Julie Michelson: [Page//00:00:00] Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michaelson, and today we're joined by Dr. Vincent Pedre, and we're talking about the gut as the gateway to excellent wellness. Dr. Padre's new book, the Gut Smartt Protocol is the culmination of years of research and clinical experience as a functional gut health expert.

Our conversation [Page//00:01:00] dives deep into the importance of gut health, including why we've become compromised, and what we can do to support health and healing by focusing on the gut.

Dr. Pedre, welcome to the podcast.

Vincent Pedre: Thanks for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here with you.

Julie Michelson: I am, as I already said, so excited for this conversation. And I wanna start by finding out how you became so passionate about gut health.

Vincent Pedre: You know, it's, it's the, the path to becoming a gut health expert is something that was under my nose my entire life, and, and partly I didn't realize it because irritable bowel syndrome or I b s had become part of my normal and all of the associated symptoms that I call gut related symptoms were also kind of part of the, the, the, the makeup.

My, my matrix of being that [Page//00:02:00] after a while, and I'm sure that people listening to this would probably can relate to this, is when you have symptoms that have been chronic and they've been going on for years since you were a child, you, you start thinking that that's just part of who you. that there's no other normal other than that.

So it becomes your quote unquote normal. But I I, I remember all the way back to when I was a li, uh, very young and suffered from severe constipation to the point I was in so much pain, like having crying late at night trying to go to the bathroom and I couldn't. Um, and that at some point turned into more like upset stomachs, butterflies in the stomach

and what, what interlays over that time is that I would get sick, like any child gets sick, and my parents would take me to the pediatrician and they would prescribe an antibiotic and they would prescribe [Page//00:03:00] an antibiotic pretty much every single time, regardless of the fact that it was probably just a viral infection.

Julie Michelson: Sure.

Vincent Pedre: Now, my immune system was weak and we know that 80% of the immune system lives all along the gut lining. And if your gut is compromised because your gut micro microbiome has been altered by antibiotics, then your immune system is gonna be on hyper alert. And so my immune system was on hyper alert, couldn't fight off infections easily, and.

At times they actually had to take me to a clinic to get a gammaglobulin shot, which is something that I, I don't even think we do anymore. Um, but it's basically pooled immunoglobulins from, uh, blood donors. And every time I got that, when, and the reason that I was taken to a doctor to do that is because the antibiotics weren't even helping

Julie Michelson: Sure.

Vincent Pedre: and I wasn't getting better.

Um, and I always felt better. [Page//00:04:00] It was almost. , it was like getting a surrogate immune system because my own immune system wasn't working. And this went on for pretty much all my teenage years. I was on 20 plus rounds of antibiotics probably two or three times per year. And as a result, and the, and I can only say this, looking back in.

Julie Michelson: Sure.

Vincent Pedre: after I trained in functional medicine, even after I was a doctor, I didn't even learn this in medical school. But looking back in time, um, by my early to mid thirties when I was discovered functional medicine and started kind of going down

Julie Michelson: That rabbit hole , this wonderful rabbit hole we live in.

Vincent Pedre: yeah, the gut microbiome and, and gut health and leaky gut, all these things that.

you know, leaky gut at the time. It wasn't something that Western medicine even accepted as as a possibility. And so I went down that rabbit hole and [Page//00:05:00] realized that the 20 plus rounds of antibiotics had destroyed my gut microbiome. And as a result, I had developed leaky gut. And because of the leaky gut, I had developed sensitivities to the two.

Food groups in a teenager's diet, which were wheat, gluten, and dairy. And I was eating, you know, frosted flakes, frosted mini wheats for breakfast with milk, um, you know, fruit loops. I, I was having mac and cheese, I was having sandwiches with cheese for lunch. So I was poisoning myself. My, my mom would take me to get a vanilla milkshake at Burger King on the way home from school every single day.

Julie Michelson: And we're not parent bashing. They just

Vincent Pedre: no, no. I mean,

Julie Michelson: grew up very similar to you,

Vincent Pedre: we, we didn't know any better. And, and obviously the [Page//00:06:00] pediatricians didn't know either because no pediatrician ever. , Hey, let's take dairy out of his diet because he keeps getting airway infections. And it wasn't until, you know, I did grow up in a, in a household that was very, my, my dad was, was very curious and focused on learning about nutrition and supplementation.

You know, granted the knowledge that we could get in those days was based on what? Get from the bookstore, from, yeah, from the library. Like a book that you check out, but you couldn't go online and hear about other people's, you know, sometimes you heard word of mouth. So my dad went and had food sensitivity testing done and I remember at one point he couldn't eat all these foods and we thought it was ridiculous as kids.

