates in your body chemicals Accumulate in your body and after a while, excuse me, but we most of us are walking cesspools We are so toxic This is why every autoimmune disease is going up 4 9 percent a year.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Every year! Every disease! This is why there's a 407 percent increase in diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 30 44 year olds. And nobody's talking about this. So we want to bring to light the amount of toxins. And then what do you do to create a safe home? Look, indoor air pollution is often much worse than outdoor air pollution.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Now there's nothing you can do about the chemtrails. And if you live near a freeway, there's nothing you can do about that. But you certainly can do a lot about what's inside your home. NASA did the studies that showed two six inch house plants in a 10 by 10 room absorbs over 74 percent of the toxins in the air.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Oh, wow. It's great. So, you know, you go to my website, the dr. com forward slash plant and download the handout and go get those plants and put them in your kid's bedroom and your bedrooms and put them in every room of the house. And if people say, Oh, I'm not very good with plants or they'll die eventually, then you get more, you know, the plants.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Get an air filtration system because the indoor air pollution is poisoning. Most of us from flame retardant chemicals on your sofa, from your kitchen cabinets, if they're not solid wood, their press board, press board is soaked in formaldehyde that out gases for years. So you just have to learn about all these little things and you do one little thing at a time.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: to create a safer indoor environment for you and your family.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Amazing. That's great. I just feel like a lot of the interventions, a lot of the things that you can do about it, they're just not patentable. You, you can't generate a multi billion dollar product off of it. And it's in that, that's part of the reason why industry and and big pharma is not taking it and trying to run the ball with it a little bit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: People out there. Right? That's right. That's
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now, you talked about gluten a lot. I want to go into some of the things that you're recommending on the gut side, recommending on the detoxification side, outside of just, you know, good strategies like you mentioned. But what's happened to the wheat over the last hundred years?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, you, you see wheat recommended or talked about in biblical days. We talk about the einkorn wheat and, and the chromosomal changes. We talk about the protein increases due to hybridization. Roundup or glyphosate may play a role. What's your theory on why things have changed? Is it a combination of microbiome being more unhealthy, more antibiotics?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like,
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: go ahead. I'll let you have the floor. Yeah, you bet. You, you hit it pretty much on the head. It's the microbiome that has become so inflammatory for just about all of us. It's true, That wheat today, the hybrid wheats today have more toxic gluten in them than some of the historic or ancient grains.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: It's true. But the ancient grains, once you've crossed the line of tolerance and you make antibodies to wheat, they go after the ancient grains just as much as you do the modern grains. Right. So you can't say, Oh, I'm going to eat spelt because it's not as toxic. No, it is. Once you cross that line of tolerance, that's why it's such a great test for everybody to do the wheat zoomer test because it's the most comprehensive test out there on do I have a sensitivity to wheat or not?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And it also includes the most comprehensive test for the leaky gut. So you get two with one stone there, right? With that one, look, here's a study that just keeps telling me my brain to tell you. So somebody out there is listening to this children with drug resistant epilepsy, which means they've tried three different medications and they're still getting seizures.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: 50 percent of children with drug resistant epilepsy go into complete remission on a gluten free diet. 50 percent of them, and they've tried three drugs on these kids. Well, why don't our neurologists know this? Because it's published in the journal Gastroenterology. And neurologists don't read gastroenterology journals.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So they don't know this. So they don't think of, here, here's a medication, but let's put your daughter on a gluten free diet for a while and see if that helps also.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They just don't do that. Dr. Justin
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Marchegiani I
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: remember once, I remember one time you talked about just a slight raise in ALT above 30 could be a sign of gluten sensitivity as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, obviously, you know, you could have non alcoholic fatty liver and such. But I always. We're gonna look at ALT after I heard that I'd like maybe that's maybe there's an inflammatory gluten component with that. So there's a lot of little smaller markers you can look at that you can glean some insight into.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: That's right. That's
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: right. Good. Excellent. So regarding that, you talked about a lot of the different proteins and the changes. I had patients who are very, very sensitive to grains here, went to Europe, went to Italy, had some there, did no, did no, no issues at all. And so there's definitely a density issue.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, you can think of the The gluten, you know, biblically, or, you know, from, you know, you can, you can think of like the, the really old fashioned gluten. It's dense like a hockey puck, like really, like real bread, real solid, healthy bread. And then you have today's bread, like the gluten is the glue. It makes it nice and soft and fluffy and squishy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So there is definitely a density issue. You can feel that difference, too, just with consistency. Yeah. Let's,
