Natural Treatments for Eczema That Actually Work: Creams, Moisturisers & More | Jen Fugo

27:18And it also, when it breaks down, helps produce something called natural moisturizing factor that helps keep your skin nice and moisturized. And when you think of eczema, psoriasis, and many of these skin conditions, your skin gets like super dried out and flaky and you can't hold moisture in. And so you can have a snip in the gene that produces the protein called filagrin. And I like to think of it as like the mortar mix in between the skin cells. So it helps to keep the skin barrier nice and tight. But internal inflammation will also dysregulate the enzyme or the resulting... So there's a gene that makes an enzyme that then makes the protein filaggrin.

28:05And that enzyme is susceptible to creating like kind of a cruddy version of filaggrin when there's a lot of internal inflammation. Yeah. So you mentioned, we talked about histamine, not this episode, friends. We actually have an entire episode about histamine that I'm going to link to in the show notes. That way people can go back and listen to that. And if you've heard that, then I'm glad that you're here because bringing up the H. pylori, we didn't get to talk about that. I think another important thing to understand about H. pylori. So I actually had H. pylori as a kid, super sick for a very long time.

28:40H. pylori hadn't been discovered yet. That's how old I am. And then they discovered it. And this doctor was like, I just wonder, let's do, let's scope. Yeah. And let's see. And sure enough, there was H. pylori. So the chronic acid throwing up what people thought was an eating disorder was actually H. pylori. That something important to know about H. pylori is, is if your partner hasn't, and you guys make out, you have it and vice versa. And it's not like an STI. Okay. But like an STI, we, if we treat one person, we generally want to treat the other person. And so that is something that I know you've seen with clients as like a missing piece of like, they are having skin symptoms.

29:21And as it turns out, their partner had passed them H. Pylori. Well, and also H. Pylori hijacks gut function. So again, it's not all gut. I know we're talking a lot about that and this applies to many different skin conditions, but our gut in terms of the gut, so gut function is a one-way street. So if you hijack, I know when it goes the other way, nobody's happy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but it's a one-way street. So that means that every stop essentially along the way is unfortunately, there's no backup for it. So So in our stomach, which is where H. pylori infects, you're supposed to have one of the most acidic environments in the body so that we can break apart these chemical bonds that hold proteins together.

30:13We have protein and B12 linked together, protein and iron, and we need stomach acid in order to break those links. And the other thing is it's a chemical barrier so that every time you swallow your mouth microbiome - And so you don't get worms. You don't get worms. You don't, you know, and even food poisoning. A lot of these things we forget when we swallow things, it's supposed to die in the stomach. So H. pylori produces an enzyme called urease that deactivates stomach acid. And when that happens, it's like leaving the front door of your house wide open. You wouldn't do that and go on vacation.

30:53It's not even just unlocked. It's wide open. And so people can end up developing SIBO, right? So a lot of times we're like, how did SIBO happen? Well, if you keep swallowing literally everything in your saliva, which is a microbiome in and of itself, it's also your mouth is a gateway microbiome, as is your nasal microbiome, by the way, and you swallow that too, what's in your water, right? Even though our water here looks clear, there's things living in it that we can't see. We're inhaling organisms every time we inhale in that again, you're swallowing. Class is now in session. And the UPS store is here to help you ace arriving on campus.

31:33Our certified packing experts can pack everything you need from desktops to decor. Plus, when you pack and ship with us, you get our exclusive pack and ship guarantee. Your items arrive safe or your money back. Restrictions and limitations apply. To get a 20 % off packing coupon and for full details, visit the upsstore.com slash packing. We have to kill those organisms to protect our gut further down. That will not happen. So every time you swallow, you are swallowing maybe some Klebsiella. You're swallowing some Siderobacter. You're swallowing even fungal organisms and parasites. And so when we don't have sufficient stomach acid, it hijacks our ability to acquire enough iron, B12, protein, and other nutrients.

32:25It also populates potentially our whole gut from the small intestine all the way down to the large intestine with organisms that, again, the pathogens that can trigger inflammatory cascades. And when your stomach doesn't break food down appropriately, it cannot, like that one step, there's no backup. So now your gallbladder doesn't squeeze out bile appropriately. Your pancreas, while yes, it might squeeze out or secrete a bunch of enzymes into the small intestine, those enzymes can only do so much. They're like the little tiny, they just do a little smaller job of cutting up the amino acids. They're not meant to do the whole work.

33:09So we start to see a ton of gut dysfunction. We start to lose nutrients. That impacts your thyroid. I was hoping you were going to talk about thyroid. Oh, 100. And thyroid issues also impact skin heavily. But your thyroid needs nutrients. Your brain obviously needs nutrients. Your liver detox, which we talked a ton about on the histamine episode. also needs nutrients. And we start to see this cascade of problems where more and more nutrients aren't being absorbed. You have a ton of GI symptoms. I will say this. I don't know why this is. Maybe you know. I don't know. I have seen cases where people have really messed up GI tracts, like lots of dysbiosis and these imbalances and no gut symptoms.

33:57So I don't think that you can assume, oh, my gut's good. But I have skin problems. I don't have a gut problem. I don't think you can assume that because my experience has shown me otherwise. If you know why, I would love to know. Well, there's also the part of normalizing what has existed for a long period of time. So even though people are having dysfunction, they don't see it as dysfunction because it's become something that's such a constant that they're like, it must be normal. And so, you know, I've even had patients where I've been like, do you ever see undigested food in your stool? After they've told me I have no gut issues, I have nothing going on.

