284. Dr. Bill Rawls: The Doctor Who Got Sick and Discovered What Doctors Miss

25:54Gary Brecka:And then the next two months, then we move into opening detoxification pathways, restoring your gut. I built a diet years ago. We're working with some really desperate people. So it's a phased diet that we move them through. And finally, then we get to that last phase of cellular recovery. So it's a full six-month, 180-day thing. And I don't expect for people to be well by six months because healing takes a long time, especially if you've got neurological symptoms and that sort of thing. And I don't see it as, you know, this is your replacement for a conventional doctor. We have everybody see some kind of physician, functional or conventional, along with this journey.

26:46So it's supporting that. They still may need medications, labs, other medical care. But we're doing the things that the medical system really isn't set up to do. Yeah. Yeah. And so where we would like, where I want them is at a point where they're proactive. They know what they need to do to move forward. They're not helpless. They're not a bystander in their recovery. And that has some really wonderful impact.

27:15Gary Brecka:You know, I applaud you for even addressing that, the nervous system, you know, out of the gate, because I talk about this all the time, how the vast majority, about 85 % of autoimmune disease is found in women. not because it's selective by sex but because it's selective by weakness and that women have a tendency to, and we knew this from mortality data, develop something called caregiver syndrome where they essentially spend their lifetime putting the needs of other people before the needs of themselves like you did in your early career, putting your patient's needs in the hospital and being on call before the needs of yourself.

27:51Gary Brecka:And you essentially wrecked your circadian clock and you were probably very much trapped in that fight or flight state, that autonomic state of being sympathetic all the time. And the degradation that we now know it causes to the immune system's ability not only to defend us, but to police us is pretty catastrophic. And again, it's not one of those things that happens overnight where you wake up and drive yourself to the emergency room. It's one of those things that happens slowly over time until one day you wake up and you go how the hell did i get here and feel like this yeah and and so to start by you know the foundation of of calming people down to return them back to a sensation that they feel safe in their own bodies yeah um and that their nervous system feels safe enough to let go of this sympathetic state return them back to parasympathetic state I use sunlight grounding breath work and initially gentle exercise to try to transition people into that same thing, fixing their circadian clock, fixing their sleep.

29:02Gary Brecka:I have a huge sleep challenge coming up in a couple more days where I'll take tens of thousands of people through a sleep architecture to draw their attention to their sleep, bookend their sleep and teach them good sleep hygiene because I think that's the truly human superpower. is the recovery we get from sleep. Oh, yeah. It's essential. Yeah. And so you start with two months of calming herbs and practices, you know, a lifestyle of calm and feeling safe in your nervous system. Yeah. Okay. And then the transition is into the cleansing, the detox phase. Right. And, you know, there's sort of, you know, opinions are all over the map on this.

29:53Gary Brecka:And, you know, during the detox phase, you know, I've talked about the importance of phase one, phase two liver detoxification, of having regular bowel movements, of staying hydrated and urinating, you know, regularly and using sweat and, you know, lymphatic circulation as sort of the basics of getting our own active detoxification pathways going. But how does that transition phase work? Are you looking at glutathione, transulfuration? Are you looking at the cellular waste elimination pathways and sort of bolstering those? Yeah, glutathione, NAC are key parts of the supplement protocol. And then just, yeah, calming that sympathetic overactivity allows a lot of things.

30:48Everything is stagnant and stuck up. I mean, you know, we look at gut dysfunction and we always try to relate it to food. Food is a factor, of course, but most of it is just high sympathetic tone stops the gut. And if you stop the gut and bacteria overgrow, everything gets backed up. And that backs up the detoxification system too. But it's also just people aren't moving. And I think it's really important that detoxification starts at the cellular level. And I think this is key. Toxins are doing, toxic substances are doing damage to our cells. and what happens is if you've got all this turmoil, you've got reactivated microbes that are breaking down cells, it creates a lot of debris and congestion.

31:46So for cells to get oxygen and nutrients but also to purge toxic substances, so cells are constantly trying to get rid of anything that might be bothering them, but they have to do that in a very narrow space called the extracellular space. Our cells are packed together, and everything that they have to get through to survive and everything they can get rid of has to go through that space. Well, if you've got a lot of dead cells and debris, that clogs that space up. And that's basically what inflammation is, you know. And the immune system sends in cells to clean it up. They use potent acid-free radicals.