Like, oh my God, like I can't eat this whole list of foods. But it, but it was ingrained in my, in, in my thoughts, even though as a kid you kind of reject. . So by the time I went to medical school, [Page//00:07:00] I was, I was really trying to buy bio hack, like, how can I not get sick? I don't wanna be on antibiotics all the time.

And I was very observant of my diet and changes and, and when I went to medical school, my diet took a a, a turn that partly was accidental because, , I couldn't sit and eat cereal with milk for breakfast because I had to just run out the door to get to my 8:00 AM classes. So I cut out, um, a lot of milk from the diet and it coincidentally, at the same time I was cooking for myself.

So I started adding olive oil, avocado, I started eating more healthy fats. So without even knowing it, I was, I was making some really important changes in the. and that first fall semester of medical school, I noticed that I wasn't getting sick the way I used to and I wasn't picking up [Page//00:08:00] other people's colds so easily.

And, and that was my first like, wow, there must be something here. You know, but you don't, you still are not making. The full connections because I wasn't being taught in medical school that dairy is inflammatory and they can actually increase mucus production and, and increase your risk for, for picking up viruses and colds.

So it wasn't like a hundred percent withdrawal. I didn't understand how important it was at the time, but it was, it was definitely part of my education was all this self experimentation that I was doing, trying to figure. , like, how do I feel better? I didn't fully understand that it had to do with my gut and the gut microbiome until years later, you know, over a decade later when I started reading about functional medicine and Dr.

Mark Hyman's books and, and finally [Page//00:09:00] decided, okay, I need to do this. I need to. Restore my gut microbiome. I've gotta change my diet, we've gotta eat organic. We've gotta be really selective about the types of meats that we cook at home. And I went through a big diet overhaul around that time and my gut health started improving.

And it was a big surprise because going back to what I said at the very beginning, I had thought that this was my normal and that I was basically, by the time. , I discovered functional medicine. I had been through my residency training where they would feed us pizza and coke for lunch. And, you know, you're, you're rating the vending machine at three in the morning because you're starving and you're up all night and you're eating like, you know, m and mss and, and horrible things.

And I was always running to the bathroom like, and I didn't, [Page//00:10:00] What was upsetting my, my digestion, I had no clue. I wasn't making the connection and, and by the time I discovered functional medicine, I thought, this is just the way I'm gonna have to live for the rest of my life. I'm, I might be out at a restaurant and something might not sit right, and in the moment I might have to run to the bathroom.

I'm sure people are who are listening to this probably thinking like, that's me. Like, that's happened

Julie Michelson: Uh, me. Yep. . Yeah. Absolutely. It, it's, I love that you, when that's your experience, that's your normal, right? Like this is you. You just think like, this is how I made.

Vincent Pedre: and, and because I have li had lived that way at that point for over two decades of my life, I thought that that was gonna be my normal for the rest of my life. And it was quite a surprise that the, the changes, the improvements happened really fast. Once I committed, once I [Page//00:11:00] actually figured out through a blood test, cuz I'm, you know, I'm still a scientist, um, Western trained.

So

Julie Michelson: Like the

Vincent Pedre: I, I really like data and I wanted to, I felt like cutting out gluten was this insurmountable mountain. It just felt like a really big task. So if I was gonna do it, I wanted to have a real, like, solid reason to. and it showed up in my blood test and I lit up

Julie Michelson: Yes,

Vincent Pedre: and, and, and, you know, and I do that with patients sometimes because I think that, um, sometimes you need that extra motivation.

To know that gluten is toxic to your body, and when you can see it on paper, then it's that extra motivation to then create. I mean, I was eating sandwiches, I was eating pizza, like I w Bread was a part of my diet, and from one week to the next I did a complete overhaul [Page//00:12:00] and had to one of the, the most.

challenging things. It took probably like a month or more was to reprogram in my head what I thought was an acceptable lunch because now I couldn't have pizza, I couldn't have sandwich, so like running out in the middle of the day and getting those things, I had to change where I, where I sourced my food because now it was gonna be more like a, a rice bowl with vegetables and healthy things, or it was gonna be a salad.

but no bread, no gluten, and no dairy among some other foods that I had to eliminate that came up on the test. Um, and, and, and sure, there were probably some hiccups initially, but within two weeks I started feeling so different

Julie Michelson: Okay. amazing.

Vincent Pedre: my energy levels came up, my mental clarity, my focus. So a lot of things that I, I write about in, in my upcoming book, the Gut Smart.[Page//00:13:00] 

about how the gut affects so many other systems in the body that you may, you may or may not realize because they have also those symptoms that become part of your normal, or you think that they're, because you're just getting older and that's normal process of aging.

Julie Michelson: And it's inflammation and it's, it's coming from the gut. And I love that you said that. Um, it's one of the things I think were your story, my story that, you know, you had a lot of gut symptoms. A lot of people have food sensitivities and don't have gut symptoms, and so they think, oh, my gut's fine. And I'm like, well, but if you have autoimmunity, Leaky gut, like there's no question unless you've already done the work.