34:31And they're like, yeah, sure. If I eat lettuce, that always comes through. And I'm like, lettuce? How long has that been going on? And they're like, for years. Isn't that normal? We don't talk about poop, just like we don't talk about periods. And we don't talk about hormones like enough. And so we don't have people who are bouncing off to know what's normal. I think there's also the way that people express. So when you have gut symptoms, maybe you're having joint pain, maybe you're having brain fog, maybe you're having other endocrine issues. So hormonal issues going on. But skin is also a way that we know when the gut is not adequately detoxifying, because that's one of its jobs, digest, does all these things.

35:08But if it's not moving waste out, waste has to get out somehow. And so sometimes we see that present in the skin as well. So with that being said, I brought up that we don't always talk about what's normal, what's not. Let's go through what's not normal when it comes to digestive health so people know. I would say that if you, I would say the first thing is it's not normal to just swallow your food. I do have to tell everyone in the military. I know. One of my best friends in college was, I know, right? A lot of moms. Um, one of my best friends in college was, uh, in the, um, military. He's the coast guard and he literally, we would, we would have breakfast, like we'd work out together and then we'd have breakfast together and he would sit down.

35:54And by the time I sat down, his food would already be gone. And he's like, this is how we operate. But I feel like military and moms, these are the two that are like inhale or never see the food again. And if you are, if somebody was to describe you as that, that is like, we got a problem. We don't have teeth anywhere else. Yeah. This is true. For purpose. They're not just for smiling. So we do need to chew our food appropriately. We're setting the stage for what's going to happen in the stomach. If you then get to the stomach and you start having reflux or any type of pain, or you feel like the food is really heavy, it won't move, like you've got a stone in your stomach, that's definitely a concern.

36:33If you have discomfort anywhere in the GI tract, so the stomach, just so everyone knows, because people like, my stomach hurts. I'm like, where does it hurt? Because your stomach is on the left side under your rib cage. On the right side is your gallbladder and your liver. So if it's on the right side, now we have to wonder, is something going on with the gallbladder or the liver, right? So the pain, where the pain is, is important. Your stomach is not by your belly button, but this is all of your abdomen, your small intestine and your large intestine. So if there's any pain or discomfort or like, I don't know how to describe this other than just like, it feels like your insides are sore.

37:14That's not normal. Any type of gas or bloating, constipation is not normal. So if you're not having at least one bowel movement every day, that's, I would say well-formed, that's a problem as is on the flip side, diarrhea, which is also nutrients and everything are moving so quickly through you. It's very, very disruptive. So if you're the type of person that's like, oh yeah, food just goes right through me. That's not normal. Belching, bloating, or belching, especially like that's gas coming up usually from the small intestine or the stomach, whereas flatulence or our lovely farts are usually from lower down in the large intestine.

37:52And obviously if you have anal itching, I know nobody wants to talk about an itchy butt, but like that's not normal. Yeah. What can that be? let people know. Well, it can be, so it can be fungal overgrowth, but it also can be parasites as well. Like moms know a lot about pinworms, I feel like, because that's a thing kids pass around. I don't see that ever in adults, but I, I think like we don't put everything in our mouth. That's true. Good point. Good point. But the other thing too, is if your food is passing through you too quickly, the anus can become irritated and that can also cause itching as Well, you brought up reflux and I think a lot of people often miss the signs, which could be clearing your throat excessively after you eat or coughing after you eat or coughing when you go to bed at night.

38:41And so when their doctor asks them, are you having reflux? They think no. And that can actually be a sign of H. pylori, like bringing it back to that. You brought up passing gas, farting. Yep. People fart. So what's normal with Snara? Because people People are going to be like, wait, should I never fart? No, I mean, you're supposed to fart. I mean, we have a whole microbiome in our GI tract. They're farting, by the way. They're farting. It's not you. You're just the vehicle in which it exits and you're fleshy. So it makes noise, but it's actually the bacteria making that gas. So I think, you know, if it's, if you're not having a whole lot, it's, it's different where it's all day.

39:17It's after you eat. And especially if it's got a really distinct odor, like if you're like sitting in meetings and being like, oh my God, I need, I really need to like. It would clear a room. Yeah, like that's, something's going on there. It can be putrefaction of the proteins that weren't broken down in the stomach and thus couldn't be absorbed. You know, we, again, our gut function is equally as important as the gut microbiome. And they both contribute to this whole concept of leaky gut. And I just want to say this right here and now. Leaky gut's not the problem. That's not the thing you should focus on.

39:55If you have these conditions, yes, you likely have leaky gut. You could just easily assume that. You don't need to do a test. You don't need to buy products to heal your leaky gut. You have to deal with the actual issue that's driving that. And so we have these barriers. And what's fascinating about the skin is it's also a barrier. You can have leaky skin. That's what results in things like eczema. It's a leaky skin barrier. And we have a skin microbiome, right? People will develop skin infections to things like Staph aureus, which produces all of these very caustic toxins and whatnot and makes it difficult for our skin to heal.

