Speaker 1: This is Unbreakable with Jay Glazer, a mental health podcast
Speaker 1: helping you out of the gray and into the blue.
Speaker 1: Now here's Jay Glazer. Welcome into Unbreakable, a mental health
Speaker 1: podcast with Jay Glazer. I am your host, Jay Glazer,
Speaker 1: and the person I have on right now is somebody
Speaker 1: who actually changed my life, and she changed my life
Speaker 1: in a way that I wasn't expecting. She is a nutritionist.
Speaker 1: She's the nutritionist for Unbreakable. Denise Alve Welcome in, Denise. Hello,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me and the reason why I wanted
Speaker 1: Denisan Today you're saying nutrition, huh, Well, your gut is
Speaker 1: your second brain. So I didn't know how much what
Speaker 1: I was consuming, what I was eating was affecting what
Speaker 1: goes on between my ears. So I wanted to come on.
Speaker 1: She has so much wisdom and knowledge to give us
Speaker 1: about what we eat and the inflammation that it causes,
Speaker 1: the anti inflammation that certain foods can actually help you with,
Speaker 1: could affect our brains and con affect our mental health.
Speaker 1: And so she has something for everybody for you know,
Speaker 1: people who can afford price, people who can't afford her price.
Speaker 1: So but I want to get into my journey. Okay,
Speaker 1: which blew my mind. And I did a blood test,
Speaker 1: which is not a food allergy test, right, it's a
Speaker 1: food sensitivity test to determine what is affecting what's causing
Speaker 1: me inflammation? Right? And folks, I was blown away the
Speaker 1: things that were not just affecting me, but these were
Speaker 1: like killing me. Right. Were I'll tell you what for
Speaker 1: me it was bad for me? Was spinach, green apples, lemon. Wait,
Speaker 1: there's something else in there that would blow your mind. Spinach,
Speaker 1: green apples, lemon, ginger, No, soy peanuts was was in there? Carrots? Right?
Speaker 1: These were killing me. They were causing me all sorts
Speaker 1: of inflammation. And it was also turned out they were
Speaker 1: causing me to have plaques, arriasis, sorrisis across my chest.
Speaker 1: It's coming on my head. I was taking an inject
Speaker 1: Doble and a pill to slow my psoriasis. Denise found
Speaker 1: out by this blood test what was causing me all
Speaker 1: its inflammation, and within thirty days my psoriasis is completely gone.
Speaker 1: My body fat was choop like I just the size
Speaker 1: of my head shrank noticeably. And you think that if
Speaker 1: I told you I was going to go on a
Speaker 1: cleanse and just have green apples, spinach, carrots, and lemon.
Speaker 1: You think I be the healthiest guy in the world.
Speaker 1: Instead it was killing me. So to these chime in here. Yes,
Speaker 1: So when it comes to food sensitivities, there can be
Speaker 1: a delay in a response. So you might be eating
Speaker 1: foods and feeling fine right now, but you might experience
Speaker 1: symptoms a couple of hours from now or a couple
Speaker 1: of days. So for you, if you're eating something like
Speaker 1: apples and not I do great with apples, but you
Speaker 1: might actually be releasing what are called chemical mediators towards apples.
Speaker 1: Just to break it down, because your body is protecting you,
Speaker 1: it's an immune response that is pro inflammatory, which then
Speaker 1: over time causes symptoms. So that could be something that
Speaker 1: was causing the plaque, psoriasis, or even it could be
Speaker 1: bloating or headaches. In so many different ways that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't connect to food. When you first got me on
Speaker 1: and I was and I've done it twice now because
Speaker 1: I did with you, and then when I went to Thailand,
Speaker 1: I had to do it again. And but when I
Speaker 1: did it, I remember I was I was hosting Bella
Speaker 1: to R M M A and the producers came out
Speaker 1: and said, we don't know what you're doing, which the
Speaker 1: clearest you've ever sounded. Yeah, it definitely can help brain fog,
Speaker 1: focus energy. It's fascinating. I felt like it was also
Speaker 1: making my vocal cords inflamed, yeah, inflammation, and getting me
Speaker 1: to slur. And I used to think I slurred a
Speaker 1: lot from getting hit the head so much, and it
Speaker 1: turned out it was more from this than getting my
Speaker 1: you know, my head beat in for all those years.