Um, and they're always shocked that it's like, oh, my headaches or brain fog, mood anxiety. I mean, so many other things are

Vincent Pedre: and I had a lot of energy issues by the time I finished my, my training as a doctor. And [Page//00:14:00] I thought that those energy issues and the severe fatigue were adrenal fatigue at the time, which was kind of the end diagnosis. And I thought it was because I was just wiped out from my training. , but I was also wiped out from eating a lot of gluten and having leaky gut and being inflam.

Julie Michelson: Yeah, which is incredible. And I always, it, it's always fascinating to me. I actually just. Conversation with a, a veterinarian equine veterinarian yesterday. Um, like, why are we trying to kill people who want to be doctors ? Just the, the, you know, everything you go through in medical school, you're the first person I've ever said heard, say.

You know, oh, I accidentally started eating closer to what supports me during medical school. Just for you. It was time restraints, thank goodness. But usually it's, you know, I started medical school and things went downhill fast, [Page//00:15:00] so, uh, so,

Vincent Pedre: know, the other, the other thing that, um, I, I, I did at the time, which I think also influenced how I felt and I talk about in my book, was I started meditating.

Julie Michelson: Ah, love it.

Vincent Pedre: And, and I was doing breath work and meditation for, I had, I had started learning it about eight months before I got into medical school or started medical school and I continued it throughout medical school, um, and incorporated yoga as well.

And I think those things also made a big difference cuz you can't out diet a stressed out life.

Julie Michelson: and I love that you brought that up. You know, when, when we're trying to heal the gut, if you're not getting yourself into that parasympathetic state, you can't. You can't heal. And I see that all the time. I have had people come in that have their diet actually dialed in, you know, but their stress is still through the roof and [Page//00:16:00] they're not managing it.

Um, versus, you know, it's very rare that somebody shows up. I have one client who has a really good. Practice, you know, does all the things, meditation, breath work, yoga. Um, so I love that, that you brought that in. Um, I want to, there's so many, we have so many parallels. Um, and listeners know my story. It, it, it's always so fascinating the things that improve and even the way you connected the dots.

Like when I started. For me, diet and meditation were the two things that really moved my healing from, from ra and increasing my healthy fats was such a big piece growing up, low fat. Um, so I, I love that part. I wanna dig in a

Vincent Pedre: and, and, and corn oil that, uh, I mean, in my, in my,

Julie Michelson: a

Vincent Pedre: in my house growing up, uh, we. almost everything with, uh, [Page//00:17:00] Mazola corn oil, which we know is an inflammatory Omega six oil.

Julie Michelson: Well, and my family was in the dairy business, which I, I, you know, now know, I, I don't do , you know, is inflammatory for me, but, Just to add insult to injury, we used squeeze partay margarine at the table instead of butter, you know, because it was supposed to be so healthy. Um, you know, so luckily we know better now, and I remember when I first started to get into functional medicine.

I kind of thought the whole gut health thing, you know, it all starts in the gut, was just again, like the buzzword and the, you know, this is overdone and now I'm like, oh my gosh, , we need to have conversations about gut health, so. So tell us a little bit about your upcoming book, the Gut Smart Protocol.

Vincent Pedre: um, I think it's revolutionary in a sense. It's one of the first personalized, uh, books for [Page//00:18:00] Gut of Healing. That's based on a quiz that I designed. And the quiz covers not just gut symptoms, but also gut related health issues that might happen in other parts of your body. Because, uh, as you know, when you have gut imbalances, that's gonna affect every system in the body, the skin, the lungs, the airway, the, the brain, your mental health, um, everyth. is affected by, by your gut and how you're absorbing nutrients and whether there's leaky gut weight gain, metabolism, uh, your joint health. So many things.

Julie Michelson: of it. I mean, really all of.

Vincent Pedre: and like you said, you know, over the years I had patients who presented with gut related symptoms. , but had absolutely no gut health issues and swore that their gut was fine, they were having normal bowel movements.

And lo and behold, when you test the, their gut, uh, I would find yeast overgrowth, parasites, um, all sorts of, um, um, [Page//00:19:00] inflammatory markers. So sometimes the person is maybe not aware or maybe the symptoms aren't strong enough

Julie Michelson: Right. Well, we normalize, like, yeah. Like people that say, you know, oh, I poop regularly. Well, you know, gimme details. Tell me more. Oh, twice a week. I'm like, no, that's not, that's normal. You might, that's normal for you, but that's not good.

Vincent Pedre: there's, uh, there's a lot of, um, well, it's, it's the importance of not making assumptions and, and understanding that everybody uses, might use similar language, but the language might mean different things to different people. So always, always asking, uh, people. , what is it that they mean by that? But part of the reason that I, I wanted to create a personalized program is that I learned from taking care of people with gut health issues is that there really no two guts are the same.