40:35There's other imbalances that can happen on the skin as well, like malassezia overgrowth. I mean, you can certainly have candida infections on the skin, but malassezia is a type of fungal organism that predominantly lives in the sebaceous areas. So anywhere that you have kind of hair, that's where they love to hang out. They eat the lipids. And when you have things like seborrheic dermatitis or dandruff, there's usually some sort of overgrowth of malassezia. But we can also develop skin infections, strep infections, pseudomonas infections. The other interesting one is demodex overgrowth, specifically on the face.

41:17I don't know if you can get that on the rest of your body, but definitely on the face. I have seen that in a few cases of eczema, but with rosacea, you should definitely get checked. If you've got a, I learned, oh my gosh, from, from, we both know her, Dr. Carly Rose. Oh yeah. She came on and told me all about how demodex mites, when they overgrow on your eyelashes, like all the crusting and everything is like their poop. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but explain what people are, what these are, because I think this might be totally new to people, what they are. It is a commensal organism. I do want to say that, but it's a - You do have bugs.

41:54You do have bugs a little on your face, and they're of all different varieties. These happen to be more parasitic in nature. Mm-hmm. And so in rosacea specifically, they tend to be something that may overgrow and contribute to worsening rosacea. They can also show up as like a kind of a form of blepharitis. And so it's your... Which is where you're going to get inflammation and swelling and blight. Inflammation, yep. And like a lot of like dry eye issues and irritation. And you might get like the crusting and mucus and all sorts of stuff. So your ophthalmologist or optometrist can pretty quickly see if that's what's going on and help you figure out how to resolve it.

42:42But if it's on the face, usually they use topical ivermectin to deal with it. There is a new product that Dr. Rose told me about that's for the eyes that actually was discovered because of a pet medication used to treat mange that actually works. And it's now been FDA approved. I don't have any experience with that, but I have these episodes. So if anybody's interested, we can certainly share them. But again, we have this interesting interplay between the gut microbiome and gut function that contributes to creating these inflammatory messengers and then how it communicates to the skin and the inflammation that shows up on the skin and dysregulates our skin, whether you know, in psoriasis, whether you end up with this excess production of skin cells that creates the plaques.

43:35It's just, to me, it's so fascinating. And obviously too, because I know you know so much about thyroid and hormone health, the thyroid is a crucial piece to this. And some skin conditions can put you at greater risk for having thyroid dysfunction. Psoriasis, I don't know what the actual percentage is or rate, it's increased. But those who have psoriasis are at much greater rate or much greater risk for developing Hashimoto's thyroiditis. And if you have a thyroid that's really dysregulated and in a hypo state, I don't know about a hyper because I don't see many clients that have hyperthyroidism.

44:19This is much more rare. And I appreciate you bringing it up because people, and I will link to a web article on drbrighton.com all about Graves disease because people are always like, well, what about Graves? And that's like one out of like 3 ,000 people who have Hashimoto's talking about it because it's just disproportionately much more rare. Yeah. But the higher your TSH goes, the more your thyroid gets kind of low, one of the symptoms is an eczema-esque type rash. You can end up with a lot of skin dryness, itchiness. So you can get scaling. So when I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, I had scaling on my knees.

45:00Like they were so dry and we called it dragon skin scales. And just to clarify for people, you said as the TSH gets higher and your thyroid gets low, TSH will be going high, high, high because it's your brain screaming at your thyroid, but the actual thyroid hormone is low. And that's why you're getting that response. Yeah. And it can have, you might not think that it's a big deal. I really recommend clients get their full thyroid panel checked. One individual I worked with, and actually I interviewed her on the show, her TSH came back at 33, which was the highest I had ever seen a TSH. And she was so physically miserable with her skin, but also mentally she was like, she was ready to kind of like not be here anymore.

45:45She was so depressed. She was so overwhelmed. And couldn't, she just, and so I'm so glad and grateful that we looked deeper because then she was able to get on medication and that drastically improved. So many things gave her more runway so that she could work on a lot of those other underlying root causes and, you know, actually get back to like getting outside and going in the garden and doing normal things. Well, Ed, for context, for people to understand, you said TSH is above 30. We don't like to see consistently above 2.5. So that is grossly hypothyroid. Some doctors won't actually treat until it's 10, 15.

46:25And I feel like that's because this is predominantly a condition that affects women and telling women, you're just tired because you're a mom. You're just tired because of this and gaslighting them about their symptoms. Just to still in trend, we need to like boot that, like call Cosmo up and be like, can you like issue that gaslighting women is out 2025, it's out. That would be really nice. You've brought up psoriasis. So we've talked a little bit about like the root cause of eczema and some things that can contribute. How is that similar or maybe different with psoriasis? With psoriasis, there's definitely gut function, gut microbiome issues for sure.

47:01I have also found with a lot of psoriasis that, and I don't fully know the reason why, but it looks like there's a tendency or propensity towards a lot more fungal overgrowth within the GI track. I want to be really clear because a lot of times people think when I talk about an overgrowth or an organism, they're like on the skin? No, no, no. It's in the gut. And then that inflammation as your body is sending out those cytokines or those messengers trying to recruit for help ends up on your skin and you end up with these symptoms. So that's one concern. Also the specific type of strep, it's not all strep because we have a lot of strep species that live in our mouth microbiome, but strep pyrogenes can be a trigger for guttate psoriasis.