32:28That can be toxic in itself. So the first step in detoxification is increasing flow. And one way to do that is exercise. But if your whole body's in pain, getting out and exercising is a challenge. So you know the other option, sauna. Heat the body up. And that moving blood flushes that space and allows the cells to breathe again and starts clearing that congestion. Once it starts moving, it's moving toward the liver. The problem is, though, that people's liver has been compromised. And that's a big deal. Yeah. These phase one, phase two detox pathways in the liver.

33:15Gary Brecka:Yeah. Well, the liver cells themselves. right? So I was a gynecologist. I scoped people two or three times a week. I'd look inside with a laparoscope and you always look through the whole abdomen. So I'd look at people's livers. That was just part of our routine. And somebody in their 20s, nice, beefy, red, healthy looking liver. But you look at people by 40 or 50, they're starting to have kind of a mottled yellow liver. So with the volume of substances that we have to process today, we're losing liver cells. 25 % of the American population has fatty liver. So you lose liver cells, replace them with fat cells.

34:02So your capacity to process toxic substances go down, down, down. So it doesn't matter what you do on the other end. And if you don't have processing ability, you're going to be compromised. So one of the herbs we use is milk thistle. Another one is dandelion. Milk thistle is actually been found in studies to regenerate liver cells. How does it do that? It protects the liver cells from the detoxification process. That phase one that is happening in liver cells is really toxic. It creates a lot of free radicals, kills liver cells. So milk thistle protects those cells and allows them to regenerate.

34:50Because unlike many cells in your body, we can build new liver cells, but you have to take the pressure off. So another thing is, you know, people's cholesterol glows up as they age, right? That's because we're losing liver cells if we lose the ability to process toxic substances. So I've been taking milk thistle probably 15 or 20 years. Cholesterol is about the same or maybe a little better than when I was in my 30s and 40s. And so my...

35:25Gary Brecka:Because 85 % of our cholesterol is made by the liver. Made by the liver, but recycled by the liver, right? So we lose that ability to process it, to recycle it, so it just hangs out in our system. so protecting liver cells is really important in the deoxification process so i've been working out with my son lately trying to keep up with him and his high rocks competitive athletes and i've been starting to use this perfect amino pre-workout i really like it it's got bh4 it improves nitric oxide output but it actually seems to stay after the workout and not crash there's no stimulants so no caffeine no mao wong nothing that gives you that kind of amped feeling you just feel like you're maybe better able to move during the workout.

36:08Gary Brecka:Like you have better blood flow. So if you're in the market for a pre-workout, check out the Perfect Amino pre-workout. It's my favorite now. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. You're moving into this detox phase, you know, where now you're starting to add things, hopefully movement. You must be fixing the bowel so you have regular bowel movements, hydration, sauna, sweats, or using the skin as like this secondary route of waste elimination. And then at a cellular level, because I think a lot of people think of waste as stool and urine, but the truth is there's a lot of cellular debris, like you talk about cellular waste.

36:43Gary Brecka:Our glymphatic system in our brains is removing that during our deep phases of sleep. And a lot of times the damage is coming from what's going on at a cellular level, not from these big macro toxins in the environment, even though they have influence over that for sure. So milk thistle, glutathione, NAC, you know, sweat, mouths, urine, you get these detoxification pathways going again. Yeah. And then when you get to what you call the restore phase, or have we gone through the full detox phase yet? Well, that's two months. Okay. So we work on that. We give people plenty of time and we're teaching them.

37:28You know, they're doing lessons. You know, I've created a lot of videos of little short lessons of just bringing them to a higher level. Because if the smarter I can make someone about their own situation and their body, better outcome they're having. No doubt. Because once you know what's making you sick and what you have to do good, well, most people are going to do those things. So education is just so important. And that's something I've been doing my whole career.

37:57Gary Brecka:What surprises you most about going through this protocol with so many patients? Like what surprises you most about where they start and where they end? You know, what are some of those like Perry Mason ta-da moments that you've had? You know, I'm dating you, by the way, by saying Perry Mason, like half of my, no one in Gen Z knows who the hell that is. Great generation. I love Lucy. You guys missed out. The Fonz was a great, great genre. it's um i don't know just seeing the testimonials of the people the responses that people get getting their life back but and of all ages too i mean you know we have people in their 80s and 90s that are you know not you can't reverse aging but boy you can make somebody a lot healthier i mean i think you know whether you're talking about a performance athlete or somebody struggling with the chronic illness, it's about moving from one stage of health to a higher level.