So saying that there is a one size fits all diet that will fix all gut issues is not

Julie Michelson: that again,[Page//00:20:00] 

Vincent Pedre: There's, there's no one size fits all. . If what I, what I found, if you have severe gut issues by my quiz and you classify as severe, you can't have fermented foods. They're not gonna agree with you

Julie Michelson: right. Yet, they're so healthy for some people.

Vincent Pedre: Yeah.

That, but they can, they can make you feel sicker. Although, you know, you probably, you know, read a lot of articles about how great fermented foods are and, and the, and what I wanted to capture in my book is all the caveats, um, and to help people. through the confusion of what, what is it that you eat and what is it that you don't eat, especially if you're trying to, to heal your gut, but also revitalize your, your whole body.

And, and so, you know, there is a very strong, uh, part talking about the science behind it, really trying to educate people because I think knowledge is power and the more you understand, the easier it is to commit to making the changes that are going to [Page//00:21:00] improve your. . And then I teamed up with a chef who's written, uh, a lot of cookbooks in Australia, and she helped create recipes that were classified according to mild, moderate, or severe for people with who are in all the different categories.

Um, obviously someone who tests mild can eat moderate and severe recipes, so as you go down in the categories, you can eat the category before you and, and then we have a very strong, um, Component of mind, body and talking about the vagus nerve and the gut brain connection and how important that is for, um, improving gut health, including teaming up with some breath work and meditation teachers to create.

Some great, uh, breath work and meditations for gut health, including like a pre-meal ritual that you would do right before you eat during, during a mindful eating [Page//00:22:00] ritual and a post-meal ritual as well. So I really wanted to kind of address the, the gut from the way I, I think of it as the gut, body, mind, spirit connection and, and like you said, , getting people into the parasympathetic state, the rest and digest and assimilation state, which is also the place where the body feels safe.

And when your body feels safe, your body can heal.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. I love it's, I, I'm so excited for the book, um, because it's you, it's so comprehensive. And this is for . We hear the word holistic a lot. This is actually what holistic means, right? Is our whole body. Um, and so again, like just saying, here's the diet you should be eating. It's not enough to heal.

Are there.

Vincent Pedre: enough and, and it's been, it's been so influenced by, by my own experiences, [Page//00:23:00] like discovering breath work and meditation before I went to medical school and yoga as well, and, and just realizing how important it was to incorporate all those pieces. as part of a healing plan. And, and it's interesting cuz over the years, you know, you thought that, okay, it's this thing that you do, that's it, you know, you diet and supplements and all that, that's kind of like the main thing.

And then, and then maybe you, you add in meditation, breath work. Now I

Julie Michelson: you're an overachiever, no, that's not it.

Vincent Pedre: all of it is front and center and I really do believe that. If you can't get into a healing mindset, it doesn't matter what you'll do physically for the body, you're not gonna be able to heal fully.

Julie Michelson: Oh, I love that. It's so essential. And again, that was another thing through my journey. Of, I used to like, oh, we'll handle this and then we'll get to healing mindset, and, and I'm like, no, no, no, . I'm doing it [Page//00:24:00] backwards. We have to start there and get better results.

Vincent Pedre: and, and over the years, that's, that's how people usually approach their, their healing journey. I would tell them all the things I wanted them to do and add on the, the meditation, the mindset, and when they would come back for their follow up, they would tell me, well, you know, I started doing the diet, but no, I haven't started meditating.

I haven't, and, and it was almost like they, they saw it as, Adjunct that was just like marked optional

Julie Michelson: Right,

Vincent Pedre: and, and it's actually, you know, I think it's part of self-care that is non-optional.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. And the results you get from making the other changes are exponentially faster. So I, I just look at it as I know I, again, that's where we started now. Um, I love, I love that you mentioned, there's so many things I wanna talk to you about. Um, we're gonna briefly touch on bloating. [Page//00:25:00] because I think that that even people and so many people who experience bloating will tell you they don't have gut symptoms.

I feel like that's one of the ones. Um, you know, when you're running for the, the bathroom with diarrhea, you tend to acknowledge you've got that. Um, but again, people think, well, I've always been that way. That's just how it is. So, , what causes blo?

Vincent Pedre: So many things can filter down and cause bloating from imbalances in your gut microbiome. Uh, so something we call a dysbiosis, which is just really a fancy word for an imbalance, gut microbiome, where maybe you've lost some of the good, uh, probiotic bacteria and you've got. overgrowth of some bad bugs, which could be bacteria, could be yeast, could be parasites.

So those things can cause bloating in and of, of themselves. Um, other things that can cause bloating include foods, [Page//00:26:00] uh, whether it's a food intolerance like lactose intolerance, uh, an intolerance to maps like fructans. And a lot of times that's related to a condition called SIBO or small intestine bacterial.