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: let's deal with this European wheat thing, so people understand. Yeah. It's inflammation that is killing us. 14 of the 15 top causes of death. It's always inflammation, which means your immune system acting to protect you against something, right?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So people go to Europe and they say, I can eat the wheat in Europe, doc. I don't have a problem. No, you can't. No, no, no, no, doc. No, I don't feel a problem when I have the wheat in Europe. Whereas if I eat wheat here, I get bloated or whatever it should be. But that's because. The, there are many components in wheat, you know, not just gluten, there are many and it's the FODMAPs in wheat that cause the gut symptoms, not the proteins in general.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: You know, there's a, there's a small percent, some studies say 7%, 8 percent of people with The gut symptoms is because of gluten in the wheat, but for most people, more than 90%, it's the FODMAPs in wheat that cause the gut symptoms. And the gluten triggers the immune response, so that's the inflammation that goes throughout your body.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And it'll manifest wherever your weak link is, your thyroid or your brain wherever your weak link should be. So, the gluten activates the immune system, the gluten proteins activate the immune system, the FODMAPs activate bloating and gas and cramping in your gut. The problem is, the wheat in Europe is lower in FODMAPs, so you don't get gut symptoms.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: So you're eating the wheat there and you think it's fine, but if you were to do a blood test, you would see your immune system is screaming bloody hell right now. Ah, fighting. That makes sense. Fighting wheat. Fighting wheat, but it doesn't give you gut symptoms. It gives you thyroid problems or brain dysfunction, seizures, or joint problems, or ms.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: It, it does. The symptoms are outside the gut from the gluten proteins
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: and you're eight times more likely. To have these symptoms that are extra intestinal and just, I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you remember that? Do you remember, you know, the reference that was from the journal?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Adolorado, A D D O L O R A T O is his name.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: I don't remember. For the year of that stuff.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, I'm gonna look at that. That was amazing. I remember in your 2008 2009 conference, you were talking about that. The other one that was pretty amazing, the title of that study, I remember it was 1 16th of a Thumbnail of Gluten Keeps the Doctor Away. That was an amazing study title.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Remember that one?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Yeah, that was a woman that came. She was a nun, right? That's right. You have a good memory. Yes. She was diagnosed With celiac disease and she went gluten free and some of her symptoms got better, but not all of them She still had osteoporosis really bad and some other symptoms and she went to a gluten related disorder clinic in Italy.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And they said, well, you still have total villous atrophy. You've got a big problem here. Well, I'm gluten free. I'm gluten free. And then one of the astute doctors said are you a religious woman, ma'am? And she was a nun in street clothes. Nobody knew. And she was taking the host every day. And he said, you have to give up the host.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: I will not. God will not allow it. And he said, sorry, we can't help you. And they wrote up the study like that. Well, she came back two years later because the Bishop made her give up the communion wafer. And she was radiant, just as healthy as can be, osteoporosis gone, thyroid functioning great. And they titled that paper, A Milligram of Gluten a Day Keeps the Doctor Awake.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, that's crazy. And the church I go to too, they have all gluten free. Hosts. As well. So that's a thing that a lot of, you know, churches during that communion time, it really have adapted to. So that's great to see.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Marvelous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Marvelous. Now you made you put a lot of good knowledge bombs there. You made a really good point about the plants.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That was a really easy, simple lifestyle change. We can, we can add to reduce toxicity. We can. What other things can we reduce and or add in supplement wise, lifestyle wise to improve or lower toxicity, lower inflammation outside of just a really good healthy diet?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Yeah, that's a really good question and we talk about this in detail in the inflammation equation.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Right. Couples going to assisted fertility centers, and as you know, that's a group where these couples are spending tens of thousands of dollars to try to have a pregnancy, healthy, safe pregnancy and a baby and start a family. So in the Journal of the American Medical Association, they published a study, they came out of Harvard.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: In 2019 and they looked at couples going to assisted fertility centers and the editors of the journal wrote a comment saying, this is an elegant study using sophisticated biomarkers to demonstrate their point. Now, as you may know, the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association don't say that very often.