38:58And that's about reshoring health at that cellular level. I think that's really important. But it's just people learning to take care of themselves. We're a society that people don't know how to take care of themselves. You know? I mean, it's...

39:20Gary Brecka:Well, there's a paucity of information about how to properly detox. I mean, you get on Amazon, you can buy these detox kits or juice cleanse, and people really think about that as detox. And a lot of times they do these and you get really, really sick, and so they never go back and do it again. And I think, you know, your approach is, you know, low and slow wins the race because the body's very often been in this state for maybe decades takes a long time to heal it's not going to end on a weekend juice glass cleanse um you know these things have invaded tissues and cells and you know connective areas of the body and the immune system has been trapped in this pipe you know very often for a long period of time so it's not like turning off a light switch right um so how how do we emerge out of that next phase uh you know, before we go to the restore phase of detoxification?

40:13Well, by that time, they're at a whole different level. As far as their body is in a better state, they're less symptomatic. They're starting to feel better all the way around. They're getting outside more. They're starting to be able to exercise more. They're, you know, at least walking, you know, at least getting around. But the healing's not done. And so whether you're talking about chronic Lyme or any kind of illness, I'm making more and more connections to these kinds of microbes, what we call stealth microbes that grow slowly, that enter the body, can stay inside cells for long durations.

40:55So it's not just the Lyme bacteria. There are a lot of things out there. And different microbes invade different cells. So you get, I really think that's one of the things that defines what illnesses somebody is going to get is what microbes they've picked up and how they might reactivate in their body. But, you know, so if you can imagine that, you know, you just, you have this reservoir of these things that you've collected through life. And if you're healthy and things are fine, you're in your 30s, you can get away with stuff. you've picked up some things they're quiet they're not bothering you but then you start you know doing things you're you start aging your health habits deteriorate you start having some symptoms here and there but it waxes and wanes but a lot of times people have this perfect storm like i did it just builds up and builds up and builds up and and you just hit this point yeah And I call that the boiling point.

41:57And the significance of it is that that point is the point that the microbes are driving the cellular stress that's driving more reactivation and it becomes that vicious cycle that holds things in place. And at that point, just improving your health habits alone isn't going to get you well.

42:20Gary Brecka:I agree with that. And so that's where the high-grade herbal extracts, and here we're using some herbs that were actually, have been evaluated at studies out of Johns Hopkins University. Some of these herbs have antimicrobial properties that are as good or better for these particular microbes. um so there was a whole series of studies done around 2020 and a couple of years after that looking at the in proving that these these herbs actually did have you know really well medicinal level anti-microbial properties but it's using the higher grade extracts with the higher concentrations of the high phytochemicals um that really get people you know that that's what brings them down below that point and and so our goal is not eradicating all the things that you have in your system that's impossible and i think this goal of you know we're going to eradicate the lyme bacteria from your body i don't think so yeah um i you know no telling what's in my tissues.

43:31Right. The goal is to restore your body's ability to keep those things contained.

43:39Gary Brecka:Yeah. But the nice thing about the herbs is you can keep going with them. I mean, if you want an anti-aging program, if you don't have herbs in that protocol, you're really missing out on the one thing that can help you the very most. I've been now taking pretty significant doses of herbal extracts for almost 20 years every day. Wow. And how do you stage these throughout the day? Are they part of your morning protocol? I make it easy. I do travel with them. And they've saved me a couple of times. Like we were on a vacation in Puerto Rico about six months ago. And on the airplane, I could tell I had a horrible cold coming, bad sore throat, all of that.

44:30I started dosing up on the same herbs that I use for Lyme disease because they have such a broad range. I was able to completely suppress my symptoms for the whole vacation. I knew it was there, but I went snorkeling and diving and did all this stuff. And at the end, I was taking so much of these powders that it was starting to bother my stomach. So I stopped and I kind of got the second half of the cold, you know, when you're clearing all the mucus and everything. So, yeah, I always travel with my herbs. But I've experienced some of the best health in the past decade that I've had in my whole life.