Overgrowth, which is not necessarily bad bacteria. It's just bacteria that have translocated and are hanging out in your small intestine, whereas they should be in the large intestine. , but now they're hanging out in the small intestine where they're going to encounter food earlier before your body gets a chance to digest and absorb it.

And then that leads to a lot of fermentation and gas production, which leads to bloating, which can also, so that, that relates to possibly an a more upstream problem. And by upstream, I mean upstream in the, in the gi. It could be low stomach acid that's causing bloating and, and a typical way to know if you have low [Page//00:27:00] stomach acid, maybe low, uh, proteases ability to break down protein.

is you get full immediately after eating, you might start burping. So if you start burping, that's a sign of low stomach acid and food feels like it doesn't empty from your stomach. It just kind of sits there and you and your stomach expands. After you eat. 30 minutes later, it still feels like it's sitting.

So that could be an upstream problem, not enough stomach acid that can exist in conjunction with sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. You might have. Another thing that's very common is back, um, pancreatic insufficiency where your pancreas is not secreting enough enzyme, but what you, you might think that if you have pancreatic insufficiency, that it's the pancreas as it's the problem.

Usually it's not the pancreas. The pancreas is. It's the small intestine brush border that's not signaling the pancreas to [Page//00:28:00] secrete those enzymes because that brush border is inflamed. The, the gut is leaky. . And so leaky gut itself can cause bloating, food sensitivities. So having an immune reaction to foods like wheat, gluten for me, for a lot of people or other foods, uh, it could be a wide variety of foods that could lead to this, can cause bloating.

And another one that often is missed is a condit. Called small intestinal fungal overgrowth, sifo, which, um, a lot of people know as candida, but doesn't necessarily have to be candida yeast, could be another type of yeast that's, um, fermenting and producing gas and causing, uh, bloated feeling. And surprisingly, people may think that this is not a cause for bloating, but if you're constipated, it's kind of like having a clogged pipe and it's gonna back.

And if things aren't emptying while you're adding [Page//00:29:00] more stuff to your intestines because you keep eating, even if you're not hungry and you're severely constipated, well, when you eat, you're gonna get bloated and that bloating may last all day. Um, and then you can kind of filter down in all the, the different causes for constipation, like, um, meth, methane, predominant Cibo.

Uh, they can be low vagal tone, which is really important.

Julie Michelson: Or even you mentioned. Acid, I mean, it's all connected , that there are things that signal

Vincent Pedre: Yeah. So, so, and a lot of times there's not one singular cause for bloating. A lot of times it's, uh, it's interconnected. There could be also, um, you know, if your gallbladder was taken out because you had cholecystitis, then you're not getting that bolus of bile in the gut, which is also really important for controlling the microbial environ.

In the gut and helping to push stool through it could be as simple as you're not eating enough [Page//00:30:00] fiber, so things are getting backed up. Um, so, you know, there there's a lot of potential causes of what might feel like the same thing for a lot of people. They just get bloated, their pants expand, they've gotta loosen the button.

but it's not one thing. It could be a whole combination of things or different things for different people that could be causing those symptoms.

Julie Michelson: and I love that you mentioned the button cuz I was gonna circle back to that. Like, if you have to loosen your belt or open your pants, that's a sign. Like that is not how our body is designed to work. When we eat, we shouldn't need to change our clothing.

Vincent Pedre: No, the, the normal way to the. Yeah. The, the normal way to feel is within 30 minutes of eating, your food is digesting, your stomach's starting to empty, and actually that full feeling that you had when you finished eating dinner is starting to dissipate. And by an hour after eating dinner, you should feel like your, your digestive system is [Page//00:31:00] quiet, feels good, it's relaxed.

Julie Michelson: always say if you can feel it. That's a, that's a symptom. Like we shouldn't actually feel our food from the time we eat it to the time it leaves, I don't think like it should just be doing its thing and, and just like joint pain, brain fog, you know, you name any other symptom, this, this. , all these gut symptoms are information.

Even if you've had them your whole life, like you did, like I did, you know, it's still, it was your body trying to tell you like, Hey,

Vincent Pedre: and a lot of times what I feel and, and part, part of what I talk about in, in the book, the Gut Smart Protocol is developing intuitive eating. And, and I, and I divided it into three parts, uh, before meal intuition. , which relates to kind of like tuning in and seeing, well, how hungry are you? Are you really hungry?

And is there something that you're [Page//00:32:00] craving because there's, there's an intelligence in your body that might be saying, you know, I really want some greens right now, or, or I need red meat right now. Could be that, that you need meat because your body needs iron. Um, and listening to that intuition and then during meal intuition is really about recognizing.