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They don't give stamps of approval. To a study like that, really building it up. So what did the, what did these people look at? They ruled out all of the known risk factors for successful implantation of a fertilized egg. They ruled out smoking. They ruled out alcohol. They ruled out exercise, no exercise.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They ruled out weight. They ruled out socioeconomic class. They ruled out race. They ruled all this stuff out. And they looked at one thing. How many serves of fruits and vegetables is the woman eating a day? How many servings? And we think we know what the answer would be. You know, the more fruits and vegetables, the better.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Wrong. Those women in the highest category of fruit and vegetable consumption compared to those women in the lowest category of fruit and vegetable consumption, those in the highest category, had an 18 percent less likelihood of successful implantation. The more fruits and vegetables you ate, the worse the outcome.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And if they did get pregnant, they had a 26 percent less likelihood of a live birth. They lost the baby to miscarriages more often and to stillbirths more often. It's like, what? What? The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the worse the outcome? Yes. And you kill the baby. 26% of the time what? But there was a subgroup of women in that study that were eating organic, and in that group it was a complete opposite.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm. The
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: more fruits and vegetables you ate, the better the outcome PEs. And here's the good news on all of that. Women were put in the category of eating organic if they ate three servings a week. Organic, not three a day, three servings a week. That's all it took. And what I suspect, I don't have any evidence for this, but what I suspect is those couples that are eating organic couple, three times a week, they probably bought organic shampoo.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: They've got organic dishwashing detergent at home. You know, they're doing other things to try and be healthier. They're not fanatical. When they can, They're upgrading so that they're using higher quality, safer products. That is a jaw dropping study. Everyone can eat three servings a week of organic produce.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Everyone can. Wow.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Would you be able to interview that person for the for the Inflammation Equation Summit?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: No, no. I tried. I tried. But they were at Harvard and they were traveling extensively. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Okay. Wow. That is just amazing. So pesticide load is a big deal. Of course, pesticides kill insects by destroying their nervous system and reproductive system.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So it makes sense that there's going to be some. Pesticide load that's going to accumulate in our body. Like you said, it's very rarely just one thing. It's the phthalates here, it's the pesticides there, maybe a little bit of, you know microplastics in the water, right? And they're just all going to sum up and add up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else? Exactly
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: right. Oh, a paper came out five weeks ago now new technology to examine water. and plastic and water. And it was a game changer when they could identify micro plastics. You know, that was, you can't see micro plastics now with laser technology, they can identify nano plastics and billionth of a gram.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And what they identified in three common water bottled waters, they bought a leader. Of three different types of water, and the average amount of nanoplastics in the water is over 240,000 nanoparticles. One liter of water. Wow. Stop buying water and plastic bottles. Just stop. Mm-Hmm. get glass bottles a hundred percent.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And the industry will accommodate you demanding glass bottles. Stop the plastic. Stop your food in plastic. Plastic containers in the kitchen. You put your leftovers in plastic containers. The next day, the chicken's got phthalates in it from plastic container. Get glass containers. You just have to learn all these little things to stop poisoning ourselves because we don't know we're poisoning ourselves.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: But you learn all these little things and you do one thing at a time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So what can you do on the water filtration side at home? Is a good reverse osmosis still going to be the gold standard for removing toxins in the water?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: You know the, the higher quality, the water filtration system that you can access.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: The better. If all you can afford is a countertop grid water filter thing, you know, you pour water from the tap in there and better than nothing
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: and nothing.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: The best is a whole house unit. So it covers the water when you're brushing your teeth, when you're taking a shower, that's the best. And you get charcoal granulation reverse osmosis, two micron filter.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And if it's on well water, you also get ozone.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Yeah. We have a whole house system with the activated charcoal, the coconut, you know, all that good stuff there. And then we have an RO for the drinking water as well. So, and then, you know, they even have some NAC medium N Acetyl Cysteine medium as well that conditions the water, which is kind of cool as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What's your thoughts on EMF? I know you go through a lot of the peer review literature. What's your thoughts on EMF and what can we do about it if it is an issue for someone?