47:50So the kind of spots, so if you got strep throat as a kid and then all of a sudden you're covered head to toe in a bunch of spots, that can be an inflammatory trigger towards it. And so there's some interesting research showing that some folks with psoriasis have actually seen an improvement by having their tonsils removed, which - That can be a reservoir for strep. Yeah. It can be a reservoir for strep. You can have strep hiding in the system. But yes, I think in general, it's like, we're looking at the thyroid, we're looking at the gut microbiome, we're looking at gut function, we're looking at the environment that you live in because mold plays a huge factor for people with psoriasis.

48:30And for whatever reason, will make it absolutely worse. It might not show up as a histamine response. I don't know why. I've only had a handful of psoriasis clients that have histamine issues. It just shows up differently. Also looking at nutrient depletions, folks with psoriasis tend to have certain key nutrient depletions that you don't... It's not that you don't see them in other conditions, but it's like vitamin D, vitamin A, omega-3s, protein. Those are kind of the big ones. And there's actual research to back that up. And so one of the things that I love when it comes to looking at psoriasis is looking at the nutrients, but also what's happening with their liver.

49:17So for those who are in the know, psoriasis has a lot of comorbidities, basically like connections to other conditions associated with like metabolic function. And your liver is one where I've had, and I'm sure you've, you have seen this where someone has psoriasis and they start developing fatty liver and the doctor's like, how much, how much alcohol are you drinking? It's always right. You must be drinking. You must be drinking. It's the same thing. You get pancreatitis. They're like, you're an alcoholic. And it's like, well, it could be something else. Let's get curious. Right. It could be.

49:52So instead, what do we call it? Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And they're like, we don't know. We don't know. It's just, you didn't drink alcohol, but somehow you have this fatty liver. We just don't know. And so it was my kind of theory for a long while thinking like, well, these organisms, right? We were talking about how organisms fart. They also poop too. Not the type of poop we poop, but they have waste products. And those waste products have to be metabolized in some way. Either they are excreted out by us directly, or they go through phase two liver detox. What happens if you have a lot of organisms that also produce alcohol?

50:32So maybe it's not that you're consuming alcohol, but it's that you are literally a little bit like an alcohol production factory. You don't mean to be. You're an alcoholic, but only because they're producing beer in your gut. Sorry. You don't even get a buzz. It's kind of lame. So I've seen so many lectures from A4M and from IFM now of this integral relationship of what's produced in the GI tract goes through the portal vein to the liver, and now your liver has to deal with it through. So if you want to know about the histamine stuff and all the liver detox, we did talk about the liver detox stuff extensively there, but basically it goes through phase two liver detox.

51:19And what do we need for phase two liver detox? Because there are particular nutrients that not everybody's getting or not getting enough of to actually support that. It's actually crucial for skin health. It is. And I would say if anybody is interested in doing all this gut work, please start with the liver first because the liver is going to deal with the brunt an increase of toxins when you start addressing the GI tract. So the liver and phase two detox needs a number of crucial minerals, also specific amino acids. And we talked about this many times, but vitamin B6 is really important for your liver.

51:56I was on your show talking about vitamin B6. So Healthy Skin Show, I'm going to link to it. I was talking all about TMDD, ADHD, autism, histamine issues and vitamin B6 was definitely one that came up. Yeah. So I also love vitamin B6. And so I think the first easiest step is to increase your glycine consumption, but you can't do it through diet. I don't know why I have tried to figure this out. It just does not work. I think your body goes, oh, it's food-based. Let me put it where I want to put it. If it's supplemental, so you actually go and you get like the capsules or the powder, it seems to work better to refill this well that you need in order to process things through the glycine.

52:41It's actually called the glycine cleavage system. So it's part, it's one of the - It sounds sexy too. I know. Cleavage system. It just means like cutting something off, which is kind of lame, but I'm like, we could just try to make it glycine spicy. It does. It does sound spicy. I like that. We also have the glutathione pathway, sulfation, methylation. So we've got a lot of things happening in the liver that require nutrients. So I think the easiest thing to do is look at glycine and B6 is like your first step. If you've had longstanding skin issues and, or they're really severe, that's where we really need to add in a more full spectrum support of these different amino acids.

53:26Because at the end of the day now, it's like, we need to make sure that your liver's got what it needs in order to do this work. Cause if it doesn't, it's just not going to happen. And now you're like kind of slowing the conveyor belt down. And for those of you that remember the, I love Lucy, uh, episode with Ethel and Lucy at the chocolate factory, like you're going to have a problem. You need those nutrients in order for this to work. And so, um, like one of the products that I created called P2 Detox Balance has this full scope of amino acids that help support the liver without triggering a flare up because it doesn't have certain herbs in it that, and B vitamins as well, that sometimes make people feel worse.

54:10And skin people are funny. We sort of react in different ways than somebody who has like just gut problems because the skin is so temperamental from one moment to another, you're not always sure what was the trigger. And that's one of the reasons why we want to make sure that we're giving the liver what it needs, get it up, get it humming, and then you start dealing with the gut microbiome. You can do gut function before gut microbiome, but do not start working on the gut microbiome before you've got the liver humming. It's really important. You had said that diet doesn't necessarily work for glycine.

54:47I think some people are going to walk away being like, oh, so she's saying don't bother with the diet, just take a supplement. No. Diet matters. I do think diet matters. I think one of the big frustrations I have with integrative medicine is that most people are like, oh, just go on this diet or just do AIP or just... You said psoriasis is connected to candida. Candida diet? Thumbs up up or down? No, thumbs down. So part of the problem is we've created this world where people think that the more foods they take out, the healthier they are. And perhaps there's a likelihood that maybe you take out one of the inputs, things change, and all of a sudden your skin does start to get better.

