These days there is an increasing number of people managing their day to day lives through the support of the pharmaceutical industry, but is looking at diet the answer these people are missing? Welcome to The Shift expert series with naturopath, nutritionist and author Katherine Maslen as she explores the state of human health, the dysfunction of the health industry and provides people with the tools, knowledge and understanding to make the shift in their lives.  In the expert series of The Shift, Katherine explores deeper conversations with the world leaders featured in season one, the investigative docu- series on the gut. If you want to make the shift towards more informed decisions regarding better health, then this podcast is for you. In this episode we have Dr. Tom O’Bryan. Dr Tom is considered a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ for chronic disease and metabolic disorders, teaching that the underlying mechanisms that trigger the development of chronic disease are the key to health. He has trained and certified tens of thousands of practitioners around the world in advanced understanding of the impact of wheat sensitivity and the development of individual autoimmune diseases.  He holds teaching faculty positions with The Institute for Functional Medicine and the National University of Health Sciences. His 2016 groundbreaking book, The Autoimmune Fix, won the National Book Award and ranked first in several categories on Amazon. Dr. Tom is founder of theDr.com and the visionary behind The Gluten Summit: A Grain of Truth, which brings together 29 of the world’s experts on the gluten connection to diseases, disorders, and a wide range of symptoms.  He is an internationally recognised, admired and compassionate speaker focusing on food sensitivities, environmental toxins, and the development of autoimmune diseases. Dr Tom has also recently released a docu-series on Autoimmunity called Betrayal: The Autoimmune Disease Solution They’re Not Telling You. This docu-series is for people who are dealing with any one of the hundreds of autoimmune conditions including hashimotos, ulcerative colitis, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis and many more. In this episode Katherine and Dr Tom dig deep into: Why humans don’t have the ability to break down the proteins in wheat What is causing the rise of autoimmune disease and how that is linked back to our diet The details on intestinal permeability  How to correctly approach checking people for food allergies and why you need to look at multiple factors, including possible leaky gut Why there is a difference between wearing a life jacket and actually fixing the problem in a patient Dr Tom’s analogy on the pond of disease and how you can better investigate the cause of health issues Gluten is immunoreactive and is associated with many autoimmune diseases and conditions A breach of the blood brain barrier, or ‘leaky brain’ leads to neuroinflammation, which can lead to neurodegenerative diseases like alzeimers and dementia, as well as memory loss Where there is a place for medicinal approaches to symptoms and where there is not Milk is for baby cows, not for humans The impact dairy can have on the human system and what animal milk is closer to human milk What the human digestive process is and how we break down and absorb food Links: Docu-series Betrayal Dr Tom O’Bryan – Website  Dr Tom O’Bryan – Facebook  Dr Tom O’Bryan – Instagram  Dr Tom O’Bryan – Twitter  Dr Tom O’Bryan – LinkedIn  Dr Tom O’Bryan – YouTube