We all recognize that American healthcare is a badly broken system. Wildly overpriced, exploitative, with a focus on pharmaceuticals and medical procedures to the exclusion of basic issues such as nutrition, the role of nutrients, and the microbiome. Can we expect doctors, healthcare executives, pharma or medical device executives to find better solutions? 

I highly doubt it. One of the problems plaguing conventional delivery of healthcare is that doctors lack the time, knowledge, and frankly the interest in spending more time with their patients, hearing about their issues, then creating solutions that address their unique concerns. 

Enter the age of health coaches. A number of years ago, when I first heard about this phenomenon, of heath coaches playing a role in the delivery of health, I was skeptical. But over the past decade, as I’ve worked with health coaches, witnessed what they could accomplish, and heard plenty of positive feedback from the public engaging their services, my opinions about health coaching has completely changed. I now see them as part of the engine that will drive improvements in healthcare. 

I therefore tracked down Sandra Scheinbaum, a Phd clinical psychologist who counseled patients for many years but then diverted her career into functional medicine and health coaching, bringing the unique insights into human behavior and emotions that came from decades of practicing clinical psychology, now applied to health coaching. Dr. Scheinbaum founded the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy that educates and trains people in acquiring the skills and knowledge to practice as a health coach. She is also author of several books including Functional Medicine Coaching: Stories from the Movement That's Transforming Healthcare, and her newest book, Your Health Coach Will See You Now available in April 2025 on Amazon and selected bookstores. In this episode of Defiant Health, Dr. Scheinbaum recounts how she made this change in direction and what she foresees for the future of this important phenomenon of health coaching.

For more information:

FunctionalMedicineCoaching.org

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For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________
Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Over the past decade, most of us have converted our home lighting to light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, as they save a significant amount of energy, requiring 75-90% less energy than older incandescent lights. Personally, I converted the 50 or lightbulbs in my house to nearly all LEDs.

Most current LEDs emit, of course, visible light. But they also emit a significant amount of blue light and very little red and infrared (IR), in contrast to old-fashioned incandescent bulbs that emit some blue and a lot of red and IR. Remember when you had to change an incandescent bulb when it died? If you tried to unscrew it, it could burn your hand because the bulb was extremely hot. That’s the effect of red and IR that generates heat. Change a LED bulb and you can do so immediately, as the bulb is cool, even after dying just moments earlier. This is due to the absence of significant amounts of red and IR.

While well-intended to save energy, it is now becoming clear that the wholesale conversion to blue-emitting LED lighting has been exerting adverse health effects, especially visual. So let’s begin talking about the role of light, specifically blue wavelengths in this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, then about the role of red and IR in a future episode. _______________________________________________________________________________
For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________
Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.
_____________________________________________________________________________

MyReuteri and Gut to Glow can be found here: oxiceutics.com

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

I’ve touched on the topic of endotoxemia in past episodes of the Defiant Health podcast. In this episode, let’s dive deeper into this topic that is absolutely crucial to understanding and managing SO many aspects of health, from subduing anxiety and panic, to depressive, to joint pain and skin rashes, to gastrointestinal conditions, even weight management. 

What is endotoxemia? Fecal microbes, so-called Gram-negative species because of the way these microbes take up stain for examination under a microscope, species such as E. coli and Salmonella, have something called lipopolysaccharide endotoxin in their cells walls. Other species, so-called Gram positive species such as Enterococcus, Staphylococcus, and Streptococcus, that stain in a different manner, have something called lipoteichoic acid in their cell walls. When these microbes die, both Gram-negative and Gram-positive, these toxic factors are released into the intestines. If these fecal microbes are confined to the colon, where they belong, a section of GI tract adapted to their presence, the entry of these toxic components are limited and current evidence is unclear in how importat this process is. The real trouble occurs, however, when fecal microbes have invaded the 24-feet of small intestine, a process we label small intetinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO, because the small intestine—the stomach, duodenum, jejunum, and ileum are not well-adapted to the invasion of fecal species. Here, they die, release their toxic components, which then enter the bloodstream, the process labeled endotoxemia. People with SIBO therefore have high blood levels of endotoxin. This is how microbes in the GI Tract export their effects to other parts of the body. Let’s discuss this process and how you can take control over your emotions, mood, sleep, energy, weight, and numerous other aspects of health. _______________________________________________________________________________
For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________
Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.
_____________________________________________________________________________

MyReuteri and Gut to Glow can be found here: oxiceutics.com

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

I’ve been showing thousands of people how to restore this microbe lost by the majority of modern people, Lactobacillus reuteri. But, of all the spectacular improvements in health we can gain by managing our microbiomes, such as an increase in empathy and generosity, reduction in anxiety and depression, deeper sleep, increased libido, restored youthful musculature and strength, the females in my audience have repeatedly said something like, “Well, that’s all well and good, but I’m mostly interested in the skin benefits.” So I’ve spent a good deal of time, energy, and resources in exploring this question, including performing a small human clinical trial to better understand how and why restoration of L. reuteri, especially when combined with other non-microbial synergistic factors, can restore youthful healthy skin. 