55:34But long-term, is that really sustainable? If it's maybe just like dairy or gluten, it might not be that hard. But what happens - It might be sad, but not that hard. Right. But what happens in like six months when now all of a sudden you've got to take out more food and then another six months, now it's more food and your diet is getting smaller and smaller. I want to know why you're becoming so reactive to those foods. Now, in the case of psoriasis, there is a risk that you could have celiac disease. There is again, all of these comorbidities and that is one of them. So some individuals actually do really well on a gluten-free diet who have psoriasis.

56:12That being said, I think try to add into your diet as many whole foods as humanly possible. But these other diets, like if you struggle with salicylates, which is a phytonutrient and a phytochemical essentially that comes from plant foods that some people start to react to, that's actually a sign that you have an issue with glycine because that's where salicylic acid it is processed. We need glycine to repackage it to get it out of the body. So it's a sign of deficiency, not that you have to avoid all of these foods. You asked about the candida diet. Well, I don't like it because number one, it's miserable.

56:52I like food. You like food. You know I like food. We are foodies. And when you have spent years, like I spent 13 years not eating eggs and gluten listen, I got used to it. I accepted it. But to be able to just travel and eat eggs, like actually have some food for breakfast when you travel, gave me such an ease. And so that's what a lot of clients report when they're able to add back these foods, because it wasn't the foods causing the problem. It wasn't the foods causing all of this inflammation. It was all of the other factors, the gut dysfunction, the gut microbiome, and then how when we eat, things weren't processed correctly, it then intermingled with the gut microbiome and boom, you've got all these, but it's not the food's fault.

57:49So let's fix the actual problem so that you can eat the most well-rounded nutrient dense diet possible and enjoy food, right? It doesn't mean going to McDonald's. That's not what I'm talking about. But like, I love chocolate. I enjoy cheese. I enjoy, for the first time in my life, the last few months, I've been able to enjoy sourdough bread since 2008. Like, the joy of being able to just eat something that tasted like what I remembered from what feels like eons ago was amazing. Yeah. And so I love to give that back to clients. And I think that that's an important message that people feel that they don't, and they hear that they don't have to just keep cutting more and more things out in order to get healthier.

58:38That the issues with the food could be a sign of something else. So let's ask questions. Let's dig into that. And yes, there are plenty of people who have eczema that can eat eggs and dairy and all this other stuff. There's plenty of people who have rosacea that can go back and start eating some of the rosacea foods that you're not supposed to eat, like ginger or cinnamon and spicy foods, right? They're able to reintroduce those things. There's people who have hives that are able to reintroduce high histamine foods. And there are people who have psoriasis that are able to eat red meat and a lot of those potatoes and other nightshades that everyone's like, oh, you can't have those.

59:20but they're able to tolerate them. I have psoriasis. And when people were like, that means you can't eat nightshades. I'm like, I'm a Latina. I live on salsa. I don't think you understand. I literally drink salsa. Like I can't, I can't even, and it's never made a difference. Yeah. I want to talk about like what foods can people eat that will nurse their skin? Cause you're talking about a lot of adding in. So I think people are going to be curious, like what can I be eating that's going to be great for my skin? The first thing I would say is if you took dairy out, I love ghee. I think ghee is a worthwhile try.

59:56One of the reasons why is it has butyrate in it. And butyrate is really good for your GI tract. It's one of those short chain fatty acids that our gut bugs naturally produce when they munch on the fibers that we eat. And it helps to provide fuel for our colon cells. It helps to seal up those junctions and the leaky gut. It helps to improve that. So I love ghee. I also love cold water fish, grass fed beef. And if you can afford it, things like free range chicken and whatnot. While yes, I do think that like we, I know everybody's on a different budget and you do you, but I think all of the fear mongering that makes people afraid to eat real food is, is it does a really grave disservice to those who maybe are in a tighter budget.

1:00:44I would much prefer you be able to add in, listen, I get it. There's some people who like to go vegan and more plant-based. That's fine. You do you. That's not my jam. I work with clients who do eat a more plant-based diet and that's fine. But if that was what helped your skin heal up and you have to stay on a plant-based diet in order to have your skin stay clear. I want to know why. Because if you can't tolerate animal proteins, there's a problem. It could be a sign of H. pylori. On the flip side, if you do carnivore where you're only eating animal products and that's what cleared your skin up, I want to know why.

1:01:24To me, that could be a SIBO issue. It could be a fungal overgrowth issue, but there's usually some type of underlying issue where you aren't able to tolerate all of the fiber. So I always like to ask why. So another group of foods that I love are berries. I know you love berries. Anything that's like bright in color. I mean, I love berries. I mean, they look like ovaries. They're good for your ovaries. Like mama nature, again, signaling. She's like, I got you. And antioxidants. They're also, you know, there's something sweet that I feel like we can enjoy and appreciate without necessarily really, I don't know, like I have berries with breakfast.

1:02:03That to me, I would much rather that than like a muffin. I don't have any interest in like a pastry. So to me, I slowly with time switched my diets. Like, oh, berries are like my dessert and I really enjoy them. I also love things like asparagus. I love carrots. I love apples and all different colors of apples as well. Granny Smith apples are great, but I think other apples are also wonderful because they contain really great fiber and pectin and quercetin and all sorts of things. And then also, I'm just trying to think some other favorites. I mean, we definitely want to see clients have some fiber into their diet.