Speaker 1: So you know, again, give us and this is just
Speaker 1: for me, folks. It doesn't mean that green apples are
Speaker 1: bad with your, spinach is bad with you. And there
Speaker 1: are things that, by the way, like lamb was great
Speaker 1: for me, right, there are things that were like you'd
Speaker 1: be like, what, how could this be red meat? Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, no, And I know you try to get
Speaker 1: me off red meat. She also makes you when you
Speaker 1: do it, you can't drink for that month, no bread whatsoever, right,
Speaker 1: no deal whatsoever. So why is that? What are you
Speaker 1: trying to do to my my whole system? So what
Speaker 1: we did is we tested a hundred and seventy different foods, chemicals,
Speaker 1: and flavor enhancers. So it could be anything from caffeine
Speaker 1: main foods such as you know, it could be chicken, salmon,
Speaker 1: and flavor enhancers all the way down to the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of black pepper, garlic, rosemary, these things that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't think would cause an immune response, but they can.
Speaker 1: So once we looked at that full profile of all
Speaker 1: the hundred and seventy items we tested, we get a
Speaker 1: report back that lets us know if you had an
Speaker 1: immune response to any of them, and that immune response
Speaker 1: is pro inflammatory, and then that's where symptoms over time
Speaker 1: start to build up. Now, out of the hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy foods that we tested, we took all the foods
Speaker 1: that you had no immune response to, and you only
Speaker 1: ate those for the first couple of weeks almost a month,
Speaker 1: so we could calm down that inflammation start healing your system.
Speaker 1: And then during that time we also keep out all
Speaker 1: the untested items because there's over forty thousand ingredients in
Speaker 1: a grocery store, so obviously we can't test all of those,
Speaker 1: so you're having only the low you know, non responsive foods,
Speaker 1: no untested items, no alcohol, which is inflammatory, so we
Speaker 1: have full control to calm down your system. Now when
Speaker 1: it comes to dairy, even individuals that may not come
Speaker 1: back sensitive to cow's milk or yogurt or any dairy products.
Speaker 1: We still keep it out at the beginning because a
Speaker 1: lot of how is our grass fed but grain finished
Speaker 1: and in the grain could be corn, could be wheat,
Speaker 1: and other foods that you are sensitive to. So we
Speaker 1: get it down to that small detail. So we do
Speaker 1: have full controlled common inflammation that is food induced. How
Speaker 1: did you get involved in this in the first place. Well,
Speaker 1: I've I've been a dietitian now for almost eighteen years,
Speaker 1: and I specialize in two areas. I am a certified
Speaker 1: specialist in sports dietetics, so I work with professional athletes,
Speaker 1: and I'm also a certified lifestyle, eating and performance therapist
Speaker 1: working with food sensitivities. Now, when I worked with athletes
Speaker 1: for fourteen years, some of these individuals have a great team.