45:10Gary Brecka:Wow. And you have to look at me now. My body was broken at age 50. I'm 68 now. You're 68, wow. My body was broken. My joints were shot. Wow. I had some pretty serious heart injury. Wow. And I'm doing everything I want now. I mean, I'm still kite surfing and things like that. Yeah. And so it's just amazing what you get back. So we get through this detox phase and you provide these herbal remedies in ways that are easy to administer. Are they in liquids? Are they in powders? Are they in... A little bit of both. A little bit of both. And now that I emerge from the detox phase and I'm in month five and six on this journey, what does the rebuild phase look like?

46:07Gary Brecka:because, you know, I'm keenly interested in how you rebuild the gut and restore, you know, healthy immunity. Yeah. Well, we get them on a good diet. That's all in that phase two. I mean, you say good diet, what does that look like? Whole foods, absent processed foods, I would imagine. Yeah, my variables for diet, where, you know, where we start with is, you know, I looked at all the foods that could cause food sensitivities, problems with oxalate, problems with histamine, all of these different things that people could have because everybody has leaky gut. I mean, I was sensitive to 75 % of the foods I was eating when I was going through this.

46:46So we cut that out. So they're on a basic assortment of vegetables, chicken, and rice. And most people can tolerate white rice. And a lot of people need it for the calories. But it's a really basic diet in the beginning just to get them so they can eat something, so they can get some nourishment. No fish, no. Some fish, you know, certain kinds of white fish, but mainly it's just chicken in the beginning. Okay. And because, but I've had a few people that had to like order kangaroo from Australia because they were sensitive to all the meats that they were eating. Wow. So leaky gut, you're sensitive, you become sensitive to a lot of things that you're eating.

47:28Gary Brecka:Sure. But so then we progress as their gut is healing, we can progress to more other, to a wider variety of foods. And ultimately, my basic food guidelines are eat whole foods as much as you possibly can. And you know this, an organic as much as you can. Second to that, eat more vegetables than anything else. I think vegetables are really the thing that most people are missing the very, very most. And then divide everything up pretty evenly. You know, if you can tolerate gluten, you can probably have a little bit of wheat. Most people can at that point. And some meat, lean meats, healthy meats, you know, preferably grass-fed, farm-raised, that sort of thing.

48:22Yeah. Yeah. So meat is on the list. I mean, you can get by without meat. I think it's a little harder. So divide your foods up like that. I try to keep my carbohydrate count below 130 grams of carbohydrates. I'm a big fan of that. 130, 150. That's not ketogenic. I found that ketogenic was it's just it's hard to be comfortable and it's hard to eat it really cuts down on your variety i

48:52Gary Brecka:use it as a transition but never yeah permanency so you know i try to do that target and i don't walk around a little bit keeping a record but i have a mental list you know i know what different foods are so i so if i can keep that and i you know i i do a hemoglobin a1c every six months and I keep it like 5 to 5.3, sometimes a little below 5. And, you know, most people are like 5.6 to 6, and they're eating way too much carb. So I monitor it, keeps me honest. And then intermittent fasting, try to cut that eating window down to around 8 hours or less. Okay. And anything specific to rebuild the gut?

49:38Gary Brecka:Do you use any peptides? Do you use colostrums? Do you use pre-pro or postbiotics? Or do you try to do that with food inoculation like fermented foods? Or do you do it with herbs? Yeah, fermented foods are a really good way to repopulate the gut except it tends to be high histamine. A lot of people are having histamine issues, mast cell activation syndrome, so that cuts it out for a lot of people. I do super well on fermented veggies. I mean, in fact, every morning I have the same thing. Three eggs, a fistful of berries, and a healthy serving of sauerkraut. And when I do that, at least once a day, I try to get a second serving later in the day.

50:24Gary Brecka:I'm telling you, like, the difference in my bowel regularity and, you know, nobody wants to hear this, but bowel consistency and stool consistency. Yeah, it makes a difference. It's night and day. Yeah, you sound a lot like me. No diarrhea, no constipation. I don't do sauerkraut, but most mornings I do an egg and then I saute salad greens with mushrooms and artichoke and things like that. Yeah, and I love it. And I'm also one of those creatures that can eat the same thing every day and just be fine. You know, I try to eat variety, but that's a nice breakfast that I like. It's just a good way to start the day.

50:57You can set your watch by it.