1:02:42So it could be through chia seeds, could be hemp seeds. I love pepitas and pumpkin seeds. Those are really great. I know like you talked a lot about how they have magnesium and zinc and they're a great source of minerals. And from there, I mean, I like a well-rounded plate where about like two thirds of the plate is some sort of green, colorful, veggie type situation. Maybe we have a little bit of starch in there and the amount of starch that you'll have, like for me earlier in the day, I like to do lower starch. Later in the day, I like to do like, That's where I'll do potatoes. And then that other third is really going to be a good amount of protein, usually somewhere between 20.

1:03:27I would sometimes go up to 40 grams. But I think in general with skin, when you're trying to address skin issues, I think we should be closer to 80 to 100 grams of protein a day, partly because A, we need it for all of these different processes. And a lot of times people are nutrient deprived because of H. pylori and low stomach acid and all of this. But also we're healing tissue. We have to rebuild our skin tissue and that takes protein in order to do it. And we need it for liver detox. We need it for thyroid. We need it for all sorts of things. So I think that's another good kind of avenue to go down.

1:04:07Yeah. And when you're talking budget, I think often people hear cold water fish, they think salmon, they think that's expensive. Sardines are incredibly economical, chemical such a great place to like get your omega-3 fatty acids and you brought up the fear-mongering the fear-mongering of whole foods I cannot for the life of me understand how people are out there and they'll they'll nitpick things like sometimes it's oats sometimes it's a nut sometimes it's a seed sometimes it's this you know leafy green vegetable and I'm like you really think in the current paradigm of the U S's chronic health crisis, that kale is the biggest problem, like the, that, you know, eating a cashew is the biggest problem.

1:04:52And yet you will see people out there in the grocery store, usually doing a video where they're telling you this, this is full of poison. And in reality, we know that ultra processed foods, these are, These are filled with omega-6 fatty acids and they're not filled with nutrients. These are things that are going to sabotage your skin. And we're not talking about that. We're seeing people talk about and vilify whole foods. And I think it's so refreshing to hear you say this because people get so confused, so confused about what to even eat because of this basically clickbait that happens on social media.

1:05:30Like if you can tolerate dairy, if you literally can do, if you have your coffee in the morning and you like coffee, drink coffee. Like this is another one. Oh, coffee's bad for you. It's bad for your skin. You should stop that. Like it's like, because you're a woman, no woman can drink coffee. I'm like, watch me, watch me. I'm also a rapid detoxer. So it's something too, where people are like, no, women don't metabolize it like men do. And I'm like, you should see me wake up in surgery. I drink espresso at 10 o 'clock at night. I go to bed. I also like have horrible drug reactions because I metabolize things so quick, but I'm like, you can't just make blatant statements about this.

1:06:12Whereas like we were talking, my husband, if he has a cup of coffee at 12 in the afternoon, he will not sleep at all. But me, I can have espresso at 10 PM and I'm like, fall asleep like 10 minutes later. I'm not having a problem with it. And that speaks to the differences in individuals. And that's what, when we're just going online, looking at these reels, right? A 10 second reel with a caption, that person has a particular agenda and perspective. I would much rather you figure out your, like you eat the Jolene diet. I'll eat the Jen diet. Your husband eats his diet. My husband eats his. And understand that it changes over time.

1:06:52So as you were saying, you know, you and I were both talking about that this week, you were saying how you couldn't eat eggs. I was telling my son from my 20s, I couldn't eat eggs because I ate eggs and I had horrible, horrible stomach pain. I, you know, I had the same thing with avocado. Like I couldn't eat avocado for like 10 years. As it turns out, I had small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and I addressed that. And then all of these foods were able to come back in. And I feel like I've always been, I've been seen sometimes as like a heretic in like the functional medicine space because I've always had the same perspective as you, is that you should be able to eat just about everything that's a whole food.

1:07:31And if you can't, then we have to ask why, right? There are intolerances, there are sensitivities, and there are allergies, and there are medical conditions that say you can't eat that. Okay, we know that. But when we start getting to the place where it's like, well, I just can't eat this because, you know, I'm eliminating everything out of my diet or because my doctor said you have candida, therefore you can never eat this food again. I've always called BS on that. Like that is not how, that is not how you were designed. And also that is not how you would actually survive if we weren't living in such an artificial environment, right?

1:08:08Where we can procure food. Like, I mean, we go to the, like, I'm sure you remember, like kale was never even a thing when we were kids. There was one apple you could get in the store. There wasn't all these apple varieties. Like we would have died. Okay. We would die if we had the same dietary practices that we see sensationalized now when we were on the plains or living in caves. Like we would have never survived. And I can tell you just from clinical, plenty of clinical experience, you're not going to starve yeast. If it's pretty bad and you have pretty significant candida overgrowth, those little buggers are good.

1:08:41They're smart. They're the cockroaches. Yeah. They're going to be long around, but we're kind of on our way out. They're still hanging out. They're like, yeah, we're partying. Let's talk about what actually works for treating yeast because people are going to be like, okay, if it's not the diet, then what? So I think the important thing to know, and this is kind of like to go back to eczema and some of these skin issues, is that yeast, because we didn't even mention that really, is that you can have overgrowth within the small intestine of candida or other fungal organisms, as well as in the large intestine.