And slowing down and being mindful and present to get the signals when your body is full, when you can stop eating and, and post-meal intuition. Very important for people to develop, uh, which I feel is like the, the part that, that you and I as practitioners are always kind of acting as a, as a surro. In intuitive voice, you know, where I'm, we're kind of like body whispers, helping people to understand the signals that their bodies are telling them, but ultimately we want our patients, uh, or people out there who read the book to become their own intuitive healers by learning to [Page//00:33:00] listen to the signals from their body.

And, and post-meal intuition is about recognizing how did this meal. not just how is it digesting, but did you feel really tired after eating? Did you feel like you had to take a nap? Uh, did you get a headache? Did you feel, did your eyes get heavy? Did you get like some sinus pressure? Did your joints get achy?

Um, did you get itchy? Did your skin get itchy? Cuz all of these are signs that maybe there's so. That you ate that isn't quite agreeing with your physiology. But a lot of people, like you said, they ignore these SI signals because they're not, their awareness isn't there, and I think it's really important to develop, uh, these three types of intuition

Julie Michelson: I love that. I, because especially I love that you included the post because we did, we did like we ate, we're [Page//00:34:00] done. We're. You know that we don't think about it ever again. And using your intuition can allow you to then become the detective. Like you said, this is what you and I do all the time with people.

Um, so it's like, okay, if this meal, oh, I did notice this meal. I wanted an nap. After I ate lunch yesterday, what was in the, you know, then you go through and you can start to really identify. You talked about knowledge as power, and that's another way, you know, we don't always need a test. I love testing. I believe in it, and I, I think it encourages people to stay on track.

Um, but you know how you feel,

Vincent Pedre: by,

Julie Michelson: is

Vincent Pedre: just by being really. Observers, uh, we can learn a lot. And, and as you know, not every functional test is perfectly black and white. Doesn't always read everything. And, and that's why, you know, we don't, we don't treat the [Page//00:35:00] test. We treat the patient.

Julie Michelson: I love that. Absolutely. And if you look at my labs, I don't ha I, I don't have celiac markers. I don't seem to have any gluten sensitivity that shows up. Um, that's because I ha I haven't eaten gluten in 15 years, . So, and I never had the genetic markers. Um, you know, so.

Vincent Pedre: and there and, and those are only a certain limited set of markers. There are probably other pathways

Julie Michelson: don't know yet. Yeah.

Vincent Pedre: And, and that's why, yeah, going back to the importance of this, this intuition, and I actually use it for also planning a meal by thinking about how do I want to feel after I, I eat?

Uh, because maybe, maybe I, I wanna feel light. I don't wanna feel too, , or maybe I'm really hungry and I wanna have a heavier meal. I'm just gonna relax at home. I'm not gonna do anything [Page//00:36:00] major or what. If you're planning to go out dancing afterwards, you're not gonna wanna have a big pasta dinner that's gonna weigh you down, right?

You're gonna wanna have something that lets you feel light and move.

Julie Michelson: Giving a presentation and if there's a food that you, you know, include sometimes, and you know, it maybe leads to a little brain fog or tiredness or that's not, you don't do that before you get on stage. Like that's where that power comes in. I I, this could take us like way down a rabbit hole, but I have to ask you, are there certain foods that you think nobody should be eating or is there a starting point?

Um, obviously the quiz and, and the book when

Vincent Pedre: Yeah, the quiz is gonna, the quiz is gonna filter down. at least give you what's, where you land, what's slot, mild, moderate, or severe. And based on that, I created an exhaustive food list with, uh, consulting with nutritionist and, uh, fermentationists to, to really filter [Page//00:37:00] down what foods are okay in each of the, the categories.

But there are some general guidelines, right? Some, some things that we know that are good for everyone, for example, When you can buy organic, avoid pesticides, right? Because pesticides are like antimicrobials. They go in and they, they mess up your gut microbiome. Um, for a lot of people, you know, a good starting point is taking gluten out because gluten affects the permeability of the gut, or, or in other words, increases gut permeability or causes leaky.

For people even who are normal, quote unquote normal, who shouldn't react to gluten, might have some mild issues with gluten. And sometimes you don't know unless you do an elimination and then a reintroduction. Uh, because when you're getting overexposed to a food, a lot of times the signals get all crossed and jammed

Julie Michelson: I'm old [Page//00:38:00] enough to remember the fuzzy TV screen that younger people are like, I don't know what you're talking. That's how I think of it though. Why doing an elimination diet with a proper reintroduction is so key to learning.

Vincent Pedre: it is really helpful. I mean, the other fact is that the majority of the world is 70 to 90% of the people in the world are lactose intolerant. So taking dairy out of the diet and, and that's just the, the tip of the iceberg because, um, a lot of people are also dairy sensitive. It's one of the, among the, the top.