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: There are four categories and we talk about it and we've got a couple of our scientists that we interviewed on EMFs. There are four categories we have to consider when we're wanting to reduce our inflammation.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: The first is structure. Now, I was trained initially as a chiropractor, like you. And so we have seen so many miracles over the years. Just by dealing with structure, things that jaw dropping, you never would expect by dealing with structure. If it's a structural problem, nothing else is going to fix it, right?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: You've got to deal with structure. That's number one. Number two is biochemistry. What we eat, what we drink, what we breathe. Number three is spiritual emotional spiritual. I mean when Dr. Jeff Bland, the founder of Functional Medicine in my interview with him said, You know, a negative thought activates your immune system just as much as exposure to a virus.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: It's like, what? What? Well, Dr. Bland, does that mean if you're in a toxic relationship that you're fueling your disease? He said, absolutely, without question. There's so much science to this now. And number four is EMFs. That we have to look at all four categories when we're wanting to reduce the amount of exposure, us, And our children are getting from our environment.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: You have to look at all four categories.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow. Amazing. And then if you have an EMF issue, is there any intervention or things that you recommend? Like you mentioned the plants for instance, right? Are there any other devices that you recommend or grounding or anything that you do for insulation that to help reduce that?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Oh, sure. There's a bunch of things and we, we talk about them all, but one of the things I'd like, I like to reference is the, I call it the pretty woman. Awareness. And from the movie, pretty woman there was this, that moment when the billionaire takes off his shoes and socks and he walks on the grass to feel himself getting grounded.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Yeah. And then he gets in his limo and he goes to propose, right? You know, he, he got realization, right? Yeah. But we all need grounding. We all need to connect to mother earth one way or another. on a very regular basis. That always helps. Sometimes people who are sleep deprived, they just can't sleep very well.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: I tell them to go out and take a walk or go out in their backyard barefoot and just walk around or sit, sit on the grass for a little while. And for some people it's helped substantially in their ability to fall asleep and sleep soundly.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good. Yeah. Big fan of grounding. Big fan of cold water immersion or cold water therapy as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think if you combine those, it really has a good HPA access type of reset. Very good.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Nothing. I've seen, I've seen nothing that is as powerful as cold water immersion. To work on every system of your body, it'll take a number of months, you know, and you start very slow and we've got a whole episode on that and how important it is, but you just start slow.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: You know, you start in your shower and you just breathe nice and deeply. You focus on your breath and your belly breath while you're in the hot shower, just melting in there. Right. And you focus on your breathing and then reach around and keep focusing on your breathing, but turn it all the way to cold.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: But maybe five, five seconds while you focus on your breathing and when you can't focus on your breathing anymore and you're starting to turn it back, back to hot and you do it every day. And next week you're holding it cold for 10 seconds and then next week you're holding it cold for 15 seconds and you just gradually build it up at the non stressful pace that your body will accommodate.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: And some days you're keyed up and it's really hard to stay focused on your breathing. And you can't do it for two seconds. Oh, forget this. I'm not doing it today. Right. It's, it's a rough day, you know, but be kind to yourself and you'll get there. And then you do the same with the cold water immersion. You go in the tank, you know, maybe for 10 seconds at first and you just gradually work it up a little bit of the time.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Nothing has changed. Physiology. as comprehensively as cold water immersion because it works on every cell of your body, every single cell.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Very good, Dr. Tom. Well, anything else you want to leave the listeners with here?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: Just that we've spent close to a year putting together. It's all free online.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan: It'll be eight days of one hour session a day. It's all free. And it's at TheInflammationEquation. com forward slash Justin. And you go there and register and then we will guide you in this information, hopefully in a way that's implementable for you, that you, you can use this information, this information.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. We'll put the link right down below the description and guys, I'm going to be signing up as well. There isn't anyone out there like Dr. Tom who can read the literature, distill it down to its salient actionable points and then make it digestible for the listener. So I think you have a true gift at being able to do that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It can be very overwhelming going to the peer review literature, but you've done a really great job distilling that. So we'll make sure the link is there. I'm going to be a part of that as well. Dr. Tom, anything else? And No, that'll do it. Thank you so very much for the opportunity. Thanks Dr. Tom. You take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Have a good one.
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