1:09:11Again, that can trigger cytokines, the inflammatory messengers that show up on our skin, triggering these issues. And so I've gotten to a place for a long time, I thought it was diet and antifungal herbs. The truth is that sometimes we need medication. The issue can be so bad that there's no amount of diet and herbs that are going to fix it. I think that's why a lot of people have gravitated towards carnivore because they've seen such improvements. The problem is when you ask somebody if they try to go off of carnivore, all the yeast issues come back. That's why they're like the cockroaches. When you go off of the anti-candida diet, all the symptoms come back after a period of time.

1:10:00And it's because they are very resilient. They hide behind biofilms. They're not going away. So we have to address the overgrowth. We have to use the tools that are appropriate. And antifungal herbs are not like antibiotics. They don't devastate the gut microbiome. They don't wreck your gut bacteria. Most people are shocked to learn that. They can be hard on your liver though. They can. They absolutely can. But that's why it's a time and a place to figure out the right way. I personally like to assess the situation and then I make a suggestion to the client like, hey, in this particular instance, I think you would do best, especially if they have thrush where they have the infection in their mouth and down their throat, or they have tinea versicolor, so it's an actual fungal infection on the skin, go get meds.

1:10:49Your doctor will, even if it's just one or two tablets, that will help knock it down and it makes everything else work better. So why don't we be more open and flexible to the process? I used to be very hard-lined when I first developed a dysetroidic eczema. That was like, oh gosh, that was a long time ago back in 2014. If I could go back and tell myself, you made this harder on yourself. You drew the process out because you only thought that if you healed naturally, that was the only way and the right way to do it. I wish I could say, hey, I see and hear what you're trying to do. I hear all the good intentions.

1:11:30At the same time, think about your body is in this kind of pull of inflammation. And if we could get that down faster and get you feeling better faster, that improves your quality of life. So that's kind of like where I stand with the candida. And obviously, listen, we're not going to go have ice cream every night. We're going to be a little mindful of our sugar intake at the least. But I do think that there's other ways to deal with it. But in general, the other thing that I also wanted to share was that it's okay if you're on this journey and you need to use medications as part of it, because if you are really suffering and you really want to do natural things, you may not have the energy and the bandwidth to be able to do it.

1:12:20It's a longer road and you can mix the two. Most people don't know that. So you can use certain medications like there, and I'm talking about biologic drugs, JAK inhibitors, immunosuppressants, at the same time while doing the diet stuff, the lifestyle stuff, working on the gut microbiome at the same time. And then slowly as the inflammation subsides, you can wean off of those medications with the help of your doctor without having a huge flare-up. So I think there's a lot out there that people can do. They think it has to be one camp or the other. And I love to show them that there is a way to do that, to get back to eating real food and to enjoy their life again, because that's what's really important.

1:13:09Well, and I think it's important for people to understand that a lot of the side effects they want to avoid or that they even fear with medications can be mitigated through nutrition and lifestyle. And that's always the stuff that if you lay that foundation, that's really your ticket towards long-term health. And so just because you use a medication doesn't mean that you failed in some way or you weren't working hard enough. It's that sometimes we need a medication. And if you do use a medication, that doesn't mean just forgo everything else because it doesn't matter, it actually can help you immensely.

1:13:44We know, you know, there's a lot of medications that have nutrient depletions. And so that's something most doctors don't even talk about that, you know, these medications can actually deplete you of nutrients. So, and then people get side effects. And it's like, if we work on your diet, like we don't have to have those side effects. I can add to this one reason why you have to be very careful with elimination diets and eliminating too much food, it's not all foods, but the top nine allergens. So that includes things like dairy and eggs. You run the risk if you take them out for, and I don't know that we, there's not a lot of great research in adults on this.

1:14:22There's more in kids. But after somewhere around a year, your body, when you try to reintroduce them, may see them as an actual allergen and you can develop an IgE allergy. So I have now, unfortunately, clients who had eczema, who read online, oh, take out dairy. That individual now has an anaphylactic dairy allergy, can't do cow's milk, can't do goat's milk. I have another client who took out eggs, now has an egg allergy so severe she can't even have it in baked goods and has to have an EpiPen. Wow. So we have to be cautious if your provider is constantly pushing on you these elimination diets with no end in sight and does not say, oh, by the way, here's a side effect, right?

1:15:11We have to, I feel, I'm not a prescriber, right? As a clinical nutritionist, I can't prescribe medication, but I want my doctor, hopefully at least my pharmacist, to tell me if there's a side effect to taking that. And there are side effects to doing elimination diets that we are not being told. And yes, food fear is very real. It's a huge problem in 18 to 24 year olds. It is about 80 % of people who are obviously really impressionable at that age who develop food fear from doing elimination diets to help their skin. And I worked with a research team out of UC Davis, and we surveyed over 600 people who all had chronic skin problems and how they used elimination diets and food, I mean, that's huge, over 80%.

1:16:02And even when you got to like, I think it was the 55 to 64 year old bracket, it was still about 50 % of people. And it didn't matter whether you had a previous eating disorder. You could have no issues with food prior and using elimination diets caused so much stress in people that they now had a real negative association with food, plus the issue of potentially developing food allergies. So I think this is why, this is so important to say, hey, is there another way? Is there a better way where we don't have to wreck our relationship? The price to good health, to good skin doesn't have to be, I can't eat anything.