Food sensitivities out there. Some of some things might be surprising and are more individualized, like some people don't do well with eggs, for example. Uh, but that's not, not something that's for everyone. Cross the board. I'm gonna say sugar is bad, right? Sugar is inflammatory. , you're not gonna go wrong if you can reduce your sugar intake.

You're also not gonna go wrong if you cut out or you limit your [Page//00:39:00] alcohol intake because alcohol is also a gut re disruptor, and it actually increases inflammatory signals in the body and the older you get, you probably like anybody who's listening. probably thinking, you know, I can't drink the way I used to when I was in my twenties, thirties.

Like one drink just hits me harder. I don't recover as easily the next day. Or if I've got a couple of drinks, well, it's causing more damage than just your ability to recover the next day. And it actually also is increasing your risk for cancer. So across the. Limiting alcohol if you can, or if you're, or if you're in the process of healing because you've got inflammation, you've got autoimmunity, then, then you really wanna take away the obstacles to healing and that includes those things.

You also have to be really careful with health foods, you know, things that are, that have,

Julie Michelson: quote unquote, health foods.

Vincent Pedre: our brand. To look healthy. For example, there's a lot of bars [Page//00:40:00] and foods out there that are using sugar alcohols as substitutes for regular sugar. The sugar alcohols feed certain parts of the microbiome, and after you eat that, you might end up so bloated that you feel stick.

It can also cause diarrhea, so like erythritol.

Julie Michelson: yeah, and some of these PR packages have a warning on like, put, put it down if there's a warning. May cause diarrhea. Why it's food. It's not supposed to do that. . Like that's not,

Vincent Pedre: do that. And, and, and also, you know, they get, they sneak into toothpaste also because a lot of toothpaste are sweetened with xylitol and, and some people, not everyone. , but some people are sensitive to xylitol. Some people are also sensitive to fibers that are added to thicken the nut milk. So if you're, you're trying to be good and you're being dairy free and you're buying a store made, um, you know, a brand, uh, with gurg gum, Zam gum, [Page//00:41:00] which are fibers that for some people are good and they help them be, become regular, but other people, it actually irritates the gut and causes diarrhea.

So these are, these are. To be aware of because you might not be thinking like, oh, I went and I bought an an unsweetened almond milk is supposed to be healthy for me. Well read the ingredients because you're not just buying almond milk, you're buying almond milk with these other ingredients in it that might not agree with your gut.

Julie Michelson: Ab, absolutely. And oh my gosh, we could talk for three more hours, but I know you have , you have other obligations today, as do I. I I wanna also share with listeners before we get to the next piece, um, you have an incredible gift for people. I know that the website for the book is up. Um, and it's gut smart protocol.com.

And if you do gut smartt protocol.com/gift, which will be in [Page//00:42:00] the show notes. Um, you are giving listeners a free chapter, which is amazing. Um,

Vincent Pedre: and, and a few little surprises in

Julie Michelson: Ooh, love

Vincent Pedre: a, a sense sense of the book. Um, Dr. Pearl Utter wrote a forward to the book and it's included with the free chapter. , um, along with, uh, part of my gut healing story that I talked about and how, how my own gut health journey and, and like I, I started in the beginning how that inspired me to just, uh, pretty much dedicate my life to helping people with gut health issues.

Julie Michelson: which is so amazing. And, and hopefully this conversation, just hearing some of these, this is why we have these conversations. Um, hopefully people will be motivated to take steps to start to address gut health or look there, um, and then the, the quiz and the book, incredible resources,

Vincent Pedre: and, and to realize that you may not have gut [Page//00:43:00] symptoms, but if you have what we call gut related health issue, Which can be just metabolism and weight gain and inability to lose weight. No matter what you do, you just can't seem to drop the pounds. Well, then you've gotta look at your gut because it's probably leaky gut inflammation, insulin resistance, and a a foundational gut health issue that needs to be addressed for your body to be able to start losing weight.

Julie Michelson: Disagree if you, if, if you will. Um, I would say anybody listening to this, if you have autoimmunity, you have got shoes, whether you feel them or not. I, I think that there's, we've kind of eliminated the question of whether the

Vincent Pedre: we didn't get, get in there, but, um, famous researcher, Alesio Fasano

Julie Michelson: uh, he's

Vincent Pedre: Study on, on what is the, the potential trigger for autoimmunity. Like where does autoimmunity, um, rise from? And part of the theory is that it comes from the [Page//00:44:00] gut and it involves three things, an environmental trigger, a genetic predisposition, and leaky gut.

And the environmental trigger that he was looking at was gluten. Uh, because gluten, in some ways to our immune system looks like a bacteria. The protein. And so our immune system, when it sees the gluten protein, it thinks that it's a foreign invader and, and, um, basically says attack, and then it starts destroying the gut lining and causing body wide inflammation.