50:58Gary Brecka:It's the same every single day. And when I get off it, my gut changes when I travel. But that's like my anchor breakfast. And then obviously a variety, almost exactly what you're saying. And you feel that even without probiotics, because you've removed a lot of these invaders with a healthy diet, that's where you're getting the gut repopulation. Most people, if you get the vegetables back in their diet and you get them on a diverse diet, they're going to repopulate their gut naturally. I would agree with that. Probiotics, we're still figuring it out, you know. The companies that are doing testing and others, Viome and others, I think we're getting there, but it's still a pretty inexact science because quite frankly, we don't know what a healthy gut microbiome is and it's probably a lot of different ones for a lot of different people.

51:57so we've been kind of back and forth on you know I'm not I don't have a problem with people doing a probiotic but sometimes people run into problems with probiotics and it's and it's really hard to find it so I think it's an area of promise I'm just not sure we're there yet and I found that most people if they're if they're on a decent diet they'll do fine yeah but we also protect the gut with slippery elm, which is, you know, it has mucilized. So part of the problem is, you know, when you have slow motility, everything stops.

52:34Gary Brecka:And you get mucoid plaques and all of these. What the problem is, is bacteria grow as long as food is present. And that includes you have bacteria in your small bowel. And if you slow things down and there's food there, They just keep growing. Good and bad bacteria. And eventually, I mean, all cells are food. Our cells in our gut are protected by a mucus layer from the bacteria in the gut. Well, if you've got bacterial overgrowth, they start stripping that away and damaging those gut cells. And that's what causes the leaky gut. So slippery elm has a substance called mucilage. And that is very much like it.

53:16So if you're taking that, then it basically replaces that missing layer.

53:23Gary Brecka:It's really beneficial. Protective layer. The product has dandelion, which enhances bile flow, protects livers, and brings in another label. And then berberline, which is really good for killing bad bacteria. Berberine? Berberine. Berberine, yeah. It's good for glycemic control too. Right, yeah. So it just has some really nice properties. for people with really bad gut irritation though, Sangre de Grado, dragon's blood. That's a really good one. Have you heard of that one? I've heard of tiger's blood because that's what Charlie Sheen said he had. This is really interesting stuff. His partying face.

54:00You should have some of them. You should have a little bottle of dragon's blood.

54:05Gary Brecka:Dragon's blood. It's a sap from a tree. I think the tree is actually from Malaysia, but it grows all over South America. Okay. and they tap the sap and it's red. This looks just like blood and they put it in a bottle. And it has the effect of like if you get a scrape on your skin, you put dragon's blood on there and it'll seal the wound, coagulate the blood and sterilize it for you. It's like a little Band-Aid. So I keep a little bottle of it in my kit. Now you can take it orally. It tastes terrible. But you can get sangra de grado capsules. And I actually found a study that, so this substance binds to damaged tissue.

54:51There was a study in South America that they found that it worked really well for stomach ulcers, that people were taking capsules of it, and it was helping to heal the stomach ulcers.

55:03Gary Brecka:Now, is it doing that because it's repairing the tissue? because usually the stomach ulcer is also because, well, you know, helicobacter pylori and whatnot, but because you've eroded this mucosal layer too, right? And now you have... That's it. That's it. You know, cells are food for bacteria, right? Most of the time they can't get at cells. And we talk about heliobacteria being the cause of stomach ulcers. but it's actually a secondary infection, right? So what happens is people are eating all this bad food. They've got slow motility. Their stuff is just sitting in their stomach and it starts stripping away the protective layer.

55:49And it digs in. It's food, right? So the Healobacteria, the H. bylori has been there. 40 % of people carry it without being sick. So it's there. And it's an opportunist. If it gets an opportunity, it digs in. So this herb is actually binding to the tissue and sealing it, but it's also helping to suppress growth of the bacteria.

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57:01Gary Brecka:Visit drinkh2tab.com. That's drinkh2tab.com and upgrade your hydration today. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So when they emerge from this six-month protocol that you put your patients on, what are some of the sustaining herbs that they stay on for life like what your protocol is what does that look like we keep them on a lot of the same products and the nice thing about the herbs that are used for for my own benefit i was i gravitated toward herbs that had very low drug like effects right we wanted antimicrobial effects but we didn't want it acting on our system our hormone, our enzymes, right?

57:46So we wanted it to have what we call an adaptogen effect. So adaptogens are herbs that don't have a drug-like effect. True adaptogens actually help balance stress hormones like ashwagandha. Genseng is one very stimulating. It's not a favorite of mine. And why is that? Because it's stimulating. And I'm one of those people that just doesn't do well with caffeine all those years of not sleeping. I don't like things that are stimulating. So, I was looking for herbs that didn't have a drug-like effect. You weren't going to feel something when you took them, right? So, we wanted them for their cell protective effects and their antimicrobial effects.