1:16:43It shouldn't be that. That to me is not a fair trade. I want to go full circle back to the conversation that we started with. So we talked about corticosteroids as topical. So using steroids for topical treatment of rashes, what are the alternatives? Because we've talked a lot about like the root cause, what you should investigate, what you should be eating. What are like topical alternatives that people could be using to get symptom relief with their skin issues? I will say it does vary from skin issue to skin issue, but generally with eczema, one of the things that I find really helpful is zinc.

1:17:15So topical zinc is really nice. It cannot penetrate through the skin. And so if you are supplementing with zinc, you're not going to increase your, so you don't have to worry about zinc issues. But I, so one thing that I decided at a certain point was like, I wasn't super happy with a lot of skincare products because while they might look natural and there's a ton of greenwashing that goes on in the skincare industry. What is greenwashing for people who don't know? Yeah, greenwashing is where the product looks natural and organic. but when you actually flip it over, you're like, what the heck?

1:17:50It's all these chemical names. Now, chemical names aren't necessarily bad. And there are plenty of websites like MaidSafe, for example, where you can go and look up the ingredients, but they're loaded with things like sulfates, parabens, phthalates, xeno hormones and whatnot, and endocrine disrupting hormones. And that is really alarming. And some of the products, especially like bigger brands, they intentionally create products like moisturizers where it will, you apply within two hours, your skin is dried out again and you reapply. So it's not meant to... Saboteur. I know. Oh my gosh. I know.

1:18:30So they know that they're going to encourage you. If the one bottle worked, you, right? Like if the one bottle worked, you wouldn't need the product. You wouldn't have the problem. Management, unfortunately, is where the money is in pharma and many of these big skincare companies that are in big box stores at the pharmacies and et cetera are - And by management, you mean just maintenance products. Maintenance. They're not actually solving the problem. They're just making you a forever customer. Correct. And so I just made this decision. I was like, you know, I want to try and create something that has like the benefit of certain herbs without like, we're not using any essential oils.

1:19:09We're not using any like crummy ingredients and really knowing where things came from that we can nourish. We can have add these nourishing ingredients to the skin and help support it. So one of the products that I created is called Z Plus Rebuilder, which has enough zinc in it to be helpful, but it doesn't give any whitish cast and it's not drying. because if you've ever used like a butt paste cream, it's super drying. So we figured out how to blend the oils and the herbs and the zinc together so that it actually has a synergistic effect and you can wear it during the day and no one knows it won't get all over your clothes.

1:19:45It's wonderful. So that is really helpful. I would say for itch, witch hazel, um, uh, hydrosol is really helpful for that. Um, I also love if you're really sensitive, start with single oils. So things like hemp seed oil, avocado oil, I would avoid olive oil because malassezia, that commensal yeast organism. The little fat muncher. Yeah. The little, yes. The little fat muncher. He loves olive oil. So you might want to be beware of that. But there's a lot of different, you know, shea butter. See what your skin tolerates, what your skin likes. Sometimes you may have to layer things on. So if you get out of the shower, do your lighter things, like maybe some aloe vera and then your hydrosols or hypochlorous acid spray.

1:20:36I don't know if your listeners are familiar with that, but it's - Probably not. So break it down. Hypochlorous acid is produced in our neutrophils. So it's part of our immune system's defense to kind of like kill other organisms. And so I don't know who figured this out, but they did, and they have put it into bottles, it looks and feels like water. So there's no like stinging or anything weird and it can help with what's going on in our skin microbiome. So you can spray that on your skin up to five times a day. If you're kind of prone to infectious issues, it's not going to help if you're in an infection and it's too late, but if you're kind of prone to it, it can help kind of, you know, we want to keep the skin barrier happy as long as we can.

1:21:21Is that helping with the leaky skin that you were talking about? Yes. Okay. Because like Staph aureus produces alpha and beta toxins, which are both really inflammatory to the skin. So anyway, hypochlorous acid spray, and there's a bunch of different companies out there that make that now. That's a really great option. Yeah. I mean, I think the key is to find simple formulas that your skin likes, and you use that as a way to help keep the skin happy on the outside while working on the internal stuff. Because the inflammation is most likely, unless you have an infection on the skin, that's not where the inflammation starts.

1:22:01It's internal. And that's what we want to try to shut off essentially. Rebalance so your body and its immune system can do what it's supposed to do and handle it. But right now it's on the struggle bus and it needs help. And it's a clue. It's an annoying and aggravating and awfully inconvenient clue that something's going on under the surface. And I apologize to everybody out there, if you're going to your dermatologist and expecting them to look at your case from that perspective and you're not feeling heard, it's not their modality right now. It's not in their toolbox unless they are personally interested in looking at your case from that perspective.

1:22:47So yes, it may be you diving into research, listening to different podcasts and such. Or consulting licensed nutrition professionals like yourself. I know. We have a worldwide clinic that we see clients all over the world virtually, which is so cool. Yeah. And you only, like your big specialty, like focus is psoriasis, eczema, chronic skin conditions. That's why I was like, I have to have you on the show to talk about this. We've had listeners who have said like, are you going to talk about like more skin issues? Cause we've had, you know, we've had our friend, Tony Yoon, Dr. Tony Yoon about, you know, the beauty aspect of a dermatologist and this has been a requested episode.

1:23:27So it had to be you. And I'm so grateful that you came on and you shared so many actionable tips with everybody. I will link to you and your clinic so that people can find you very easily in our show notes. But thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.