One issue that has emerged to the forefront in our quest to better under skin health and appearance is the issue of skin pH. We may not think about skin this way, but healthy skin is acidic. The pH of healthy skin in someone not plagued by eczema, acne, rosacea, psoriasis, or other skin conditions is typically around 4.5. Recall that neutral is 7.0 and the blood is mildly alkaline at a pH of 7.4. Unhealthy skin, in contrast, skin with various skin rashes, has a pH of around 5.5—given the logarithmic nature of the pH scale, unhealthy skin is therefore 10-fold less acidic than healthy skin, a huge difference. This difference in pH is a crucial determinant of what you skin looks and feels like, whether you will be prone to these sorts of skin rashes or whether you can enjoy smooth youthful skin. So let’s dive into that topic, the importance of managing skin pH.

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For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.
_____________________________________________________________________________

MyReuteri and Gut to Glow can be found here: oxiceutics.com

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

I’ve spent some time reflecting back on all my years practicing in hospitals, often not sleeping for extended periods, sometimes days, covering hospitals floors and ICUs, resuscitating people who experienced cardiac arrests, taking them to the cath lab to open arteries, but also witnessing people with all sorts of other health conditions: cancers, wound infections, sepsis, delirium, the various stages of dementia, and hundreds of other debilitating disease. 

I now recognize that, looking back, so many health conditions can be better understood in light of the contribution of the microbiome, i.e., the trillions of microbes occupying the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus, the nasal sinuses, the airways, the brain, the prostate, the vagina and uterus, the skin—virtually every part of the human body. We all know about acute bacterial infections. But I’m talking about something different. While microbes exert effects via a number of different routes—think the gut-brain axis, the gut-skin axis, the gut-muscle axis, effects exerted via hormones, inflammatory mediating proteins, and bacterial breakdown products. But beyond this, there is a curious phenomenon in which bacteria and fungi themselves, by a number of means, travel through the body to take up residence and cause trouble. But the “trouble” is not an infection in the conventional sense, but something different, less acute, less urgent, less dramatic, but nonetheless playing a big role in your health. This is the fascinating and scary phenomenon called “translocation,” the topic for this episode of the Defiant Health podcast. 

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For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.
_____________________________________________________________________________

MyReuteri and Gut to Glow can be found here: oxiceutics.com

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Those of you who follow my discussions that started with the Wheat Belly series of books already know that there is a long list of reasons why humans made an enormous blunder when we first resorted to the consumption of the seeds of grasses, meaning wheat and related grains. We know this from the anthropological record of human disease, we know this from modern science that has exposed the many problems that arise with their consumption from tooth decay to arthritis.

But in my many conversations with people, I find that, because we are all bombarded with the opposite message from TV commercials, media reports, even doctors and dietitians, much of the rationale and science that tells us that wheat consumption is awful for health becomes diluted, or discounted, or ignored. My Wheat Belly arguments, for instance, have been dismissed as just another “gluten-free” message that has no bearing outside of celiac disease. Or that there are bad health consequences of banishing an entire category of food. Or that, if the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans tell us that grains must be a part of the human diet, it must therefore be true. Of course, this is all not true: misinterpretations, misrepresentations, sometimes outright lies, all to prop up continued consumption of a class of “foods” that accelerate disease, aging, and should have no place in the diet of humans. 

So for this reason, I am going to be guilty of repeating myself and once again reiterating why the arguments against the inclusion of wheat and grains are overwhelming, the health impact of their consumption shockingly awful, and the health benefits of their abandonment huge and life-changing.
_______________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.
_______________________________________

MyReuteri and Gut to Glow can be found here: oxiceutics.com

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Over 30 years ago, I help set up the first CT heart scan device in Wisconsin, one of the first in the entire midwest. This was so long ago that it was really an electron beam tomogrraphy, or EBT, device that predated the more recently developed CT devices. The point is that these devices acquired images quickly, about 1/10th of a second. This is important because the heart is perpetually in motion through various cycles of its beating rhythm, with motion also provided by breathing. But these devices allowed us to precisely quantify calcium in the coronary arteries of the heart, the arteries that close and cause heart attacks. My friend, Dr. John Rumberger while at the Mayo Clinic, performed studies demonstrating that calcium consistently occupies 20% of total atherosclerotic plaque volume in the coronary arteries. In other words, quantifying calcium in the coronary arteries served as a gauge or dipstick for total atherosclerotic plaque in the heart’s arteries.

Some years later, cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston, whose name you may recognize from his popular South Beach Diet books, developed a scoring system for coronary calcium, yielding something that came to be called an “Agatston score”: the higher the Agatston or calcium score, the more atherosclerotic plaque was present in the coronary arteries. Subsequent research has shown that the Agatston or calcium score is, by a long stretch, the best predictor of future cardiovascular events, far better than crude measures like cholesterol and these scores, in the 30+ years since my team and I started doing these scans, have become well-established as predictors of cardiovascular events like heart attack.