Speaker 1: They have a personal chef, they have a dietitian, they
Speaker 1: have coaches, performance specialists, and I would notice that their
Speaker 1: performance and their recovery wasn't where it should be. So
Speaker 1: I noticed, you know, if you're eating quote unquote perfectly
Speaker 1: and you have all these great team members helping you,
Speaker 1: and if you're not getting the results that you really
Speaker 1: should be. There was a piece that was missing, So
Speaker 1: that's when I went back and started researching food sensitivities
Speaker 1: to find that missing piece. Talk about your brain, yes,
Speaker 1: it absolutely does. Um there's also what's called a gut
Speaker 1: brain access and that's a two way communication. So if
Speaker 1: we have inflammation and it's food induced. To any inflammation,
Speaker 1: really it can interrupt and cause disturbances between cell communication,
Speaker 1: nerve communication, and systems. All the communication gets out of
Speaker 1: whack and the brain might not be able to produce neurotransmitters,
Speaker 1: which are serotonin, dopamine GABA. Those are your feel good,
Speaker 1: your your mood enhancing neurotransmitters. So if the inflammation is
Speaker 1: not allowing our brain to produce those neurotransmitters, it can
Speaker 1: affect our mood. But also if inflammation is present, it
Speaker 1: can break down the bacterial floor. Are the good bacteria
Speaker 1: in our gut, and that bacteria does produce serotonin itself
Speaker 1: up to the serotonin in your body is produced in
Speaker 1: your gut, and also that bacteria metabolizes it and directs
Speaker 1: a certain amount to the brain. So if you don't
Speaker 1: have good amounts of healthy bacteria from inflammation being present,
Speaker 1: it can affect the amount of neurotransmitters that are released
Speaker 1: for people who don't have to, you know, use your
Speaker 1: your services, give us a you know a lot of
Speaker 1: things that can help us from gods that can just
Speaker 1: help the normal person absolutely. So first of all, cleaning
Speaker 1: up the diet the best that we can. So we
Speaker 1: may not know the triggering pro inflammatory foods, but we
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we're increasing fiber through good
Speaker 1: whole grains, fruits, vegetables. We also want to make sure
Speaker 1: that we are decreasing sugars, decreasing unhealthy fats, and there
Speaker 1: are some supplements that can help with healing the intestinal
Speaker 1: track and also boosting different neural transmitters. So we could
Speaker 1: bring in some probiotics the healthy bacteria. The fiber feeds
Speaker 1: those so that keeps them very healthy and producing what
Speaker 1: we need them to produce. And also we want to
Speaker 1: make sure that if we're experiencing a lot of GI distress, bloating, cramping,
Speaker 1: you know, any of those GI symptoms. We also want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are hydrating that some supplements
Speaker 1: such as L glutamine that might help with the healing
Speaker 1: of the intestinal track. Bringing some of those items in
Speaker 1: and It really depends on each person. I always make
Speaker 1: sure that there's no family history or any allergies that
Speaker 1: we would have to make sure to alter the protocol
Speaker 1: for the supplements. Where where does my good health affect
Speaker 1: my depression the most? Um Well, if you are eating
Speaker 1: foods that are inflammatory, so ones that we find out
Speaker 1: through the testing, or if we don't through the testing,
Speaker 1: we look at anti inflammatory foods and boosting those, so
Speaker 1: it's gonna fluence your depression. If you're not eating well,
Speaker 1: then we're not able to have our systems functioning well.
Speaker 1: So your central nervous system isn't working well either, so
Speaker 1: that gut brain connection. Individuals with depression, it is very
Speaker 1: common that your brain might communicate to your gut that
Speaker 1: you're not hungry. You might lose your appetite others, so
Speaker 1: you're losing nutrients that also fuel the brain. Now, individuals
Speaker 1: with anxiety, your brain might trigger the intestinal track to
Speaker 1: stimulate diarrhea because it just makes you feel angst and
Speaker 1: it can cause diarrhea. Now, again, calming down inflammation by
Speaker 1: eating good foods, hydrating, exercising, even good breathing techniques, it
Speaker 1: can boost all of this so that your mood can
Speaker 1: can go up. Is there any food because I'm talking
Speaker 1: about foods that seem like they're be great for people
Speaker 1: that cause me inflammation? Are there any foods that are
Speaker 1: universally great for all of us? Yes? I mean there
Speaker 1: are a lot of foods such as avocado, eggs, salmon, pineapple,
Speaker 1: whole pumpkin seeds, Sesamese seeds. They have a good amount
Speaker 1: of L tyresin, which is actually an amino acid that
Speaker 1: can boost neurotransmitters. Okay, what about the supplements that all
Speaker 1: of us supplements? Yeah, probiotics. Um, you have me on
Speaker 1: like a gut health regimen, yeah, and which would help
Speaker 1: me a lot because that you also, we found out
Speaker 1: that I had leaky gut. Yeah, leaky gut syndrome. Right, Yes,
Speaker 1: leaky gut is a lot of things can influence leaky gut.
Speaker 1: It's not a scientific term. It's more of a nickname
Speaker 1: for when you're intestinal lining becomes uh horace, so things
Speaker 1: can slip through into the blood and that triggers an
Speaker 1: immune response as well. So when it comes to leaky gut,
Speaker 1: individuals can can have that due to genetics, can be
Speaker 1: due to a lot of antibiotic use as a child.
Speaker 1: Let's say chronic air infections are struck throat um. It
Speaker 1: also can be influenced by the foods that we eat
Speaker 1: and food that might be causing a pro inflammatory response.
Speaker 1: So what happens is partially digested food slips into the
Speaker 1: blood stream and you have an immune response. Food should
Speaker 1: be fully digested all the way down to the small intestine,
Speaker 1: absorbed into the bloodstream and then we have nutrients for
Speaker 1: energy that will fuel your brain. Now for leaky gut,
Speaker 1: we have to definitely clean up our diet and some
Speaker 1: supplements that we gave you, um L glue tomine, We
Speaker 1: gave you vitamin D, probiotics, fish oils, and yours. We
Speaker 1: look specifically I revived. Yeah, so that had that had
Speaker 1: multiple components in there that were the L glue tomine,
Speaker 1: especially that we're helping heal your gut, so that we
Speaker 1: didn't have things slipping through causing another immune response that's
Speaker 1: pro inflammatory. And when you first told me, I had
Speaker 1: it with the leaky gut and there's something else you
Speaker 1: guys called it what was the other thing? Candida? Right,
Speaker 1: So with both of them, you're you and our friend
Speaker 1: Ja who helps me with my brain, helpful at all.
Speaker 1: So I was like, Hey, this is what's causing a
Speaker 1: lot of your system to be off, and that's causing
Speaker 1: you to overcompensate with a lot of your anxiety, with
Speaker 1: a lot of your depression. That your your systems off,
Speaker 1: starting in your gut to everything else is going to
Speaker 1: be off as a result. Yes, So candida is yeast,
Speaker 1: so a yeast over growth um in your intestinal track,
Speaker 1: and that's just showing there's dyspiosis, meaning an imbalance of
Speaker 1: bacteria yeast. And again the bacteria is helping us and
Speaker 1: helping our brain. So if we have bad guys coming in,
Speaker 1: it's suppressing the good guys. And you've been working on
Speaker 1: something else requently also kind of the other day you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to give me another week because I'm learning
Speaker 1: about something else new because it's it's kind of yes,
Speaker 1: so it's very new when it comes to research, So
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go to in depth. But they are
Speaker 1: looking at something called leaky brain where chemicals are actually
Speaker 1: going through the blood brain barrier, which is causing disruptions
Speaker 1: in the brain as well. No, I want you to
Speaker 1: get more specific than the how do you know this? Like,
Speaker 1: how do we we don't know. It's you know, it's
Speaker 1: all about it's all about calming down the system. So
Speaker 1: right now they don't know exactly how this might be happening,
Speaker 1: and that's where the research is new. So if chemicals
Speaker 1: are going into the brain where there should be a
Speaker 1: barrier that that should not be happening. If chemicals are
Speaker 1: going into the brain, it's causing disruptions and that goes
Speaker 1: back to the brain in the central nervous system, communicating
Speaker 1: to all systems of the body, and that can affect depression, anxiety,
Speaker 1: and other mental health conditions. Before I let you go,
Speaker 1: give me if you give me some examples of like
Speaker 1: the biggest transformations you've seen by people just figuring out
Speaker 1: what was causing them inflammation and taking it out. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: there's such a variety. It could be individuals that have
Speaker 1: been experiencing extreme stomach pain and in intestinal pain since
Speaker 1: they were little and now they're in their thirties and forties,
Speaker 1: only a few weeks on the program of calming down
Speaker 1: the system, it is gone. The pain is actually gone.