Julie Michelson: and his later research has shown, you know, it's not just for people who are, who are gluten sensitive, that gluten can create these issues at any point, um, and, and start to, you know, get those gut junctions to loosen up.

Vincent Pedre: I think it's a cumulative hit hypothesis and, and some people might reach that threshold earlier because of genetic predisposition and other people may take a little bit longer in their [Page//00:45:00] lives, but eventually they do hit that threshold

Julie Michelson: and you mentioned toxins and the young, there's so many different things that that play in and, and it is a kind of a cumulative effect for sure. Um, this has been so incredible and you already have given amazing advice for people, but I always throw my guests under the bus at the end and ask for one step that listeners can take starting today to begin to.

Vincent Pedre: Well,

Julie Michelson: I know it's, it's a tough one.

Vincent Pedre: you know, um, it makes me think of a, a study that they did in Cub. During what they call the special period, which is when Cuba lost its subsidies from Russia and Cuba started rationing sugar. So per capita, sugar consumption dropped significantly in Cuba and they also take really [Page//00:46:00] close, um, you know, uh, population measurements of heart disease, diabetes, weight, uh, heart.

and during this special period when they were rationing, they, they rationed and limited sugar quite a bit. All of those health issues, the rates of all of those health issues dropped dramatically. Like it wasn't just the little drop, it was a dramatic drop. And then you see the end of the special period and then sugar it consumption starts to increase again.

And you see all of these health issues start to come. in,

Julie Michelson: there's your science . So your one step would be

Vincent Pedre: to cut back on sugar intake, like cut back on, on all sources of sugar where it's, whether it's obvious cane sugar desserts, sweets or adding sugar to coffee, to drinks, but also sweetened beverages and, and also hidden sugars in [Page//00:47:00] refined carbohydrates and processed foods.

If you can do that, you're going to be. Doing your gut microbiome a favor because you're not gonna be feeding those bad bugs. And I would say that's, I, I, I'm very much believe even though my, my 14 day program is obviously more complex and you're doing a bunch of things at once. But I also think of the importance of what I call step-wise activations.

Um, especially for people who get overwhelmed, do one thing. Conquer that well. So if it's sugar and you're gonna cut back on your sugar, that will be your one goal. That's all you're doing is cutting back on sugar. And once you have that down pack, then you go on to the next activation and that will ensure that you are successful in, in accomplishing your goals.

You know, whatever it may be. It may be that you're learning to meditate, and that's all you're gonna do is you're gonna [Page//00:48:00] activate. Meditation, but it's important to to, to know yourself and know what type of person you are and whether it's easier for you to do one thing at a time and conquer it before adding in the next thing, rather than trying to do so many things that then you just fail because it's

Julie Michelson: stuck. Yeah. Or you can do it for a week and then forget it. It's too hard. And I love, I wanna highlight that you said reduce sugar. You know, be aware. Um, I always tell people, start by noticing cuz often if you haven't already been really paying attention, you're getting a lot more sugar than you think.

Um, but I love, it's not about perfect, it's about. Consistently improving, and as you said, then build on the winds. So you, you mentioned sugar and meditation was kind of an aside. I'll, I'll throw out on top of your, one thing I asked you for because you said it, and I wanna, I just wanna highlight it for listeners.

The idea of [Page//00:49:00] where is your easiest place to start, because that's how you start to build the momentum. And so, you know, maybe meditation, you're like, ah, I can, you know, I can meditate. I've already played,

Vincent Pedre: for some, for some people it's cut out bread when you go out to. So you stop, stop eating bread at the table, and that's the first step in reducing your grain and, and wheat consumption. And then little by little you expand that and you stop having pasta and, and you know, so, so it. It can be different for different people, like you said, but recognizing those little wins because it's much more encouraging to build upon the wins, then try to do it all at once and fail, and then you just feel, you know, you all the guilt and the shame and all that comes up, which doesn't help us get to our health goals.

Julie Michelson: I love it. Amazing. And for people listening on the go that aren't gonna check out the show notes, where's the best place [Page//00:50:00] to find you? Because I know they're gonna wanna hear more from you.

Vincent Pedre: Certainly going to the book website, gutsmartprotocol.com, but you can find me on Instagram mainly as at Dr. Pedre, d r p e d e r e, and I put out a lot of free, resources and information to help educate people.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. Your, your feed is incredible.

Vincent Pedre: I, and I try to do some funny things and do some funny reels and stuff for, to entertain and, and educate at the same time.

Julie Michelson: I love it. I love it. Dr. Pedre, thank you so much. You have given us amazing gold today.

Vincent Pedre: Thank you. Thanks for having.

Julie Michelson: For everyone listening, remember, you can get the transcripts and show notes by Visiting Inspired Living Show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Go check out Dr. Padre's book, the Gut Smart Protocol.