58:30So, I'm starting to call them adaptogenic antimicrobial herbs. Okay. And all herbs, I mean, every single herb has some antimicrobial properties.

58:44Gary Brecka:Every single one. And antiparasitic properties. So basically what we're doing is we're borrowing the defense system from another organism. Mm-hmm. But unlike an antibiotic, you know, everybody thinks that antibiotics come from some smart scientist that dreams up this chemical that kills bacteria. They all come from nature. Right. Oh, yeah. They're all... Every single one of them. And so it's a mold, right? They either come from a mold, a bacteria, or a plant. All of them. Ivermectin that everybody talks about came from a bacteria on a golf course in Japan out of a swamp. It did. But we're not smart enough to pull the whole defense system of that organism.

59:24We just pull one chemical and then patent it and potentiate it because you have to change it. So when you take an herb, you're getting hundreds and hundreds of chemicals that are just this whole defense system of the plant, plus the regulatory system of the plant. So plants have to balance cellular functions with changes in seasons and weather. And they do that with hormones that are very similar to ours. So when we take a plant, we're getting some of those same chemicals. Different plants use different chemicals, different signals. so caffeine is a phytochemical that the plant is using to send signals to regulate cellular functions um as is um you know so many things opium uh you know the plant is using that chemical for a purpose so we're looking for things that don't have chemicals that have those effects but have effects that are regulating and improving cellular functions where do you sorry i didn't there after you go ahead no sorry i didn't finish that um so when when you take a plant you're getting the whole system not just one chemical and that's important because you get a wide spectrum a very broad spectrum of coverage to bacteria viruses protozoa but it's selective for pathogens and that's why it didn't wreck my gut right because it suppresses pathogens in the gut and that's another thing taking herbs i found is better than taking probiotics because it's actually helping to regulate the gut bacteria and suppress pathogens in the gut.

1:01:03So we kind of gave up on the probiotics. We used to have one a long time ago. We found the herbs really were better. And they don't generate resistant pathogens like antibiotics. But all of these herbs, I call them adaptogenic because what they're doing is they're just extraordinary cell protectants. So the plant is producing these chemicals to protect its cells from not only microbes, but free radicals, toxic substances, radiation, all of the things that our cells are exposed to, the plant is being exposed to. So when we take one of these adaptogenic herbs or take a spectrum of them, because, you know, plants, different plants have different stress factors in their environment.

1:01:49So they're building out different kinds of systems. Well, you take multiple herbs, so you're getting all this overlap. And just, so it's a pretty extraordinary thing.

1:02:00Gary Brecka:Where do you fall on like digestive enzymes for people? I think, you know, for people that are, that's one of the things that we recommend. Yeah. Just because you get backed up and everything, nothing is working. So you need to enhance that digestive process as much as you can. Because I noticed, you know, my father's 82 years old. You just met him out there, Captain Bracka. And, you know, he has very poor gut motility. He had a catastrophic diving accident years ago. It caused him some motor coordination problems on the one hemisphere of his body. And he really doesn't absorb nutrients. He eats very healthy and eats a lot.

1:02:45Gary Brecka:But he's very deconditioned because, you know, he's just not absorbing it. his blood work looks malnourished, even though he's not malnourished. In my opinion, he's malabsorbed. But I will say that when we added digestive enzymes, I started to see the recovery in some of his lab works, just proteins and other levels starting to return to normalcy because he was at least able to extract more nutrients from the food that he was eating post-digestive enzymes. Yeah. So we didn't change anything else about his diet other than adding those during each meal, sort of midstream, eats a little bit, then takes the digestive enzyme, continues to eat.

1:03:33Gary Brecka:But it definitely improved the absorption of these nutrients and maybe because with that level of gut dysbiosis, it was able to break things down so that he could extract nutrients from them. And so those are the herbs that you stay on longer term and you suggest that people benefit from these for a lifetime by having this sort of myriad of protective mechanisms because once you've gotten some of these bad invaders out or got them at bay, it's not going to stop you from being re-inoculated with them just through the course of life. Well, you know, we have things. You know, microbes are opportunist and we have things that are coming from our gut, from our gums, from our sinuses.