But what to do with the score—can it be stopped? Can it be reduced? That is the topic for this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, highlighting what my colleagues call, even to this day, “optimal medical therapy” that has repeatedly been shown to NOT work and the answers lie elsewhere, answers that I shall discuss. 
_______________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

_______________________________________

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

“Everyone coming in the door were sick and had already been to 8 or 10 healthcare practitioners and weren’t better yet. This is all wrong.”

“It’s not just what you eat. It’s the air you breathe and the water you drink, the personal care products you use, household cleaning products. . .” 

Here is a conversation I had recently with with Reed Davis, a board-certified Holistic Health Practitioner (HHP) and Certified Nutritional Therapist (CNT). Over many years of experience, Reed has developed expertise in applying functional lab testing to pinpoint environmental, hormonal, nutritional, and other health disruptions and toxicities. He is the Founder of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® (FDN) and the FDN Certification Course that has trained over 4000 graduates in 50 countries that follow Reed’s principles of functional testing and remediation. Reed is a fountain of knowledge and experience on solving health questions even after many doctors have failed. 

To identify a FDN-trained practitioner near you, a practitioner taught by Reed Davis in his unique approach, go to FDNtraining.com/william.
________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Over the last 30 years, the question over whether omega-3 fatty acids from fish has been the subject of controversy, swinging from exuberance over its potential benefits to skepticism over whether they provide any benefit at all. It seems that one day we hear that fish oil reduces risk for heart attack, while the next day we hear that there is no such benefit, even harm. We’ve also been subjected to numerous marketing claims for competing products with claims such as “40 times more potent than fish oil” or “You can’t buy this in a health food store” that further muddy the waters. So let’s review all that we have learned over the past 3 decades to decipher just what role, if any, omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil should play in your program to regain or maintain magnificent health. 

We dive into the history and outcomes of landmark studies like GISSI-Prevenzione, OMEGA Remodel, and REDUCE-IT, which have left researchers and medical professionals both excited and perplexed. Discover how high-dose EPA might just be the key to reversing coronary atherosclerosis, as outlined in the EVAPORATE trial. Join us as we dissect the data and reveal why omega-3s are more than just a fleeting trend; they could be a cornerstone of heart health backed by decades of research.

Learn about different forms of fish oil supplements, and how the absorption rates can vary, cutting through the marketing jargon that often exaggerates their potency. Personalization is key, and we discuss how the RBC omega-3 index can offer tailored dosing advice. With a recommended daily intake of 3,600 milligrams, omega-3s promise noticeable improvements, but patience is needed as it takes about three months to reach a steady state. Subscribe now, and let us guide you through the science-backed journey to achieving optimal health, naturally.
________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.
______________________________________________________________________________

OmegaQuant test for RBC Omega-3 Index: https://omegaquant.com/

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Atrial fibrillation, or A fib for short, is the most common heart rhythm issue that plagues people. About 30% of people will experience this rhythm disorder at some time in their lives, an issue that becomes more and more likely as we age. 

The rhythm is typically experienced as the sudden onset of breathlessness and lightheadedness, and sometimes chest pain, even while you are sitting or relaxing. This is because, with A fib, the heart rate is typically in the range of 150-220 beats per minute, way above the normal resting heart rate of 60-70 beats per minute. It’s the result of chaotic electrical signals originating from the atria of the heart, the normally thin-walled sacks at the top of the heart on the right and left side, i.e., the right and left atria. Beyond the symptoms of breathlessness and lightheadedness, A fib puts you at risk for stroke—not mini-strokes, but large catastrophic strokes. This is because there is a passive sack or appendage attached to the side of the left atrium called the left atrial appendage. Because during a bout of A fib, the atria stop their normal contractions in synchrony with the powerful ventricles, the main pumping chambers of the heart, blood stasis or standstill occurs, allowing the formation of blood clots in the left atrial appendage. Should the blood clot fragment or dislodge, it can go to your brain, resulting in a catastrophic stroke. This is why, in conventional cardiac care, blood thinners are administered almost immediately with the onset of A. fib. 

The management of this abnormal heart rhythm is fraught with difficulties and complications: toxic pharmaceuticals, procedures such as DC cardioversion in which a large and painful electrical shock is delivered with paddles to your chest, and others. So it is a good idea to take steps to avoid ever having this abnormal heart rhythm. Conventional advice typically includes achieving such things as controlling blood sugar and blood pressure with prescription drugs, or losing excess weight. But this leaves out some hugely important strategies that you can readily adopt that reduce your potential for experiencing A fib, as well as numerous other health problems. So that is the topic we consider here in this episode of the Defiant Health podcast.

________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed