Dr. Josh Axe - Eat dirt: why leaky gut may be the root cause of your health problems and 5 surprising steps to cure it

DR. JOSH AXE is a doctor of natural medicine and a clinical nutritionist with a passion to help people get healthy by using food as medicine. He founded one of the largest functional medicine clinics in the United States and runs the popular health website www.draxe.com, where you can find recipes, natural remedies, videos, nutrition advice, and fitness tips. Dr. Axe is a board-certified doctor of natural medicine (DNM), earned his doctorate in chiropractic at Palmer College (DC), and is a certified nutrition specialist (CNS) from the American College of Nutrition. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Chelsea.

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This book contains advice and information relating to health care. It is not intended to replace medical advice and should be used to supplement rather than replace regular care by your doctor. It is recommended that you seek your physicians advice before embarking on any medical program or treatment. All efforts have been made to assure the accuracy of the information contained in this book as of the date of publication. The publisher and the author disclaim liability for any medical outcomes that may occur as a result of applying the methods suggested in this book.

EAT DIRT . Copyright 2016 by Dr. Josh Axe. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN: 978-0-06-243364-0

EPub Edition APRIL 2016 ISBN 9780062433664

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Contents

I was twenty-four years old, in school training to become a doctor of functional medicine and working as a clinical nutritionist just outside of Orlando, Florida, when I received a phone call from home. My mother, Winona, was on the line, and she sounded upset.

Whats wrong, Mom? I asked.

The cancer has come back, she said through tears.

My heart sank, and I was immediately transported back to my seventh-grade year, when my mom was told that she had stage 4 breast cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes. The news was not only a devastating blow to me, as her sonbut it was also a shock to anyone who knew her. At the time, my mom was forty-one years old; she was my gym teacher at school and a swim instructor. Everyone thought she was the picture of fitness and health.

Soon after her diagnosis, my mom underwent a total mastectomy of her left breast and started the first of what would be four cycles of chemotherapy that left her too weak to get out of bed in the days that followed. It was painful to see how sick she got on chemo. I remember walking into the bathroom one day and seeing clumps of her sandy-blond hair on the floor. She looked like she had aged twenty years in two weeks.

Thankfully, months later she was declared cancer-free, but her health continued to spiral downward. Even after bouncing back from chemotherapy and returning to her job, she felt lousy. Every day, she would get home at three thirty in the afternoon and nap until dinnertime. Wed eat together but she struggled to stay awake and would turn in for the night soon after. When she told her doctor that she couldnt cope with being a wife, mother, and schoolteacher, he prescribed an antidepressant.

Depressed and exhausted: this was the mother I knew throughout my teenage years. She lived in fear that the cancer would return.

And now, ten years later, it had.

Her distressed voice shook me back to the present. My oncologist told me they found a tumor on my lungs that was 2.5 centimeters, she said. He wants to do surgery and start radiation and chemotherapy right away.

I tried to be as encouraging as possible. Mom, please dont worry. Your body has the ability to heal, I said. We just need to stop feeding the cancer cells and get to the root cause of the disease. I was confident her health could be restoredbut, in order to do that, wed need to take care of her whole body.

The next day, I flew home to help her lay out a health program. I asked her to tell me about any symptoms she had been experiencing in the time leading up to her diagnosis.

She sighed. Well, Im still struggling with depression, she said. And even if I get a good nights sleep, Im always tired the next day. She described symptoms that indicated she had multiple food sensitivities. She also revealed that shed been diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

All of this was quite troublingbut it was her last symptom that shocked me. When I asked about her digestive habits, she revealed that shed had an average of one to two bowel movements a week, for the last ten years.

Wow, Mom, I said, stunned. Why didnt you talk to your doctor about this earlier?

I thought it was normal, she said. Her face crumpled.

I reached out for her hand and told her not to be discouraged. Mom, I said, this is actually good news. We can definitely do something about your digestion, and that alone will make a big difference in how youre feeling. And hopefully will help stop the cancer, too , I thought.

I told my mother about leaky gut syndromea condition in which the intestinal wall breaks down, allowing microbes and food particles to leak out of the digestive tract, triggering an inflammatory immune responseand how dangerous it was. I told her I believed it was the cause of her constipation and several other health problems, and that we needed to address it immediately. We can do this, Mom, I said. Come on. I stood up and asked her to follow me into the kitchen.

I grabbed a black garbage bag and opened kitchen cupboards. Were starting all over, I announced. From now on, youre not eating anything that comes out of a box.

Together, we threw out every processed food we could find:

boxed cereals like Honey Nut Cheerios and Honey Bunches of Oats (she thought these cereals were healthy)

plastic bottles of Juicy Juice billed as 90 percent real fruit juice but made with apple juice concentrate and natural flavors that werent natural at all

chips and crackers made with MSG and genetically modified corn

cereal bars made with high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, and soy protein

salad dressings with artificial thickeners, emulsifiers, and hydrogenated oils

bags of highly refined white sugar and white flour

Then we attacked the refrigerator and tossed out condiments, sauces, margarine, coffee creamers, mayonnaise, and conventional dairy items such as skim milk and processed cheese (American cheese) singles. Altogether, we threw out three huge garbage bags of processed foods.

Then we drove to a local health food store, where I walked her through the aisles and talked her through the types of foods she should be eating to help support her body in its fight to kill the cancer cells. We selected organic vegetables and berries, wild-caught salmon, pasture-raised chicken, and clean pantry staplesall organic foods with as few ingredients and as little processing as possible. Then we drove to another health food store, where we picked up nutritional supplements like turmeric, immune-boosting mushrooms, vitamin D3, and frankincense essential oil.