1:04:15We are starting to make connections to so many illnesses. I mean, when you look at a cardiovascular plaque, it starts with friction. Your body starts healing that. But then it becomes like a biofilm that microbes from different sources in our body get planted in there and they survive in that plaque. So we're seeing them in a lot of different places. and that extra protection, you know, it's almost like it's missing from our food supply because if you look at our ancient past, it's foraging, right? 97 % of the time that our species has been on earth, our ancestors foraged. Well, what did they eat?

1:05:05Well, most of the evidence suggests that they eat about two-thirds plant matter and about one-third animal matter, buried a little bit on different locations. And what they were eating wasn't cultivated plants. It was wild plants. It was wild berries, stems, leaves, roots, whatever they could find. Well, they didn't have much calories. So they were having to eat a lot of it. That's why we have such a long gut is because they were getting lots and lots of fiber. They were also, though, getting lots of this phytochemistry of plants. And those were wild plants. So they were basically eating herbs.

1:05:50So would you look at our cultivated plants now? Our cultivated plants are cultivated to produce calories.

1:06:00Gary Brecka:Yes. And the trade-off has been they don't know how to protect themselves anymore. Right. We've cultivated plants in these controlled conditions, lowered their stress so they'd produce lots and lots of calories. Right. Well, they gave up the ability to produce all these protective phytochemicals that protects from microbes and all of these stress factors. It's why we have to use so much pesticide and junk on our food and why it's so hard to grow things organically because those cultivated plants aren't like their wild predecessors. And they're missing that phytochemistry. So when I look out there of the big thing that's missing from our diet, it's this protective phytochemistry.

1:06:47Gary Brecka:Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And, you know, in 10 ,000 years ago, we traded forage foods, all of that for basically seeds and beans. We started farming, but people kept that past. They were using culinary and medicinal herbs, so they were getting it. And we gave all that up about a hundred years ago. Yeah, it makes so much sense. I mean, I've said for years, you know, more of what God gave us, less of what man makes us. No good. and we're definitely aligned philosophically on that. So Dr. Rawls, where can my audience find out more about you? Where can they find you? Where can they get more information on your store protocol?

1:07:28Sure, yeah. The easiest place is I've got a website called rawlsmd.com. A lot of information there. Or A-W-L-S, right? Or A-W-L-S. And that can link to a lot of other kinds of things. I've written several books if people want to go a little bit deeper. So lots of good information out there. From day one, I've been doing this for over 40 years and I've always considered myself an educator as much as anything. So I enjoy talking to people about their health and helping bring people up to a higher level.

1:08:09Gary Brecka:Yeah, well, you're doing an amazing job of it. And, you know, I wind down all of my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. And there's no right or wrong answer to this question. Good, good. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

1:08:27It's just, it's a privilege to be a human. But, you know, when you look at this thing, no matter how you think about it, this body is our vehicle for experiencing this life. I mean, it's as simple as that. This body and how well you take care of your body is going to greatly influence that experience. So the better that I can make my body, you know, going through the turmoil that I went through and coming out on the other side, and I'm just, I'm so introspective about what's going on in my body and taking care of my body. It's just enhanced my life so much. Yeah, I just wouldn't trade it for anything.

1:09:21Gary Brecka:That's amazing. Well, Dr. Rolz, thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast. I know my audience is gonna love this podcast. My VIPs are waiting for you in our VIP room. they had a whole host of questions for you um so they we let them know that you were coming on the podcast so they they've got some questions ready for you but um i hope you come back again i'm gonna you know i'm gonna follow your journey um thank you i may even try your six-month protocol i mean it's i'm i'm very intrigued by it i don't feel like i've got any issues going on and i feel pretty pretty amazing but um you know my wife and i always enjoy going on these journeys together Oh, that would be wonderful.

1:09:59Yeah, we'd love to have you.

1:10:01Gary Brecka:You know, I don't think it could hurt to have us go through a special detox protocol. The whole idea is to make it cost-effective for anyone, to give people something that's a structured pathway that's cost-effective, that they're getting a lot for their money, and then that community support that people are not just in there by themselves. It's a safe place. It's not like so much of social media. and they're not alone, you know, that they have somebody. It's not like, you know, you may pay a lot of money for a fancy doctor. Try to get in and ask a question, you know. And it's a place where they can ask questions, get it answered, find information.

1:10:42So, yeah, we've got a lot of time putting it all together.

1:10:46Gary Brecka:Well, congratulations. Thank you. Guys, until next time, that's just science.