Speaker 1: They've been going to doctors for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: so that gastro intestinal pain goes down. Other individuals that
Speaker 1: experienced severe migraines um getting a couple of them per month,
Speaker 1: and they could last a week, so they're debilitated there
Speaker 1: in bed in the dark. The migraines almost completely go
Speaker 1: away by calming down that inflammation. But some of the
Speaker 1: ones that were the most interesting to me, the most actually,
Speaker 1: I have an individual who had a bump on his leg. Okay,
Speaker 1: he came to me for gastro intestinal distress, but he
Speaker 1: did tell me I have this random bump on my
Speaker 1: leg and I went to the dermatologist and she said,
Speaker 1: it's benign, will track it, don't worry about it. We're
Speaker 1: not sure what it is. After two weeks on the program,
Speaker 1: it was gone, and it had been there for two
Speaker 1: and a half years. That was the one that really
Speaker 1: blew me away. So a pocket of inflammation, like what
Speaker 1: is that? It's inflammation and the tissue. The dermatologists that
Speaker 1: I have no idea how this program made that go away,
Speaker 1: but keep doing what you're doing. And a couple others
Speaker 1: that were really eye opening to me. I worked with
Speaker 1: someone who had restless leg syndrome and one of the
Speaker 1: chemicals that we tested was sorbic acid. So the another
Speaker 1: name for that in foods is sorbital. Have you seen sorbital.
Speaker 1: It's a sugar alcohol. You even have it in let's say,
Speaker 1: toothpaste to make it sweeter, but it's not sugar. You
Speaker 1: find it in a lot of different supplements. You find
Speaker 1: it in different products. If it's protein, powders um process products.
Speaker 1: And she was taking a vitamin C pack in the
Speaker 1: morning to boost her immune system. And she's seventy five
Speaker 1: years old. She's been taking this for years. And she
Speaker 1: looked at it and she said, oh my goodness, it
Speaker 1: has sorbital, and I am highly responsive on the food
Speaker 1: sensitivity test to sorbital. She took it out and her
Speaker 1: restless leg syndrome completely calmed down. She's able to sleep again.
Speaker 1: So little things like that, tiny changes, you know, the
Speaker 1: big getting as you know, the program is hard at first,
Speaker 1: but we transition it into a lifestyle. So that one
Speaker 1: really stood out to me. And I'll give you one more.
Speaker 1: I have a seventy eight year old client client and
Speaker 1: I have I work with one year old up to
Speaker 1: seventy eight right now, and the seventy eight year old
Speaker 1: client has been having a lot of dental work done
Speaker 1: and he's been going in every few months, and he
Speaker 1: went in last month and the dental hygiena said, what
Speaker 1: have you been doing differently the inflammation in your gums.
Speaker 1: They're not bleeding, they're not swollen. What have you been doing?
Speaker 1: And he said, the only thing that I've done is
Speaker 1: this program to identify foods that were causing inflammation in
Speaker 1: my body. It really is. I mean, I could go
Speaker 1: on and on. I'm fascinated by it. It's It's completely
Speaker 1: changed how I've looked at nutrition. Again, I've almost been
Speaker 1: a dietitian for twenty years and this has It's been
Speaker 1: life changing for so many So it's something that I'm
Speaker 1: so passionate about because I I take off of helping people.
Speaker 1: I want to personally thank you. And that's why I'm
Speaker 1: having you on here, because he changed my life. Man
Speaker 1: certainly helped me. And I look, I fell off the
Speaker 1: wagon halfway through the football season because that's just just
Speaker 1: happens during football. But I'm going back to Thailand the
Speaker 1: day after the shoot ball, getting back on exactly, back
Speaker 1: on your regiment and anything, hoping to make that more
Speaker 1: of a lifestyle change for me when I come back
Speaker 1: from Thailand and not in the middle of the season,
Speaker 1: and I've already seen how much it's It's helped me
Speaker 1: again between the years, its depression, anxiety, the brain fog
Speaker 1: by vocal cords. I ute to be real raspy, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden now I'm not as raspy because
Speaker 1: of this. The psoriasis all gone. So if anybody wants
Speaker 1: to sign up your program to have Denise tell people
Speaker 1: how to get in touch with you. Yeah, I mean well,
Speaker 1: you can reach out to me via email It's Denise
Speaker 1: at end as a Nancy p is and Paul and
Speaker 1: as a Nancy three six five dot com, or give
Speaker 1: me a call at seven to eight nine six seven seven. Denise,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you so much, and again for everybody out there,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring whatever right hand to the table to
Speaker 1: help us in any way with what's going on between
Speaker 1: our ears, and again, our our gut is our second brain.
Speaker 1: So Denise, thank you so much for walking. Let's walk together.
Speaker 1: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me on